THEN, respond to any TWO peers who took different stances than you did in your original post. Students must respond to TWO peer posts by 11:59 pm, Sunday. These responses should work to answer or respond to the questions/observations posed by peers, must be at least 150 words each, and include further specific and cited references to the text or other course materials. Responses need to extend the conversation.
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Option 2 – I agree with the premise set in the article that one can never get tired of Literary Retellings. The Literary Retellings get to the bottom of the main plot of the first story and, at the same time, touch on contemporary worries such as race, color, legitimacy, and status. For example, in the Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys imagines the life of Bertha Mason and her family. The life of Bertha Mason and her family are kept secret in Jane Eyre, a novel by Charlotte Bronte, leaving the reader anxious about the state of Bertha’s madness. Rhys addresses this state of anxiousness and uses the life of Bertha to show the horrifying reality behind Rochester’s claim that Bertha is a mad woman. Rochester caused Antoinette to suffer human pain, and the more she suffered, the more he saw her as a doll, a marionette. Mr. Rochester says, “If she too says it, or weeps, I’ll take her in my arms, my lunatic. She’s mad but mine, mine. What will I care for gods or devils or for Fate itself? If she smiles or weeps or both. For me” (Rhys,149). Antoinette also experiences judgmental gossip from other white women who hold her responsible for the failures and abuses of her former husband, Mr. Cosway. In addition, the Literary Retellings twists the story to give the readers a new perspective, providing a voice to characters who were initially voiceless. “Rhys’s novel brilliantly reimagines Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre from the point of view of the first Mrs.” (Donohue). Why do you think Rhys chose to retell Jane Eyre and not any other works?
References
Donohue, M. (2019). Why we’ll never get tired of literary retellings; Meg Donohue on the enduring appeal of updating old stories. LIT HUB. https://lithub.com/why-well-never-get-tired-of-literary-retellings/ (Links to an external site.).
Rhys, J. (2001). Wide sargasso sea. In Reading Fiction: Opening the Text (pp. 145-151). Palgrave, London.
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Option 1
After reading the article, “Charlotte Bronte May Have Started the Fire, but Jean Rhys Burned Down the House,” I would say I agree with the point that it is making. The author of the article, Bridget Read, makes the claim that Jean Rhys’ novel Wide Sargasso Sea, is a more impactful novel when it comes to discussing systematic annihilation. This is due to the fact that Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel to another literary wildfire known as Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. However, rather than just expanding upon Bronte’s work, Rhys takes a relatively unimportant character, Bertha Mason, and gives her a powerful backstory. Giving a character, who was brushed off as an insane drunk, a heart-wrenching background story about rejection by everyone around her due to her inability to fit into any specific group makes the story even more intriguing. Read makes the point that the story is even more powerful since, “Rhys posits the radical idea that emancipation might be better accomplished if led by those who can most clearly see their bondage, who are furthest from the source” (Read). The most powerful works are often those that are not written in order to appease a group of people, but rather to rile them up and bring into light things that have been swept under the rug too long. This novel, which writes about the struggles of a woman who was driven to madness due to the circumstances she undergoes, gives power to a group of people who are often beaten down. As Rhys’ says through Antoinette in her writing, “There is always another side, always” (Rhys 152). This retelling gives way to new opportunities in the literary world and breaks away from the stereotypical stories written for stereotypical audiences.
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