Losing yourself is a central concern of madness which was explored in King Lear where madness was a prominent theme. Antoinette similarly to King Lear faced with a loss of reason. At the end of the novel, Antoinette becomes totally unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy and realise who she is. She believes she has seen a ghost in the mirror which in reality was herself. The statement Antoinette makes while looking in the mirror: “I saw her – the ghost. The woman with streaming hair. She was surrounded by a gilt frame but I knew her”, suggests Antoinette inability to realise that what she sees is herself. However this inability might caused by her deteriorated identity, which she couldn't comprehend. The mirrors, in Wide Sargasso
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In both texts women didn't become mad naturally and their insanity was questionable throughout the texts. However, both women were persuaded to believe in their insanity, so their maddness was inevitable. The society, the body which is meant to be sane, imposed their views about power and behaviour on women making them victims of those views. Both women didn't match the conventional ideas of how they should behave, so society labelled them as insane suppressing their identity and individuality. Charlotte Gilman in the Yellow Wallpaper tries to show that preventing woman from creative expression could lead into madness. Thus, it is the circumstances, such as the inability to reach sense of self hood and identity in the patriarchal world, lead to her madness. But in order to understand herself, the narrator had to lose herself first. In Wide Sargasso Sea, madness is a deliberate choice of existence against a world in which power and normality valued the most. Thus authors like Charlotte Gilman and Jean Rhys show that both women liberated from patriarchal manipulation; they are no longer in the place which suppresses their power and freedom. Paradoxically, both characters were able to find wisdom and to see reality in their madness. As insanity often reveals a hidden truth that could not be grasped while the character was
In both texts women didn't become mad naturally and their insanity was questionable throughout the texts. However, both women were persuaded to believe in their insanity, so their maddness was inevitable. The society, the body which is meant to be sane, imposed their views about power and behaviour on women making them victims of those views. Both women didn't match the conventional ideas of how they should behave, so society labelled them as insane suppressing their identity and individuality. Charlotte Gilman in the Yellow Wallpaper tries to show that preventing woman from creative expression could lead into madness. Thus, it is the circumstances, such as the inability to reach sense of self hood and identity in the patriarchal world, lead to her madness. But in order to understand herself, the narrator had to lose herself first. In Wide Sargasso Sea, madness is a deliberate choice of existence against a world in which power and normality valued the most. Thus authors like Charlotte Gilman and Jean Rhys show that both women liberated from patriarchal manipulation; they are no longer in the place which suppresses their power and freedom. Paradoxically, both characters were able to find wisdom and to see reality in their madness. As insanity often reveals a hidden truth that could not be grasped while the character was