Wide Sargasso Sea

I'll always support this over Jane Eyre. No more madwoman-in-the-attic trope, people! Let's bring this book forward as a symbol of what feminism and mental illness representation actually needs. Thumbs up to Jean Rhys for writing the book we didn't know we needed! This is 'Mrs Rochester' being humanized, being given a voice, telling things from her perspective in this 'Jane Eyre prequel'. Now let me tell you why Jane Eyre was one problematic piece of literature. SPOILER ALERT FOR JANE EYRE AHEAD!! So we're so sucked up in Jane's tragic story that Rochester keeping his ex-wife (who he hasn't actually separated from yet) LOCKED UP IN HIS ATTIC, PEOPLE seems normal to us. How terrible is that? I understand that considering the century in which Jane Eyre was written, people couldn't understand Antoinette (yes, she has a name people, she's not just 'Rochester's woman') was battling mental illness and she was just considered 'crazy'. But the point is that people reading this in the modern era still don't have a problem with Antoinette being kept locked up in an attic. If anything, she's considered as the ''bad guy'' who stops Jane's and Rochester's romance. How dare she set the house on fire? Hell, if my husband who promised to keep me well locked me up in an attic away from my family, having food pushed under my door like I'm less of a person and, like that wasn't enough, had his new freaking chick around the house, I'd run around in the middle off the night with a candle trying to burn that bastard to the ground, as well and that without even strugglinf with mental illness. Do you see now why I think we should leave most parts of Jane Eyre to the past where it belongs? But, in the Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette gets her justice. Her mental illness gradually taking control of her is explained. Plus, colonialism and racism in Jamaica are discussed brilliantly by a Jamaican author herself. So, in a nutshell, if you aren't reading this book... well, what are you doing with your reading life?