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That Visionary Hollow: Women as Mirrors in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea By Elizabeth Keri Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size. Virginia Woolf, A Room of Ones Own Mirrors have long arrested our fascinations. They hang in bathrooms and hallways, rest inside handbags, provide material for art and dcor, and have been studied in psychology, philosophy, and literature. Within literature, they have been explored and utilized as symbols of vanity, of introspection, of fragmentation, of doublingto name only a few. With the rise of feminist criticism, many works such as Dian Tietjens Meyers Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery and Womens Agency have urged people to view mirrors as objects tied specifically and often forciblyto women, as a much stronger emphasis has historically been placed on the womans visual image than the mans. Yet Virginia Woolfs quote from A Room of Ones Own sparks a need to investigate a different relationship between woman and the mirror, a relationship that merges them together, holds the woman captive to objectivity, and keeps her bound to the task of furthering a subjects identity rather than her own: women as mirrors. Woolfs quote implies that men (the subjects) use women (the objects) as mirrors to further realize and magnify their own senses of self. Yet what happens when the subject is a woman, when she herself uses a woman as a mirror for self-assessment? Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys The Wide Sargasso Sea provide a fitting study of such an occurrence as the novels themselves are essentially reflections of one another. Jenijoy La Belle argues in Mutiny against the Mirror: Jane Eyre and The Mill on the Floss that, historically, the female has been self- and socially- defined as a visual image and structured, in

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part, by continued acts of mirroring (56). And both novels share a message that by resisting what La Belle determines to be the normative relationship between female and the mirrorone where she identifies with her reflected imagea woman can also resist societal and self objectification and achieve an autonomous identity. Yet where they differ is in their use of women themselves as mirrors. When Jane looks in the mirror upon Berthas ghastly entrance in her bedroom, she sees not herself, but Bertha, reflected there. Bertha becomes a mirror, becomes an object that assists in the subjects (Janes) move toward a more fully realized identity, both in this instance and throughout the novel. As a result of this perhaps unintended conservative aspect of Brontes novel, Rhys makes the mirrorBerthaher subject and explores the unification of women and mirrors in her novel as well, but to prove its detrimental, objectifying effects; by doing so, Rhys The Wide Sargasso Sea provides a more complete rejection of the mirror (and therefore, social norms) and reacts to Brontes placement in literary traditionby making a woman into a mirror, Bronte perhaps unintentionally subverts her otherwise liberating guide for developing a unique identity that can operate effectively within social norms: Her use of a woman to further a subjects identity comes across as a replacement of one set of limiting norms with another by suggesting that the only way for a woman to create an autonomous identity is to become like a man, or like the typical male subject in the male literary tradition, buying into the system of patriarchy and male-authored literature that makes women into objects as a means for self-assertion. In A Room of Ones Own, Virginia Woolf describes researching mens writing on women in the London Library. What emerges from this experience is an overflow of writing on the subject, with much of it focused on womens inferiority. And even when it does not, the writing is left to the mindsand pensof men. Woolfs research that day largely centers on the focus

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on women in science and history, and her findings lead her to conclude that mens emphasis on womens inferiority is only an attempt to magnify themselves: mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action. That is why Napoleon and Moussolini both insist so emphatically upon the inferiority of women, for if they were not inferior, they would cease to enlarge (Woolf 36). After reading through science and history on women, Woolf goes on to explore women in literature. She finds that the woman in literature is often idealized, and yet the grim reality is she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband (44). It is important to see women in light of the male literary tradition. Historically, male-authored literature focused on the male subjects experiences and the male subjects growing and changing ideals, morals, and values. In the sonnet movement, while the female lover was the speakers primary preoccupation, she mainly served as a tool for bringing about an attribute or internal characteristic in the male speaker. Essentially, the woman in male-authored literature was largely utilized as either an idol or a mirror for magnifying the male authors, speakers, or characters sense of self. The emergence of womens writing, then, was largely a reaction or revision of this dominant literary tradition while often serving as a reaction to womens inferiority in society as well. Rather than leaving female characters to be told by men, or more often, to be used by men as mirrors, female authors took up the pen and moved women down from the unrealistic pedestal and out of the margins, placing her front and center. Jane Eyre is a classic example of this movement. The title itself asserts a womans identity, and as a bildungsroman, it is a novel that undoubtedly centers on the realization of a womans sense of self rather than a mansand most importantly, it is told by a woman. Yet where it perhaps retracts from this liberating movement is in its own use of a woman, Bertha, as mirror. Through this utilization, Bronte perhaps

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unintentionally subverts, in part, her otherwise empowered reaction to the dominant male tradition. She, like male authors in history, uses another woman as a tool for furthering the subjects identity, and in doing so, turns this woman into an object, marginalizes, and denigrates her. Yet it is perhaps reckless to foreclose upon the conclusion that this plot point makes Brontes Jane Eyre conventional, as her overall messagethat a woman can come to her own self-created identity while still operating in societal normsis very liberating. Thus, The Wide Sargasso Sea provides a completion of Jane Eyres rejection of the mirror, and therefore, social norms, by pointing out that one does not necessarily need to join in all of the conventions of the male literary tradition, or become like a man who uses women as objects, in order to achieve an autonomous sense of self. Exploring these two texts through their uses of mirrors can provide a fitting understanding of this inter-textual relationship. Where the novels already unite, however, is in their shared recoil from the literal mirror due to its objectifying and self-limiting tie to women. La Belle points out that when men observe their reflections, they see their physical bodies, but what they are is another matter entirely ultimately, a transcendental concept of self (56), yet womens identities have been overwhelmingly defined by the physical reflection in the looking-glass, what La Belle defines as the normative relationship between women and the mirror. However, Jane Eyre and Maggie Tulliver, she argues, are leading mutineers against the mirror (54), and therefore, against their societies limiting definitions of their identities. This is undoubtedly the case for Jane. When she is thrown into the Red Room following her shocking defense against John Reed, she views her image in the looking-glass, but what she sees is an other, a disconnection from her actual visual image:

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I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with its white face and arms specking the gloomhad the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp. (Bronte 8) Not only does she involuntarily view her image there, but what she sees in her reflection is an image that transcends the simply visual, and the reality. As La Belle notes, by her primitive, even animal-like sense of the otherness of her own image, Jane has taken a step, however unconscious, toward a radical freedom (54). She refuses the normative relationship between female self and visual reflection, a relationship that other characters, such as her cousin Georgiana, embrace. Early in the novel, Georgiana sits on a stool dressing her hair at the glass, and interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers (19). Both Janes rejection of the mirror and distaste for those closely linked to it, emphasize her rejection of societal definition. And it is a rejection that Rhys seems to share in The Wide Sargasso Sea. She recognizes the male identitys ability to transcend the physical self when Antoinettes husband (who I will refer to as Rochester), sees himself in the mirror: I got out of bed without looking at her, staggered into my dressing-room and saw myself in the glass. I turned away at once (Rhys 137). He does not even describe his physicality, but rather, immediately turns away, suggesting that his sense of self is one that does not require assessment through mirrors. Yet Rochester is not the only character who performs such a detachment. Perhaps the most independent, knowledgeable, and capable female character in the novel, Aunt Cora, also rejects the mirror. She argues strongly against Antoinettes marriage to Rochester and before giving her niece two rings that could

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potentially lead to Antoinettes own independence, Aunt Cora turned away from the window, the sky, the looking-glass, the pretty things on the dressing-table (115). Aunt Coras independence and wisdom on the detrimental marriage, combined with her rejection of the mirror, underscores Rhys message that the formation of a healthy identity requires the rejection of visual, societal definition. And its an admirable feat. At boarding school, Antoinette describes how the nuns and students all admire Miss Helenes coiffure, achieved without a looking-glass (54). Thus, the detachment from the looking-glass, an extrication typically reserved for men, is highly impressive in Rhys novel. Yet where Jane Eyre and The Wide Sargasso Sea diverge from this mutual rebellion against the mirror is in their use of women themselves as mirrors. Bronte uses figurative, and often oppositional, mirroring throughout Jane Eyre as Rochester and St. John, the Reeds and the Rivers, Lowood and Thornfield, and, most importantly, Bertha and Jane are linked together through a reflective performance resembling that of a mirror. In fact, Janes mutiny against the mirror, and therefore, against societal definition, is only achieved by making a mirror out of another woman. Sensing a premonition before her wedding, Jane describes to Rochester the eerie appearance of Bertha in her bedroom, who puts on Janes wedding veil. She held it up, Jane relays, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and turned toward the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass (193). The mirror is the medium through which Jane views Bertha, and this instance reveals how Bertha is, in fact, a reflection of Jane herself. Yet she is more than a mere reflection, but rather, a mirror as wella medium, an object, through which Jane (the subject) assesses herself. In explaining Berthas role as mirror, it is important that this is understood as both the

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instrument providing the subjects reflection and the reflection itself, as a mirror is never seen without its reflection, and the two exist as one. Berthas meaning or lack thereof, the weight of her literal versus figurative role, has been hotly debated. Yet it is clear that she is widely understood to be a reflection of Jane, at least in part. In Jane and the Other Mrs. Rochester: Excess and Restraint in Jane Eyre, Peter Grudin argues that For Jane, Bertha is both example and warning of the possible products of what the protagonist holds latent within her (153), her romantic and excessive passionateness (155). Sylvie Maurel describes Bertha as Charlotte Brontes mad Creole, that figure of otherness put to good use in Jane Eyre to represent Janes suppressed angry self (156). Following the revelation that Rochester is already married, Jane has the option of following her passions and being with him anyway, but instead, as many argue, chooses propriety over passion. Some critics, such as Grudin, assert that because Bertha represents Janes internal, excess passion, her rejection of this side of herself, and the following decision to leave Rochester, reveal the novels conventional pulla winning out of social-definition over self-definition. This subordination of passion to propriety, however, seems to be contrary to Brontes intended message as manifest in the mirrors Jane turns to for self-assessment. Rather than the celebration of restraint and self-control (Maurel 156), rather than self-definition giving way to social-definition, Jane Eyre instead seems to assert that life requires a blending of the two, a balance. As already put forth, Jane rejects the normative relationship between herself and the mirror, which runs the risk of defining her as a mere visual image. Instead, she turns to herself as her own mirror, her interior. One way in which Bronte reveals Janes self-mirroring is through her artwork. Her paintings are certainly unconventional and unrealistic. In Portrait to Person: A Note on the Surrealistic in Jane Eyre, Moser argues that Janes paintings, although coming prior

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to the surrealistic art movement, are indeed surrealistic. While the paintings are not selfportraits, not as Jane would depict herself while peering in a looking-glass, they are still mirrors to her identity. Surrealism is an art form that, in its instinctive, automatic movements, reveals the most profound psychical structure of the personthe artifact produced can only emerge as a mirror of the artists personality (Moser 276). Thus, Janes paintings are the most truthful mirror of herself because they reflect her interiority. Rochester remarks after observing them, You have secured the shadow of your thought (Bronte 85). In this way, Jane reveals how, in her detachment from the literal mirror, she can turn to herself as a mirror for self-assessment. Yet while Jane admirably defines herself surrealistically, she clearly understands her literal, realistic appearance as welland this balance of the two reveals the balance Bronte seeks to assert between passion and propriety, between self- and social- understandings of self. While overall Jane rejects a tie to the looking-glass, there are several instances when she denigrates her physical appearance. I ever wished to look as well as I could, she narrates, and to please as well as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer (66). Furthermore, upon supposing she mistook Rochesters admiration of her, Jane renounces her appearance: tomorrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening one defectwrite underneath it, Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain (108). Yet such understanding of her realistic appearance does not suggest that Jane fails in what La Belles refers to as the mutiny against the mirror, but rather, it suggests that she fully understands her realistic reflection, and therefore, the social norms. Therefore, together, her self- (surrealistic) and social- (realistic) mirrors are meant to allow Jane a creation of a unique identity that can also operate effectively within social norms.

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This, then, seems to be Brontes intended message on what constitutes a healthy identity, a message she supports both through the realistic/surrealistic mirroring, and through the use of Bertha as mirror. Bertha, representing Janes unrestrained internal passions, her surrealistic mirror, must be balanced with her understanding of propriety and norms, her realistic mirror. Yet Bertha, while clearly figurative, is also understood to be literal as well. To understand how Bertha operates as a mirror, one can turn to the numerous psychological studies on identity formation and assessment in respect to mirrors. One of the first to develop a theory on this topic was the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan with his Mirror Stage. In this stage, according to Lacan, an infant realizes that his or her image in the mirror is the self, and as Jane Gallop explains, the mirror image becomes a totalizing ideal which organizes and orients the self. But since the self is necessarily a totalized, unified concepta division between an inside and an outsidethere is no self before the mirror stage (121). Bertha is Janes mirror because it is through Bertha that Jane comes to this totalized, unified concepther balanced identity. When Jane sees Bertha as her reflection, she uses that reflection as a way of assessing herselfas a mirrorbecause it is through Berthas representation of wild, unrestrained passion that Jane learns Brontes intended message: the need to balance passion and propriety. Bertha becomes that visionary hollow (Bronte 8) that leads to Janes more fully realized, stabilized sense of self. Thus, while Jane herself turns away from the mirror, Jane Eyre turns toward it. While the novel projects a need to balance propriety and passion, realistic and surrealistic reflections, and normative and self identities, Jane Eyre ends up siding perhaps too predominantly on the side of social norms by perpetuating the normative tendency to make mirrors out of women. This can be understood in-line with the subject-object duality of an individuals experience with the mirror. While the subject may conceive that the image reflected on the glass is the self, it is, at the same

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time, not the self. Rather, the reflection is a projected, nonmaterial entity. The mirror itself is the object that creates this nonmaterial reflection, assisting in furthering the subjects identity. Thus, Bertha is both the object and the nonmaterial reflection. Just as men in Virginia Woolfs quote use women as looking-glasses as a means to their own better self-understandings, Bronte uses another woman as mirror for the same purpose, and consequently, delivers a perhaps unintentional conservative undercutting of her otherwise liberating guide for healthy identity formation. By making Bertha Janes looking-glasswhile simply seeking to promote the need to balance passion and propriety and understand social norms while constructing oneself outside of themBronte comes across as buying into this patriarchal societal and literary tendency to use women as objects for self-assertion. Thus, her mutiny against the mirror is incomplete. Rather than totally rejecting the norms that limit womens identity formation, Bronte sends the message that in order to do so, a woman must replace one set of norms with another, must become like a man who uses women as objects to further his own identity. This is where Jean Rhys steps in. Jane Eyres formula for mutiny against the mirror and against societal definition of womenis incomplete through this objectification of Bertha (however unintentional). In Jean Rhys letters, she criticizes Brontes Bertha, calling her nothing more than a paper tiger lunatic (qtd. in Maurel 155). Whereas Jane Eyre seeks to assert the subjects identity, The Wide Sargasso Sea seeks to assert the objects. Rhys makes Janes nonmaterial reflection her main character and undertakes to flesh her out (Maurel 155). Moreover, she strives to show the ways in which Bertha came to become the basic mirror that she is in Jane Eyre. She does this by including women as mirrors in The Wide Sargasso Sea as well. Yet rather than doing so to assert, even amplify, a subjects identity, Rhys makes women into mirrors to show the ways in which using others as objects to further ones own potential and

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identity is detrimental, and how replacing one limiting set of norms with anotherthe normative literary tendency to use women as mirrorsonly serves to further tie women to unfulfilled identities. Rhys primarily shows such negative consequences of mirroring through the motherdaughter relationship between Annette and Antoinette. The similarity of the womens names in itself sets them up to be mirrors of one another. In Jane Eyre, when Rochester discusses his first wife, Bertha, he frames the story in a way that ties her inextricably to her mother. Bertha Mason, Rochester exclaims, the true daughter of an infamous mother (Bronte 209). Bertha is set up as being a natural reflection of her mother: if her mother was mad, then it is inevitable that she will be as well. This expectation prohibits Bertha from finding any autonomous identity as she is bound, by others, to be the mirror of her mother. Yet this actually seems to occur because of an unsuccessful mirroring bond between mother and daughter in Antoinettes childhood. Psychologists understand that, in early childhood, the mother exists as a mirror and is central to forming the childs sense of self. In The Establishment of Core Gender Identity, Kleeman explains that the childs first mirror is the mothers face, which reflects back to the infant a feeling of acceptance and important messages supporting self and gender development (119). This mirroring bond between mother and daughter is central to a girls identity formation. In turn, the actual mirror becomes a representative of the mother, and the individuals behavior in front of the mirror reflects the mother and the relationship to the mother (Kernberg 330). In many cases, the child is unable to differentiate her image from her mothers in the mirror. Yet eventually, similar to how a child comes to realize that the reflection in the mirror is not the self but a reflection of the self, a child

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also learns to separate herself from the original identification with the mother. This is referred to as the separation-individuation process (Kernberg 330). Yet, during these crucial childhood years, when the mother is not accepting or unsupportive, the child suffers from an unfulfilled sense of self. Thus, even though others (such as Rochester) frame Antoinette as being the inevitable mirror of her mother, in The Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinettes unsuccessful mirroring bond with her mother is what leaves her without a strong sense of self and leads her to search for this absent mother-mirroring bond throughout her life. Antoinettes mother, Annette, as a result of the decolonization in the West Indies, is penniless, husbandless, and subject to the hatred of the once-colonized natives around her. Consequentially, she suffers from severe psychological distress. She is thus unable to be a supportive mother to her daughter. Ronnie Scharfman explores the mother-mirroring bond within The Wide Sargasso Sea in his article, Mirroring and Mothering, arguing that this unsuccessful bond in Antoinettes childhood is responsible for her lack of a stable identity. He writes that Antoinettes longing for her mother, her desire for this present-absent figurecharacterize[s] her childhood (100). What she finds in her mother is merely rejection and neglect. As Antoinette explains, in her childhood, my mother never asked me where I had been or what I had done (Rhys 26). Rather, Annette is distant and self-absorbed, and as a result, Antoinette fails to see herself in her mother: Although the daughter desperately seeks the sense of safety which an acknowledged identification with her mother might confer, the mother bars her from this feeling of unity and dooms her to a sense of fragmentation (Scharfman 100). Thus, such an unsuccessful mirroring bond with her mother sets Antoinette up to become the identity-less character she is seen as in Jane Eyre.

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Thus, having no mother-mirroring bond to separate from and reject in the formation of a unique identity, Antoinette is forced to seek out the mirror-bond with others. In her mothers neglect, Antoinette often turns to Christophine, the black house servant who remains loyal to Antoinettes family even after the de-colonization. Yet, as Scharman explains, Christophine represents another community, another color, and another class (101), and while Antoinette may feel closest to Christophine, there is no real possibility of a stable identity forming through a mirroring bond with her, as their expected lifestyles are so drastically different. Antoinette also seeks to fulfill her absent sense of self by mirroring her black friend, Tia. The results here are just as unsuccessful. As Antoinettes house is burnt to the ground, she sees her friend Tia and Tias mother nearby and imagines that she can run to Tia, live with her family, and be like her (Rhys 45). Yet instead of the acceptance Antoinette so desires, she is met with blunt denial when Tia throws a rock in her face: I did not see her throw it. I did not feel it either, only something wet, running down my face. I looked at her face crumple up as she began to cry. We stared at each other, blood on my face, tears on hers. It was as if I saw myself. Like in a looking-glass. (45) Antoinette is repeatedly met with rejection in her hope of finding an identity in connection with someone, and even so, her likening of this instance to the looking-glass shows just how fragmented and unfulfilled Antoinettes identity is; she must constantly seek to mirror others in order to achieve some semblance of self. So, just as a mirror is dependent upon a subjects reflectionand specifically, just as the reflection of Bertha in Janes mirror is dependent upon the subject, Janeso too is Antoinette dependent upon others for finding an identity.

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Therefore, as Antoinette grows older and her mothers madness spirals out of control, it becomes clear to her that everyone expects her to recreate her mothers madness. Antoinettes step-father and step-brother, the Masons, feel that they must hide Annettes madness as they seem to assume Antoinette will recreate it. Furthermore, when Rochester receives the letter from Daniel Cosway informing him of Annettes madness, he automatically assumes that Antoinette is on this track as well. This assumption is Rochesters way of proving the truth of the mothers madness by also imposing it upon the daughter (Scharfman 103). As a result of Antoinettes fragile identity, and the dominant presuppositions that she will mirror her mother, her only remaining option is to follow in her mothers footsteps and at last achieve the mirroring-bond she was refused in childhood. The results are tragic. As simply the mirror of her mother, Antoinette begins to confuse her identity with her mothers since any chance of finding an individual sense of self has been repeatedly denied. Following the letter from Daniel Cosway, Rochester finally allows Antoinette to tell him about her mother. She reflects, I used to think that every time she looked in the glass she must have hoped and pretended. I pretended too (Rhys 130). This seems to be an indication of Antoinettes identity confusion with her mother as the looking-glass suggests a mirroring of Annettes hopes with Antoinettes. Antoinette reflects the hopes and pretendings of her mother since it has become clear to her that those around her believe that Antoinettes identity is entirely dependent upon her mother. The results of this identity-confusion culminate at the end of the novel, in Antoinettes final dream after she has been locked away in the attic at Thornfield. By this point, she has lost any personal sense of self and is nothing but the mirror, the reflective object, to others. Rochester has removed her identity and imposed one of his ownBertha. The narrative that began as her

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own has been penetrated by outside voices. Locked away in the attic, she has lost any sense of time and place. And in this last mad dream, Antoinette watches herself light the fire that will burn Thornfield. As Antoinette describes, I went into the hall again with the candle in my hand. It was then that I saw herthe ghost. The woman with streaming hair. She was surrounded by a gilt frame but I knew her. I dropped the candle I was carrying and it caught the end of a tablecloth and I saw flames shoot up (189). Scharfman sees the gilt frame as both the frame of a mirror and as a frame around a picture of her mother, indicating the long-desired, long-delayed mirroring fusion between Antoinette and her mother (105). While this may be true, it is also possible that in this moment, the gilt frame is the mirror, and Bertha is seeing herself as the simple object she represents in Jane Eyre. By this point, her identity has become totally dependent on others. A mirror, a reflection, does not possess its own identity, and neither does Antoinette. Thus, in this scene, she seems to be referring to herself in the third person, indicating just how fragmented and othered her identity has become. Realizing her existence as a mirror, and seeing no purpose in such an existence, the flame catches. While the psychological studies on the mother-mirroring bond provide a means of understanding Antoinettes lack of identity, it is important to see the drastic consequences of these mirroring scenes in connection to Jane Eyre. The effects of the mirror-bond between Antoinette and her mother seem to be symbolic of the effects of the mirroring between Bertha and Jane in Jane Eyre, as Jane Eyre is the mother-text to The Wide Sargasso Sea. Just as Annette rejects her daughter, so too does Jane reject the reflection of Bertha in the scene in Jane Eyre (a scene that likely chronologically aligns with the final mirror scene in The Wide Sargasso Sea). Both attempts at mirroring leave Bertha identity-less. Following the catastrophic mirror attempt in her childhood, Bertha is left dependent on others for finding any semblance of self, as

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indicated by her desperate attempts to mirror Christophine and Tia, by her hasty marriage to Rochester, and by her final surrender to become the mirror of her mother. In much the same way, a mirror is dependent on a subject for its reflection. Thus, Rhys utilization of mirroring in The Wide Sargasso Sea can be seen as a response to the mirroring in Jane Eyre. The ultimate consequence is an entirely unfulfilled identity. While Jane Eyres title is in itself a nominal identity, The Wide Sargasso Sea suggests confusion and tangled bewildermentlike Antoinettes understanding of her self because a mirror, identity-less, is only responsible for perpetuating everyone elses identities. Brontes Jane Eyre is undoubtedly a text that speaks to the liberation of women. In telling the story of a female finding herself in a society where women are often marginalized, Bronte breaks from the dominant literary tradition in which males consistently assert male identities and merely use female characters and lovers as toolsor mirrorsto furthering the male characters sense of self. Both in society, and in literature, women were serving as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size (Woolf 35). Janes rejection of the mirror due to its self-limiting tie to women supports this liberating message. Yet Bronte also makes a mirror out of Bertha. Bertha becomes the tool through which Jane learns her authors intended message: the need to balance a self-created identity (surrealistic reflection) with an understanding of societal norms (realistic reflection). By doing so, Bronte perhaps inadvertently undermines her otherwise liberated text as this can come across as simply buying into the dominant male literary tradition by making her subject like the typical male subject, the subject who uses female characters to assert his own identity. Like Annette in The Wide Sargasso Sea, who is self-absorbed and rejects her daughter, leaving her to be nothing more than a mirror, Jane Eyre is absorbed in a single subject, who rejects Bertha by

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also linking her inextricably to the mirror. Thus, Rhys shows the effects of this in The Wide Sargasso Sea. The solution, as she suggests through the tragic consequences of Antoinettes role as mirror, is not for women authors to entirely merge into the dominant literary tradition that keeps women marginalized, objectified, and tied to the looking-glass, but rather, to make the tradition their own, asserting female identity while not buying into a system and a tradition that has so consistently turned the woman into that visionary hollow (Bronte 8, emphasis added).

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Works Cited Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. The Works of the Bronte Sisters. Ed. J.W. Edwards. Ann Arbor, MI: Borders Group, Inc, 2006. 3-309. Print. Gallop, Jane. Lacans Mirror Stage: Where to Begin. SubStance 11.4 and 12.1 (1982/83): 118-128. JSTOR. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. Grudin, Peter. Jane and the Other Mrs. Rochester: Excess and Restraint in Jane Eyre. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 10.2 (1977): 145-157. JSTOR. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. Kernberg, Paulina F. Mother-child Interaction and Mirror Behavior. Infant Mental Health Journal 8.4 (1987): 329-339. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. EBSCO. Web. 1 Dec. 2010. Kleeman, James A. The Establishment of Core Gender Identity in Normal Girls. II. How Meanings are Converyed between Parent and Child in the First 3 Years. Archives of Sexual Behavior 1.2 (1971): 117-128. Web. 1 Dec. 2010. La Belle, Jenijoy. Mutiny against the Mirror: Jane Eyre and The Mill on the Floss. Pacific Coast Philology 20.1/2 (1985): 53-56. JSTOR. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. Maurel, Sylvie. The Other Stage: From Jane Eyre to Wide Sargasso Sea. Bront Studies: The Journal of the Bront Society. 34.2 (2009): 155-161. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. Moser, Lawrence E. Portrait to Person: A Note on the Surrealistic in Jane Eyre. NineteenthCentury Fiction 20.3 (1965): 275-281. JSTOR. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. Rhys, Jean. The Wide Sargasso Sea. New York: Buccaneer Books, 1966. Print.

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Scharfman, Ronnie. Mirroring and Mothering in Simone Schwarz-Bart's Pluie et vent sur Tlume Miracle and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. Yale French Studies 62.1 (1981): 88-106. JSTOR. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of Ones Own. London: Harcourt, 1989. Print.

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Works Consulted Ezell, Margaret J.M. Writing Womens Literary History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. Print. Greene, Gayle. Changing the Story: Feminist Fiction and the Tradition. Bloomington, IA: Indiana University Press, 1991. Print. Meyers, Diana Tietjens. Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery and Womens Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print.