Intertextuality, narrators and other voices in Jean Rhys' Wide sargasso sea

Abstract

O romance Wide Sargasso Sea, de Jean Rhys, é geralmente considerado uma resposta pós-colonial à obra Jane Eyre, de Charlotte Brontë. Embora ambos os romances apresentem conexões intertextuais, a estrutura narrativa de Rhys distancia sua obra da narrativa de Brontë, mas também a complementa. Assim, é o objetivo deste artigo estudar o nível de intertextualidade presente em Wide Sargasso Sea em comparação a Jane Eyre, além de apresentar análises sobre os tipos de narrador e focalização observados nas três unidades narrativas distintas da obra por meio de teorias sobre narradores homodiegéticos com base em Bal e Nieragden.

Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea is often perceived as a postcolonial response to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Although the two novels present intertextual relations, Rhys’ narrative structure both distances itself from Brontë’s narrative as well as complements it. It is the objective of this article to study the level of intertextuality Wide Sargasso Sea presents in relation to its 19th century counterpart as well as carry out an analysis on the types of narrators and focalization noticeable in the three separate units of the novel through the theories of homodiegetic narrators presented by Bal and Nieragden.