WIDE SARAGASSO SEA AND JANE EYRE: SPIN-OFFS AS A DISRUPTION OF EPISTOMOLOGICAL UNITY OF ORIGINAL WORKS
WIDE SARAGASSO SEA AND JANE EYRE: SPIN-OFFS AS A DISRUPTION OF EPISTOMOLOGICAL UNITY OF ORIGINAL WORKS

Summary/Abstract: The analysis of a literary work is often understood as an endeavour to delve into the complexities and subtleties of both the fictional world presented in the work in question and in the real world of the author. In both cases scholars try to gather as much information as possible attempting to create a puzzle with as few missing parts as possible. As more and more information about the object of the investigation comes to light, the work and its inner world seem to become clearer, more familiar and more comprehensible. Such a relationship exists between Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. However, when one has become familiar with the world of Jane Eyre and is subsequently introduced to its spin-off Wide Sargasso Sea the above presented pattern irrevocably collapses because the new world presented in the spin-off, although supplying fresh information, challenges the basic assumptions of the world with which we have become familiar with within the original novel. The altered perspective ruins the comfort and the unquestioned knowledge one has gained through investigating the world of Jane Eyre. The reader gains new insights, gathers an immense amount of plausible, new information but, like in Akutagawa's Rashomon, new accounts although bringing new information do not bring readers any closer to the truth.

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