The Theme of Otherness and the Role of Dialogue in Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

Authors

  • Kamila Vránková University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice

Keywords:

otherness , alienation, dialogue, Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Bakhtin, Gadamer, Deleuze, Levinas

Abstract

The role of dialogue is frequently emphasized in Jane Eyre (1847), being related to the problem of knowledge and its influence on the quality of mutual relationship. In this respect, the absence of the dialogue results in increasing estrangement and alienation. In Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), the theme is further developed to intensify the tension between the search for the meaning and for the expression of the emotional intensity. In my paper, the concept of the dialogue in both novels is considered against the background of the ideas of Bakhtin, Gadamer, Deleuze and Levinas.

References

Bakhtin, M.M. Dialogic Imagination. 1930. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. 1847. Ed. Mary Ibbett. London: Wordsworth Classics, 1992.

Dialogue and Deconstruction. The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter. Ed. Diane P. Michelfelder & Richard E. Palmer. New York: State University of New York Press, 1989.

Lévinas, Emmanuel. Totalita a nekonečno. Esej o exterioritě (Totality and Infinity. An Essay on Exteriority). 1969. Ed., trans. Miroslav Petříček jr. & Jan Sokol. Praha: Oikoymenh, 1997.

Mukařovský, Jan. “Dialog a monolog.” Studie z poetiky (Studies in Poetics). Ed. Hana Mukařovská. Praha: Odeon, 1982. 208-229.

Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. 1966. Ed. Francis Wyndham. London: Penguin Books, 1968.

Smith, Daniel W. “Deleuze’s Theory of Sensation: Overcoming the Kantian Duality.” Deleuze: A Critical Reader. Ed. Paul Patton. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996. 29-56.

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Published

2008-12-10

How to Cite

Vránková, K. (2008). The Theme of Otherness and the Role of Dialogue in Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea . American & British Studies Annual, 1, 81–88. Retrieved from https://absa.upce.cz/index.php/absa/article/view/2135

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Articles