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La pièce de théâtre gothique de Debbie Shewell intitulée More Than One Antoinette fut présentée à Londres en 1990 au Young Vic Studio par la troupe féministe britannique Monstrous Regiment. Cette pièce propose une révision de deux textes: Jane Eyre et Wide Sargasso Sea. Elle tente d’instaurer un dialogue critique entre les deux histoires afin d’aborder la question du sujet féministe britannique contemporain.Reprenant l’argument de Judith Halberstam selon lequel « la littérature de l’horreur » a la « faculté de transformer les combats politiques en états mentaux » et de « brouiller la distinction entre les deux », cet article examine le regard critique que pose Debbie Shewell sur Charlotte Brontë et Jean Rhys et analyse la portée et les conséquences de l’interprétation psychologique que fait Debbie Shewell de Bertha Mason Rochester et de sa relation avec Jane Eyre.

Though no father actually appears as a character either in Jane Eyre or in Wide Sargasso Sea, the father figure looms large in both novels, as a complex, protean and paradoxical entity, playing a crucial part in the fate of the protagonists. Jane Eyre and Antoinette Cosway are orphaned at an early age, Rochester’s father is depicted as remote and insensitive; the surrogate fathers —Antoinette’s stepfather, Jane’s uncles— mostly fail when they try to replace the missing one. Rochester himself is an ambiguous character who appears in both novels as a son, lover and husband on the one side, as a father figure on the other. In Wide Sargasso Sea he acquires through his marriage to the heiress Antoinette Cosway a legal authority which he eventually uses to destroy his wife; in Jane Eyre he first appears as the wealthier, more knowledgeable, stronger character before he discovers a female counterpart who does more than merely hold her ground.These different aspects of the father figure are closely linked to the motif of the garden which mirrors the inner development of the —mostly— female characters. It is not entirely similar to nature itself, though it is part of it; the latter means in both novels lethal dangers and elemental violence, whereas the garden is a sheltered place. In Wide Sargasso Sea, the debased garden of Coulibri simultaneously conveys a distorted, though by no means untrue reflection of the father figure and a sanctuary from the harshness of the outside world. It also means a place of peace and of simple joys for Jane Eyre, making up for the deprived life at the Lowood boarding school; but contrasting with Coulibri it does not preclude the contact with the outside world which she actually longs for. Hence the garden mirrors the crucial moments and experiences in the lives of both heroines, including love, married life and loss.

Si Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë se lit essentiellement comme un roman qui recèle un secret en son cœur, le propos de Wide Sargasso Sea de Jean Rhys et de Rebecca de Daphné Du Maurier est en partie de dévoiler les strates qui enveloppent ce secret pour atteindre la vérité que contient Jane Eyre. Alors que Rhys et Du Maurier comblent les lacunes dans l’histoire de la première épouse, apportant des informations auxquelles Brontë se contente de faire allusion quand elle décrit le secret de Rochester ― l’existence d’Antoinette / Bertha Mason la folle―, les lecteurs éprouvent des sentiments variés face à ces exemples apparemment innombrables de connivence entre les trois romans. Juxtaposer ces trois textes pour les lire comme un ensemble permet une interprétation plus riche et plus complexe par le biais du syncrétisme qui se met en place.