Madwoman in the Attic

The Madwoman in the Attic

When Jane Eyre and Rochester, despite their social status differences, finally stand before the priest to swear their union, the appearance of a mad woman shatters all of Jane Eyre's dreams. This mad woman is none other than Rochester's wife, Bertha. This mad woman destroys the manor, blinds Rochester, and perishes in the fire herself, but in doing so, she also makes Jane Eyre and Rochester's marriage possible.
Before the publication of this book, most readers ignored Bertha, the madwoman. But with the publication of this book, people suddenly rediscovered a new category. These madwomen blatantly disregarded "womanly virtues," appearing ostentatiously ambitious, committing numerous evil deeds and seeking their own destruction... But authors Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar reveal that behind every gentle and kind woman lies a shadow of madness. They brought this madwoman down from the attic to criticize the spiritual constraints patriarchal culture places on women.
The Madwoman in the Attic has been hailed as the "Bible" of 20th-century feminist literary criticism and a classic of contemporary American literary theory. In this work, the author rereads the works of renowned 19th-century female writers such as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters, and Emily Dickinson, transcending the boundaries of nationality, region, and time to conduct a comprehensive study of 19th-century Anglo-American women's literature as a whole. She then examines and summarizes a series of key images, symbols, and metaphors that constitute the 19th-century Anglo-American women's literary tradition, such as angels, demons, moonlight, water, veils, and spiderwebs.
Since its publication, this book has had a profound impact on Western literary and cultural studies with its radical critical stance and new interpretation of 19th-century British and American women's literature.

2015-02-01

上海人民出版社

Century Wenjing

897

9787208125537