Introduction When most readers finish Jane Eyre, they remember the terrifying “madwoman in the attic” who burns down Thornfield Hall. However, very few stop to ask for her side of the story. This is exactly what Jean Rhys explores in her modern masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea. Published in 1966, this novel serves as a post-colonial prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Victorian classic. Jean Rhys, who was herself a Creole woman from the Caribbean, felt that the character of Bertha...