Abstract
This chapter explores replacement as the dynamic between Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847) and Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), with a view to conceptualising replacement as a function of genealogy. I argue that the systematic replacements of character and movements that Rhys places in her novel make Jane Eyre a hypertext for the modern reader who rereads Bronte’s text. Jane Eyre is then read as a replacement for Antoinette/Bertha, and the characters of Antoinette/Bertha and Rochester appear in both novels as their own dark doubles. The central ‘replacement’ in Jane Eyre is Rochester replacing Antoinette as wife; the replacement in Wide Sargasso Sea is the replacement of Jane Eyre with Antoinette as protagonist. Accordingly, this exercise helps us question the hierarchies in the canon.
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