Responding to Grief in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea In both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, the main characters Jane and Antoinette face difficulties that affect each of them them in different ways. In the following passages, authors Charlotte Bronte and Jean Rhys illustrate that Jane and Antoinette became passionate about inanimate objects in response to the pain they had experienced in life. Although Jane and Antoinette appear to come from painful backgrounds, each deals with their pain differently, and thus each leads very different lives in adulthood. Because of their different attitudes toward life and hardship, Jane and Antoinette lived very different lifestyles despite similarities in early life."...Then I sat with my doll on my lap until the fire burned is extinguished, looking around now and then to assure myself that nothing worse than myself haunted the dark room; and when the embers turned a dull red, I hastily undressed, pulling knots and ropes as best I could, and sought shelter from the cold and dark in my crib, where I always went I took my doll; human beings must love something, and in the scarcity of more worthy objects of affection, I managed to find pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded, shabby graven image like a miniature scarecrow. It amazes me now to remember how absurdly I sincerely adored this little toy, almost imagining it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my nightgown and when it lay there, safe and warm , I was relatively happy, believing him happy in the same way...."--from Jane Eyre, chapter 4"...I left a light on the chair next to my bed and waited for Christophine, because I liked to see her last. But she is…middle of the paper…, and Jane Eyre could have had a tragic ending if she had married St. John. However, their approach to life in response to pain determined the outcomes of their lives. Perhaps, if Antoinette had looked for love, be it in a doll or a human, she might have found it. Works cited and consulted Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1991 Ciolkowski, Laura E.. "Navigating the Wide Sargasso Sea" Twentieth Century Literature. Vol 43. 3. 1997:125-140. Gates, Barbara Timm, ed. Critical Essays on Charlotte Bronte. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990. Howells, Coral Jean Rhys New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf 1991. Macpherson, Pat Reflecting on Jane Eyre London: Routledge, 1989. Wide Sargasso Sea. 1968. Wyndham, F. Introduction. The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys London: Penguin, 1996. 1-15.