This is a prequel written 120 years later that shows the perspective and backstory of an enigmatic character, Berta Mason, from a classic novel, Jayne Eyre.

I didn’t read Jane Eyre.

However I’ve read some Gothic (Southern) novels with enigmatic characters who play the foil to the main character’s grand plan.

Charles Bon shows up at the richest planter in Mississippi mansion on Christmas Eve in 1860 and it all goes south for the Sutpen’s after that in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom.

The narrator’s speculate how much of chance meeting Henry, his half brother and 10 years his junior at a tiny law school in the Mississippi wilderness. How far did Charles’ mother, Eulalia, (Thomas first wife of mixed race ancestry in the West Indies) go to setup the encounter that would be foil to Thomas grand plan?

In Jayne Eyre, Bertha Mason, spoils Jayne’s plan to marry Mr Rochester - Bertha is Rochester’s Creole first wife whom he marries in Jamaica and ultimately brings back to England where he locks her up in the attic.

Wide Sargasso Sea is Bertha’s story. Her tumultuous childhood, which saw her family fall from riches to rags only to get it back through her mother marriage to a cold man, which drives her mother insane. Bertha has one last shot at the good life - her rushed into marriage to Rochester.

The honeymoon doesn’t go so well.

In Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, and Absalom, Absalom the grand house, which represents everything terrible about the patriarchy and the power of that time is burnt to the ground.

Its seems it’s best to destroy the past and move on.