The Wife Upstairs

“There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.”

Hawkins includes this line from Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, another work inspired by Jane Eyre. Hawkins honors the legacy of this adaptation and Charlotte Brontë’s original text throughout the novel. The line from Rhys’s adaptation introduces the theme of performance and hints at the rich but hidden interior lives that dominate the lives of Hawkins’s characters, creating conflict throughout the novel.

“Behind every one of these McMansions is a bright green backyard, so it makes no sense that anyone would even need a dog-walker. But need is not a word people like this think of. Everything with them is want.”

Jane criticizes the residents of Thornfield Estates for their lavish lifestyle. She is an outsider who sees through the shallow performances of her employers. Despite her criticism, this is the world that Jane strives to gain entrance into, imagining that it will free her from having to think about basic “needs” or anything else that recalls her traumatic past.

“The sameness of Thornfield Estates means that eventually, all the houses blur together. I like that—a beautiful blur is better than the depressing monotony of my part of town—but there’s something about this house, all alone at the end of a cul-de-sac, that draws me back every time.”

Jane is drawn to Eddie and Bea Rochester’s home and stops there during her walks. This attraction to the house foreshadows Jane’s connection to Rochester and demonstrates the importance she places on what this house represents: safety and stability. The sameness of all the neighborhood houses is also suggestive, hinting at the artificial lives the residents lead as they conform to a particular image of success and affluence.