En busca de un discurso identitario y canónicola reescritura de Rhys y Coetzee en Wide Sargasso Sea y Foe

Abstract

This thesis studies the rewritings of canonical works of English literature from the collateral, biased point of view of writers proceeding from the former colonies of the British Empire. Jean Rhys, a Caribbean novelist, rewrote Charlotte Brontës masterpiece, Jane Eyre, in Wide Sargasso Sea, the story of Rochesters mad wife explained from the viewpoint of the colonial individual. John Maxwell Coetzee, from South Africa, rewrote the classic by Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, offering a suggestive version of the Robinsonade in his novel Foe. Both rewritings contain a criticism on the cultural codes inherent to a canonical work together with an implicit attempt to find a discourse that represents their identity and that presumably helps them get hold of the keys to join the Western Canon.