Future husband Quote by Francine Prose
““Reader, I married him. It turned out the sounds I heard coming from the attic weren't the screams of Mr Rochester's mad wife Bertha. It wasn't the wife who burned to death in the fire that destroyed Thornfield Hall and blinded my future husband when he tried to save her. After we'd first got engaged, he'd had to admit that he was already married, and we'd broken off our engagement. He'd asked me to run away with him anyway. Naturally, I'd refused. But later, after we were properly married, he insisted that it hadn't happened that way. It turned out there had been no wife. It turned out that it had been a parrot, screaming in the attic. The parrot had belonged to his wife. She had got it in the islands, where she had also contracted the tropical fever that killed her. She'd died long before I came to work for him as a governess. That was never Bertha, in the attic.””
About This Quote
Source Novel: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, 1966
A governess discovers that the terrifying attic sounds were caused by a parrot, not a mad wife, revealing layers of deception and misinterpretation.
In simple terms: The scary noises were from a bird, not a crazy spouse.
Key Takeaway
Question assumptions and seek truth.
Themes
deception
identity
misinterpretation
colonialism
gender
Mood
intrigued
reflective
Type
literary
analytical
When to use this quote
- marriage counseling
- historical research
- literary analysis
- family secrets
- mental health awareness
Key Concepts
Narrative unreliability
psychological horror
postcolonial critique
Questions to Reflect On
- What does the parrot symbolize?
- How do we confront hidden truths?
A Different Perspective
The story may romanticize tragedy, overlooking real suffering.
