THE LISTENER: Mad woman in the attic Were Jane Eyre's troubles mainly health-related? Was the first Mrs Rochester a manic-depressive? In this week's selection of the best of BBC Radio, "A Body of Literature" subjects Charlotte Bronte's novel to medical and literary scrutiny: [FINAL Edition]

Susan Jeffreys Today's patient is a woman of mystery, a woman who has over the years inspired whole books and much debate. Here is a description of the mysterious woman...

Reading: "You were not perhaps aware that there was a lady, a lunatic kept in the house. She was kept in very close confinement ma'am. People even for some years were not absolutely certain of her existence. No one saw her; they only knew by rumour that such a person was at the Hall. Who or what she was, it was difficult to conjecture."

SJ It is of course the first Mrs Rochester, often referred to by her maiden name, Bertha Mason - the woman who is kept under lock and key by the enigmatic Grace Poole and whose domestic prison is just along the corridor from Jane Eyre.

Jane, the difficult orphan child, is sent away to a grim boarding- school, finds work as a governess and eventually a husband in the shape of Mr Rochester at Thornfield Hall. There is just a bit of a problem: the mad woman in the attic, Mr Rochester's very much alive- and-kicking first wife.

Polly, you've adapted and directed Jane Eyre for the stage, but can you remember how Bertha struck you when you first read her as a teenager?

Polly Teale Well, it's very intriguing, isn't it? You get these little glimpses of Bertha first of all and she always erupts in the middle of the night. You're not quite sure whether Jane's dreamt her, or whether she's really there. There is that scene when they actually go up into the attic and you see Bertha, and she's like a kind of wild animal, spitting and snarling. In the novel she's a kind of monster.

But what fascinates me is that, on the one hand, you can see Jane and Bertha as complete opposites. Jane is very sensible, very controlled and contained. Bertha is passionate, angry, violent and sexual, all the things that Jane could never be. But then, on the other hand, you see Jane as a young girl, at the beginning of the story as a 10-year-old, lashing out and attacking her cousin in a fit of rage because he's bullied her and...