Guttenberg Press Online Free Image. Illustration by F. H. Townsend from the 1897 imprint of Jane Eyre (1947) by Charlotte Bronte.
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Another essay from my early days at university. I am still quite proud of this one. I have excised two uses of the word ‘patriarchy’ from the original submission as I think I just threw in this expected feminist trope from reading Gilbert and Gubar’s seminal feminist textual analysis book The Mad Woman in the Attic (1991). I do not really subscribe to the notion of a ‘patriarchy’ anymore, if I ever really did in any nascent form 12 years ago. This is a topic a will unpack a little more in another blog post for another day.
Suffice it to say I no longer fully accepted Gilbert and Gubar’s ideas that Bertha Mason went mad because of male oppression, as I have intimated in the essay below. I think Bronte used Bertha as a foil in contrast to Jane Eyre’s own journey into adulthood. Bertha, to my mind, was a poor, unfortunate woman with what we would now refer to as a ‘mental illness’. She was merely mad: no patriarchal oppression was required. I have seen mental illness up close now. Sometimes it is intractable. Apart from the excision of two words, the rest of the essay stands as I wrote it all those years ago and reflects my arduous journey of research at that time to try to understand Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.
Jane Eyre remains one of my favourite books of all time and I re-read it regularly. My first reading of it at the age of 36 was revelatory. I don’t think I had ever before read something so lyrically beautiful, engaging and strangely romantic. I certainly had never been able to engage with a text on such a deep level, both emotionally and intellectually, for I never was an exceptionally proficient reader as a youth. Unfortunately, I did not have the most remarkable English teachers or English curriculum to work from the last time I was studying English literature in high school.
Jane Eyre is one of my ‘Desert Island Five’ required books if ever I become stranded all alone and with only a handful of books that I may read for the rest of my life. I will eventually write a post covering my other four choices of Desert Island books. However, at the moment I am only really committed to two titles.
R.M.
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.ENGL1101- Assignment 2
Date: Wednesday 02/05/12
Rebekah Martin
Title: Jane Eyre- Female Characters Comparisons: Imprisonment, Rebellion and Freedom.
When comparing the character of Jane Eyre with those of Bertha Mason/Rochester, Helen Burns and Blanche Ingram, in Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel, it is possible to see how each woman is imprisoned by their status within Victorian society. Each woman is positioned and used by others, and each woman has varying capacities to rebel against the constrictions placed upon their liberty. Where Jane Eyre differs from these women is in her level of self-awareness, the development of conscious control over her passionate temperament, and her commitment to her own brand of Christian beliefs. This gives Jane Eyre the ability to effectively harness the strength of her will and convictions, and to become the agent for her desired freedom within a world of imposed constraints.
As a social outcast, Jane Eyre is imprisoned at Gateshead, just as Bertha Mason/ Rochester is imprisoned at Thornfield by Edward Rochester. At Gateshead, the spectre of the deceased Mr Reed still holds influence over the household; in particular, over the young Jane Eyre when she is locked in the red room by her grudging and unforgiving warder, Mrs Reed (Bronte 10). Jane’s physical attack on Master John Reed, and subsequent fit of passion in the red room (12), is the reader’s first gaze at the fiery nature Jane shares with Bertha Mason/Rochester (Grudin 145). Bertha rails madly against the injustices of a society that would trap her in the role of a marriageable commodity. Furthermore, she rails against her incarceration at Thornfield. Likewise, Jane protests against the injustices inflicted upon the freedom of her spirit and person whilst detained at Gateshead (Gilbert and Gubar 349, 360-2).
When Jane is used as a whipping boy for the misdeeds and moral turpitude of the Reed children, she rebels with an almost foolhardy outspokenness towards Aunt Reed (Bronte 31). Jane risks further alienation from the only family she knows for the sake of her beliefs. This flouting of her position as a dependent orphan only leads to her removal and further imprisonment, privation and control within the walls of Lowood Institution (36). It is here that Jane starts to develop her capacity to harness her inner passion in a more constructive manner through the influence of Helen Burns (Lamonaca 251; Reger 213).
At Lowood, Jane Eyre and Helen Burns share the common bondage of being orphan children with few prospects. They are completely beholden to the charity and decrees of those in authority at the institution (Bronte 46). Helen Burns displays a passive rebellion to injustices at Lowood that contrasts with Jane’s more active brand of rebellion. Helen is consistently labelled as a ‘slattern’ in front of her peers by Miss Scatcherd in order to humiliate her into compliance with the standards expected of the school (51, 72). She does not react openly to the humiliation, nor does change her personal habits as a result of the punishments meted out to her. Helen maintains a consistently untidy approach to her daily housekeeping requirements. This is her quiet rebellion against the rigid and self-righteous brand of Christianity taught at Lowood that is so at odds with her own brand of loving and compassionate Christianity (53-4). This is the extent of Helen’s outward rebellion to the strictures placed upon her at Lowood. She is passive in the face of her worldly reality (Gilbert and Gubar 346). It is her unwavering faith that true freedom only exists in the afterlife that sustains her throughout her hardships (Lamonaca 251). Helen’s beliefs influence Jane’s own developing Christian beliefs; however, Jane cannot bring herself to accept the inequalities of this life with the quite the same notions of Christian stoicism and forbearance (Reger 213).
Unlike Helen, Jane openly succumbs to her rebel emotions when Mr Brocklehurst publicly humiliates her for the purpose of bolstering his position as unimpeachable Christian moral authority over the inmates of Lowood (63). Through Helen Burns’ influence, Jane changes her perceptions of the situation. She is then able to analyse her feelings and exercise control over her more ungovernable emotions when presenting her case to Miss Temple (Reger 213). This leads to her public pardon from Brocklehurst’s accusations. As a result of these experiences, Jane learns that she can actively carve out her own small authority within the walls of Lowood (Bronte 83). Jane differs from Helen by exhibiting far more agency in the direction her life will take. Rather than just bearing up under whatever trials happen to have been sent her way, and hoping for release through the mercy of God, Jane seeks ‘at least a new servitude’ (84-8). She actively pursues a course for release and change.
Jane’s self-agency leads to her taking on the position of governess at Thornfield; where, her imprisonment as servant can be compared with the entrapment of Blanche Ingram within the Victorian marriage market (Chen 375). The two women differ in their awareness of their particular position. Jane shows that she is acutely aware of the constraints of her status in society as ‘…a Governess, disconnected, poor and plain’ (Bronte 161), via the severe rendering of her portrait compared to the idealised vision she paints of Blanche Ingram. Blanche shows no such awareness of her relative position as ‘…an accomplished lady of rank’ (161), and remains ignorant of the gilded cage she has been kept and displayed in. This is shown by her unquestioning, and willing, participation in the machinations of aristocratic marriage courtships and contracts (Chen 375).
Both Jane and Blanche are manoeuvred by Edward Rochester for his own aims. Jane Eyre’s capacity to rebel against his control contrasts with Blanche Ingram’s limited options for resistance. Blanche Ingram is positioned and used by Rochester to incite jealously in Jane, and to grow her love and commitment to him (Bronte 265). Blanche, apart from being unaware of his true motivations, is unable to rebel against her circumstances due to her subservience to the structures and expectations of her upbringing (188). To rebel against the confines of her place in society is to risk obscurity; therefore, Blanche’s only real agency with Rochester is to exercise her right to turn down a suitor whom has proven unworthy of her consideration (Chen 376). Jane, being obscure in the eyes of society already, has nothing to lose after Bertha’s existence is revealed and Rochester presents his immoral proposal to her. Unlike Blanche, she can turn Rochester down based on the strength of her beliefs. To stay with him, under the conditions he would try to cage her in, would be to damage her freedom of spirit. Jane stands and acts on her convictions, maintaining that:
Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent they are; inviolate they shall be. (Bronte 320)
Jane’s ability to stand by her Christian convictions and effectively harness her energies to resist Rochester’s control is in sharp contrast to Bertha Mason’s inability and, perhaps, unwillingness to control her rage filled rebellion against the prison of her arranged marriage. Bertha Mason’s breaking of Victorian society’s behavioural conventions, through licentious sexual behaviour and madness, leads only to her diminishment in the eyes of Rochester (Chen 375). Harsh imprisonment at Thornfield follows, so mirroring Jane’s removal to Lowood from Gateshead. Jane learns self-governance; Bertha does not. Consequently, Bertha can only tear at Jane’s wedding veil, the symbol of both of their fraudulent marriages to Rochester (Bronte 287). For all of her fury, Bertha remains unable to escape from Rochester’s possession and control, except through implementing the violent circumstances of her own death (Gilbert and Gubar 360).
Jane seethes with feelings akin to Bertha’s; especially, when she locks herself away after her aborted union with Rochester (Bronte 300). Unlike Bertha, Jane has developed, and can ask herself, ‘What am I to do?’ (301). Jane’s reasoned and steadfast resistance to Rochester actually serves to enhance, not diminish, the very attributes he most wants to possess in her. It shows him that he cannot hold her spirit through force or imprisonment lest it ‘…elude the grasp like an essence…’(321). And so he releases her. With the freedom to make her own choices, a freedom Bertha Mason was never really afforded, Jane’s capacity prevails.
Jane has learnt to accept the force of her passion without letting it overwhelm her completely. It is this self-governance that sets Jane apart from Bertha Mason who, being governed purely by her emotional state, can only author her own ruin as a means of escape from societal and literal imprisonment. It is Jane’s self-awareness that sets her apart from Blanche Ingram and allows her to consciously flee the cage of marriage Rochester has constructed for her. It is Jane’s active stance in directing her life that sets her convictions apart from those espoused by Helen Burns. Where Helen Burns, Blanche Ingram and Bertha Mason cannot be free in a world that places women according to its own needs, Jane Eyre is able to assert her autonomy because of her belief in her equality with all beings in the eyes of God. It is this mettle that, in time, allows her to return to Rochester on her own terms, to affirm herself as his equal, and so find her own ideal of freedom on Earth.
Word count:1553
Works Cited
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre.1847. London: Collins, 2010. Print.
Chen, Chih-Ping. ‘‘Am I a Monster?’: Jane Eyre among the shadows of freaks’. Studies in the Novel, 34.4 (Winter 2002): 367. Library Resource Center. Web.23 April 2012.
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1984. Print.
Grudin, Peter. ‘Jane and the Other Mrs. Rochester: Excess and Restraint in ‘Jane Eyre’’. NOVEL: A Forum in Fiction, 10.2 (Winter 1977): 145-157. JStor. Web. 23 April 2012.
Lamonaca, Maria. ‘Jane’s Crown of Thorns: feminism and Christianity in ‘Jane Eyre”. Studies in the Novel, 34.3 (Fall 2002): 245. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 April 2012.
Reger, Mark. ‘Bronte’s Jane Eyre’. The Explicitor, 50.4 (Summer 1992): 213. ProQuest Central. Web. 23 April 2012.
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By Rebekah Martin
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