WHY 'Gulliver's Travels'?

"Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver’s Travels from the library. This book I had again and again perused with delight."

Within the space of the novel, books serve as an alternate universe for Jane Eyre. They have the power to transport her to a world where her imagination is allowed to soar; a stark contrast to the physical and emotional constraints she experiences at Gateshead. HOWEVER, nothing in this novel is THAT simple. Charlotte Bronte embarks on a kind of 'political project' with her carefully thought-out references to literary texts in ‘Jane Eyre’; each book serves a purpose much broader than being Jane’s “enshrinement”. National reform, new English values and functionality of the Empire are subtly integrated into Jane’s childhood through her innocent interest in British birds and Gulliver’s voyages. Not only does this make ‘Jane Eyre’ an incredibly complex novel in terms of its relationship with the nation, it also underscores how Bronte ingeniously uses references to other literary texts to raise questions that could not be stated explicitly.

Jane can be seen as an anomaly within the national space right now – with any attempt to lay down roots being thwarted, she is unable to construct an identity for herself within the public or private sphere. Where an individual with ambiguous class and roots lies within the national narrative is the big question ‘Jane Eyre’ tries to answer, and ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ reinforces this subject matter. Jane’s serious attribution to this text as a “narrative of facts” shows how SERIOUSLY she considers the possibility of leaving the Empire’s confines and being free (with freedom embodied by voyages at sea and the infinite space Gulliver can function in). It’s important how Jane feels the “elves” must have “all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant”,  reinstating her inability to feel ‘at home’ within the Empire, consequently associating limited scope for fantasy, barrenness and over-population to the unimpressive national sphere. The foreign appeal encompassed by “the cornfields forest-high” and “tower-like men and women” represents the fascination of venturing out into the unknown (a prime impetus behind British imperialism, as we all know), and parallels Jane’s desire to break the hold of the Empire upon her being to Gulliver’s disillusionment with ‘all things English’.

WHAT’S KEY HERE is the way ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ becomes prophetic – the unexplored territories of “Lilliput and Brobdingnag” for him become Lowood, Thornfield and Ferndean for Jane, drawing attention to the way she will similarly embark on an emotional, spiritual and physical journey into the unknown. Gulliver’s attempts to assimilate himself within the world of these new regions is analogous to Jane’s endeavors, and both characters receive their fair share of mistreatment through the course of their expeditions. However, Gulliver HAS to end up in England after bitterly realizing it serves as a better home than the outside world ever could, and this is Bronte’s way of highlighting how the entity represented by Jane Eyre MUST find a space within the confines of England (which is why she couldn't be allowed to go to India with St. John later). 

She must be a willing member of the national discourse, and this is where it’s significant to note WHY the novel loses its charm for Jane. After speaking out against John Reed, Jane subverts all kinds of Victorian ideals of femininity, and can be seen as betraying the nation’s value system through her lack of control over her passions and language. While the ‘red-room’ attempts to forcibly tame and lock away this wild female force, her complete alliance with the nation cannot be achieved until she consciously accepts her responsibility as a citizen, and the course of the novel offers way for her to integrate herself within the national dominion. This is why the “charm” of the “cherished volume” now becomes “eerie and dreary”, simultaneously transforming Gulliver from a heroic adventurer to a “desolate wanderer”, and disillusioning Jane enough to dare “no longer persue” the volume till she formally acknowledges her identity within the functionality of the Empire.