Week Six: Super Late Submission

There has been a tendency to depict Jane Eyre as an independent and empowered woman who is not afraid to speak her mind. The very first instance of this is when she blatantly tells John Reed that “you are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!” after he hits her. Unlike other female protagonists she is not the one to perish at the hands of others.

However this analysis seems a bit problematic because there have been various instances where Jane’s outburst or “revolutionary” reactions could be seen as a mere production of an over disciplined body. She does not want she wants to do, or what she desires but responds to the way society would expect her to behave.

The scene where Jane paints her picture (with just a chalk) she thinks it ought to be labeled as “Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor and plain” which shows how Jane tries to produce herself in lieu with the culture of the society. Along with this Jane even challenges her belief that she would be somehow worthy of Mr Rochester.

“You,' I said, 'a favourite with Mr. Rochester? You gifted with the power of pleasing him? You of importance to him in any way? Go! Your folly sickens me”

This scene clearly illustrates the self-image Jane has of herself. She is not somehow who ‘deserves’ Mr Rochester only because it is not something deemed acceptable to the society. In comparison, she believes that Miss Ingram with her aristocratic wealth, charm and beauty is someone who would prove to be more compatible with Mr Rochester.  Here, it is shown that Jane narrative does not only show a movement from bondage to freedom but rather extreme forms of self-discipline that she exercises on herself.

Along with that her love for Rochester could also be challenged. Did she actually love him or it occurred given the circumstances created by Rochester. For instance, when she is leaving Rochester she remarks, “I looked at my love: the feeling which was my master’s-which he had created.” In such a scenario, could it be argued that her love was authentically hers?

Moreover, the scene when she discovers the truth about Rochester’s first marriage, he becomes almost desperate to attain her love and offers her the option of moving to France. But Jane refuses, not because she did not want to be with Rochester but the moral condemnation of this type of act. Jane wants to act in the “moral” or the ‘correct’ way because she symbolizes middle class values of the British society. Again she chooses to respond in the way society would expect her to react.