Austen and Bronte: the ideal marriage

"She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well... she ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound: the Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress."  Charlotte Bronte on Jane Austen
Both Bronte and Austen have been much revered as romance novelist, their novels have been taken as literary versions of fairy tales that have fueled the imaginations and fantasies of generations of adolescent girls. However, at closer inspection they are much more then that, reflecting the viewpoints that dominated 19th century English society. Both Mansfield Park and Jane Eyre are "bildungsroman" that feature an  ideal Englishwoman with a strong moral center who overcome lives problems and sorrows while maintaining her integrity and honor and in reward gains a suitable husband. In these novels a woman's choice of  a suitable mate became not only the basis of her identity as a respectable Englishwoman but also depended the future of the family unit and thereby the longevity of the state. Thus these novels showcase the changing face of English society and the women in it, both of which were heavily influenced by internal and external factors affecting england at the time.
As Austen and Bronte published their novel at different periods of the 18th century we can gauge how the perceptions of women evolved. An example of this can be seen by comparing how the marriage of their protagonist took place. While Austen's heroine gained a husband through her integrity and patience as she waited around until he  noticed her, even the moment of the proposal was equally lackluster, taking place "exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so". Fanny herself was molded and taught by Edmund, her attitudes towards religion, morality and everything else was carved after his image thus making their marriage a suitable one. While Jane throughout the novel had to fight her passion or her femaleness for reason or her femininity as an English woman. Her morals and religious conviction was not spoon fed to her and neither was her path to  marriage easy. Furthermore, she started her marriage by proclaiming "i married him", thus demonstrating some agency in her life. Their match was a suitable one due to their difference, as Jane as an displaced, single female woman needed a man to find a home an place in the domestic English sphere, while Rochester needed the love of a strong female to regain his values and establish himself as an ideal English subject. 

Bertha Mason- Horror of the Victorian Marriage

Bertha Mason is mad, she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a mad woman and a drunkard!-as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points .Oh! my experience has been heavenly, if you only knew it!

These are the very words with which Mr.Rochestor describes his wife, Bertha Mason. She is painted as the horror of the Victorian marriage and on grounds of her madness is locked up in an attic. She is accused of a bad character in addition to a devious background, of having a ‘Creole’ mother. She is the repressive wife who is left alone at the mercy of Grace Poole and is bereft of the rights of a wife.  Not only is she looked down upon as a “clothed hyena”, “a maniac”, and a “lunatic" but is also subjected to harsh and cruel living conditions.

                And because she is seen as mentally ill, Mr.Rochestor deems it appropriate to treat her whatever way he wants,  as reflected by the scene where Grace gives him a ‘rope’ and he  ‘binds her by a chair’ after she tries to strangle him. She is not seen as a mentally challenged individual rather Mr.Rochestor uses her to make himself look like the victim who suffered at the hands of his crazy wife. A deep rooted patriarchy comes to play her for the patriarch can treat his woman the way he wants to because she is not fulfilling her obligations of a dutiful wife; she can neither address his sexual desires nor look after his domestic needs and therefore is subjected to complete abandonment. Its important to  note that had the patriarch been inflicted with the mental illness , female morality, ‘the ideal and dutiful wife’ would have expected to rise to the occasion and take care of the patriarch but because it is a wife of the Victorian age ,it is completely appropriate to isolate her and confine her insanity to a room. Bronte’s double standards about the treatment of a mentally ill wife are appalling if not outright shocking!

A new kind of woman

Jane Eyre is the epitome of the middle class heroine. Possessing neither fortune nor beauty, she manages to capture the heart of the wealthy Rochester through the strength of the moral virtues that her socioeconomic position grants her with. In some respects, she finds herself almost superior to Mr. Rochester morally, for Rochester's sin of keeping Bertha Mason a secret gives rise to questions about the quality of his character. It especially suggests his disability to overcome or control his own passions. Bertha Mason’s wildness is really just a personification of Rochester’s unfettered masculine sexuality.  Jane is comparatively moral, as evidenced by her refusal to become nothing more than his mistress. Rochester's dilapidated state at the end of the novel not only displays the deterioration of his physical body, but perhaps is also a symbol of the weakening of his soul. Here it seems that he is now truly equal, or even less equal to Jane, who has developed her soul to its potential by finally discovering how to balance her independence with passion. After this journey of self-discovery, she can finally "rehumanise" him following his moral transgressions. As Nancy Armstrong mentions in her article, “Readers remain thoroughly enchanted with narratives in which a woman’s virtue alone overcomes sexual aggression and transforms male desire into middle-class love.” In this way Bronte gives rise to a new kind of woman, in which her desirability is determined not by her beauty or family name but by her virtue alone.

Of kachi mitti, infections and the cast of minds

     The English Novel and Urdu Drama as we have studied in this course thus far is a commentary on the notion of domesticity and the manner in which it is shaped by the patriarchy. In Mansfield Fanny was literally taught how to think by Edmund. Similarily in Humsafar, Ashar under his dying fathers guidance seeks to shape the kachi mitti that is Khirad’s character. Jane Eyre, stands in sharp contrast to this narrative where Rochester himself clams that:

     “I know what kind of mind I have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection from: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily,I do not mean to harm it: but if I did it would not take harm from me.”

     While it may be understood from this that as Jane belonged to a lower class, her circumstances made it unlikely for her to indulge in the vices that the aristocrats enjoyed. However, Rochester till then had been the only man Jane had been in proximity with in her adult life and thus the only man who could be able to mould her into his version of English domesticity. However he himself acknowledges that Jane’s mind is “peculiar”, and despite the fact that it has been deprived of worldly experience he states that he would not be able to “infect” as mind such as hers, rather he may be “refreshed” by her.  

     We can understand this as a testament to Jane’s character rather than Rochester’s general acknowledgement of the femininity and sensibility of women. While he never seeks to mould Jane, his “mad” “lunatic” immoral wife is not granted the same courtesy. Of Bertha Mason, Rochester exclaims at one point that:

     “even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow and singularly incapable of being led of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger”.

      Rochester here claims that the tragic flaw in Bertha was her immoral and crude “cast of mind” such that it could not be shaped, which is very different in relation to how he felt about Jane’s character. While he never sought to change Jane, he longed to raise Bertha to “anything higher”. Rochester was thus left to bear the “filthy burden” of his mad diseased wife despite the fact that she was incapable of being reformed, while, on the other hand the morally grounded domestic Jane was put on a pedestal by him and was capable of “refreshing” his sense of morality as well. Therefore while Bertha serves as a cautionary tale of the lack of domesticity and morality, the English society through Rochester commends domesticity and morality in Jane. 

All that madness!

An intriguing theme that ran through all the three literary pieces we have done so far is the presence of a mad woman, who was effectively pushed away from the narrative in one way or the other. The madness too that is steeped in erotic desires, fiery passions, romantic instincts and rebellious motives. It begins with Mary Crawford the woman with bold and liberal sexuality. In terms of the greater national narrative and reinforcing the superior conscience of Great Britain Mary and her brother are associated with the French manners (loose morality). The idea however is not just introducing this woman with an alternate style of life but ensuring that she meets the fate that Britain has decided for her- off she goes out of this divine inspired hub to suffer in the land of degenerate species.

Next we have an encounter with our local obsessive Sarah. Despite her lavish economic class, pre-eminent education, domestic dominance (not answerable as such to her mother, not restricted from her hang outs) she has such overwhelming dictation of her heart that she plots the most pathetic of plans in Ashar, Khirad, Khizr, Fareeda aunty (is anyone left?) lives. She expresses the yearnings of her affectionate heart, does not conceal them from her aunt (I cannot imagine telling my aunt I am obsessed with a guy, let alone her son), puts almost a public show of her sentiments and the drama teaches her a lesson by just taking her life. The minimal attention given to her death shows that this is the end she rightly deserved? That’s what people in this country do anyway…take life for not wearing your religion/morals on your head/sleeve. Killing; a common practice like drinking tea.

Lastly the much infamous Bertha Mason! She too is described in terms of a wild sexuality that was too rough for even our Byronic Rochester to handle. A beastly woman from the West Indies so corrupted that even the purity of England cannot chastise her. And again we witness that controlling her lies only in carving out a diseased Indies for her in the enclosed attic. None of the moral impurity can enter England, which is why Jane has to undergo the most volatile suffering too…only to ensure she is morally upright at all times.

The presence of these lunatic women and their enthralling sexual desires is quite a routine in the novels and dramas that intend to shape national morals. It is amusing that the madness of a consuming and burning longing is always labelled under the title of a ‘must be cured infection’. 

Charades and disguises

The construction of the game of charades is important for a number of reasons. Jane declines to be a part of the game when asked, "In my ignorance I did not understand the term charades" but more importantly she is excluded by the party playing charades. Lady Ingram tells the gentleman, "she seems too stupid for any game of the sort". Once again, she becomes the spectator, observing people from a distance. Her exclusion from the game of charades comes at a time when her feelings for Mr Rochester are at their peak, "I had learnt to love Mr Rochester, I could not unlove him." She feels hopeless and agitated especially with Blanche Ingram's presence at Thornfield, who she thinks is going to be Mr Rochester's bride. Marriage, brides and imprisonment remain recurring themes during the whole game. Mr Rochester sits with his "clenched hands resting on his knees", "to his wrists were attached fetters". The concept of a prisoner at once applies to Jane's situation, especially when it is followed by a marriage scene where Blanche acts as Mr Rochester's bride. She feels imprisoned by her social and economic status that automatically exclude her from Rochester's list of potential brides. Blanche, on the other hand, is also pretty, which Jane is not. On the other hand, the prisoner scene is also reflective of Rochester's own situation with regards to his marriage with Bertha -- a marriage that he has to hide from everyone. The "begrimed face, the disordered dress... the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough, bristling hair... when he moved, a chain clanked." This description creates an ominous atmosphere, a certain sort of gloom. The chains and fetters represent the legal shackles that bind Rochester to Bertha and prevent him from remarrying.
The last game of charade, "Bridewell" itself is very symbolic. Bridewell was a mental asylum operated with Bethelam Hospital to correct the behaviour of women who were sexual deviants. In this scene, while on one level, Bertha is the female who is imprisoned and who is "intemperate and unchaste" and needs to be corrected, Jane becomes the symbolic Bridewell prisoner. For she feels her love for Mr Rochester is 'forbidden' because of her social and financial status and she cannot "unlove him now" but she must because as according to her, she is in no place to fall in love with Rochester. Her sense of exclusion is heightened by her own actions during this scene. For example, during the second game of charades, she immediately recognises the show as Eliezer and Rebecca but she chooses to remain silent for she has been called "too stupid" for this game.

Mr. Rochester- a hypocrite seeking redemption.

"Funny I should choose you for the confidant of all this..strange that you should listen to me so quietly, as if it were the most usual thing for a man like me to tell stories of his opera mistress to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you.."

Mr. Rochester saying this to Jane Eyre, has at times been considered as part of her education, where Mr. Rochester acts as the tool through which Jane learns of the immorality that lies outside the boundaries of the English society. Him following this by charmingly saying that she was "made to be the recipient of secrets", to me appears not a means of education. Rather, it seems to be a weak justification to use Jane as nothing but merely a drum to dump in secrets of his abominable past. He expects Jane to be a passive recipient of all that he wishes to unburden without getting "infected", thus making Jane a forceful tool of redemption at his discretion.  

As the novel progresses Mr.Rochester begins to further appear as selfish. His selfishness becomes most evident in the latter part the novel where Jane feels her hand to be grabbed 'with an iron grasp, hurrying her along with a stride [she] could hardly follow' as Mr. Rochester hastens to the temple to get married. Once the truth escapes he begins to draw parallels between his mad wife and young bride, referring to how he 'wished to have the young girl so grave and quiet at the mouth of hell..with clear eyes instead of red balls.." Mr. Rochester in some sense is seeking redemption through his marriage with Jane to rid himself of his philandering past. He does not find it mildly important that he should come clean with this secret, but once Jane finds out he very conveniently starts a tirade of emotional blackmailing asking her how she only valued the 'station and rank' of his wife over actually loving him. He continues this in a strange fit of rage that at some points boils down to violent streaks asking her to 'beware' of his temper and that he wishes to keep her as his wife and not mistress (when clearly that’s what poor Jane would be reduced to, with his already existent wife). Not only is Mr. Rochester selfish in wanting her, he is even more hypocritical in the methods he chooses to do so by trying to provide unwarranted claims for his behaviour. For instance, he refers to Adele as the daughter of a "French bastard", when given his past, it is very much possible the daughter is his own. Here his hypocritical and self centred nature only intensifies.

Perhaps, Mr.Rochester is aware that for him to survive and redeem himself in the English society he must be married to a plain and simple girl like Jane, and that is why he tries so hard to hold on to her, with a demeanour that almost borders on madness. However, the way he does so, through invalid justifications and sugar coated words is nothing but hypocritical and selfish.               

Marriage

Written approximately thirty years after Mansfield Park, Jane Eyre seems to propagate similar ideals about marriage. The roles of morality and gender within the marriage, however, are vastly different.

The appropriate method of class ascension continues to be marriage for female protagonists. However, morality seems to be the characteristic associated with the women of the household. It is perfectly reasonable of Mr. Rochester to suggest he live with Jane “in the south of France in a white-washed villa”, claiming he does not wish to make her his mistress. Although, how that is possible is beyond me (and Jane apparently: “I should then be your mistress…to say otherwise is false”).

It is the female who is expected to uphold morality. In fact, it is Jane who must ensure that Rochester not commit (further) adultery. Nothing says Christian morality better than your conscience quoting the Old Testament in a dream: “you shall tear yourself away… yourself, pluck out your right eye: yourself cut off your right hand: your right heart shall be the victim; and you, the priest, to transfix it”.

What Jane calls “living in sin” is referred to as “pledge of fidelity” by Rochester [oh, the irony]. It is fairly obvious that the institution of marriage holds no meaning to Rochester. It seems then, that even faith is not something expected from a man who has had an unfortunate past.

Moreover, Rochester’s years spent with “English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras and German gräfinnen”, despite having a wife are not condemned. Nor is his (possible) lovechild of any significance other than depicting foreign immorality.

While Rochester may have been a victim as he believes, tricked by his own family as well as the Masons, it is unclear why an end to this unhappy marriage, either divorce or annulment, is never considered an option. Divorce may be taboo, but probably not more so than adultery in mid-nineteenth century English society. For a man who claims his marriage means nothing he is unwilling to let go of it.

Jane Eyre in the Age of Modernism (Farheen's Post)

I will be discussing the period of time in which Jane Eyre was published. It was the Victorian era of 1847. The Industrial Revolution marked the last vestiges of the Age of Enlightenment characterized by high rational thinking. Writers like Bernman place the start of modernism somewhere in the 16^th Century but the rejection of Enlightenment thinking can be seen in the writers, poets, and artists of the 19^th Century. They reflected the transformation that rapidity of change was bringing into the first very modern society. Unlike Austen who refused to feature modern life in her works, Charlotte Bronte reproduces the sense of living in that age.

This piece of a girl growing up, narrated in first person, reflects the changes in English thought. Previously, authors brought closure at the end of a narrative. Time now becomes a linear concept and with this comes the sense of moving forward, hence a female Bildungsroman (rather than a male) where we see growth and change and even towards the end there is no real closure to the narrative but the expectation of death of a character. We see stark changes from Jane the child, Jane the teenager at school, Jane the governess, Jane the cousin and finally Jane the wife.  There is fluidity of identities, a concept inherent to modern times. But this idea of time moving forward means that many people get left behind by the progress and the rise in wealth around them. This dispossesses, dislocates and alienates people who are separated from families to earn a living. This is why the book is heavily scarred with elements of orphanhood in Jane, her having no fixed abode and her literal homelessness as she travels to Whitcross. There is a sense of loss in her abject poverty and lack of kinship remedied only when a rich uncle leaves her an heiress (by the author’s storytelling intervention).  There is emphasis on earning a livelihood and, in the backdrop, the limitations for a female to find work in changing times. There is a rejection of established ideals in characters such as Helen Burns, St John, Miss Temple and so on. Had these characters formed part of other pieces before this period, they would’ve been idealized as role models. Now however the age required characters like Jane to negotiate the existential issues of the Western civilization living in the 19^th Century.  Also the individuality of self is a key feature of the novel. Young Jane says, “What does Bessie say I have done” rather than ‘What have I done’ refusing to internalize someone else’s perspective on the actions of the self. In the end, Jane doesn’t say ‘We are married’ or ‘He married me’; rather she stamps her individualism saying something as unprecedented as “Reader, I married him”. These elements, now common, were unique to modern writers and Jane Eyre can be said to be the product of modernism.  

Externals Have a Great Effect on The Young.

What I wished to talk about today was the way physical beauty is treated in Jane Eyre. 

As a child Jane Eyre was abused by her rich and beautiful cousins. But it was her who was despised because of her lack of external appeal and social status.  

The first time this issue is raised is when Jane Eyre is crying out at the injustice of the world which adores her spoilt cousin for her physical beauty while not giving a damn about the character.   

“Her beauty, her pink cheeks, and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault.”

This observation of Georgina being rewarded for her physical beauty is then reiterated by a conversation between Bessie and Abbott:  

“- a beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition” (Bessie said)

“Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!" cried the fervent Abbot. "Little darling! - With her long and her blue and such a sweet colour as she has; just as if she were painted!” 

As the reader goes on there are different instances that reflect the aversion of Jane Eyre towards physical beauty  or anyone who was beautiful because it reminds her of that which her childhood abusers had and she didn't. She comes to regard those who are beautiful as haughty and cruel, and associates them to a social class that is way higher than that which Jane Eyre occupies. 

Furthermore it is this lack of physical beauty in Mr Rochester that emboldens Jane Eyre to first talk to him. Bronte explains this by saying:

"Had he been a handsome, heroic-looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus questioning him against his will" 

Bronte then clarifies Jane Eyre's attitude towards physical beauty in these lines:

“I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would fie, lightning, or anything else that is bright but antipathetic."

But all these standards applied to everyone else she came in contact with. For her own self she wanted that physical beauty which had been denied her:

“It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance, or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer: I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason and a logical, natural reason too.”  

As for what this reason was I'll leave it to the psych majors I don't have any more words or time to elaborate on this. 

Bertha's Laughter

Bertha Mason attempts to kill her husband, rips apart Jane’s wedding dress, eventually burns Thornfield Hall and needs constant supervision of Grace Poole, yet despite her potential to create havoc everywhere, we NEVER hear her talk or utter a single word. She is always identified with laughter, something that becomes a part of Jane’s first encounter with Bertha’s mysterious presence when she comes to Thornfield Hall. This outrageous laughter may be an echo coming down from the third floor but becomes seeped in Jane and the reader’s consciousness way before Bertha’s physical appearance in the novel.

The fact that Bertha is never heard speaking to anyone makes the reader only infer about her through Jane’s thoughts or through Rochester’s long monologue about his wife and his unfortunate circumstances as her husband. Because Bertha herself is silenced and unable to defend herself through language in the novel, we see Bronte attempting to paint her picture and she does so through multiple narratives. There are first the elaborate and varying descriptions that Jane gives to Bertha’s laughter: “tragic...preternatural and mirthless” (Chapter 11), “demonic laugh....goblin laughter” (Chapter 12) “a snarling snatching sound almost like a dog quarrelling” (Chapter 15) “snatched and growled like some strange wild animal” (Chapter 26). Then, her physical descriptions and reckless state after ten years of imprisonment in Thornfield Hall are offered by both Rochester when his wife is finally revealed to everyone including the reader. And finally, there are descriptions we get through Rochester’s memory of what Bertha’s past used to look like. These descriptions though changing are very peculiar and exact in nature drawing attention to the importance and function of the mysterious figure. Bertha’s inability to talk or lack of conversation is then compensated by the many efforts made by multiple narratives of various characters. Bertha’s language is only her laughter in two-thirds of the book and it is because of her maniacal sounds that the reader too is unable to sympathize with the mysterious prisoner in the attic.

In fact, the reader at some level is frightened by this antagonist who does not talk and only makes noises, literally making her into an animal which she is often described as. But what she actually is, a white or a black woman, her exact body figure as a man, a monster, a vicious animal or something else, these lines of distinction are always blurred when it comes to Bertha Mason precisely because of there being no narrative or dialogue from her side. She remains the only character in the novel that is subjected to interpretation, speculation and suspicion by other characters and has nothing to offer about herself except her laughter. And that remains her single characteristic which stays with the reader till the very end.

Supernatural elements in Jane Eyre

At every turn in the novel, there is omnipresence of the supernatural making the reader abandon realism for a moment. The presence of such elements in the novel diverts the reader’s attention from the main theme of the novel. This element is introduced in the novel from the outset when Jane is locked in the red room on the orders of Mrs. Reed.

“..at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern, carried by someone across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift-darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings: something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke …”

It is like Jane is anticipating that her uncle’s ghost is going to show up. This causes her to scream and she faints. That is how strong her belief is that the dead can be back to visit their loved ones since she considers him to be her only relation. The red room has been associated with death:  red reflecting the color of blood and it contains a miniature of her dead uncle. Even during her presence in Thornfield, when she hears the ‘eerie laughter’ she is expecting the presence of a ghost in the house instead of a rational expectation that it could be one of the maids.

Apart from this, Jane also has a strong belief in dreams. When she has unpleasant dreams, Jane considers them unlucky. When the love of her life proposes to her in the garden, that very night the old horse chestnut tree that is there in this garden is struck by lightning and split in half. This is seen as symbolizing trouble that lies ahead for the couple.

When the ‘Other’ Becomes the ‘Mother’: A Freudian Analysis of Jane Eyre

Jane’s oedipal complex never surfaces because her parents die before her complex could have formed and manifested itself and so she does not have a father to identify with and a mother to consider a threat. Even Aunt Reed cannot be seen as Jane’s oedipal rival because in that case too since Jane’s uncle is dead, she could not see her Aunt as a real threat in her desire to marry him, the only father figure she might have had had he been alive. However, there too we can see the beginning of the formation of her complex as although she hates her Aunt (which is also primarily because of the way her Aunt treats her) she assumes that her dead uncle would have been nice to her had he been alive and would not have let her Aunt treat her cruelly.

Jane’s interaction with Rochester however led to the development of her oedipal complex. Since Rochester is a lot older than she was, Jane is able to find in him a father figure, someone she could identify with and ‘marry’. This is corroborated by the fact that Rochester is compared to a relative at many times in the novel as Jane tells us, "I felt at times, as if he were my relation" and "I feel akin to him" adding to the argument that Jane sees in him a means of consummating the forbidden sexual desire for the father. Moreover, Mrs. Fairfax observes, "He might almost be your father" at which Jane protests, "No, indeed [. . .] he is nothing like my father!"” and Rochester himself once says to Jane that he is “old enough to be [her] father”. This way Jane is finally able to find her father in Rochester and so she not only falls in love in him but also accepts his proposal to marry him meaning that for her oedipal complex was finally going to be fulfilled.

But then enters Bertha Mason. When Jane witnesses the animalistic scene between Rochester and Bertha, she unconsciously knows that she would have to leave Rochester because she sees in Bertha her oedipal rival. Since Rochester is her ‘father figure’, Bertha being married to Rochester means that Bertha becomes Jane’s ‘mother figure’ which in turn implies that Bertha becomes an instant threat to Jane. As a result, Jane unconsciously knows that while Bertha was alive and married to Rochester, she will not be able to fulfill her oedipal complex and while being in the presence and constant threat of the ‘mother’, Jane deems it best to leave and that too immediately.  

The Devilish Vices of Violence and Passion

One of the main features of Jane Eyre as a novel is its attempt to postulate the kind of Christianity the author, Charlotte Bronte, believed in. And for this reason we see certain Christian ideals being illustrated and certain vices being condemned throughout the story. I will focus on just two such instances in which the devilish nature of vices such as Violence and Passion is illustrated. The first incident occurs at Lowood during Mr.Brocklehurst’s visit and the second at Thornfield when an attempt is made on Mr.Rochester’s life.  I say devilish because these incidents are filled with reference to all that is associated with the devil.

““Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what- what is that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma’am, curled- curled all over?” And extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.”

Mr .Brocklehurst trembles on seeing the girl with the red, curled hair, as if she was the devil itself. Even though he is told by Miss Temple that the girl’s hair curls naturally he orders the hair of all the girls who have styled theirs in plaits to be cut off.  For these girls are Mr.Brocklehurst’s ticket to Heaven (“He scrutinized the reverse of these living medals, then pronounced the sentence.”) and must therefore be representative of that status. This incident taken in its entirety can be said to represent Violence as one of the vices condemned by Charlotte Bronte’s/ Jane Eyre’s Christianity.

“Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr.Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.”

Even though this second incident does not contain any references to the devil other than fire and flame, I still think that it is representative of the condemnation by Charlotte Bronte’s/Jane Eyre’s Christianity, of the vice of Passion. Passion is a vice, and a devilish vice at that, firstly because it was Mr.Rochester, the object of Jane’s passion, that is surrounded by flames, and secondly, devilish because the author could have chosen to show this murderous attempt in any other way but chose burning Mr.Rochester alive as the method of murder.

Winter is coming!

Since Jane’s arrival at Lowood, there was a frequent description of the images of winter usually in line with the barren landscapes and horrid living conditions personifying an image of being away from home. The difficulties she had to bear from poor nourishment to frozen water in the pitchers all draw upon a dreary and devastating winter. Her longings for the basic comfort in winter and the calamitous conditions of the institution make the readers ache with sympathy,

“How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got back!”

The playhour in the evening I thought was the pleasantest fraction of the day at Lowood:  the bit of bread and the draught of coffee revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger; the long restraint of the day was slackened”

but as the novel progresses, one realizes the insignificance of these things. The emotional distress and the loneliness, which Jane endured at Gateshead, made this transition easier for her. She recalls her experiences at Gateshead and compares them to this appalling winter,

“That wind would have saddened; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace: as it was, I derived a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen the darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour”

This gives reader her perspective of the circumstances. Being free excited her; she wished the winter to become darker and the winds to howl more passionately. This illustrates the vitality freedom brought to her character.  Towards the end, she quoted Solomon in her own thinking process,

 “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith”

BERTHA MASON vs.ANTOINETTE COSWAY: Comparing the Creole in 'Jane Eyre' and 'Wide Sargasso Sea'

Antoinette to Rochester: “There is always the other side, always ” (Wide Sargasso Sea)

Wide Sargasso Sea  is a prequel to Jane Eyre that attempts to imagine  the early life of the Creole Bertha Mason through the character of Antoinette Cosway. It  charts  Antoinette's journey (the later Bertha Mason), from her life in the Carribean to her marriage to Mr. Rochester who renames her Bertha, declares her mad and then shifts her to England.  In light of the aforementioned quote, I couldn’t help thinking how accurately it spells out the problem I have found in Bronte’s novel which propagates the English imagination; it simply fails to understand or domesticate the character of Bertha Mason, the Creole  or the other in this case , and ultimately sees confinement and captivity as a mean of making  that which is unknown into a non existent entity. The novel represents the colonizers vision that does not want to know the colonized subject but is afraid of unfamiliarity as well. Bertha Mason needs to be viewed as a Creole subject from the West Indies who existence is a threat to the English  establishment. This inability to truly define the Creole is found in Jane's  remark 

“What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face”

Therefore, in Jane Eyre the Creole character of Bertha Mason is at a disadvantage. It  does not have a

human identity I would say because notice how her character oscillates between different identities – “ strange wild animal”, “ a hyena”, a lunatic, and a madwoman” All these images reflect a deviation from the English norm and thus the ultimate identity of a madwoman that Rochester transposes upon her shows her as someone dysfunctional in the  English domestic setup. The treatment of Bertha in Jane Eyre as someone who is relegated and made silent, elucidates the dominant/submissive, and colonizer/ colonized, master/slave  tropes of imperialism. She never speaks for herself, others speak for her. On the contrary in Wide Sargasso Sea the character of Antoinette who represents later Bertha of Jane Eyre has a voice of her own which can speak for itself , for the Other side to which it belongs in the colonial framework- the West Indies.  Rhys the author of Wild Sargasso Sea wrote:“ When I read Jane Eyre as a child, I thought, why should she think Creole women are lunatics, and all that? What a shame to make Rochester’s first wife, Bertha, the awful madwoman, and I immediately thought I’d write the story as might really have been. She seemed such a poor ghost. I thought I’d try to write her a life.” In light of this intention , the Creole Antoniette Cosway emerges as someone who is seen as carving an identity that is denied to her in the English sphere. In my opinion, the re-imagining of the colonial Other as post-colonial Self is a device to correct the injustice of the English colonizer for subjugating and silencing  Bertha Mason. The purpose of Wide Sargasso Sea is to show  that when the Creole (Antoinette) enters the English territory,  her former self is  is repressed and suppressed beneath a new English identity which it doesn’t fit into. Thus it has no Self really in the English setup. Secondly,Bertha's madness in Jane Eyre s is seen as a result of her Creole blood: “Her mother the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard” So Antoinette again in order to rebuff the crude English  imagination and false racial stereotypes, functions in Wide Sargasso Sea  to show that her madness is not the result of her Creole blood. In fact, it is caused by unmitigated circumstances in her life and Rochester’s treatment of her. Moreover, Antoinette follows her fate, functioning within boundaries predetermined by Bronte in Jane Eyre. In my opinion, the success of Wide Sargasso Sea lies in determining whether Antoinette accepts her fate as a madwoman or not- something which ‘Jane Eyre’ remains silent about:  Antoinette does accept her situation in life to the extent that she refers to herself as the ghost within the English imagination :“It was then that I saw her – the ghost. The woman with streaming hair. She was surrounded by a guilt frame but I knew her”. This lends insight into the Creoles helplessness towards its own subjugation. Although. Bertha will show her resistance later, yet it will be a futile resistance leading to her death. Nevertheless, the Creole in Wide Sargasso Sea attempts to correct the misreading of the Creole woman in Jane Eyre,  give a voice to the muted speech of Bertha and offer a new way to look at  the  concept of madness. In short Antoinette struggles to complete the incomplete Bertha of Jane Eyre.

Domesticity and Individuality

Novels about courtship and sexuality are not only insightful in terms of defining the superficiality of relationship and marking the political and sexual territories of males and females respectively, but they talk about something bigger.  Nancy Armstrong, in her work, Desire and Domestic Fiction says

 ‘ writing about the domestic woman afforded a means of contesting the dominant notion of sexuality that understood desirability in terms of a woman’s claims to fortune and family name.’

Thus, novels such as Jane Eyre opened up this niche of individualizing women in the domestic sphere where they have the authority as well as identity. The psychological motives behind what they do and what they do not also come into play, resulting in strengthening of this individuality. Virtue also plays a very important role here as we see Jane elevating herself from the status of a maid to the wife of Mr. Rochester and this marriage does not come as a result of some claim to fortune or class transcendence. It only comes about as a result of Jane’s very own willingness and reasons that were more honorable than material.

We also see the overlapping of emotional/political realm and neither is associated with either female or a male. By the end of Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester gives up his aristocratic and political lineage and starts operating in the emotional realm which is overseen by a female Jane who has authority over him as well as the domestic sphere. Jane Eyre is indeed a woman of a lot of substance!

Mad mad world.

Bertha Mason on my first reading came off as a very one dimensional character; Mr. Rochester’s crazy wife, the obstacle to Jane’s and Rochester’s love, an arsonist.  However, Bertha Mason, who we should be calling Mrs. Rochester but we don’t, represents something far more than that. Bertha Mason represents the non-European threat to English-ness. Bertha is a Creole, her father is English but Bertha isn’t identified as white and/or English. It’s her mother’s genes that are constantly emphasized. Three generations of her mother’s family were mad and Bertha took after them. 

“Bertha Mason is mad, and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations!”
Not only does it hint at the uncivilized existence of the non- English but also implies that if Mr. Rochester had had a child with Bertha i.e. if he had mixed his pure English roots with her Creole roots, the offspring would also take after the crazy lady and would be almost animalistic.

“A figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it groveled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched growled like some strange, wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face”

The fact that Jane refers to Bertha as “it” rather than her further dehumanizes the character of Creole. Moreover, this animalistic nature is constantly reemphasized by Mr. Rochester when he refers to Bertha as “a demon” and Jane as “something at least human”.

Bertha can be seen as an antithesis of Jane Eyre. The “Portrait of a governess” should have been juxtaposed against “The madwoman in the attic” instead of “Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank”. Unlike Blanche, both Jane and Bertha are reduced to a certain characteristic: that of governess and madwoman, Jane rises above her label. Jane represents English values and sensibility; she is not a stunning woman but she makes up for it in her manner. Bertha: exotically beautiful who is admired by many is, well, completely cuckoo. Mr. Rochester makes this comparison obvious when he asks Woods and Briggs to “look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red eyes yonder”.

Bertha represents the impurification of the English by the Spanish.  Bertha Mason is what Jane Eyre is not; she represents an alien invasion of sorts into the civilized household causing only disturbance and despair. The despair that Mr. Rochester wanted to end by marrying Jane, who would set order back to the house. 

The Shepherd and Lamb

“I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.”

“But I had fastened the door—I had the key in my pocket: I

should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb—my

pet lamb—so near a wolf’s den, unguarded: you were safe.” (Jane Eyre, Chapter 20, Charlotte Bronte)

   Mr Rochester seems to love this analogy of the lamb and the shepherd. The first time that he refers to Jane as his “lamb” and to himself as a "careless shepherd" is when he leaves the "lamb" (his “pet lamb”) outside the “wolf’s den”. This idea of Jane being the little lamb, Mr Rochester as the shepherd (albeit a self-proclaimed one) and Bertha Mason as the big bad wolf seems a simplistic at first but if looked at closely it’s interesting. When Mr Rochester unleashes the bolt to Bertha’s room he literally stands between the lamb and the glaring wolf, tries to tame the wolf, compares, “the red eyes yonder” to the ‘innocent” ones of the lamb. The shepherd seemingly stands between the wolf and the lamb. But who exposed Jane (assuming that she is the lamb) to the threat of Bertha Mason, her first encounter, with the latter is when she tears the veil in to two pieces, before the wedding. Thus it is the shepherd who exposes the lamb to the wolf in the first place.       Ironically enough, the first encounter between the lamb and the shepherd is when “the little ewe lamb” rescues the shepherd. Later the lamb continues to rescue Rochester in a spring of situations, the fire scene, and the nursing-Mason scene and in the end when Rochester has lost his sight. Also the roles of the lamb and the shepherd are literally inverted whereas typically the shepherd is supposed to guide the lamb into green pastures; in Rochester’s case the “stray lamb” is to guide him away from a moral decline. This is done in two ways. Firstly due to love of the lamb the shepherd is rescued from immoral influences such as “Celine, Giacinta, and Clara” (the continental cats if we may). Added to this the shepherd is led by the lamb away from a life of sin. The lamb is a very brave one since when Rochester asks of Jane, “ Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise—’

I will be yours, Mr. Rochester.’”

  “Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours.” she says clearly and concisely. Thus when Mr Rochester asks Jane that “You wandered out of the fold to seek your shepherd,?”; he is mistaken. The shepherd in this relationship is really Jane (which leaves only the option of the lamb open for Rochester).  But what thought processes would make Rochester feel like the shepherd in his equation with Jane and refer to her as the lamb. May be a self-image, a male gaze which makes Jane ideal for him because to him Jane is "little Janet"- "the lamb".  Whatever propagated this analogy for Rochester, by the end of the novel you realize that it is a twisted one. Either Jane is the shepherd or the lamb rescues the shepherd from the big bad wolf of immorality.