Q: “Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” is a typical product of the Victorian Literary and historical era.” How true do you think this is?
Initially Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” may seem like the typical Gothic Victorian novel of its genre. However, we soon discover that in this novel, Bronte turns the Gothic traditions of her time upside down. This was achieved in a variety of ways. For example, Bronte chooses to write the novel as a fictional autobiography with a first-person narrative. In doing so, Bronte avoids the use of dramatic irony (where the reader is presented with information the character him/herself does not know) since we experience the events in Jane’s life through her eyes, and in chronological order. On the other hand, suspense in a typical Gothic novel is built up with the use of dramatic irony, something which is not possible if a story uses a first-person narrative.
It should be noted that most of Jane’s experiences in the novel are a mirror of Bronte’s life experiences themselves. For example, Jane’s time at Lowood and the loss of her friend Helen Burns are parallel to Charlotte Bronte’s experiences at school with her siblings. At school, Bronte lost 2 of her sisters to tuberculosis – the same disease Helen Burns died of. However, we should be wary of equating Jane Eyre exactly with Bronte herself; not all of Jane’s experiences are necessarily a reflection on Bronte’s life.
One should know that a typical Gothic novel of Bronte’s time would have a plotline as such – in which a fair and helpless maiden is abducted and imprisoned in a castle by a dark and uncouth villain. The castle is known as a place filled with fear and other mysteries. The maiden, after going through many harrowing experiences, is then rescued by her true lover – typically a “perfect” young man who returns her home safely. In Jane Eyre, however, this is not the case. Jane is far from helpless, as we have seen on many occasions in the novel. As a child, she struck out against her aunt for the unfairness she had received while living at Gateshead, “…your wicked boy struck me – knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you are a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. You are deceitful!“ (Page 33)
This therefore attests the fact that Jane is not a passive person. More of Jane’s independent character is soon seen in her two rejections of her suitors – say, when she first rejects becoming Rochester’s mistress (after Rochester’s cover-up of Bertha Mason is exposed). A “helpless” Jane would rather succumb to her heart’s desires for love and would have gladly given up her dignity (mistresses those days were frowned upon) to be with Rochester. However, she does not – if we look at Victorian times, a woman who lived with a man without marriage would lose the respect of others as well as her own. Therefore, one can say that Jane’s emotions are balanced with the sense/wisdom that she has acquired over the years.
Later on, when St John asks for Jane to marry him, she rejects on the grounds that she feels St John is imposing and repressive. We can feel that St John presents the prospect of marriage as an obligation rather than something Jane is free to choose (or not.) As Jane said about St John when he “ordered”, on one occasion, that Jane learn Hindostanee and give up her pursuit of learning German:
Would I do him this favour? I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his departure. St John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent.
(Page 421)
As the story comes to a close, we see that Jane does indeed marry Rochester. This time, though, she does it with the pride and conviction that this is what she truly wants in life – and she can do so free from the guilt & stigma of being seen as a mistress who succumbs to her emotions, or the unhappiness and lack of freedom that would have come about by Jane living with the “saintly” yet cold St John.
It should be noted, though, that Bronte did not entirely abandon Gothic influences while writing this novel. Bronte was highly influenced by the books she had read in her time, and at the time, Gothic novels were known as popular reading. Drawing on these influences, “Jane Eyre” does in fact contain some gothic descriptions. The “dark, mysterious castle” which is common in most Gothic novels may not be present entirely in Bronte’s novel – but Bronte conveys the same mystery through her descriptions of the red-room, as well as Thornfield Hall:
The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery; suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.(Thornfield hall; Page 98-99)
Besides architecture, Gothic descriptions also include nature. Bronte includes that by using pathetic fallacy, where the natural surroundings somehow correspond to the storyline. Just after Jane accepts Rochester’s proposal, we read about the horrendous weather that followed – as Jane recalls, “[the chestnut tree] writhed and groaned; while wind roared in the laurel walk”, and “Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adele came running in to tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away.” Later on, Bronte (through Jane) recalls about the state of the chestnut tree in detail – descriptively saying that “community of vitality was destroyed – the sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead.” The ghastly descriptions of nature prior to Jane’s wedding to Rochester somehow serve as a pointer of the threats on their impending marriage – after all, Rochester did try to marry Jane while his wife was still living, and the ceremony came to a halt.
The Gothic descriptions in the book extend to people as well – in particular, Bertha Mason, the wife of Rochester. We read that “what it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell” – which gives the reader a feeling of mystery. Jane goes on to say that “it groveled, 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.” The repeated usage of “it” used to refer to Bertha Mason makes it clear to the reader that Bertha’s looks and mannerisms are too repulsive for her to be seen as a human being – hence the “it” reference normally used with non-humans or animals. In nutshell, the lack of respect for Bertha’s character is evident.
It should be noted, though, that even though both Jane and Bertha have their faults, Bronte makes us view both of them differently. With Jane, Bronte lets us see the cruelty that Jane has had to endure most of her life – both at Gateshead and at Lowood. With Bertha, however, all we get is Rochester’s account of Bertha’s background; which happens to be vague and may be even biased – therefore, we are more repulsed by Bertha than we are by Jane’s flamboyance. However, Jean Rhys’ 1966 novel “Wide Sargasso Sea”, which serves as a “prequel” to Jane Eyre, allows for the reader to empathise with Bertha (it talks about her life with Rochester before she became mad.) Perhaps we can say that had Bronte allowed for a bit more insight into the character of Bertha Mason and her life before, we would have more empathy for her. Or even if the story were presented in the third-person rather than the first-person narrative used, we might have felt slightly less respect for Jane.
Victorian novels also commonly pointed out some of the social and moral problems of their time in their storylines. In Jane Eyre, Bronte chooses to subtly speak out against the social problems in that era through Jane’s life experiences. Jane’s refusal to become St John’s wife clearly reflects Bronte’s dissatisfaction with the role or “fate” of middle-class women in the Victorian Era: either by becoming financially dependent on a husband, being a dependent in a house by working as a governess, or confined to the drudgery of a schoolteacher’s job – all of which undermine a woman’s intellectual strength. This dissatisfaction is also shown through Jane’s lament on the lack of “challenge” in her job at Thornfield Hall:
…I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs Fairfax, and what was good in Adele; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wish to behold.
Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.
(Page 111)
Clearly, Bronte is attesting that opportunities for Victorian women are few and far between – even if there are any, they do not allow women to display their full potential. Women were instead made to look weak and passive (akin to the heroines in typical Gothic novels.) In the novel, Jane meets two people with equally strong wills and minds – her employer, Rochester; as well as St John, who is later found to be her relative. While she is drawn to both of them because she herself shares those traits, the similarities between both men end there.
Rochester is someone who treats Jane as an equal and not someone below him – even though he is her social superior and she works for him. St John, however, has too much pride to even see Jane as someone who is free to decide her own life for herself. He instead makes Jane take a guilt trip when she refuses to accompany him to India as his wife. Jane recalls that the way St John spoke to her, hinting for her to change her mind, was like such – “he had spoken earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep – or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is responsible.“ In general, St John looks down at Jane and feels superior over her. Both men proposed marriage; but one does it out of pure love (regardless of background/social status) whereas the other presents it like a “should-do” task.
As the storyline progresses, we also see how Bronte hints for a change in the conventions of literature in her time. The young Jane, who was influenced by the books she read at Gateshead, had a lively imagination – one which plagued her with nightmares as she was locked in the red-room as a punishment. During her time there, she “began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed” and became very frightened, subsequently ending up “violent and repulsive” as her Aunt Reed put it – and then fainted. Later on, Jane’s nightmares have decreased – but we see them again in Thornfield just before her wedding; where Jane sees Bertha Mason rip her wedding veil in her dreams – which later turns out to be real. However, at the close of the novel, we see that Jane is finally “at peace” with her life and there are no more nightmare. Likewise, Bronte grew up having read countless Victorian Gothic novels – but when she wrote “Jane Eyre”, she shed some of the many influences that she had picked up from her time. Therefore, Jane’s maturity could also be deemed as a mirror of Bronte’s views on her own transition into adulthood – where both Jane and Bronte shed the fantasies they have had in the past to embrace a more serious outlook on life. This can also be interpreted as Bronte’s message to the public to embrace other (“more mature”) forms of literary enjoyment instead of the all-too-familiar Victorian Gothic romances
All in all, I feel that Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”, while still possessing certain Victorian Gothic traits, is not a typical product of its time. By creating and developing the independent character of Jane, as well as using different literary techniques, Bronte breaks conventions of Victorian Gothic romance to produce a very engaging and educational read.
