The peak of socialist ideology dawned during the industrial revolution when class divisions were constructed to rule the labor force. Charlotte Bronte places the protagonist, Jane Eyre, in the position between lower and upper class to critique social injustices. This world Bronte has created for her is polluted with tyranny, disease, deception, and a false sense of the afterlife. Bestowing Jane Eyre such hardships to overcome does well to scrutinize the oppression of a capitalist world. And what better way to forge such a thought than to structure the center of this capitalistic corruption in the one nation that spawned the industrial revolution itself? The novel Jane Eyre exposes the tyranny of a capitalist society as the young woman meets with a variety of characters from a number of backgrounds and classes. These characters are doomed by their environments established by class division.
The novel also interrogates men of faith, like St. John and Mr. Brocklehurst, and questions their intent on religious principles. It is very reasonable to interpret a Marxist reading of this book for that very fact. Though, Marxism was not a political ideology at the time, the oppression by the wealthy still remained. Throughout history, oppression has been upheld with a ruling social class over a lower class by religious devices to deceive the masses. Many characters in this story represent those religious devices as well as economic tyrants and the victims they exploit. That is why a Marxist can use this novel to uncover the true nature of class division.
The beginning of the novel itself does well to demonize the upper class. Jane Eyre is bullied by her cousin John for her orphan status which leads to a violent confrontation. Mrs. Reed holds Jane Eyre responsible for this fight and she is thus punished by confinement to the red room, despite John being the instigator. The red room is engulfed with imagery as an overbearing room that haunts Jane Eyre with a ghost. This can signify a dungeon-like chamber for a child. It becomes the prison for Jane Eyre and what she represents: the lower class. It is a place where countless souls may have met their doom, represented by the ghost; even though the ghost is thought to be that of Reed lineage, it also represents the death that the estate brings. Jane Eyre is a character who will not allow this dungeon to destroy her, despite the constant forms of torture she may receive.
Jane Eyre is also often referred to as an animal, a rat, or less than a servant, having no purpose. She is an orphan. A charity case. Any family relations she may have are of poor wealth, thus she represents the epitome of the lower class, the lowest of the low. Yet, the example of a classis novel can be seen better when analyzing the characters around Jane Eyre and how they interact. When John first strikes Jane, she yells, ” ‘You are like a murderer-you are like a slave-driver-you are like the Roman Emperors!’ “(Bronte 23). This bold statement truly characterizes John’s tyranny. Indeed, he comes to represent the tyranny of the wealthy aristocrats over the weak peasants. Like the Romans, John is an oppressive slave-driver. No matter that they are in a different time and place, tyranny remains the same.
Of course, Jane Eyre is fortunate enough to have the wealthy Mrs. Reed take care of her, despite her tyrannical discipline and a henchman for a son. This allows the reader to understand what oppression of the rich over the poor is like in this simplified context between Mrs. Reed and Jane Eyre. This illustrates how Jane Eyre was raised to be weak and obedient. Susan Fraiman makes the case that the characters are products of their environment. Hence, Jane Eyre looks down upon herself being brought up in the overbearing Reed household. While John Reed himself is physically superior by comparison because he is a product of an environment that spoils him as the heir to a mighty household: “He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks” (Bronte 22). Thus, not only does he represent an oppressing force, but illustrates how people who contribute nothing to society as a whole are wrongfully allowed to inherit wealth. John’s environment, though as aristocratic as it may be, nurtured his corruption. As a last act of cruelty in the Reed home, the aunt sends Jane Eyre off to a charity school sullied with disease for her supposed disobedience.
The school, Lowood, comes to represent the actual society of a lower class setting. The children dress very plainly, are discouraged from any form of independence in their style, like natural hair curls, and are drilled repeatedly over the Bible and piety. It is a prison for unwanted children where many have died in large groups by consumption and the sponsors of the school have little care. The mass of deaths exposes the deception and truth behind established religious hierarchies who claim to work for charity. It is not necessarily charity that the children receive, but death. The only charity that they are allowed is the illusion of an afterlife. Jane Eyre, however, is cynical to this afterlife.
When asked by the head of the school, Mr. Brocklehurst, how she intends on avoiding hell, Jane Eyre is prompt to use the best answer possible. She does not seek to give a pious answer or one of spiritual enlightenment, but simply says, ” ‘I must keep in good health and not die’ “(Bronte 43). Jane Eyre makes no attempt to apologize for her parentless existence. She is contempt with the fact that hell maybe waiting for her. As such, she will leave Lowood when she matures to seek the world of the living. It is in this world where she will find her purpose in life: living. This will turn out to be a better life than submitting to the will of religious authorities such as Mr. Brocklehurst.
In conjunction with this, Helen Burns embodies the consequence of letting religious authorities conquer the lower class. Helen Burns is a character who is often punished by Miss Scratchered for meager things. Yet, Helen is not offended. Her mind has been brainwashed with promises of paradise and God’s forgiveness. She says, ” ‘Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you’ “(Bronte 68). Helen has no desire for revenge as Jane Eyre has for Miss Reed. This illustrates the deceit behind religious teachings when dealing with a Marxist interpretation. It is the school teachers and master who use religion to raise a stock of children fooled by Christian hierarchal principles which includes taking no vengeance for oppression. Helen is the peasant who is fooled by these aristocrats.
Jane Eyre, however, represents something else, even though Helen Burns is one of her very good friends. Despite this friendship, she does not accept Helen’s spirituality and faith in the after life. This is portrayed when Jane Eyre questions the promise of paradise after death, ” ‘Where is that region? Does it exist?’ ” (Bronte 90). This gives Jane Eyre the Marxist spirit to question the promises by a hierarchy that controls her life. Instead of believing fully in the promises of paradise in exchange for faith and obedience, this girl takes on the more practical approach. She takes care of herself. She must not die in order to avoid hell. In order to keep free and true to herself, Jane Eyre must avoid the religious principles that allow girls like Helen Burns to accept death.
Later, Jane Eyre must confront another oppressive force of a class society: the institution of marriage. Her first gentlemen caller becomes her employer, Mr. Rochester. The Rochester family has a history of blood shed, as described by Mrs. Fairfax, ” ‘the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves’ ” (Bronte 113). This rather warlike tradition explains the environment of Mr. Rochester’s class and character.
Rochester appears to be a very blunt character that is fueled with aggressive businessman tenacity to own his world. As such, he must own the people in his world. He even adopts a French catholic girl, Adele Varens, and moves her to a foreign nation in which she has no knowledge of the language or culture. Though, he does this because Adele’s mother had abandoned her, the plot of Rochester’s past thickens. He took Adele’s mother, Cecile as a mistress once, but Rochester denies being the father. Even so, Rochester breaks off his relationship with Cecile because she had cheated on him. However, it was an affair that the two had, not a marriage. This further illustrates his need to own people. The true mark of a capitalist.
Another such woman that bears the mark of Rochester’s property is the “madwoman” Bertha. The question that arises is if Bertha has always been insane or if she was driven insane by Rochester. Her ethnicity as a Creole can possibly given implications over her fall from sanity. Perhaps she was born into a different culture that resulted in her madness in an attempt to assimilate in England. Not too different from what Adele must go through. In either case, she is a doomed character that has similar tendencies as Rochester. In the article “Bronte’s Jane Eyre,” the claim that Bertha and Rochester share a certain aggression, “Rochester’s penchant for violence is not the only mark of passion that demonstrates his similarity to his wife. In terms of their sexual appetites as well, Bertha and Rochester bear a remarkable resemblance to one another;…his series of mistresses and his swift disgust with and disposal of these women (328-29) demonstrate a predilection for sexual self-indulgence that seems to parallel the “vices” of his captive wife” (The Explicator 151). Whether or not Rochester is the cause of Bertha’s madness, it is apparent that the two have fed off of each other’s appetite for destructive satisfaction. Since, Rochester is the one who is still recognized as a sane gentleman, it is reasonable to assume that he has some handling in Bertha’s behavior. In conjunction with this, Rochester has kept Bertha as his secret bride, refusing to commit her to an insane asylum, which further illustrates his need to possess people. Of course, Rochester is not the only character that desires to dominate people as slaves.
Perhaps the epitome of religious authority is encompassed in St. John’s character. This is a religious man who upholds the principles of ambition and austerity. He is very domineering and religious. His marriage proposal to Jane Eyre in conjunction with missionary work Jane would venture on as St. John’s wife gives conflict. With St. John she will have a sense of satisfaction and stability, but no love or passion to fulfill her inner desires. Jane Eyre describes what a marriage to St. John would be like,
There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came; and sentiments growing there, fresh and sheltered, which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample down: but as his wife-at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked-forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital-this would be unendurable (398).
A marriage to St. John would make her into what Rochester always claimed her to be, a nun. A very normal subservient life will be the destiny of such a marriage. Therefore, St. John is another representation of a man that desires to own people. He is also doomed by the normality of his oppressive environment. The sheer fact that St. John is so strict explains how religious authority takes on this austerity to keep the masses under control. Therefore, being normal becomes submitting to a dominant force. Jane Eyre has no love for this kind of normality, which gives her the revolutionary zeal of a Marxist.
Jane Eyre follows a different path of spirituality. She must remain true to herself and what she believes is God’s calling; not some dogmatic doctrine written by male rulers. In Lamonaca’s article, “Jane’s Crown of Thorns: Feminism and Christianity in Jane Eyre,” “Jane demonstrates that women-true to one facet of Evangelical doctrine-must experience God directly, “through the heart,” despite Evangelical models of feminity and gender which, paradoxically, denied women this very possibility. God’s voice doesn’t simply fall out of the sky into Jane’s lap, however; clearly she has had to learn discernment. Jane Eyre levels another subtle criticism against male spiritual authority in the fact that Jane seems to learn her “religion of the heart” not from the male clergymen of the novel, but from the women” (Lamonaca: 151). Lamonaca explains that religion that requires a tyranny to rule is not a religion worth having faith in. That spirituality cannot be defined and that those who attempt to do so, such as St. John, are using religion to exploit people. “Despite St. John’s apparent sincerity and sterling virtue, both he and Brocklehurst preach a religion of the Letter, or Law. Their God is a supernatural magistrate who damns sinners for disobeying the Word” (Lamonaca: 151).
Yet, St. John is also a victim of his own religion. He is the loyal servant of an institution that has converted other peoples as a way of enforcing rule upon them. The very fact that St. John goes to India on missionary work, proves this. The British crown had built an empire across the world, one of the major colonies being that of India. One of the largest components of British imperialism was the exportation of Christianity, an institution that produces methods to civilize other cultures in their vision. Though St. John believes that he is doing God’s work, he is also performing the work of the British Empire in assimilating other peoples. A good example of this is the quote, ” ‘Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me’ ” (Bronte 440). This describes who St. John is and what he thinks of himself: an apostle like figure, carrying on the works of Christ. However, from a Marxist point of view, this can be interpreted as something worse. Instead of self sacrifice, it is the self delusion that St. John allows himself to become. St. John is the laborer denying himself passion in order to carry the cross. The cross he carries is the work he does for the Empire. While Jane Eyre marries a man she feels very passionate for, St. John shall end up dying alone for a God that so coincidentally is worshiped by an empire that wishes to conquer the very land St. John is attempting to convert.
Jane Eyre definitely gives implications of imperialism of the British Empire, class divisions, and religious manipulations. Though, at the time the Marxist theories had yet to be manifested, the oppression Karl Marx exposes are within this novel. As mentioned before, this is the beginning of the industrial age, the age of labor classes, and the age of Empire. All of these factors are relevant to the novel. Jane Eyre is raised by a wealthy family, but treated as a member of the poor society, such as her father. She was brought down by religious figures along with an aristocrat who has a history of using women. Yet, she managed to rise above it all. She did not subject her life to that of a religious figure’s wife, much as woman who would join the nunnery. Rochester himself loses his sight, and thus is subject to Jane Eyre’s grace. The balance of power has shifted to a woman who has been dominated most of her life. All those who had oppressed her eventually meet their doom, such as Mrs. Reed. Her story is much like that of many Marxist heroes who have thrown off the shackles of oppression.
Work Cited
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press. New York. 1996.
“Bronte’s Jane Eyre.” The Explicator. No. 3, 149-151. September 2003.
Friedman, Susan. “Jane Eyre’s Fall from Grace.” Jane Eyre. Bedford Books of St.
Martin’s Press. New York. 1996.
Lamonaca, Maria. “Jane’s Crown of Thorns: Feminism and Christianity in Jane Eyre.”
Studies in the Novel. No. 3, 245-263. Fall 2002.
