|
Just as Emily Dickinson's life gave rise to the
Myth of the Recluse, so the Bronte homelife gave rise to the Myth of the
Lonely Geniuses and to stories which sentimentalized the three Bronte sisters
and demonized their homelife. For instance, there is the story that their
father, a minister, fired his gun in the house. Another story runs that while
his wife, who had born six children in seven years, lay dying, he destroyed
her only silk dress. Stories like these are now regarded as false.
Nonetheless, it is true that their homelife was difficult. Their
mother died when Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and their brother Branwell were
children; the two oldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died young. Branwell
was a drug addict and an alcoholic whom Charlotte, Emily, and Anne nursed
through his collapses, his psychosis, and his final days. The devoted sisters
found support and companionship in one another; at night, they read their
novels and their poems to one another. Their society did not encourage women
to fulfill their talents. The twenty-year old Charlotte wrote to Robert Southey,
the poet laureate, for his opinion about writing. His response shows the
barriers facing women writers: "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's
life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties,
the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and a recreation."
Conventional wisdom held that men and women had separate
"spheres" and duties, with woman's sphere being the house, family, and self-sacrifice.
The popular image for the ideal woman was "the
Angel in the House," who was expected to be devoted and submissive to
her husband. The Angel was passive and powerless, meek, charming, graceful,
sympathetic, self-sacrificing, pious, and above all--pure. The phrase "Angel
in the House" comes from the title of an immensely popular poem by Coventry
Patmore (1854), in which he holds his angel-wife up as a model for all women.
Granting this view of women, it is not surprising that the sisters
adopted pseudonyms to hide their sex when they published their poems and
novels. They chose names which were not obviously masculine: Acton Bell (Anne
Bronte), Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte), and Ellis Bell (Emily Bronte).
When Jane Eyre was published in 1847, it became
a bestseller. The reviews were on the whole favorable. There was much speculation
about whether the writer was a man or a woman and whether the Bells were
really three persons, two persons, or just one person. When it became known
that a woman had written such a passionate novel and seemed so knowing sexually,
the reviews became more negative.
The reviewer for the Atlas praised the novel:
This is not merely a work of great promise;
it is one of absolute performance. It is one of the most powerful domestic
romances which have been published for many years. It has little or nothing
of the old conventional stamp upon it ... but it is full of youthful vigour,
of freshness and originality, of nervous diction and concentrated interest.
The incidents are sometimes melo-dramatic, and, it might be added, improbable;
but these incidents, though striking, are subordinate to the main purpose
of the piece, which is a tale of passion, not of intensity which is most
sublime. It is a book to make the pulses gallop and the heart beat, and to
fill the eyes with tears (1847).
The reviewer for the Rambler expressed a
criticism that was made against all the Bronte novels--coarseness. The reference
to "grosser and more animal passions" is a roundabout way of saying "sex."
Jane Eyre is, indeed, one of the
coarsest books which we ever perused. It is not that the professed sentiments
of the writer are absolutely wrong or forbidding, or that the odd sort of
religious notions which she puts forth are much worse than is usual in popular
tales. It is rather that there is a tendency to relapse into that class of
ideas, expressions, and circumstances, which is most connected with the grosser
and more animal portion of our nature; and that the detestable morality of
the most prominent character in the story is accompanied with every sort
of palliation short of unblushing justification (1848).
The conservative Eliza Rigby, writing for the
Quarterly Review, assumed a connection between unrestrained passion
and political rebellion:
Jane Eyre is throughout the personification
of the unregenerate and undisciplined spirit, the more dangerous to exhibit
from that prestige of principle and self-control which is liable to dazzle
the eye too much for it to observe the inefficient and unsound foundation
on which it rests. It is true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength,
but it is the strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself.
No Christian grace is perceptible upon her.
Altogether the autobiography of Jane Eyre is preeminently an anti-Christian
composition. There is throughout it a murmuring against the comforts of the
rich and against the privations of the poor, which, as far as each individual
is concerned, is a murmuring against God's appointment--there is a proud
and perpetual assertion of the rights of man, for which we find no authority
either in God's word or in God's providence--there is that pervading tone
of ungodly discontent which is at once the most prominent and the most
subtle evil which the law and the pulpit, which all civilized society in
fact, has at the present day to contend with. We do not hesitate to say
that the tone of mind and thought which has overthrown authority and violated
every code human and divine abroad, and fostered Chartism and rebellion
at home is the same which has also written Jane Eyre (1847).
Underlying this harsh criticsm is a fear of social
unrest. In 1847, the working classes were organizing political protests
in England, as well as on the Continent. The Chartists, regarded by the
affluent classes as revolutionaries threatening the foundation of government
and order, were demanding such rights as the vote for working men, a shorter
work week, and a secret ballot. In 1848, political protest erupted in so
many revolutions on the Continent that historians call it the Year of Revolutions.
Jane Eyre is obviously written from the first person
point of view or "I." When the
novel was initially published, the subtitle was An Autobiography,
and Currer Bell was identified as the editor rather than as the author. The
subtitle was dropped in subsequent editions of the novel.
In general, a first person point of view has the advantages of being
a constant point of view and helping to make the work consistent; also,
it tends to give authority and credibility to the narrative, since the person
telling the story observed and/or was involved in all the incidents. Its
drawbacks are that the story is limited to what the narrator saw or heard
and to the narrator's interpretation of the other characters. Because the
action is completed before the story begins, the narrative may not be as
vivid as fiction using other points of view, and the characters and action
may seem more distant.
Jane Eyre has the virtues of this method; most readers accept
Jane's interpretation and explanations of herself, the other characters,
and events. However the problem of too great an aesthetic distance does not arise. Jane's
emotional intensity and openness cause the reader to identify with her,
so that her experiences and feelings temporarily become those of most readers.
This novel presents a number of conflicts and struggles
within Jane and between Jane and other characters, conflicts which must be
resolved for her to achieve self-fulfillment and happiness:
- Reason and common sense range against feeling
and imagination. Jane must learn to subordinate her passions to her reason.
She must also learn to control imagination, which may take the form of superstition,
as when she is locked in the Red Room. When she is a child, her passions
erupt unchecked, with both positive and negative results.
- Jane's need for love is so great that, according to Charles
Burkhart, "Love is a religion in Jane Eyre." A closer scrutiny of
Jane's romantic relationships raises the question of whether they are really
power struggles for control and, perhaps, show some sado- masochistic tendencies.
- She must also learn to adapt her desire for experience and
independence to her dependent position.
- An orphan, she suffers the humiliations of being dependent
on the charity of wealthy relatives. Though as an adult she supports herself
as a teacher and a governess, she insists on her status as a lady and struggles
with feelings of inferiority. She alternates between submission and rebellion,
between passivity and self-assertion, between restraint and freedom.
- Jane's quest for self-fulfillment is tied to her spiritual
growth. When divine love and human love prove incompatible, Jane is forced
to choose between them.
Jane as child and adult is the outsider who searches
for family and place. She can also be seen as the
Other.
It has been suggested that at least part of the appeal of Jane
Eyre comes from its fulfilling common fantasies and wishes. According
to this theory, we feel that we are orphans, that the family we are living
with is not our real family; we want to punish the parents (and other authority
figures) who thwarted childhood desires by saying "no" to us; we desire
wealth and the perfect mate. Jane Eyre fulfills these desires and
dreams, and it justifies the punishment of cruel authority figures like Aunt
Reed and Mr. Brocklehurst, who deserve what they get. Think about this theory
as you read the novel and decide whether you agree with it.
The image clusters running through this novel are fire, the moon,
the weather, windows, and mirrors. Jane's paintings serve to characterize
her and her situation.
It is hard for the modern reader to see the innovative
aspects of this novel because they have become familiar to us. Unlike her
sisters, Charlotte rejected the convention of the beautiful heroine. While
writing Jane Eyre, she told them, "I will show you a heroine as plain
and as small as myself." She succeeded in her goal and established a trend
of ordinary-looking or unattractive heroines. Also Jane Eyre is
one of the first novels to present a child's experiences as the child saw
and felt them and to trace that child's development into adulthood.
Charlotte
Bronte: An Overview.
An excellent site. Discussion of themes, setting, symbolism,
characterization, narration, genre, religion & philosophy, etc.
Jane
Eyre and A Vindication of the Rights of Women.
A comparison of the ideas of Bronte's novel and Mary Wollstonecraft's
book. You may find the discussion of Jane Eyre useful.
The Novels:
Jane Eyre.
A rich site. Scroll down to discussions of settings, superstition
and spiritualism, sickness and health, love and passion, nature, and other
topics. The site also includes the e-text of the novel, though I don't recommend
reading this novel online.
|
