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Charlotte Bronte, ​Jane Eyre​ (1847)
Historical Context
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Published under pen name Currer Bell
Critique of Victorian assumptions about gender and social class
Situated in the Victorian period, an era of rapidly changing culture and thought economic prosperity (and great poverty), imperial expansion, political reform, and
industrialisation
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94)
Significance of the marriage convention - union of Jane and Rochester dictates most
action in the novel - Jane exhibits radical possibilities (independence etc), but these are
foreclosed by the conventional ending
Metacommentary of Victorian values - particularly rage at patriarchal system
Themes - Love vs
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retrospection
serves to highlight what is important, also with use of gothic/supernatural/melodrama
- Older Jane’s gaze rests longingly on Gateshead Jane, sympathetic
- Interpolating commentary - rational and perceptive
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1),​ ‘Reader, I married
him’ (ch
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223)
Jane’s rebellion against societal values largely renders the novel a revolutionary feminist
work, although her marriage to Rochester ultimately satisfies convention and grants her
stability/success as a protagonist of bildungsroman, not as a woman
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Genre
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Realism - ​describes the world of existence through eyes of a realistic character
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106), the thoughts behind her paintings are
‘elfish’​ (p
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g in the Red Room
Suppressed female sexuality, and fear of the consequences of sexual emancipation
The Gothic genre a medium for presenting states of oppression and inner consciousness
Bronte embraced Gothic style (unlike Austen who depicts Emma as the exemplary
realist hero), but still wanted realism to prevail - through Jane’s plainness that shows
control and mediates Rochester’s Romantic connotations
Doubling of Jane and Bertha, Jane as a child at risk of ‘becoming’ were it not for her
repression and adherence to normal values
- Parallels between the two women - Jane’s inner conflicts and turmoil represented
in Bertha’s uncouth, savage actions - anxieties about her match with Rochester,
night before her wedding day, just as Bertha rips the veil
Tendency to use bathos used to undercut fantasy
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Suspended Revelation
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Original editions published in 3 volumes (a triple decker) - encouraged suspension
through the cliffhangers at end of a volume (Jane saves Rochester from fire the
wedding; reunion with Rochester)
Peter Brooks - the ​‘anticipation of retrospection’
Bildungsroman driven by suspense and the question of Jane’s fulfilment, drive towards
resolution
The narrative throughout leaves reader guessing and wondering, spurred on only by the
narration of older Jane looking back, which suggests a final resolution
If Victorian readers are troubled by unorthodox radical ideas early on (elevate social
status, equal desires as woman), the ending reconciles any conflict and portrays a final
endorsement of conventions - in terms of gender and class
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20?) - constant digression, pauses,
incomplete thoughts
- “Good-night, my-" He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me
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95)
- ‘The Angel in the House’ - poem depicting the image of the ideal Victorian woman/wife submissive, meek, pious, constricted - to what extent does Jane fulfil? - she is too angry,

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emotional, desiring of liberation - compare to Moll Flanders as the ‘fallen woman’ and her
story’s dissent against sexual prudence (though it predates Jane Eyre)
‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an
independent will’ ​- novel acknowledges female restrictions and subsequent defiance,
but does not offer revolutionary or hugely liberated solutions
Strong heroine - she knows her worth and importance of real love, fears that in marrying
St
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’​ passage - under-fulfilment not only of
female existence, but all human existence
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Jane notes the disparities between her and Blanche Ingram; draws ‘Portrait of a
Governess, disconnected, poor and plain’ and ‘Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank’
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Steadies her own
emotional and mental faculties
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- Jane’s time at Lowood allows her status to be elevated somewhat
- Sinks to a low point when forced to flee Thornfield and Rochester then regains
status after inheriting money
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Jane
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Embodies the transitional Victorian period, pursuit of discovery - worldly and individually
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those agitating for greater rights and individualism in society
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Deeply unconventional yet deeply moral
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Jane wants not only to survive but to be recognised as equal with men, that she is just
as deserving as they
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After she leaves, Jane is left lonely but grows
excited to ​‘seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils’
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It acted as her ‘transient stimulus’
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Where she once yearned after fairytale illusion and its
magic, after her time in Red-Room she identifies instead with Gulliver, as the wandering
soul, rootless
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Her punishment marked the end of her childhood
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Her life is far from a paradigm, thus driving her
need for self-actualisation
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Penniless, helpless orphan by the Reeds; and attempts to construct her into an ideal

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wife by Rochester
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Rochester wants to dress her
lavishly, ultimately control her identity and silence her
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Generally, Jane resists, but falters and conforms temporarily
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Sexually uncontainable since childhood, concomitant to her social and physical escape
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She is gratified and ​‘ceased to pine after
kindred’
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She finds a peaceful coexistence with Rochester, not a radical existence but
a secure, free one
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Also hates the thought of ‘marrying above her station’
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The failed marriage renders her a
‘cold, solitary girl again’
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- Her own desire to stay is self-condemned as madness, rather than basic human
Self-realisation comes in final section of novel, when Jane is at her lowest; an outcast
wandering the moors
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Rochester
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Byronic hero → romantic but arrogant, tormenting, often unpleasant; mysterious
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His collapse on the ice → lowers him to Jane
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Possessive of women, says to Jane​ ‘I mean shortly to claim you’
Exerts sexual power over Jane to persuade her to stay, ‘he seemed to devour me with
his flaming glance’
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Bertha
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Creole, ‘discoloured face’, seen as alien, self-willed, untrustworthy
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Depicted in language that degrades and dehumanises → ‘it’, ‘hyena’
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‘Savage’ ripping of the veil; symbolises virginity,
Rochester embodies the traditional, archaic attitudes towards the mentally ill
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Bronte is in many ways subverting of convention, but this does not extend to Bertha
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Bertha’s Gothic disruptions are Jane’s rebellions on a large scale
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- Bertha is a gross inflation of Jane
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But perhaps it is important not to conflate Bertha and Jane → denies Jane of her
individual progress and survival
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“All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the
rest of me from your presence forever
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“There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your
presence is an addition to their comfort
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‘My times and cares were now required by another - my husband needed them all
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Maurianne Adams -​ ‘the impossibility of reconciling Jane’s desperate need to be loved, to
be useful, with her less urgent venturesomeness and independent curiosity

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