Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre has now attained an iconic status as a literary work. There are several reasons behind this achievement. The first is the inherent beauty and complexity of the novel. The twists, turns and fluctuations of fortune that comprise the plot are both original and engaging. The second most notable aspect of the novel is its female authorship. Although originally published under a male pseudonym, it is evident to the scrupulous reader that the work is by a woman, as it contains numerous insights into female psychology. Finally, the novel is at once incisive and critical of the then existing social norms and customs, which were largely unfair to women and the underprivileged. Hence, Jane Eyre is a rich source of information on English society of early 19th century. It was an era when the industrial revolution was taking shape and having far-reaching impact on economic, social and cultural life. Bronte’s classic novel captures well a society caught in this transition. We can see how, despite fundamental changes to the organization of economic activity, social hierarchies (both within and outside the family) were holding on to status quo. Reading Jane Eyre in this backdrop offers the reader interesting perspectives on sociological issues facing the England of early 19th century.
Jane Eyre belongs to the ‘bildungsroman’ (coming of age) literary genre, in that the story starts at Ms. Eyre’s youth and narrates her development and maturity into adulthood. The growth of Jane is physical, mental and spiritual. And it is this rounded development that is the key attraction in the novel. Otherwise, it might have easily turned out into a run-of-the-mill pulp romance fiction with no lasting value. One of the main issues that Jane Eyre is concerned with is gender relations. Recognized today as a pivotal feminist text, there are several symbolic as well as concrete forays into women’s issues. One of the most striking of these symbolisms is ‘the madwoman in the attic’, describing Mr. Rochester’s first wife who is mentally ill. It is through depictions of such social situations that the emancipative narrative strategies of the work come to light, whereby, the author both conceals and reveals social and psychological truths about women’s lives. For example, “their anger at being treated as sexual objects in the marriage market, and, paradoxically, their overwhelming desire to love and be loved by men with whom they can never be equal.” (Griesinger, 2008, p.30)
The case of the madwoman is a socio-literary strategy employed by other female authors of the time as well. This way, they were hinting at deeper meanings beneath surface designs that conceal or obscure such interpretations. Like Bronte’s madwoman, “these inaccessible meanings are locked up, as it were, in the “attic” of the text.” (Griesinger, 2008, p.30) It is for this rich social commentary that Jane Eyre continues to be studied by women in contemporary era. For example, the novel excels in its treatment of women’s issues, including women’s education, the plight of the governess, and equality in marriage. It should be remembered though, that while subtle feminist messages in the novel are lauded, there are more critical interpretations that question Bronte’s implicit acceptance of racism and imperialism, which are actually subversive to the feminist cause.
Another interesting facet to Jane Eyre is its comment on spirituality and Christianity. Like many contemporary writers of hers, the salvation of the soul is one of the preoccupations of Bronte’s works. Her views on the subject varied from that of novelists like Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and George Eliot, in that, she was not overtly critical of religious faith in general and the Christian doctrine in particular. During the Victorian era, evangelical Christianity was becoming an accepted form of religious propaganda. Based on what we can glean from Jane Eyre, it is clear that she was swayed by the evangelical movement to an extent. The Victorian era was a time when complex tensions existed
“between Evangelical, Calvinist, and Methodist theologies that swept through and ultimately divided the established Church of England which Bronte loved…Gallagher is the first to identify Jane Eyre as a “Christian feminist bildungsroman”. Published in 1847 when Bronte was thirty-one, Jane Eyre is at least partly autobiographical, which opens the possibility for considering how Jane’s spiritual bildung, especially in the early sections of the novel, may reflect that of Charlotte Bronte. The influence of religion on Bronte is both obvious and obscure. It is obvious that much of what she saw, heard and read was concerned with religion. It is not obvious how she originally reacted to the variety of religious beliefs she encountered.” (Griesinger, 2008, p.31)
Another factor that adds complexity to Jane Eyre is Bronte’s mixing of genres in the work. This lends the novel to sociological study from various disciplinary perspectives. One can witness an overwhelming ideological dialectic that seems to close down toward the novel’s end to an “apparently thin monological stream. Bronte’ tremendous displacement of the domestic values toward the tragic and mythical, though it falls short of ultimate achievement, gives her work a margin of superiority over that of other Victorian novelists.” (Peters, 1996, p.59) This assessment is best exemplified in the final passages of the work, where the independent and bold Jane Eyre settles down to a life in dedication of Mr. Rochester. Is this a resignation to entrenched social norms or irrational dictates of romantic love? Further,
“Has Bronte failed to extricate her vision from the apparently downward-tending “domestic” to achieve the “tragic and mythical” and therefore failed to fulfil the vision she seemed to offer women? Or is it perhaps that Bronte is raising the domestic to the level of the mythical? An examination of Bronte’s use of the Cinderella tale in Jane Eyre points to the latter conclusion: Jane Eyre fuses the domestic to the mythical.” (Clarke, 2000, p. 695)
Coming to Bronte’s comment on gender relations in her time, there is some disagreement as to what her prominent message was – novels were much more than vehicles for social change. There are passages in Jane Eyre, where Bronte seems to favour an assertive voice for women, as when Jane proclaims that “women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do.” [p.2] Yet, toward the end of the novel, Eyre has come to focus all her energies and faculties toward service to one man – Mr. Rochester. The other women in the novel don’t end up doing any emancipated project either. For example Miss Temple marries and settles to a life of domesticity. Mary and Diana Rivers visit Jane just once a year, and “even Adele, an orphan with whom Jane Eyre might be expected to sympathize, has been sent away to school because Jane’s “time and cares were now required by another–my husband needed them all” (chap. 38, p. 396). Has Jane Eyre sold her soul?” (Godfrey, 2005, p.854)
Based on these evidences it would be simplistic to conclude that the ending to the novel is tame. To the contrary, various scholars have appreciated it, pointing to several symbolic messages contained in the state of leaving Rochester injured and dependent on Jane as his “prop and guide” (Chap. 37, p. 395) Some think of it as a “symbolic castration” – a sort of precursor to Freudian psychology surrounding psycho-sexual dynamics. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, in their seminal work ‘The Madwoman in the Attic’ convey how the novel balances the emerging female rage by a conclusion “that tentatively and incompletely suggests a world of sexual equality.” (Peters, 1996, p.59) There is further praise to Bronte’s conclusion:
“Adrienne Rich describes it as presenting alternatives “to convention and traditional piety, yes, but also to social and cultural reflexes internalized within the female psyche.” The most important of these alternatives, according to Rich, is Bronte’s radically redefined understanding of marriage, not as something that “stunts and diminishes the woman; but [that is] a continuation of this woman’s creation of herself” [5] And John Maynard interprets the novel’s conclusion as “a clear assertion of loving sexual union,” achieved only after “the difficulties [Bronte] sees in sexual openness” have been overcome, and after the fears, suppressions, and repressions that drive Jane Eyre into “panicked flight” are incorporated into the complex process of her sexual awakening.” (Clarke, 2000, p. 695)
Bronte’s commentary on religious faith and Christianity is as important as her feminist thrust in the novel. There is the Biblical allegorical style that is adopted as a literary device in some places in the novel. The manner in which Bronte analyses morality and deliberates on human will power is reminiscent of the Judeo-Christian religious discourse. Bronte is also not shy of underscoring the role of the supernatural in human life. When we look at Bronte’s upbringing during her early years, these tendencies get accounted for. Her father Patrick was a preacher in St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Haworth. The interesting question is how Bronte reconciles the Church’s reactionary stance on women (even today women are not allowed to clerical positions within the Church hierarchy) with the nascent feminism that is the hallmark of the novel. One method through which Bronte was able to achieve this is via including “elements of magic and fantasy, and thus to escape the epistemologically restraining effects of realism. More importantly, fairy tale enables Bronte to reach beyond the moral and ethical constraints that Christianity sometimes enjoins upon women and to convey an alternative religious vision.” (Clarke, 2000, p. 697) In this regard, the Cinderella fairy story is one of several such that inform the novel.
One of the remarkable aspects of Jane Eyre is its subversive undercurrent behind a veneer of conventionality. For example, Jane’s rise to fortune and the suggestion of a fairy tale ending via her marriage may at first appear to affirm pre-existing class and gender identities. It may thus appear to undermine the feminist project that was pronounced in the early part of the narrative. But, a closer introspection of the text, despite the author’s compulsions to close the story on sentimental and socially conformist tones, reveals other perspectives. For example,
“the novel continues to prove unsettling in its use of gender identities and its associations of gender with class and age. Notably, while challenging gender identities, the text does more than simply transfer power from the patriarchal grasp of Rochester to the powerless hand of Jane, and it does more than feed post-Butlerian critical perspectives; the text highlights the anxieties and complexities of the Victorian understanding of gender by paradoxically dismantling and reifying nineteenth-century notions of masculinity and femininity. Jane’s roles as governess and as girl bride associate her with complex and often contradictory notions of androgyny and femininity, sexuality and innocence.” (Godfrey, 2005, p.854)
References
- Clarke, M. M. (2000). Brontes Jane Eyre and the Grimms’ Cinderella. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 40(4), 695.
- Brontë, Charlotte. 1847. Jane Eyre. London. Smith, Elder & Co.
- Godfrey, E. (2005). Jane Eyre, from Governess to Girl Bride. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 45(4), 853+.
- Griesinger, E. (2008). Charlotte Bronte’s Religion: Faith, Feminism, and Jane Eyre.Christianity and Literature, 58(1), 29+.
- Peters, J. G. (1996). Inside and outside ‘Jane Eyre’ and Marginalization through Labeling.Studies in the Novel, 28(1), 57+.