Art Analysis: Bertha Mason

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The first painting portrays an image that is, "dark and large" and "flecked with foam", indicating the dark complexion of Bertha Mason, who is from the Caribbean, her imposing size, and, with the addition of foam from the rabies and madness, her own insanity. It steals from the "fair arm," (Jane) a golden bracelet studded with gems for, perhaps, a wedding band, symbolizing the failed marriage ceremony between Rochester and Jane. The sudden announcement of Rochester's bigamist relationship to Bertha snatches away the wedding band that should have been on Jane's finger, instead returning it to Bertha, leaving Jane to drown in her emotions before she resolves to flee Thornfield. In comparison, critic Mark Kinkead-Weekes argues that the paintings …show more content…

The head in the painting represents Jane, her love, and her hopes in life. The iceberg represents Rochester, his incredulity, and iciness in which can cannot “derive warmth”. Just like an iceberg, Jane can only see part of Rochester, while there is much more hiding below the surface. Moreover, this painting illustrates death, particularly of Jane’s hopes and love. Jane states: “a brow quite bloodless…and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of meaning but for the glassiness of despair”. This aspect of the painting reflects Jane’s future conflict at hearing the news of Bertha Mason and thus the death of her hopes of marrying Rochester. The imagery of death in this passage corresponds to the imagery of death in the painting. Even though Jane does not know her own future at the time she paints these watercolors and shows them to Rochester, they reflect truths about her own life and feelings in the future. Her subconscious spirit, which sees the images before she paints them, knows what her destiny holds even though her conscious self cannot be aware of it. The idea that Jane’s paintings were guided by her unconscious would be a notion greatly welcomed by Sigmund Freud, who believed art was about unconscious instincts. One of Freud’s most famous quotes: “The unconscious is the true psychical reality; in its innermost nature it is as much unknown to us as the reality of the external world,” is an accurate representation of Jane’s paintings. They are a depiction of her unconscious thoughts, just as he believed art

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