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The Oppressed Female in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë clearly demonstrates the relationship between sexuality and morality in Victorian society through the character of Bertha Mason, the daughter of a West Indian planter and Rochester's first wife. Rochester recklessly married Bertha in his youth, and when it was discovered shortly after the marriage that Bertha was sexually promiscuous, Rochester locked her away. Bertha is called a "maniac" and is characterized as insane. Confining Bertha for her display of excess passion reinforces a prevalent theme in Jane Eyre, that of oppressive sexual Victorian values. Bertha's captivity metaphorically speaks on the male-dominated Victorian society in which women are inferior and scorned for acts of nonconformism.
For the first half of Jane Eyre, Bertha is only known to the reader through her nearly phantasmal presence&emdash;the peculiar laugh, and the mysterious incident in which Rochester's bed was lit on fire. Only after the foiled wedding of Rochester and Jane, in which Mr. Briggs and Mr. Mason appear unexpectedly declaring that the wedding should not proceed, does Rochester explain to Jane that he has a living wife detained on the third floor of Thornfield Hall. "He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door: this, too, he opened" (327). "In a room without a window" Bertha is found living as a wild animal sequestered from everyone but her caretaker Grace Poole. Like a ferocious beast, she is even tied down and bound.
Throughout the novel there are similar images of the restrained female, an example being Jane's detention in the "red-room" at Gateshead Hall. Both Jane and Bertha were ...
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...otypical woman of the Victorian era who courteously and obediently allowed herself to be dominated by males. Through the depictions of the incarcerated female, Brontë speaks on the ills of an unjust society. Brontë's representation of Bertha as a wild, chained, and trapped animal and the symbolic use of fire reflect the difficulties women had in expressing their sexuality in an era in which men dominated and in which women played the role of the obedient, confined, and inferior being.
Works Cited and Consulted:
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York, Penguin Books, 1997.
Gates, Barbara Timm, ed. Critical Essays on Charlotte Bronte. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990.
Okin, Susan Moller. Justice, Gender and the Family. United States of America: Basic Books, 1989.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Rights of Women. Everyman's Library Edition.
While examining nineteenth-century female monster, Susanne Beacker reveals that she remains a mere idea, a “voiceless textual object” in women’s gothic texts whose happy endings close to the retribution and exorcism of the monstrous woman and the entrapment of the heroine in the patriarchal system (72). In this context, DeLamotte contends that: Like the Good Other Woman, the Evil Other Woman often spends much of her life hidden away in the castle, secret room, or whatever, a fact suggesting that even a virtuous woman’s lot is the same she would have merited had she been the worst of criminals. The heroine’s discovery of such Other Women is in the one case an encounter with women’s oppression-their confinement as wives, mothers, and daughters-and in the other with a related repression: the confinement of a Hidden Woman inside those genteel writers and readers who, in the idealization of the heroine’s virtues, displace their own rebellious
Analyse the methods Charlotte Brontë uses to make the reader empathise with Jane Eyre in the opening chapters. Reflect on how the novel portrays Victorian ideology and relate your analysis to the novel’s literary content.
Within Jane Eyre lies an explicit reference to the tale of Bluebeard. When first exploring the dark hall of Thornfield’s third floor Jane tells us, "I lingered in the long passage to which this led [. . .] with only one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle" (114; ch. 11). This allusion is not a casual one, for the plot of Jane Eyre has much in common with the tale of Bluebeard. Bronte uses Bluebeard to foreshadow Rochester’s first wife, Bertha, being locked away from society in a hidden room on the third floor. This reference also in part alludes to ideas of women’s obedience and how not following the patriarchal rules of society can lead to punishment. Bertha is isolated from society and held captive in a secret room because she is not the model wife and acts out despite her husband. This relates to Bluebeard because he murders his wives once they become disobedient. Bertha does die in the end of Bronte’s novel, though not at the hands of her husband. But even being isolated from society and held captive can be viewed as a symbolic death. Also Jane herself is often punished for not following the rules of patriarchal society. Bronte brings this poor treatment of women by society to light in the novel and shows her rejection of it through the characters of Jane and Bertha.
The destruction, injuries and losses were not the only things to worry about after Andrew. Only hours after Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida, looting began. People were taking advantage of others in this moment of crisis, stealing the few possessions that were left. The Clintons, President Bush, at the time, Governor Lawton Chiles were the leaders that came to see the magnitude of this disaster. Seeing the situations in the aftermath of Andrew, troops were sent in to protect and help distribute food, water, clothes and supplies. They also provided medical help. People had guns and were not afraid to use them to save what little they had left. A curfew was established to keep people off the streets and out of trouble.
Brennan, Zoe. "Reader's Guide: Bronte's Jane Eyre." Ebrary. Continuum International Publishing 2 2010. Print. April 28, 2014
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre chronicles the growth of her titular character from girlhood to maturity, focusing on her journey from dependence on negative authority figures to both monetary and psychological independence, from confusion to a clear understanding of self, and from inequality to equality with those to whom she was formerly subject. Originally dependent on her Aunt Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester, she gains independence through her inheritance and teaching positions. Over the course of the novel, she awakens towards self-understanding, resulting in contentment and eventual happiness. She also achieves equality with the important masculine figures in her life, such as St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester, gaining self-fulfillment as an independent, fully developed equal.
Santiago is, undoubtedly, crafted as a Christ figure, from his innocence to his crucifixion. His innocence is derived from the narrator’s doubt and the doubt invoked in the reader, that Santiago deflowered Angela prior to her marriage; he is murdered for this reason. In the novella, Santiago attempts to flee from Pedro and Pablo Vicario once he realizes that they are out to kill him; unfortunately, he does not make it into the safety of his home. As the stabbing progresses, Santiago stops defending himself and lets the brothers continue “knifing him against the door with alternate and easy stabs” (Márquez 118). With the surrender of Santiago, the entire town became horrified “by its own crime” (Márquez 118).
Bertha and Mr. Rochester were set up and pressured into marrying each other. Mr. Rochester claims that isolating Bertha in a secret room is a justifiable act because of her mental instability. However, The Bertha that the reader gets to see exhibits an accumulated maniacal rage as a result of her imprisonment. Jane describes her as a savage woman. The very sight of her when she attacked her brother or when she ripped the wedding veil traumatized Jane. However, Bertha impacted more than her safety. When Bertha is revealed to be Mr. Rochester’s wife, Jane finds out that despite the love she and Mr. Rochester have for each other; Jane can be nothing more than a mistress because it is illegal to divorce an insane women who is not in control of her actions.
Jane's oppression begins at Gateshead Hall while living with her Aunt Reed and cousins. For most of her time there, she chooses submission to all their cruelties because she has no choice really. She is a little child with no money and not living relatives that she knows about. John Reed is terrible to her; he teases Jane cruelly and tries to harm her. Jane sees "in him a tyrant: a murderer" in the instance when he yells at her for reading his books and then throws the book at her, drawing blood (13). This is when Jane decides not to remain passive and submit to these cruelties, but to revolt fully against him. She insults him back and physically fights with him. As a result of this, however, Jane is forced to submit to even greater oppression by Mrs. Reed; she is locked in the red-room like an animal. She tries to revolt, but she is unable to accomplish anything at all while locked in the room, except for becoming ill with fear of the room.
Jane Eyre’s inner struggle over leaving an already married Rochester is the epitome of the new "lovemad" woman in nineteenth-century literature. Jane Eyre is the story of a lovemad woman who has two parts to her personality (herself and Bertha Mason) to accommodate this madness. Charlotte Bronte takes the already used character of the lovemad woman and uses her to be an outlet for the confinement that comes from being in a male-dominated society. Jane has to control this madness, whereas the other part of her personality, her counterpart, Bertha Mason, is able to express her rage at being caged up. As what it means to be insane was changing during Bronte’s time, Bronte changed insanity in literature so that it is made not to be a weakness but rather a form of rebellion. Jane ultimately is able to overcome her lovemadness through sheer force of her will.
The similarities between the two fire scenes might lead one to suspect that they are in some way parallel, yet their differences discount this oversimplified view. Both fires are set by arsonists described as insane. Bronte's Bertha is "the mad lady, who was as cunning as a witch" (Bronte 435). Rhys's Antoinette recalls "a horrible noise sprang up" from the attacking freedmen, "like animals howling, but worse" (Rhys 38). This madness, however, serves different purposes for each scene. Bronte uses madness to further degrade Bertha to the level of bestiality and insanity, a theme which she develops from the very moment the character is introduced until her fiery death in the destruction of Thornfield. By reducing Bertha to a single dimension, Bronte uses Bertha not as a character but as a tool with which to manipulate the flow of the plot. Rhys, however, uses madness toward a diffe...
With the death of Bertha, Jane is now able to live with the man she loves. Bertha's death precedes a successful union between Rochester and Jane. When they are finally reunited, they are equal (Showalter 122). When Rochester and Jane finally get together, their relationship succeeds due to the fact that he has learned how it feels to be helpless and how to accept the help of a woman (Showalter 122).
...t on earth. I hold myself supremely blest - blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine" (Bronte 519). Every hardship and trouble Jane endured, from Gateshead to Morton, amplifies the perfect balance between passion and reason Jane receives at the end of the novel. Jane achieves this balance by being with the one she loves the most without any complications of reasoning. Her internal conflicts between Mr. Rochester and St. John Rivers contained many complications including Mr. Rochester's mad wife Bertha, not being in love with St. John, and her own sense of self-respect. Bronte successfully reveals this balance at the end of the novel by Jane receiving a large amount of money, allowing Jane to be with Mr. Rochester without Bertha, Jane discovering she has family, and Jane starting her own family with Mr. Rochester.
Charlotte Bronte utilizes the character of Bertha Rochester to interrupt Jane’s potential happy ending with Mr. Edward Rochester. Bertha is announced by Mr. Briggs as a way to stop the wedding and it also shows how hopeless Jane’s situation is. “That is my wife “said he. ‘Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am ever to know—such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure hours! And this is what I wished to have,’” (312) and “’I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout,’” (312) are quotes that express Mr. Rochester’s reasons for trying to remarry while he already has a wife, meanwhile showing his disposition towards said wife. Had Mr. Briggs and Mr. Mason not been present for the ceremony, Jane may have lived happily in ignorance. Due to Bertha’s involvement however, Jane could never truly call herself Mr. Rochester’s wife. She says, “’Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire—I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical—is false.’” (323) This quote shows that as a result of Bertha’s exposure, Jane refuses to marry Mr. Rochester. The influence that Bertha’s brief debut had on Jane’s life was significant enough to hinder the growth of her relationship with Mr. Rochester.
Bronte’s Jane Eyre is brimming with feminist ideology rebuking Victorian-Era gender-roll ethics and ideals. As a creative, independent woman with a strong personality and will growing up during this period of female repression, Bronte wrote Jane Eyre as a feminist message to society. She criticizes the average, servile, ignorant Victorian woman, and praises a more assertive, independent, and strong one. She does this through her protagonist Jane, who embodies all of Bronte’s ideal feminine characteristics. She is a strong woman, both mentally and physically, who seeks independence and is in search of individuality, honesty, and above all equality both in marriage and in society in a world that does not acknowledge women as individuals.