“I resisted all the way: a new thing for me…and like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.” [Pg. 12.]
The above quotation is taken from Chapter Two of Jane Eyre. Jane has been sent to the ‘Red Room’, (the room in which her uncle died,) following a passionate outburst after being hit by her older cousin. There, believing to have been visited by her uncle’s ghost, she has a fit: an experience that the narrator describes as one that deeply affected her in adulthood. Charlotte Bronte, through use of literary rhetoric, marks Jane’s departure from the Reed household to Lowood- a charity school for girls, which makes this incident in the ‘Red Room’ so significant.
Given that Jane Eyre was published in the period known to history as ‘The Hungry Forties,’ when the Chartists were protesting for an improvement in the conditions of workers; and that it was written in the aftermath of the slave-emancipation of the 1830s, it is easy to read Jane’s rebellion against religious hypocrisy, patriarchy and class-oppression, as a reflection of these tumultuous events. Indeed, the opening quotation could be used to support this, and it is also interesting to note that the novel was viewed as such by a contemporary reviewer, Elizabeth Rigby. In 1848, she argued that the spirit in which Jane Eyre was written, mirrored “the tone of the mind and thought which has over flown authority…violated every code human and divine abroad, and fostered Chartism and rebellion at home…” But for every reader who interprets Jane Eyre as an embodiment of this rebellious spirit, there are yet more who argue that the book takes place in a private world; that any references to greater social and political spheres are purely coincidental. There is some truth in this line of thought. Unlike the social-problem novels of the 1840s, by such writers as Dickens, depicting the deprivation of large communities, Jane Eyre focuses solely on her narrator, and her struggle to attain independence, whilst making it clear that these events where occurring in a hostile environment. However, it is precisely this struggle that has prompted the novel to be identified as an example of the female “bildungsroman” (a literary genre which focuses on characters’ inner development and personal growth,) and it is this private battle that has caused Jane Eyre to be acclaimed by feminists as a radical subversion of social conventions. Rebellion, like charity it seems, begins at home. Our heroine is redeemed as a rebel spirit.
When Jane is eighteen she leaves Lowood to become a governess for Rochester’s ward and falls in love with him. This is reciprocated and he eventually proposes. In a bizarre twist, Jane finds out on her wedding day that Rochester is already married to Bertha, (a lunatic,) who he has incarcerated at Thornfield. Unwilling to become his mistress, Jane leaves in secrecy and is forced to live as a vagabond until she is taken in by Rivers and his two sisters: she later finds out they are her long-lost cousins and that she has been left an inheritance by her uncle. They live in harmony for some time until Rivers proposes to Jane, and asks her to become a fellow missionary. Jane is unable to accept because he only wants to marry her for convenience, and she is still in love with Rochester. Not long after this she experiences a vision that Rochester is in trouble and so travels to Thornfield, only to find that it was burnt to the ground by his wife who died. Rochester survived the fire but is left maimed and blind. She goes to see him; they are united and they all live happily ever after- (or do they?)
It has been pointed out that by some feminists that the novel ends conventionally with Jane in the role of Rochester’s caregiver- a typical role ascribed to women. This is augmented by the fact that Jane refers to Rivers and his missionary work in the last chapter, which some readers have interpreted as a sign that Jane regrets her decision in marrying him. Consequently many find the fusion of the romantic and the bildungsroman plots to be in conflict with each other. However, it is possible that the two plots can be reconciled if a little time is spent considering one of the novel’s intertextual references, alongside the concept of ‘realism.’
The term realism is one usually associated with literature that spends a lot of time describing the physical world; however, the term is not quite so stringent. What could be classed as realist can be placed into one of two categories: correspondence and coherence. While correspondence realism places emphasis on the hard facts, coherence realism highlights how an individual’s perception of reality and being is found through personal development. Given the strong case that has been made for Jane Eyre as a pioneering example of the bildungsroman, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the novel therefore represents the spirit of rebellion that lies behind the physical depictions of the oppressed poor’s suffering, as noted by Rigby. This brings me to the intertextual reference.
When Jane meets her new pupil for the first time in Chapter Eleven, Adele insists on performing a song with a theme of a woman forsaken in love, which Jane deems inappropriate for a child. The song is succeeded by Adele reciting an animal fable by La Fontaine, entitled The League of the Rats, in which a group of rats attempt to defeat the predatory cat and fail. The fable is worthwhile considering in the opening chapters, Jane herself is referred to as a “bad animal,” a “rat” and “a mad cat” [pgs. 9, 10, 12.] When considering the significance of intertextual references there is always a danger of overlooking their original context. Yet in this case, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that Fontaine’s fable is included by Bronte to make a statement on how female passion and sexuality were regarded by patriarchal society: male writers had often used anthropomorphism, or animal imagery, when trying to depict women’s sexuality. Because women have often been associated with the physical (and thus lower) aspects of nature, on the surface it would seem that Bronte is endorsing age-old stereotypes about women, especially when one considers the role of Bertha as Jane’s double. Bertha is hysterical and uncontrollable, and when unleashed, manages to destroy Rochester’s estate and herself. But Jane is not like Bertha. One of the stages of her journey is discovering the passionate side of her nature. Indeed, it is because of her love for Rochester she is forced to leave stable employment, which in turn causes her to find her relatives and inheritance. Unlike Bertha’s, Jane’s passion is able to function in society. This therefore contradicts and subverts the Victorian ideologies that associated women’s sexuality with madness, which meant it had to be constrained to prevent catastrophe.
With regards to fables and ‘realism’ it is worthwhile pointing out that fables originated from ancient Greek literature, and so it is not a hindrance to consider some of the ideas from Plato’s works about what literature is and where it comes from. In Ion he argues that poetry comes from inspiration, which stems from the abstract realm of senses. This contrasts with the realm of ‘Form and Ideas’ which require reason and knowledge to be understood. Poetry, (literature) is therefore irrational. We can see much of this in Jane Eyre because Bronte frequently uses the personification of nature to visually demonstrate a change in events or the characters’ emotions; (indeed the name ‘Eyre’ is a pun on ‘air’ which is in itself elemental.) These ideas can be linked with the possibility of viewing the novel as a piece of coherence literature, because it places emphasis on the individual’s intuition and how they respond to their surroundings, not vice versa. Perhaps even more telling is that because Plato believed that ‘poetry’ was not constrained by the rational world, it was a threat to social stability. In the Republic he even goes so far as to recommend that all poetry should be banned in order for an ideal society to exist. While we may not agree with his ideas concerning censorship, he is right in that he points out literature’s subversive quality, and his ideas go a long way in helping us to understand Jane as more of a rebel than a demure Victorian version of a Stepford wife. Indeed, she had the choice not to stay with Rochester, and while it may seem that she has chosen a role of conventionality, her story of a one woman defying every prejudice, demonstrates how there’s only so far lone individuals can go when they choose to rebel.
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