Bertha Mason as the epitome of Feminism: Re-reading Feminism
in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Pity Parker. J
Jane Eyre, the novel of
1847 interpreted as one of the greatest feminist tracts. It is also seen as a
historical account of upper-class exploitation of the then Victorian homes. Bronte’s bold redress on the right to work, mental
freedom, and economic autonomy through education, hard work, and autonomy was a
kind of radical outburst during Victorian times. Jane’s outburst against the
classical bonds of oppression especially individual freedom in opposition to
the extant misogyny ignited several debates in the literary gender discourse.
However, this kind of interpretation cannot be struck completely but the
intentions of Jane in the narrative seem far from the reality or the feminist
descriptions in the discourse. The story is a saga from Feminist anger to
feminine acceptance. Bertha Mason, an important figure in this narrative,
though her presence was just a miniature in the huge saga of Characters, it can
also be viewed as the big whale in this small pond which makes it eligible to
title the paper.
Thompson
reminds us that Women writers dominated the outburst of the novel market in Victorian
England. Though there have been in hundreds only a few significant authors of
the so called elite class or white skin seem to resonate: George Eliot, Emily,
and Charlotte Bronte¨, and, more recently, Elizabeth Gaskell. The common theme
that centres the argument, Victorian women novelists’ inherently complicated
and conflicted positions on the ‘‘woman question,’’ in conjunction with the
evolving horizon of expectations toward what we now call feminism.[1]
This
feminism being streamlined as mainstream feminism brought the tragedy on the
table. Some oppressive parts or plots of novels or stories have been
conveniently forgotten by the White feminists and are successful in
portraying their problems as the generalised problems of the world and Jane
Eyre did the same. The oppression elite women of the Victorian era are
comparatively not vulnerable as the working class or the lowest estate. It
doesn’t mean that we can absolutely neglect the oppression of the woman of that
class but racism, well infused patriarchy lingers into the narrative
involuntarily. To show an elite white skinned woman sans patriarchal ties, ‘an
orphan is shown making her own decisions, negotiating with the world, and
exploring paths. Traditionally barred to middle class girls is likely to meet
resistance or hostility, making her more plausibly a voice of feminism.’[2]
On one hand, it looks like a Picaresque but the symbol or the position of Orphanhood
is created or seemed to artificially articulate the individualism (of a class) as
the mainstream feminism. ‘Webb and Ohmann assert that Bronte is caught between
her conservatism and her radicalism, and she offers a solution to oppression
only at an individual level.’[3]
Jane is beyond doubt a
feminist figure but her feminism is vocal in the text for a consistent time but
later it seems to get diluted. There may be many reasons to prove or oppose the
point but the feminist view of Jane was contradicted by her own self in the latter
part of the narrative. To dive into the point it’s necessary to discourse for a
while certain feminist ignitions that Jane has kindled in the text.
‘Outbursts
of anger as a child and uncontrollable passion as an adult’[4]
forms the character base of Jane. Whenever Jane’s feelings are hurt she
expressed them openly and directly to the person. When young Reed flung him
with the book she was instantaneously vocal to name him ‘wicked’, ‘cruel boy’,
‘slave driver’, and ‘murderer’[5]
‘The servants did not like to offend their young master by taking their part
against him’[6],
and so Miss. Abbott cautions Jane of her shocking conduct to which she
aggressively questions, “How is he my master? Am I a servant?”[7]
This viewed through the feminist eye can be viewed as a rebellion against the
patriarchal norms but the paradoxically herself calls Young Reed in the
autobiography (which readers read as Jane’s story) as Master. Reed. Her
outburst of ager as a child is also evident with her dialogue with her aunt-
‘I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if anyone asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty’[8]
The above statement of Jane is a
strong punch to the patriarchal oppression. ‘Jane must abdicate roles within
the economic, religious, and educational institutions of her society. She must
become an institution in her own right’[9]
Living up to the readers’ expectations Jane chose Lowood to her aunt’s home to
have some independent air to breathe. Her Child’s anger was vocal even in
Lowood. When she has been watching Helen punished she couldn’t resist herself
opining, ‘If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I
should break it under her nose’[10].
Her criticism of gender roles continues even after she enters Thornfield. In
Chapter XII where the author introduces Thornfield reminds us-
‘Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow- creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex’[11]
This feminist anger doesn’t languish
for long. The entry of Mr. Rochester into the scene brought out the traditional
women’s nature of the Victorian era. Jane’s quest to be independent, to love
and to be loved, to be at the service of others, and to be free is shattered by
the culmination of governess relation to romantic with Rochester. ‘Jane's
aspirations for freedom and economic independence are now transformed into a
"wifely vocation" more suitable and socially acceptable for a woman’[12]
We start hearing submissive phrases from Jane from thereon like ‘Can I help you
sir – I’d give my life to serve you’[13]
The personality of Jane takes a symbolic shift where she by employing immense
tactfulness, uses the sufficient independence of Rochester as a way of keeping
him tied to her and even she staying tied to him.
Throughout this narrative, Bertha
Mason and Grace Poole remain silent. Any reader can admit that Jane is fighting
for her right to exist and express herself. If Feminism is equality for
everyone, it is significant why these victim’s voices have been silenced. The
account of Bertha in the story is also from the oppressor i.e., from Rochester
and not from any third person so there can be no slightest chance of genuine in
the account, and Jane who has been hailed as a torchbearer of Feminism here
doesn’t even try to know an impartial account of Bertha. Sangeeta views her as
‘an embodiment of unrestrained sexual license, a symbol of Rochester's misspent
youth’[14]
and Helen Moglen calls her an ‘androgynous figure’[15]
Jane herself describing Berthas says, ‘She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling
her husband, and corpulent besides.’[16]
Thus it can be understood that Bertha is a kind of Masculine, Black visage and
also of the same height as her husband. Bronte
using the words 'Vampyr,' 'a demon,' 'a hag,' 'an Indian Messalina,' and 'a
witch' " for the portrayal of
Bertha shows cultural, [racial], as well as a religious, attitude toward
female passion and overt sexuality as a dangerous force that must be punished and
confined.[17]
In addition, the treatment of the character reveals a Victorian antipathy, an
aversive, contrary feeling, harboured toward the colonized woman.
In contrast to Jane’s longing for
upward social mobility through romantic relation with Rochester, Bertha seems
to strongly communicate something by burning the veil gifted by him. She still
found it not conveyed burns the bed symbolically to show that the comfort that
the master shows would burn away with time and cautions Jane to remain
independent but not get into his bed. It may be a personal account of vengeance
that bertha shares and it is finally the revealing Bertha’s marriage that
emancipated Jane from getting into the patriarchal chains.
The feminist seeds seem to sprout
when Jane starts earning at Moor’s house. She even calls the occupation she
held at Moor’s house as more independent than the role of a governess she has
undertaken at the Thornfield. She opines –
‘In truth it was humble—but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding— but then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent’[18]
This independence doesn’t languish
longer. The concept of benefaction that she strongly opposed and rejected
earlier was embraced by Jane soon after her news of benefaction is known. The
words she spoke soon after the reveal of benefactor ship reveals the
patriarchal nature that was unfortunately inherent or indoctrinated in Jane’s
mind that she reads out the chart of gender roles of Victorian women saying
-
'My first aim will be to clean down (do you comprehend the full force of the expression?) to clean down Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to rub it up with beeswax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chop ping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come.'[19]
The same Jane that accepted
Georgiana to be called ‘vain and an absurd animal’ for accepting to get married
to the man of inheritance, after becoming a benefactor or rich run to Rochester
to profess herself economically equal with Rochester. 18th and 19th
century novels, virtue and inner worth are ultimately recognised by
inheritance, and through marriage. ‘The events in Jane life precede the women’s
property act of 1870; meaning that any money acquired or inherited by Jane
would effectually belongs to Rochester upon their legal marriage’[20].
So, it is clear that Victorian women including Jane cannot be termed
economically independent after marriage. Marriage has been used as an enslaving
instrument by the men to lock women in chains of patriarchy and Jane finally
fell into that.
The feminist critics who hail Bertha
for teaching a lesson to Rochester by making him blind have conveniently forgotten
the fact that he blinded readers making Bertha a devil. Bertha in order to
emancipate innocent Jane to get into the patriarchal Jane administered by
Rochester sacrificed herself to the funeral pyre but the feminist agenda of the
text died with the death of Bertha. The self-sacrifice of Bertha went in vain that
Jane shouldered the self-sacrificing the womanly pursuit of nurturing and
nursing Rochester. The economically independent Jane turned interdependent.
The earlier anger against patriarchy
is cut off by Jane’s submission in the last chapter with the statement,
‘Reader, I married him’[21]
She now declares that ‘my time and cares are now required by another – my
husband needed them’[22]
and society moves away from the picture and becomes the same absurd animal like
Georgiana. Jane’s ideal pursuit has now changed to fit the role of an ideal
wife and in particular an upper class, white skinned wife. She starts to sleep
in the bed burnt by Berth and waters herself in the tears scarificed by Bertha.
The traditional criticism of Jane Eyre has often been race-blind, class-blind, and gender-blind resulting in short-sightedness in feminist, Marxist, and ideological interpretations. The novel is about a victim Jane Eyre (not the heroine) whose ignorance pushed her into patriarchal bonds and the story of an eternal soldier Bertha Mason who scarificed herself for a feminist cause.
***
[1] Diane Thompson, Nicole.
Victorian Women Writers And The Woman Question. Delhi: Cambridge University
Press, 2000.p.i (Print)
[2] Parashar, Sangeeta, "Not
fit to associate with me": contradictions of race, class, and gender in
Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre" (1999). Retrospective Theses and
Dissertations. 16147. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/16147 pp.38-39 (Web)
[3] Ibid, pp.8-9
[4] Awaliah, Indah. (2017). Gender
Issues In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Eternal (English, Teaching, Learning
and Research Journal). 3. 107-117. 10.24252/Eternal.V31.2017.A11. p.111 (Web)
[5] Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Noida: Om Classics,
2021. p.13 (Print)
[6] Ibid, p.12
[7] Ibid, p.14
[8] Ibid, p.39
[9] Armstrong. Desire and Domestic
Fiction A Political History Of The Novel. Newyork: Oxford University Press p.
46 (Print)
[10] Bronte, Charlotte, p.59
[11] Ibid, p.114
[12] Parashar, Sangeeta, p.45
[13] Bronte, Charlotte, p.209
[14] Parashar, Sangeeta, p.6
[15] Ibid, p.6
[16] Bronte, Charlotte, p.301
[17] Parashar, Sangeeta, p.26
[18] Bronte, Charlotte, pp.364
[19] Ibid, pp.400-401
[20] Owsley, Lauren. (2013).
Charlotte Brontë’s Circumvention of Patriarchy: Gender, Labour and Financial
Agency in Jane Eyre. Brontë Studies. 38. 54-65.
10.1179/1474893212Z.00000000052. p.56 (Web)
[21] Bronte, Charlotte, p.460
[22] Ibid, p.462
Works Consulted
Awaliah, Indah. (2017). Gender Issues In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Eternal (English, Teaching, Learning and Research Journal). 3. 107-117. 10.24252/Eternal.V31.2017.A11. (Web)
Armstrong. Desire and Domestic Fiction A Political History Of The Novel. Newyork: Oxford University Press (Print)
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Noida: Om Classics, 2021. (Print)
Camilla V. Pheiffer & Maiken S. Myrrhøj. Feminist Theory and Feminist Literary Criticism: An Analysis of Jane Eyre and The Handmaid’s Tale. Master’s Thesis in English. 3 June 2019 https://projekter.aau.dk (Web) Accessed 16 Jun, 2021
Diane Thompson, Nicole. Victorian Women Writers And The Woman Question. Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2000. (Print)
Gao, Haiyan. "Reflection on Feminism in Jane Eyre." Theory & Practice in Language Studies 3.6 (2013). https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.735.6412&rep=rep1&type=pdf#page=64 (Web) Accessed 18 Jun, 2021
London, Bette. "The Pleasures of Submission: Jane Eyre and the Production of the Text." ELH 58.1 (1991): 195-213. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2873399 (Web) Accessed 18 Jun, 2021
Nancy, Pell. Resistance, Rebellion, and Marriage: The Economics of Jane Eyre, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Mar., 1977). University of California Press http://www.jstor.org/stable/2933083 , pp. 397-420 (Web) Accessed 18 Jun, 2021
Owsley, Lauren. (2013). Charlotte Brontë’s Circumvention of Patriarchy: Gender, Labour and Financial Agency in Jane Eyre. Brontë Studies. 38. 54-65. 10.1179/1474893212Z.00000000052. (Web) Accessed 16 Jun, 2021
Parashar, Sangeeta, ""Not fit to associate with me": contradictions of race, class, and gender in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre" (1999). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 16147. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/16147 (Web) Accessed 14 Jun, 2021
West, Megan. Bertha Mason and the Politics of Feeling, University of California, California Digital library, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0r4255x9 (Web) Accessed 16 Jun, 2021
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