Seeking a Place for Life in Brontë’s Jane Eyre
The best novels, like the best people, are conflicted. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Erye is certainly no exception. At times, the novel seems almost at war with itself, an impression that may be explored only narrowly in this venue. Jane Eyre navigates a complex and treacherous territory between various extremes, mapping these spaces in rich detail for her “dear reader”. The novel unfolds on the boundary between the old, hierarchical social order of the ancient regime and the emerging autonomy of a more modern sense of self. It undertakes various pilgrimages through places where women are struggling (with varying degrees of success) to claim a meaningful freedom while living under the decisions of now-absent men. Perhaps most urgently, it seeks a fertile ground between hopeless extremes of human possibility – between passion (the “dark” madness of Bertha Mason) and reason (the logocentric rationalism of St. John Rivers).
In the end, Jane seems to have at long last found such a place to stand. One might wonder why Brontë, at the very end of the novel, returns to the story of St. John Rivers. For Brontë (and presumably for her contemporaries), the trajectory of unmediated passion is obvious enough—Bertha’s life consumed in it’s own burning unreason, a fate requiring no further explanation for the Victorian mind—but the internal logic of St. John’s choices remains less clear. Brontë needs to work out the destiny of a man like St. John, who has predicated his life on a turning from heart to mind, from human pathos to divine logos. Jane Eyre is finally an inquiry into the possibilities for human wholeness. At the novel’s close, Brontë turns to the cold and lonely gran...
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...ochester is no simple “happy ending”. Brontë’s Victorian critics were acutely sensitive to the rage that had accompanied Jane’s life, and were at a loss to understand her rejection of what must have seemed to them a lofty exemplar of Christian morality in St. John Rivers. The careful contemporary reader might note the curious violence that surrounds the final trajectory toward Jane’s conclusion: “My Edward and I, then, are happy” (385). Perhaps this resolution represents an incomplete (and somewhat forced) amalgamation of conflicting elements, rather than a reconciling synthesis. But Jane does ultimately come to the place she has yearned for; she finds a way to create a life for herself and those she loves, under the grace of a God of ordinary things.
Works Cited
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. 1847. Ed. Richard J. Dunn. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2001.
In Stephen Dunn’s 2003 poem, “Charlotte Bronte in Leeds Point”, the famous author of Jane Eyre is placed into a modern setting of New Jersey. Although Charlotte Bronte lived in the early middle 1800’s, we find her alive and well in the present day in this poem. The poem connects itself to Bronte’s most popular novel, Jane Eyre in characters analysis and setting while speaking of common themes in the novel. Dunn also uses his poem to give Bronte’s writing purpose in modern day.
Lydon, Susan, ‘Bronte Studies’, Abandoning and Re-inhabiting Domestic Space in Jane Eyre, Villette and Wide Sargasso Sea, Volume 35 Issue 1 (01 March 2010), pp. 23-29
There is a lot of talk about who is the greatest basketball player to ever set foot on a court. Born December 30, 1984, LeBron James is often in the mix of this conversation. Like most successful people today, LeBron had it rough growing having to move from apartment to apartment. His father Anthony McClelland, an ex-con, did not step up to the plate of fatherhood, leaving his mother Gloria James to raise him on her own. When LeBron was just a sobbing baby she bought him a miniature goal, not knowing she was creating one of the best ball players of all time.
Jane Eyre is about a girl named Jane who struggles to find who she really is and with it what she really wants. “As a model for women readers in the Victorian period and throughout the twentieth century to follow, Jane Eyre encouraged them to make their own choices in living their lives, to develop respect for themselves, and to become individuals” (Markley). One of the reasons why this book gained merit was because of its striking presence within its time period. During the “Victorian Age” woman did not have much say in society, so this novel broke boundaries to societal norms that restricted woman from things they have today. “Brontë is able to enact this tension through her characters and thus show dramatically the journey of a woman striving for balance within her nature.
Jane spends her first 10 years of her life at Gateshead Hall, a lavish mansion. She lived with her Aunt, Mrs Reed, and three cousins, Eliza, Georgina and John. During her time in the mansion she wouldn't dare argue with the mistress, and fulfilled every duty. Jane is deprived of love, joy and acceptance. She is very much unwanted and isolated.
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. 3rd ed. New York: The Modern Library. Bronte, Charlotte. "
This novel was one of the most radical books of the Victorian Era. It portrayed women as equals to men. It showed that it was possible that men could even be worse than women, through John and Jane. It taught the Victorians never to judge a book by its cover. The novel would not be as successful were it not for Charlotte Brontë’s talent in writing, and were it not for the literary devices employed.
Eventually, she returns to her former employer, discovering Thornfield in ashes, Mrs. Rochester dead, and Mr. Rochester blind and free from wedlock. Flooded with motifs, Jane’s continual struggles between her passions and responsibility prevail as the main theme of Bronte’s entrancing narrative. From the introduction of Jane’s orphan life, she battles between her ire at cousin John’s antics and obedience to Aunt Reed’s reluctant guardianship.
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.
Jane Eyre has been acclaimed as one of the best gothic novels in the Victorian Era. With Bronte’s ability to make the pages come alive with mystery, tension, excitement, and a variety of other emotions. Readers are left with rich insight into the life of a strong female lead, Jane, who is obedient, impatient, and passionate as a child, but because of the emotional and physical abuse she endures, becomes brave, patient, and forgiving as an adult. She is a complex character overall but it is only because of the emotional and physical abuse she went through as a child that allowed her to become a dynamic character.
Bronte wrote Jane Eyre to emphasize her beliefs behind the purpose of women, and how society lacked to understand them as who they were created to be. The issue of lack of opportunity for women to engage in intellectual preparation and continuation is prevalent within the character of Jane. Expectation of women’s role was a social norm, with a lack of diversity or individuality. Bronte challenges this issue through the character of Jane, whom experiences a tug-of-war sensation between being herself, who she wants to be and should be, and what society wants her to be, and pushes her to be. Bronte was trying to explain that women have the same capability as men to be productive individuals of society, but they are held back from establishing their potential. The most unique understanding of Bronte’s challenge to society is the understanding that the characteristics and personality of Jane as a female is shamed and criticized, however these features are identical to those of a successful and representable man in
Immediately from the start Bronte’s character Jane is different. She is an orphan, mis-treated and despised by her family. She has no clear social position, is described as “less than a servant” and treated like one. A protagonist who one would assume had no characteristics worth aspiring too. Jane is displayed perfectly in her hiding behind the curtain. She is placed by a window, which beyond is icy and cold, contrasting immensely from the inside of the fire and warmth. A clear statement of the icy coldness of the family she has been put to live with, and her fiery and passionate nature which we discover th...
In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte uses various characters to represent aspects of reason and passion, thereby establishing a tension between the two. In fact, it could be argued that these various characters are really aspects of her central character, Jane. From this it could be argued that the tension between these two aspects really takes place only within her mind. Bronte is able to enact this tension through her characters and thus show dramatically the journey of a woman striving for balance within her character. As a prerequisite for marriage, Jane uses this determination in her relationships with Mr. Rochester and St. John.
The novel, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, has a plot that is filled with an extraordinary amount of problems. Or so it seems as you are reading it. However, it comes to your attention after you have finished it, that there is a common thread running throughout the book. There are many little difficulties that the main character, the indomitable Jane Eyre, must deal with, but once you reach the end of the book you begin to realize that all of Jane's problems are based around one thing. Jane searches throughout the book for love and acceptance, and is forced to endure many hardships before finding them. First, she must cope with the betrayal of the people who are supposed to be her family - her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her children, Eliza, Georgiana, and John. Then there is the issue of Jane's time at Lowood School, and how Jane goes out on her own after her best friend leaves. She takes a position at Thornfield Hall as a tutor, and makes some new friendships and even a romance. Yet her newfound happiness is taken away from her and she once again must start over. Then finally, after enduring so much, during the course of the book, Jane finally finds a true family and love, in rather unexpected places.
Similar to many of the great feministic novels of its time, Jane Eyre purely emerges as a story focused on the quest for love. The novel’s protagonist, Jane, searches not only for the romantic side of love, but ultimately for a sense of self-worth and independence. Set in the overlapping times of the Victorian and Gothic periods, the novel touches upon both women’s supposed rights, and their inner struggle for liberty. Orphaned at an early age, Jane was born into a modest lifestyle, without any major parent roles to guide her through life’s obstacles. Instead, she spent much of her adolescent years locked in imaginary chains, serving those around her but never enjoying the many decadences life has to offer. It is not until Jane becomes a governess that many minute privileges become available to her and offer Jane a glance at what life could have been. It is on her quest for redemption and discovery that she truly is liberated. Throughout Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel Jane Eyre, the story’s protagonist Jane, struggles to achieve the balance of both autonomy and love, without sacrificing herself in the process.