My husband and I talk about Chapter 5 in the latest episode of the Jane Eyre Files podcast, and I mention the way Jane travels to the next stage of her life in the National Theatre production from 2015. During the pandemic in 2020, National Theatre put the full production online for free, but I don’t believe there is a free source for it at the moment. However there is a clip of the bit I talked about on YouTube!
Enjoy the latest episode of the podcast:
In our podcast discussion of Chapter 4 we talk about how Bessie is gradually becoming a more positive character in Jane’s life - just as Jane is about to leave Gateshead. But I wanted to mention something that comes up when Bessie goes looking for Jane:
“What does Bessie care for me? She is always scolding me.”
“Because you’re such a queer, frightened, shy little thing. You should be bolder.”
“What! to get more knocks?”
It seems that Bessie sometimes treats Jane with disdain because she is such a shy and timid child. That it is “provoking” when Jane starts at Bessie’s words when she chances to speak harshly. Jane does seem to become a more “venturesome” person when she goes to Lowood, but I find it intriguing that Bessie is annoyed by Jane’s shyness.
It is easy to understand why Jane is generally timid among the Reeds, so I find it callous of Bessie to compound the issue by being abrupt with her when it seems that is her only way to cope. But Bessie seems to be pretty young herself, and perhaps with her youth she is impatient because she doesn’t quite understand Jane. Just another instance of a character misunderstanding Jane.
Jane being difficult to read is a constant in this book for the other characters, but luckily for the reader of her book, we can understand Jane perfectly.
Listen to Episode 5 of our podcast Jane Eyre Files here:
(Art by Jane Freeman)
The symbolism of the sun and the moon in Jane Eyre is quite interesting to me. I believe there have been many interpretive thoughts published on the topic - especially regarding the moon and femininity - but my thoughts on the subject run a little more specific to the characters of Jane and Rochester. I feel like the moon and the sun represents the ideals of their romantic relationship in intriguing ways.
“Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.” (Chapter IV)
The sun and the moon have traditionally symbolized the yin and the yang of dynamic relationships - with the sun embodying “masculine” qualities and the moon “feminine”. It’s a very limited way of judging any of these constructs, but in Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë often represents Mr. Rochester by the sun, while Jane is represented by the moon.
The sun symbolically holds connotations of energy, determination, liveliness, and arrogance. It represents force and the ego - elements that can easily be seen in Mr. Rochester’s character. And it is something that Jane also finds appealing - an aspect of her personality that is not wanting exactly but not being sustained. The quote “Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine” comes from early in the story - when Jane remarks that Bessie reading and singing to her brings a measure of happiness to her life at Gateshead she does not usually experience. Here, Jane equates the sun with happiness, and it foreshadows Mr. Rochester’s place in her life.
On her walk to post a letter in Hay for Mrs. Fairfax, Jane takes the opportunity to revel in nature, freedom, and sunshine as she “lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and clear behind them.” (Chapter XII) Of course, this is the prelude to Jane and Rochester’s first encounter and sets the stage for them to meet when there is a “rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but brightening momentarily”. (Chapter XII) A meeting of the sun and the moon.
Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, the last novel she published in her lifetime, is often cited by critics as being her best work. Of course, it’s not my favorite of Charlotte’s works, but Villette is a powerful story and has, I feel, an interesting parallel to Jane Eyre with some similarities in plot and characters. I read Villette when I was in college many years ago, and I have always remembered it as Jane Eyre “through a glass darkly.” I’m revisiting that idea by re-reading the novel and seeing exactly how it compares.
Before I go into comparisons, I do want to talk about how the novel strikes me so many years later. I was surprised to see how much of Charlotte’s personal past is fictionalized for Lucy Snowe - of course, Charlotte also did this for Jane, but it seems like there were more specific experiences that Charlotte drew on for Lucy than she did for Jane. Charlotte’s experience in Brussels, her romantic feelings for a certain brooding professor at the Pensionnat and recreating his personality, the affably suspicious nature of Madame Beck, seeing a famous actress, confessing to a Catholic priest, and of course being a teacher are all used for Lucy. And in Lucy’s opinions and descriptions of the people around her, I felt like there was something more of Charlotte in Lucy than in Jane. With the fact that at this point in Charlotte’s life she has lost all of her siblings, I do find the vivid passages about Lucy’s loneliness and poor mental health to be especially sad. It seems like Charlotte is writing as much to purge her feelings on the subject, as she is to embody the reticent and passive Lucy Snowe.
My thoughts on Villette as a novel is a little less effusive than I remember from my first time reading it. The story meanders quite a bit - with long passages of Lucy judging her fellow teachers and her students pretty harshly. As well as looking down on the tastes and habits of the people of Labassecour. I was surprised by how much bitterness was in the character, but I wonder how much this reflected Charlotte herself.
The plot feels episodic - things happen to Lucy and she relates them to the reader. There doesn’t seem to be much of interest in what happens in Lucy’s life - just in how she characterizes the people around her. Even with the romance, the ultimate sharing of feelings is long delayed. And a large part of the story is devoted to Lucy barely acknowledging that she might have feelings for the handsome and charismatic Dr. John. But that goes nowhere for Lucy - especially since she does not act on any of her feelings. The same goes for her antipathy of Ginerva Fanshawe, whose company she bears with barely disguised hostility. I again find it funny to think of how Charlotte might also have acted that way in the presence of people she disliked.
A few years ago I was interviewed by a UK based educational company in preparation for their release of content about the Brontës aimed for teachers and students. Sadly the company, Train of Thought Productions, seems to be no more, but at the time they sent me a complimentary copy of the DVD titled “Brontës in Context”. Unfortunately I believe it is hard to find now, but I found it a very interesting examination of the Brontës’ lives and work.
The Jane Eyre section of the DVD was especially illuminating. I’ve never studied Jane Eyre in school, and although I've read critical texts about the story, there are schools of thoughts that I haven’t really explored. Jane Eyre is such an intertextually rich story, that I should have anticipated that this DVD would be eye-opening in unexpected ways. So this post is about the things I learned from the "Brontës in Context" DVD.
Okay, I do know that Jane Eyre is written in the first person. And I know that because the novel has a first person POV, the reader is drawn more into Jane's story, her spirit and her fiery nature. But one comment from a professor on the DVD really struck me - the idea that Jane addresses the reader personally (by saying "reader") more and more as the story progresses. "Reader, I married him." being the famous example. I was curious though to see if that was really true, so I went to the Gutenberg online copy and did a search - in the scroll bar, there are little yellow ticks that show where the word comes up in the text, so I took a screenshot of that bar to illustrate (I made the scroll bar horizontal).
From left to right: The beginning of Jane Eyre to the end
Again the yellow marks are every time Jane says "reader" (which is not absolutely accurate since there are like three times it's in the novel, and it's not addressing the reader of the book) But it's true that Jane does directly reach out to the reader more as the novel progresses. The professor on the DVD explains it as Jane wanting to take control of her story, and one way she does this is by correcting the reader's thoughts - by giving them the truth directly. I thought that was a fascinating and accurate explanation of the purpose of Jane addressing the reader.
To me, Jane Eyre is most succinctly compared to two fairy tales - Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. I am aware of a Bluebeard connection, but I feel like the aforementioned tales encompasses the story more. But after watching this DVD I am leaning more towards seeing Jane Eyre in a "Bluebeard" light. Especially as Jane Eyre is a Gothic novel, and Bluebeard fits that genre the best of these three tales. There's a "secret at its heart" (quote from the DVD) which is a thoughtful encapsulation of both stories. And there was a comment made by one of the professors that placed the reader of the novel as the curious Bluebeard wife, reading the novel to discover the secret. Such an interesting idea! (And does that mean that Mr. Rochester is my husband??)
The role of religion is touched on in the DVD, and there was a thought that the character of St. John Rivers (who is not a bad person, but is kind of unforgivably self-righteous - oh, just me?) hearkens back to Jane's friend Helen Burns. Helen is such a positive character and St. John considerably less so, that I initally felt it's almost a slur on Helen to link the two. But in the context of what the professor on the DVD said it makes sense - they are similar in that they 'quash physical desires'. And in that way I can understand why Jane would be drawn to them - they both encourage Jane to embrace a devotion to God and reason, at a time when her passionate nature is giving her the most pain. Unfortunately for St. John, his function later in the novel means he also has to show Jane that living such a cold, dispassionate life is not for her. And hey, both Helen and St. John meet untimely ends. Which to my mind is Charlotte making a harsh judgement on the idea of living just for God.
In a recent post I talked about my dislike of comparing Jane and Bertha as psychological doubles, and in that post I mentioned that for me, Rochester and Bertha have much more of a connection in terms of character development and literary analysis. And that in many ways Bertha foreshadows Rochester’s potential. I find this dynamic more interesting because there seems to be support for it in Charlotte’s novel and I enjoy examining the ways in which Charlotte foreshadows events.
Aside from the obvious link that Bertha and Rochester are married, another link that is commented on in the novel but perhaps not really talked about is in their physicality. “She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the contest—more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. “ (Chapter 26) Bertha and Rochester are almost equal in bulk and seemingly strength. They are both dark featured, with possibly a similar “swarthy” skin tone. (From Chapter 18 describing Rochester: “ His dark eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features” Paynim means “non-Christian, especially a Muslim) Bertha is described with dark features with dark hair and eyes, but also in ways that perhaps relate to her hygiene - “blackened”, “dark”, “purple”. There is also the possibility of her having a darker skin tone by her being “Creole”. In beauty they are not so alike, but coloring, stature and bulk appear to be similar. These two people who are visually alike, are then set on a narrative course that to me intertwines closely.
I find it interesting that Rochester and Bertha both have a role to play in Jane’s story that is defined by Gothic literary traditions. Jane Eyre the novel is a Gothic story that combines horror, romance, and suspense with many traditional elements. One of those is the Byronic hero as represented by Rochester. Byronic heroes are anti-heroes - protagonists who act out of self-interest or unconventional beliefs. They are usually mysterious, arrogant, rebellious and anti-social. In Gothic novels they don’t always have a happy ending, but they are viewed in a romantic light.
