I just want to start off by saying that I love Jane Eyre, however I do recognize that there are some major problems, particularly regarding race, within the novel. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I am white, or maybe it comes down to my obliviousness, but it wasn’t until I read Spivak’s Postcolonial Criticism that I saw the racial flaws in this novel. Though I noticed that Bronte emphasized the differences between dark and light, I always took it for the literal sense; never did I think to apply this contrast to the characters too. I am not arguing against Spivak however, I am curious as to whether her argument is taken slightly to an extreme. For I originally assumed that dark literally meant dark—as in mysterious, ominous, or gloomy—thus, I wonder whether Spivak racialization of the word is more of a personal projection of her own experience as a woman from a formerly colonized country. But perhaps I am being racially ignorant here.
Also, this is a little bit of a chicken or the egg situation, but was dark originally meant to mean the above words listed, or did these new definitions and implications come from racial tensions? Spivak, in her criticism accuses Bronte of being racist, but if that was the belief of the time is it still racist? I struggle to choose a side, because while I will always side with anti-racism, it is a prove fact that prejudice is learnt not inherent, so therefore the environment of Bronte’s time would affect her writing. Despite all that happens with Bertha Mason, I disregarded the character’s race, but perhaps, again I am being obtuse and/or “colorblind” in not comparing her difference in race to the protagonist/narrator. However, if these are the beliefs of the time, are they intentionally prejudiced or is this just a reflection of the time?
3 thoughts on “Bronte Prejudiced or Not?”
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I think these are strong questions. You ask at one point in your post that you “struggle to choose a side” and one thing I would say is, you don’t have to. I don’t think you have to choose between the metaphorical or racial interpretation of dark and light. I think you have to choose between racist and not racist since you can look at the book from two different temporal periods. I think you’re allow to accuse Spivak of potentially projecting her own temporal/racial interpretations on “Jane Eyre,” as long as your recognize that her argument does have some validity. These are great (and difficult) questions to grapple with and I’m glad to see you sharing them so we can grapple too.
I had really similar questions after our discussion in class about light vs. dark in Jane Eyre. Like you, I also interpreted “darkness” to mean evil, shade, gloomy, etc. I think that as 21st century readers, we’re used to more specific physical descriptions of characters in books (like ones that actually state what they look like: i.e.; brown hair, brown eyes, dark skin) so that’s why a lot of people struggle to see light and dark take another meaning. This is definitely a difficult topic, and I think arguments could be made for both literal and figurative descriptions of the characters. It could be really interesting to research more about how race was spoken about in the 19th century to see if this is what Bronte really meant.
I think that its hard to see the racism without close reading the novel. I noticed the racism in one of my other blog posts when Rochester told Richard to never mind Bertha’s “”jibberish. This small detail implies that Bertha is discredited because of the color of her skin. This type of underlying racism was also shown in The Moonstone when Gabriel called the Indians speech “jabbering.”