Category: Spring 2017

Jane Eyre and The Moonstone both contain texts within the texts. These subtexts, if you will, help construct particular narrative structures that give insight into the characters who read them and to the books’ narrative as a whole. The heightened popularity and ability to read books in the 19th century creates the perfect environment for books to be imbued with the power of guidance over clerical individuals or supernatural creatures (think here of the stories of King Arthur or about Macbeth).

We have discussed in class Jane’s use of the book of birds to metaphorically fly away from her circumstances. She uses other texts such as the books she borrows from the Rivers to learn various languages, which help her better herself as an educator and (nearly) send her to India. The Moonstone’s narrators’ also rely on books to speak for them. Mr. Betteredge uses Robinson Crusoe and Miss Clack uses a collection of books on morality (I wasn’t sure if these would be considered manuals or something else). Both Betteredge and Miss Clack view their books as guiding forces, sources that provide them with information that dictations the actions of their daily lives. I would argue that Jane is also guided by her books, they inspire her (along with Miss Temple and Helen) to be well educated (via being well read). Books in these two texts create a passive nexus around which other events can accumulate. As D.A Miller notes, “Power has taken hold where hold seemed least given: in the irrelevant” (28). By overlooking the books used by these characters we are ignoring a disciplinary control/power being given to the novels within the novels.

“‘There, then, – Off, ye lendings!’ And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his disguise…… In short, I believe you have been trying to draw me out- or in; you have been talking nonsense to make me talk nonsense” (Bronte, 204). In this quotation, Jane has figured out that the gypsy is really Rochester disguising himself to find out information that benefitted him. This is shown through the phrase “trying to draw me [Jane] out.” This proves that Rochester was trying to get something out of Jane by using a disguise as a type of trickery. Rochester used his disguise which changed his gender and class rank, to have an advantage over Jane. This shows that Rochester does not fully value Jane because he was unable to confront her without trying to manipulate her.

Jane Eyre and The Moonstone are both connected through their usage of disguises because they are both used to deceive women. The following quote is from The Moonstone and contains evidence of the jugglers using disguises. “There is a mystery about their conduct that I can’t explain. They have doubly sacrificed their caste- first, in crossing the sea; secondly, in disguising themselves as jugglers……There must be some very serious motive at the bottom of it, and some justification of no ordinary kind to plead for them, in recovery of their caste, when they return to their own country.” (Collins, 83).

In this quote, Mr. Murthwaite could tell that the jugglers were not actually jugglers. He recognized that they were using class to disguise who they were. Mr. Murthwaite could tell that the mission of the Brahmin’s was important since it was not acceptable for the upper class to dress like the lower class. Once again, we see men using class and disguises as a type of trickery and manipulation.

Through the lens of Jane Eyre, The Moonstone is very similar because it has men (jugglers) dressing up as something else to manipulate a woman. To be more explicit, the men of Indian descent dressed up as jugglers to trick Rachel to get the moonstone which was around her neck. The idea of a man manipulating a woman is important because it shows the lack of respect that a man has for a woman. The men are degrading the women by going out of their way to be deceitful for their own personal benefit. There are not any positive reasons for the trickery other than bettering themselves. This correlates with the idea that the men do not believe that women are as intellectual them. If Rochester and the Indians really saw women as their equal, then their first attempt to receive the information they wanted would have been to be confront the women directly. Neither book illustrates a man confronting his feelings or real intentions for a woman. Jane Eyre and The Moonstone show that their a pattern of men tricking women to get what they want. These novels also show that men do not consider women to be their equal which play a big role in the gender differences throughout each of the novels.

“There is something inhuman in the suggestion of an equivalency between postcolonial management of the nineteenth-century novel and nineteenth-century administration of empire–as if the “native” were only ever a body of words, or as if the novel could suffer the kinds of oppression people can.”

The above passage from Erin O’Connor’s attack essay in retaliation to Spivak’s own essay is, as the title of this post suggests, asinine. I’ll begin this by saying that I could be 100% wrong on what Erin is trying to say here, but based on the tone and wording that she chooses to use, it kinda seems like she’s trying to say that Jane Eyre can’t possibly possess an inkling of postcolonial feminism simply because she isn’t real. And to make such a statement is, to be quite honest, pretty ignorant of her.

Books and writing, as with many other art forms, have long been used as ways to express and bring attention to oppression. Erin is doing the exact same thing in her essay, which attacks Spivak for unknowingly attacking her own ideas. Is it logical to say that Jane Eyre doesn’t experience real oppression because she isn’t a real person? Technically, yes. But what about Charlotte Bronte? She was certainly very real, and was most certainly, along with many other women at the time, a victim of female oppression. It is entirely possible–and in fact, even pretty much confirmed–that Bronte wrote a lot of herself into the character of Jane Eyre. Now, be that as it may, there is a little bit of merit to Erin’s argument. The native in question is, I assume, Bertha, or rather, what Bertha represents: colored women being mistreated by white society. Erin feels that the “native” is being reduced to “a body of words,” that their stories are being overshadowed/transformed into something different by the white feminism of Jane Eyre. As aforementioned, there is merit to this argument; but not enough. To call a comparison between Jane Eyre’s treatment of postcolonial feminism and society’s treatment of postcolonial feminism “inhuman” is absurd.

Primarily, this is because Bronte wrote this story as a piece of postcolonial feminism: her voice as a woman made heard through literature, in 1847. It was quite a different time. Jane Eyre is a reflection of the postcolonial feminism of the times. By calling a comparison between the two “inhuman”, as Erin seems to be wont to do, appears (to me, at the very least; I would like to stress that this is an opinion based off of a personal interpretation) to be contradicting her own argument of Jane Eyre not being explicitly feminist. Because, if we think about it, it’s really not. The novel would rather have us uphold Jane over Bertha, and Erin, it seems, wouldn’t have us do that; she would have us place them on the same level. A noble and justified pursuit, to be sure. It is also something that we, as educated readers in the 21st century, are already capable of doing. To attack Spivak as she does, and then to go and contradict herself as she does here, only goes to show Erin’s lack of understanding of not only Spivak’s argument, but her own, as well.

*Sorry for the rant-y tone, but Erin O’Connor’s essay really ground my gears. I had to say something.*

Generally, society’s view is that women should not be sexual creatures, but men are praised for their sexual pursuits for “working the game.” Similarly, Mary Poovey remarks upon this phenomenon in a historical context, “The contradiction between a sexless, moralized angel and an aggressive, carnal magdalen was therefore written into the domestic ideal as one of its constitutive characteristics” (11).

In Jane Eyre, before Jane marries Mr. Rochester, she is an independent woman who is completely reliant on one thing: her reputation. As a governess, if she were to attempt to obtain further job posts after she leaves Rochester, she would have had to maintain herself as a reputable governess of good academic and moral standing. Beginning an affair with the master of her previous household would have slandered her name, and ruined her chances of being self-sufficient. A century earlier, Daniel Defoe chronicled these dangers in Moll Flanders, writing “men that keep mistresses often change them, grow weary of them, or jealous of them, or something or other happens to make them withdraw their bounty” (174-5).

While Jane is making her fateful decision to leave Thornfield, she has a flashback: “I was transported in thought to the scenes of childhood” (Brontë 313). She is like a dying person reflecting on life’s most important moments. Then,Jane suddenly sees a “white human form” that tells her: “‘My daughter, flee temptation!’” to which Jane responds, “‘Mother, I will’” (313).

This scene is remarkable for several reasons. One, Jane recognizes the dangers in becoming a mistress to Mr. Rochester. This “temptation” holds such dreadful consequences that a warning in the form of her mother comes to protect her. Moreover, her mother lost her inheritance and financial protection when she made the decision to marry below her station. If her mother had not made the decision to marry a man who could not financially protect her, her child would not have had to suffer the life of a middle-class, unwanted orphan. Thus, the fact that her mother, the woman most closely related to Jane by blood in the novel, has come to make this warning demonstrates the true danger Jane would risk by taking on a position as Mr. Rochester’s mistress.

For Jane, this moment so resembles death because her decision could quite seriously lead to her death. If she chooses to live with Rochester, the chances are that she will eventually be cast out, like his other mistresses before her. Rochester himself says, “Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading” (306). If she chooses to wander out completely unaccompanied, she also could die. Jane’s conflict embodies the risks that many women in her position faced: either she could accept the financial support of a rich man who might some day dismiss her, or she could put herself at the mercy of a world that was not accepting of single women to begin with.

Defoe, Daniel. Moll Flanders. freeclassicsbooks.com, http://www.freeclassicebooks.com/Defoe%20Daniel/Moll%20Flanders.pdf. Accessed 22 March 2016.

Using the lens of feminism, Gayatri Spivak’s essay attempts to demonstrate how Jane Eyre is a text that represents Victorian imperialism. While I do think Jane Eyre holds important historical significance, it is important that it is artistically upheld and not simply historically as an informative text.  As Erin O’Connor points out in her essay, Spivak extrapolates her argument toward imperialism a bit too far, using Jane Eyre to generalize all of Victorian literature.  Where Spivak’s argument excels, however, is in how a historically-informed perspective can influence the reader’s hermeneutics of the text.  Observe the following passage:

“Here in Jane’s self-marginalized uniqueness, the reader becomes her accomplice; the reader and Jane are united—both are reading.  Yet Jane still preserves her odd privilege, for she continues never quite doing the proper thing in its proper place.  She cares little for reading what is meant to be read: the ‘letter-press.’ She reads the pictures.  The power of this singular hermeneutics is precisely that it can make the outside inside.” (Spivak 660)

This is an interesting suggestion as it would render Jane as a passive character—though she narrates, she reads along with the reader.  This would imply that her story was not written by her, or that the story is a past reflection she is still working to interpret.  However, this does not seem to agree with the text, as Jane addresses the reader directly at various points (Bronte 88,102). Further, the character Jane is certainly not passive, as can be most notably observed with her bold communications with Mr. Rochester and her display of independence among the girls at Lowood.  This would make Jane Eyre a paradox, her passivity displaying her own activity.  Spivak hints to this as well, as Jane Eyre makes the “outside inside,” internalizing external occurrences.  How can this paradox be resolved?

If Jane is a reader, then it would mean that she is still learning from her own narrative.  Nevertheless, Jane Eyre seems to be inscrutable.  The historical context that Spivak posits would give us a more informed reading not only of the novel itself, but of Jane’s character.

Spivak’s argument rises out of a specific period of feminism that has certain concerns about the goals of feminism as a singular movement and its lack of inclusivity. Spivak, along with many feminist who identified with non-Western countries, began to feel that the idea of sisterhood among women, an idea that was prominent during the second wave, did not acknowledge the experiences of many non-Western women. Spivak’s argument that feminism and post-colonialism cannot exist together, then, stems from a very specific definition of feminism, that does not completely match feminism as it is understood today. The Transnational and then Third World feminist movements sought to account for this gap in the needs and experiences of the generally middle class, western, white women who dominated the feminist movement during the second wave and different needs and experiences of women of the global south. The popular feminism of today still struggles with issues of inclusivity, with the needs of non-white and non-western women often not being adequately or fairly represented. However, the problems that Spivak is acknowledging is one that is actively being tackled within feminism.

What does this mean, then, for Jane Eyre? I’m not entirely sure. Victorian women, in a way, were an origin point for the shoving aside the needs of non-white and non-western women for their own gain. During the period of British imperialism, particularly the colonization of India, Victorian women used the poor conditions and treatment of Indian women to advance their own conditions and treatment. If the uncivilized Indian women are subject to any variety of subjugating conditions, the argument went, civilized and sophisticated English women should clearly be above such savage treatment. Is this in a way what is going on in Jane Eyre? Is Jane’s feminist-ness being advanced in comparison to the savage-ness of Bertha? In a way, I guess so. But also, I feel like it’s still more complicated than that. But I think at its heart that is what Spivak was calling for. Post-colonialism and feminism are both incredibly complex areas of study that involve considering many different perspectives, while not valuing one perspective over another. Does Jane Eyre encourage us to value Jane’s perspective over Bertha’s? Perhaps. But, can we, in 2017, read Jane Eyre in a way that values Jane and Bertha’s perspectives equally? I think so. In fact, I think we are already trying to.

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?

I may be going out on a limb here, but what if The Sound of Music is actually the 1964, re-interpreted filmic version of Jane Eyre’s story? Ever since I was introduced to the idea of Jane Eyre as a governess, I have had difficulty wiping my mind clear of Fräulein Maria from the musical. After all, when thinking about it, Jane and Maria’s stories aren’t all that different. Let’s take a look.

Here, I am going to quickly compare the two women’s stories. Then, I will show how, despite their similar backgrounds, there is actually a difference (within the similarity) that is quite revealing.

To be honest with you, I was waiting for Jane to break out in song multiple times throughout the novel, especially when traveling to Thornfield (remember… “I have confidence in sunshine!”). Now consider the similarities between the two stories: before becoming a governess, Maria is a nun in an abbey. Before becoming a governess, Jane is a student at a devout Christian school, Lowood. Later, Maria, as a governess, falls in love with Captain Von Trapp, a wealthy man who is her employer. Similarly, governess Jane falls in love with her employer, the wealthy Mr. Rochester. Meanwhile, Captain Von Trapp is engaged to the beautiful and wealthy Baroness Schraeder of Vienna. At the same time, Mr. Rochester is engaged to the beautiful and powerful Blanche Ingram. Nevertheless, these relationships crumble. However, different entities get in the way of their possible marriages: Bertha Mason (in Jane Eyre) and the nazis (in The Sound of Music). In the end, both Jane and Maria marry who they want and live their lives happily ever after (kind of).

On the forefront, Jane and Maria’s stories are quite similar. However, let’s think about a difference: the fact that the stories take place in different centuries. While The Sound of Music occurs slightly before World War II (probably the early 1940s), Jane Eyre takes place within the early decades of the 19th century. The differences in class and gender are made apparent too. While Jane battles frequently for equal footing throughout the novel (she wants women to be treated equally as men), Maria doesn’t fight for this equality (at least, this battle isn’t presented throughout the musical). She takes the children throughout the city, rides bikes with them by the river, and yet she really isn’t treated subserviently. Although I don’t have an exact answer, I am presuming that, by the 1940s, gender and class were understood differently than in the early 1800s (of course, with more progress needed to go). The fact that she was a governess may have played apart too – perhaps they were more appreciated in the mid-1900s?

Nevertheless, to throw in another similarity (I guess that makes this similarity-within-difference-within-similarity), “expected” gender roles – and female subservience – are still interfused throughout The Sound of Music (in bits and pieces). For instance, Liesl, the youngest daughter of Captain Von Trapp, sings to her beloved Rolf (who later becomes a member of the Nazi Party):

Although Disability Studies (the study and framework based around disabilities, both physical and mental, and what roles they play in society, or cultural perception) didn’t come to fruition until the late 20th century, I think that it can be used to analyze the character of Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre, a nineteenth century novel.

We get introduced to the character of Bertha in Chapter 26, when Mr. Rochester is explaining to Jane why their wedding got interrupted – and more importantly, why a woman who was his ex-wife had been living in the attic that was deemed “insane.” Rochester describes Bertha’s insanity to Jane, that he had “been awakened by her yells – since the medical men had pronounced her mad […] I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene and my ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with such language! No professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she! (302)

What intrigues me about this quote, and the way Mr. Rochester handled the situation with his ex-wife is that there seemed to be a lot of ignorance when it came to mental health in those days. Obviously, Bertha was crazed and a lunatic, as she was yelling in the night and exhibiting other sickly behavior while married to Rochester, but locking her in an attic doesn’t seem like the best solution to me. Even though “medical men” were mentioned in this passage, who I assume are the professionals that diagnosed Bertha as “crazy,” the care and treatment of people with mental disabilities wasn’t something that was prioritized. After all, would a doctor today really advise locking a mentally insane woman in an attic? Sure, there are things like solitary confinement for really mentally ill patients today, but would Bertha really be qualified as such if she was being treated? To me, Bertha’s side of the story and her illness is ironically being silenced by her screams and needs to be heard. I can’t help but wonder if Bertha would be considered this insane if given the proper treatment, and why exactly did mental illness have such a stigma at the time?

In his response to Erin O’Connor, Deirdre David attempts to find the middle ground between the essays by O’Connor and Spivak, which seem to be two polar opposite opinions on how to read Victorian literature. She acknowledges the points she agrees with from both authors and excellently ties them together to create an argument for the balance between the two theories. David says about Spivak, “Thanks to Spivak’s essay… we read Victorian fiction in a fuller way than we did twenty years ago- not necessarily better, but with an enlarged understanding, say, of the complex inseparable link between a spirited governess and a political world elsewhere. Thanks to Edward Said… we examine empire both as subject of representation and as material force in the production of Victorian literature, which doesn’t always mean we’ve undergone some sort of brainwashing” (683).  What I conclude from his piece is that David understands that in reading any text, one must be aware of the even potential historical and political implications on the piece of literature. To ignore such facts would be reading irresponsibly and blindly. While I think Spivak’s evidence about Jane Eyre could use some development, and I dislike her assertion that post colonialistic and feministic readings can never align, like David said, she makes a good point about reading for more. On O’Connor, David explains, “O’Connor wants us to question our evidence, and we should:… do we violate Brontë’s novel by enlarging the historical context of what she so vividly puts before us: a crazed woman from the West Indies, a brooding hero who went wrong in a tropical climate, a fanatical clergyman who wants to civilize the Indians?… asking these questions as O’Connor wishes us to do, can only enlarge our understanding of the Victorian novel, not diminish it” (682). David does a good job of searching through the passion of O’Connor’s article to find her point, and I like that she acknowledges the validity of her opinion. These are questions that should be asked. I believe that Brontë’s novel is “violated” only if it is read through one lens, with a disregard for any other potential ideas. Both Spivak and O’Connor sort of do this; Spivak through a strict post-colonial lens that ignores, even tries to compete in importance with a feminist lens, and O’Connor through a purely literary lens trying to ignore any possible theory. I think that an openness to all different lenses and readings, including post-colonial and purely literary, is the best as long as the reader is aware that their lens is not the only one that should be used. As David says, “Many of us have been drawn to Victorian studies because of it’s hospitality to theory, or rather theories, its capacious invitation for us to explore different perspectives- formal, Freudian, Marxian, feminist, and, yes, postcolonial” (683).