{"id":581,"date":"2020-10-12T05:20:14","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T05:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/?p=581"},"modified":"2020-10-12T05:20:14","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T05:20:14","slug":"danger-out-of-the-west-bertha-and-the-caribbean-in-rochesters-revelation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/2020\/10\/12\/danger-out-of-the-west-bertha-and-the-caribbean-in-rochesters-revelation\/","title":{"rendered":"Danger out of the West: Bertha and the Caribbean in Rochester’s Revelation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and the air grew pure.\u00a0 I then framed and fixed a resolution.\u00a0 While I walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst its drenched pomegranates and pine-apples, and while the refulgent dawn of the tropics kindled round me\u2014I reasoned thus, Jane\u2014and now listen; for it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and showed me the right path to follow.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart, dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled with living blood\u2014my being longed for renewal\u2014my soul thirsted for a pure draught.\u00a0 I saw hope revive\u2014and felt regeneration possible.\u00a0 From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea\u2014bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened\u00a0thus:\u2014<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Go,\u2019 said Hope, \u2018and live again in Europe: there it is not known what a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you.\u00a0 You may take the maniac with you to England; confine her with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel yourself to what clime you will, and form what new tie you like.\u00a0 That woman, who has so abused your long-suffering, so sullied your name, so outraged your\u00a0<\/span>honour<\/span>, so blighted your youth, is not your wife, nor are you her husband.\u00a0 See that she is cared for as her condition demands, and you have done all that God and humanity require of you.\u00a0 Let her identity, her connection with yourself, be buried in oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being.\u00a0 Place her in safety and comfort: shelter her degradation with\u00a0<\/span>secrecy, and<\/span>\u00a0leave her\u2019\u201d (Bront<\/span>\u00eb\u00a0<\/span>304-05).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This story, told with heavy bias from Mr. Rochester as he attempts to convince Jane of the rightness, and even morality, of his imprisonment, abuse, and torture of his wife Bertha Mason is saturated with language of contrast and\u00a0<\/span>hierarchy. How Bertha has \u201c<\/span>so abused your\u00a0<\/span>[Rochester\u2019s]\u00a0<\/span>long-suffering, so sullied your name, so outraged your\u00a0<\/span>honour<\/span>, so blighted your youth\u201d is unclear<\/span>\u00a0(Bront\u00eb 304-305)<\/span>. She seems guilty of marrying him, and of inheriting a\u00a0<\/span>temperament<\/span>\u00a0and (per<\/span>haps) a disease that runs in her family. He is equally guilty of one of these offenses, and the only others clearly committed at the time he describes are saying mean things about him. Strange crimes, if indeed they can be called\u00a0<\/span>crimes. Still, as in much of the novel, Bertha herself is almost entirely absent\u2014she is \u201cthat woman\u201d \u201cher\u201d or \u201cnot your wife,\u201d but she is never referred to as either Bertha Mason or\u00a0<\/span>Mrs. Rochester throughout this passage. Instead, Rochester focuses on the weather, plants, and climate around him\u2014they seems equally as guilty as Bertha, in his mind, for his suffering (and, like Bertha, they represen<\/span>t his willing entry into an environment he did not understand). \u201cThe storm,\u201d he recalls, \u201cbroke, streamed, thundered, blazed\u201d in a furious display of heavenly (or<\/span>, by his token, hellish) ire. Much like the chestnut tree, Rochester risks being torn asunder as he stands facing the storm. Still, it is passing, as is his time in the Caribbean<\/span>\u00a0(Bront\u00eb 304). The \u201crefulgent dawn\u201d (Bront\u00eb 304) is softened by \u201ca wind fresh from Europe…and the air grew pure\u201d (Bront\u00eb 304)<\/span>; this “sweet wind\u201d \u201cwhispers\u201d to him the necessity of his escape back to Europe<\/span>, across the (wide)\u00a0Sargasso Sea into the waiting arms of his homeland (Bront\u00eb 304). The \u201cthundering<\/span>\u00a0in glorious<\/span>\u00a0liberty\u201d of the Atlantic contrasts with the\u00a0<\/span>storm that \u201cthundered\u201d only moments before (Bront\u00eb 304) and his heart \u201cswelled…and was filled with living blood\u201d as he\u00a0<\/span>finds hope for the first time since his marriage to Bertha began to degenerate (and, perhaps, long before that). It is in escaping, in a sense, the fiery moods, painful passions and heats of the Caribbean that Rochester\u00a0<\/span>sees a chance for a new beginning in an old world. The \u201corange-trees…pomegranates and pineapples\u201d emphasize the exoticism of this fiery Hades, and he knows better than to taste the seven seeds\u2014he wanders past them to the \u201cflowery\u00a0<\/span>arch<\/span>\u201d which frames his view of the<\/span>\u00a0sea he longs to cross<\/span>, \u201cbluer than the sky\u201d (Bront\u00eb 304).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The question of what to do with Bertha lingers. He can run away from everything that he associates with her, all that she knows or loves. He can draw them both into the cold, rainy climes of Europe instead of lingering in the sunlight of the Caribbean\u2014like Ad\u00e8le, he can find\u00a0<\/span>security\u00a0<\/span>in an English garden.\u00a0<\/span>But he cannot in good conscience leave his wife behind. Hope, with startlingly coarse language for such an em<\/span>b<\/span>odiment, tells Rochester that the \u201cfilthy burden<\/span>,\u201d \u201cthe maniac\u201d can be \u201cconfine[d]\u201d while he \u201ctravels to what clime [he] will,\u201d ever to be punished for her marriage with the loss of freedom, friends, family and country.\u00a0<\/span>To stow her, as any other unfavorable\u00a0<\/span>possession<\/span>, in an unused chamber of his attic will be \u201call that God and Humanity require of him\u201d (Bront\u00eb 304). To let her rot in a cell of his own division is only fair compensation for her giving contradictory orders, and for hav<\/span>ing a mentally ill mother.<\/span>\u00a0Rochester finds outlet for his own anger at all that he has found in this part of the world, wife and weather, and nature reflects his rage and hope back to him.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What Bront\u00eb suggests is a hierarchy of worlds, one in which the \u201cnew\u201d world is actually a raging, dangerous beast kept in\u00a0<\/span>close contact with the supernatural and the mad, holding only suffering for Europeans who venture there unprepared\u2014yes, a fortune could be secured, a wife found, but at no cost a reasonable man would ever pay. The \u201cold\u201d world is where Hope and Wisdo<\/span>m lie (Bront\u00eb 304-05), and it is where the hearts of sinners may be repaired. However, she makes clear, the only way to bring back anything from the far West is to bring back the devil with you, to infiltrate England with animalistic\u00a0<\/span>rage and terror, and any such thing must be kept under lock and key for fear of burns, blood, or the detection of bigamy. To\u00a0<\/span>allow the influence of the Caribbean and the New World to come to Europe is, in short, to embrace the destruction of the European stronghold, to draw a path to England for storms and lightning bolts to follow, and to purchase the death of not only\u00a0<\/span>the foreigner but the maiming and disruption of Europe besides: though Old England can, of course, master it and struggle on, it will be a painful and close fight, one nearly pyrrhic in its resolution. Far better, of course, never to leave at all.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jamaica: \"Jane<\/p>\n

England: \"Historical<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cA wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and the air grew pure.\u00a0 I then framed and fixed a resolution.\u00a0 While I walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst its drenched pomegranates and pine-apples, and while the refulgent … Continue reading Danger out of the West: Bertha and the Caribbean in Rochester’s Revelation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3323,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138877],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}