The Role of Women

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  • Created by: hafsah134
  • Created on: 14-02-17 16:24
She is a Creole, the daughter of a white European settler in the West Indies.
Brontë leaves the precise nature of her ethnicity ambiguous, but references to her ‘dark’ hair and ‘discoloured’, ‘black’ face –
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plus the fact that her parents wanted her to marry Rochester because he was ‘of a good race’ –
have led to speculation as to her racial identity, and the implications of this for Brontë’s portrayal of her as unstable, dangerous and threatening (chs. 25; 27).
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It is interesting to note that even as a white Creole, Bertha would have been seen as ‘alien’.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, many European writers in the West Indies sought to associate Creoles with the native Caribbean population, as a way of distancing them from ‘civilised’ Europeans.
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This was particularly the case for Creole women, who were often depicted as self-willed, decadent and untrustworthy – the very essence of Rochester’s description of Bertha.
Two ‘bad animals’?
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Perhaps the most problematic aspect of Bertha, however, is the fact that the other ‘bad animal’ in Jane Eyre is, of course, Jane herself.
Bertha, in many ways Jane’s polar opposite, has been described by Gilbert and Gubar as Jane’s ‘truest and darkest double’.
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Her early appearances occur when Jane is troubled, tense or desperate for freedom (it is no coincidence that the wedding-veil that Bertha tears is one that Jane feels she has been ‘cheated’ into accepting).
Her confinement in the attic mirrors Jane’s imprisonment in the Red Room at Gateshead, a punishment for her anger and lack of conformity.
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This doubling – a common Gothic motif –
makes Bertha’s role within the novel much more complex, and means that any analysis of her character must take account of her relationship with Jane.
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The narrative strategies used by Charlotte Brontë clearly designate Bertha as ‘Other’.
She is the obstacle that stands in the way of Jane’s marriage to Rochester: she is surrounded by a web of Gothic imagery, described as a ‘goblin’ and a ‘vampire’ who threatens to ‘drain [Mason’s] heart’ (ch. 20).
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Yet critics have seen this ‘Othering’ of Bertha as highly problematic. One particularly troubling aspect of Bertha is her psychological instability.
Rochester clearly sees her as responsible for her own situation.
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He tells Jane that Bertha ‘came of a mad family’, with a mother who was ‘a madwoman and a drunkard’, but also that,
like a dutiful child, she copied her parent in both points’ – implying a degree of choice (ch. 26).
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Brontë’s depiction of Bertha drew on contemporary descriptions of mental illness, such as those she found in the family’s medical encyclopaedia:
this volume of Modern Domestic Medicine, which survives, is well-thumbed and clearly frequently consulted.
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It would be easy to see Rochester’s lack of sympathy as representative of general attitudes towards mental illness in 19th-century society.
However, as Mia Iwana has pointed out, these attitudes were changing.
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In a review of the 1844 report by the Metropolitan Commissioners on Lunacy, the Westminster Review reported that the ‘disposition of the public’ towards the mentally ill was becoming ‘more enlightened and benevolent’.
The review promoted the idea that patients in mental asylums ought to be given ‘the benefit of a cheerful look-out on a pleasing prospect’,
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and that those responsible for their care should ‘avoid everything which might give to the patient the impression he is in prison’.
Was Charlotte Brontë aware of these changes? If so, what might this suggest for our interpretation of Rochester?
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“I found her a fine woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram: tall, dark, and majestic.
Her family wished to secure me because I was of a good race; and so did she.
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They showed her to me in parties, splendidly dressed.
I seldom saw her alone, and had very little private conversation with her.
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She flattered me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her charms and accomplishments.
All the men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy me.
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I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her.”
“I lived with that woman upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed:
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her character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity;
her vices sprang up fast and rank:
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they were so strong, only cruelty could check them, and I would not use cruelty.
What a pigmy intellect she had, and what giant propensities! How fearful were the curses those propensities entailed on me!
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Card 2

Front

plus the fact that her parents wanted her to marry Rochester because he was ‘of a good race’ –

Back

have led to speculation as to her racial identity, and the implications of this for Brontë’s portrayal of her as unstable, dangerous and threatening (chs. 25; 27).

Card 3

Front

It is interesting to note that even as a white Creole, Bertha would have been seen as ‘alien’.

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

This was particularly the case for Creole women, who were often depicted as self-willed, decadent and untrustworthy – the very essence of Rochester’s description of Bertha.

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

Perhaps the most problematic aspect of Bertha, however, is the fact that the other ‘bad animal’ in Jane Eyre is, of course, Jane herself.

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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