Archives for June 2021

Scholars, educators, and (often bored) high school students continue to discuss the internal motivations and the external ramifications of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre ad nauseum. As a work overall and as a character in particular, critiques offer Jane Eyre as one of the forerunners into the feminist movement, resisting the suppression of the colonizers and patriarchy via asserting her own autonomy for at least herself, if not the entire female gender. While many have put forth pages of supporting ideas – the rebellion against the Reeds, the mistreatment by Brocklehurst, the refusal of Edward Rochester – a closer comparison of the novel to the argument, in particular the argument put forth by Rachel Willis in her 2018 essay “A Man is Nothing without the Spice of Devil in Him: Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester Navigate an Imperially-Inscribed Masculinity,” defeats said ideas in its contradiction. Considering the often-used and intersectional post-colonial and feminist approaches, the contradiction created leaves Jane Eyre, while still beautifully written, little more than a genre romance. By allowing the generic labeling of any male of authority as “the colonizer” or any female protagonist as a “feminist,” the actual harbingers and instigators of change lose their effectiveness amid the noise of the distracting inconsistencies.  

For any dear readers out there, please stick with me. I will in no way mar the dignity of our beloved Miss Eyre. To be sure, Brontë’s work, in my opinion, deserves its place in the literary cannon. Brontë was certainly pioneering in the 19^th century with her characterization of an orphaned governess who has designs for her life that do not include the pursuit of happiness through the custom of her society of the day, specifically the goal to marry well. It is true that Eyre is a different type of female protagonist. Furthermore, I do not subscribe to the common notion that romance is less than in relation to other types of genre fiction. Romance, as a literary contribution, holds as much validity in the realm of “great” reading as any other genre. That it has an expected arc –development of two main characters that revolve around the culmination of a romantic relationship – in no way excludes it from the capability of being intelligently and substantially written. To put a stronger point on it, I agree with the idea presented by Neal Wyatt and Joyce G. Saricks in their 2019 The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction when they began their discussion of the genre by emphasizing: 

That Romance remains a literary punching bag does not reflect well on our cultural moment, and it is perhaps beyond the scope of this chapter to illuminate all the ways a genre largely written and read by women is still undervalued, even as it accounts for over a third of fiction sales. (215) 

In fact, this one statement launches an entirely different discussion about why it is more important that Jane Eyre own the classification as romance fiction. Eyre has been pigeonholed into the role of the protofeminist. The unintended consequence of this mischaracterization is a furthering of the incorrect notion that, because it appeals to primarily women, romance fiction is not bona fide in its own right. There is quite the argument to be made that the subjugating of romance fiction is a more supportable example of abuse by the patriarchy than that attributed to Rochester. While not the scope of this particular paper, I think the ideas will show themselves. At the very least, I hope these clarifications and accolades of both Brontë and the romance genre will assure those who hold the book as beloved that my intention is to elevate both rightfully and not to tear down either unnecessarily simply for arguments sake.  

To be sure, Eyre is not a woman any other self-respecting woman would attempt to tear down. Brontë has created in her an admirable character. It may be tempting to regard the novel as historical fiction when a present-day reader enters its pages. This would be a mistake. Brontë penned the work in a setting that was contemporary to her own. The age difference between the author and her character is not a marked one. Therefore, Brontë is not creating a character that exists in a time period different from her own. This being true, unless a reader is disregarding the author on the whole, Eyre must be evaluated in the scope of her day since that is the period in which Brontë placed her. To this end, it is useful to consider the intersectionality of influences using the protocol as explained by Margret Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins; specifically, the social structure of Brontë, and thus Eyre, is important to consider so that Eyre’s gender, race, and class identity can be approached in its proper framework (4-5). When cogitated in this manner, it is Eyre’s social environment that must be considered before her femaleness is evaluated.  

Inside this social environment, Eyre cannot develop into anything other than what the patriarchy has formed for her before her birth primarily and after the death of her parents certainly. Brontë gives us a child who sees herself as unharmonious, unloved, unwanted, and frankly stated, “a noxious thing” (226). While some feminists may have gotten their start this way, Eyre does not live in a time with that ideal. What may be more universal, and thus more plausible, is that of childhood trauma, which, if nothing else, this certainly is. What Brontë gives us is an origin story that is very close to being idyllic. Eyre is born to parents that, by all accounts, love each other and, so one could assume, would have loved her had they lived. When they die, Eyre is again offered the opportunity of childhood affection from her uncle, Mr. Reed, the brother of Eyre’s mother. Brontë makes it clear that Mr. Reed loved his niece and would, had he also lived, made every opportunity available to her as if she were his own daughter. Unfortunately, he dies as well, leaving Eyre’s care to an aunt, the widowed Mrs. Reed, coerced into a deathbed promise to take care of the young girl. This is where Eyre’s luck runs out and the patriarchy takes over. The new “man of the house” is the easily unlikable John Reed, Mrs. Reed’s only son. John Reed’s enjoyment of  tormenting the young Eyre and using his position to both exert his dominance and reducing Eyre to subordinate is easily seen in his assertion to her that, “you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense” (Brontë 141). Compounding this oppression, Mrs. Reed supported her son’s abuse as she herself was jealous of the affection her husband afforded both Eyre and her mother. This jealousy created and immediate hatred of the child, a hatred that resulted in a dampened childhood development and, as such a girl who gave no delight, not because she did not want to, but because there was no one to delight in her. Brontë ensures this conclusion is not speculation in the relationship with Helen Burns and Maria Temple. It is in these relationships that Eyre is given the opportunity to step into her own potential and find connection in acceptance. Once free to explore her own capabilities, she proves to be a person who can learn, love, and survive.  

While the background may seem extensive, its establishment is required to understand the points of disagreements to the arguments presented that Brontë intended to illuminate the feminist nature of Eyre and the colonization attempts by Rochester as argued by Willis. In her essay, Willis supports the opinion that Eyre is a feminist figure and Rochester the colonizing patriarchy. While well written and agreeable on some points (with a ridiculously catchy title), on the whole the comparisons do more to dilute the discussion than advance it.  

In order to establish a colonization argument, there must be both a colonized and a colonizer. Willis attempts to do this by placing Eyre as the colonized with the entire patriarchy as the colonizer – specifically, Christianity, Brocklehurst, and Rochester (248). Willis employs previous documented arguments that Brontë introduces Eyre as a body to be colonized by “feminist orientalism allow[ing] Brontë to critique patriarchal oppression in the West by displacing it onto Eastern or colonial locations” (246). This idea would be interesting except that it completely overlooks the whole of Eyre’s background and dismisses large swaths of Brontë’s story as discussed. Eyre’s original oppressors (abusers) were her family. Eyre’s original condemner was her aunt who was supported by Mr. Brocklehurst. Her nemesis was British society, not the “other” Mrs. Rochester. The oppression of Eyre was in no way meant to make her useful or exploitable; no one that Eyre had come into contact with during her childhood (who was still alive) had any use for her. The goal was to make her disappear. John Reed assaulted her whenever she was in his sight. Mrs. Reed sent her away to boarding school and lied about her death. Brocklehurst attempted to shame her into nonexistence. There was no attempt at colonization – the goal was extermination. Further, Willis’ contradicts her own position on Christianity by making it both the colonizer and the means by which she resists the alleged colonization by Rochester (248, 255). Conveniently, the supportive embodiments of Christianity – Burns and Temple – are disregarded in this conversation. Christianity, as presented by Brontë, is morally fluid; it is the behavior of those who claim it that produce effect. It is in the Christianity of Brocklehurst that Brontë offers oppression, Burns and Temple, redemption, Diana and Mary Rivers, compassion, St. John Rivers, self-promoting servitude. Each uses the platform in their own way and means. The righteousness or lack thereof is outside of the scope of this particular discussion, except to determine that as the more appropriate discussion of Christianity’s placement in Brontë’s work – not its function as colonizer.  

The strongest case for colonization is made against Rochester. He alone of the Willis accused actually desires for Eyre to bend to his wants for his pleasure. But that is not the sole requirement for colonization. If ability and intention is not addressed, the purpose of colonization cannot be established. In the person of Rochester, Willis approaches him as a shallowly created character, nothing more than a white, second born son with a “tenuous,” “marginalized,” and “compromised masculinity” (249, 253, 252). To be sure, there are many a men who have fit that description who have attempted (and succeeded) colonization. In fact, a case could be made (although again, not in this paper), that is exactly the type of masculinity colonization requires. However, in the same way that Eyre’s history was disregarded in order to build a predetermined case, so too has Rochester’s. While not abused in the same sense as Eyre, Brontë ensured that Rochester’s less than supportive childhood was obvious. In the same way Willis expects the reader to look past the individual abuse laid on Eyre in favor of colonized, we are expected to ignore the individual challenges experienced by Rochester in support of his demonization as the colonizer. He was the second son to a father who had no desire to split his wealth. Rochester describes him as an “avaricious, grasping man” (Brontë 5352). About his marriage to Bertha Mason, Rochester recounts to Eyre concerning the probability of despair, “My father and my brother Rowland knew all this; but they thought only of the thirty thousand pounds, and joined in the plot against me” (Bronte 5377). Taking all things into account, could Rochester be a colonizer? I suppose if that was the answer I was looking for I could claw at it. But is it not more plausible that Edward Rochester was a broken-hearted man who was overlooked by a father he could never please, overshadowed by a brother he could never equal, married to a woman he could never hold, wanted by a society he could never honestly enter?  And does this not make him more akin to a damaged love interest in a romance novel than a colonizer in a statement work? In fact, Willis herself is forced to acknowledge (so that maybe the precarious nature of her argument is overlooked) that, “A closer look at the language Brontë uses to describe Rochester reveals this positioning as both colonizer and colonized” (250). While I must concede that this approach is at least intellectually honest, I do not agree that it does enough to sway the scales away from romantic love interest to patriarchal colonizer.  

As stated, it is necessary to have a colonizer if there is to be a colonized. In my estimation, Rivers is the only character that comes close to that description. As he is never mentioned in Willis’ argument, nor does he come close to achieving his pursuit of Eyre, I feel confident in relegating him to little more than a handy plot progressor – an alternate love interest that gives our independent Miss Eyre a choice in her romantic story arch. This creates a difficulty for the feminist credentials attributed to Eyre; as there is no colonizer, Eyre cannot be the victim of attempted colonization. If there is no attempted colonization, what, then, is Eyre rebelling against to assert her personhood of the female gender? Where is, as bell hooks so eloquently defined, is Eyre’s involvement in the “movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” (viii)? At every turn – Gateshead Hall, Thornfield, Moor House – Eyre is not fighting for the equality of humanity without the influence of gender, she is not attempting to tear down the patriarchy, she is not raging at the advancement of colonization through forced religion. She is attempting to find a place in which she can both delight and be delighted in. This is not feminism; this is individualism. This is a beautifully written romance novel.  

I feel it necessary to return to my previous assertion that, as genre fiction, Jane Eyre is a lovely and substantial literary offering. Additionally, that Eyre has overcome frightening amounts of abuse and disdain with her will to be her authentic self without settling for less than she feels she deserves is remarkable, especially coming from a female author in 1847. That Eyre is not a protofeminist or Rochester a colonizer does not in any way dilute the powerful tale of perseverance, journey towards true self, and the desire for love and family against the backdrop of seemingly insurmountable challenges. I will also freely admit that it is my opinion that we are all allowed to interrupt literature in the way we feel appropriate. However, to assert that all women are feminist, and all men are patriarchal oppressors, creates the exact distraction that hooks combats:  

“I tend to hear all about the evil of feminism and the bad feminists: how ‘they’ hate men; how ‘they’ want to go against nature- and god; how ‘they’ are all lesbians; how ‘they’ are taking all the jobs and making the world hard for white men, who do not stand a chance” (vii).  

If the struggle to educate those who do not understand or have never been exposed to the ideology of patriarchal tyranny, class subjugation, or racial oppression is made more difficult because of (probably) well-meaning attempts to point it out even when maybe it is not there, then we would be more responsible as humans to put the betterment of humanity ahead of our individuality of interpretation. As with the fable of the little boy who cried wolf, the real danger that actually does exist will be unheeded, unrecognized, unthwarted due to the conditioning and desensitization that occurs – if everything is a wolf, then nothing is.  

As an aside before I close, here is one more interesting observation that again, while not in the scope of this paper, lends a bit of color to my disagreement. For an essay written to defend the decolonization and celebrate the feminism of one independent Miss Jane Eyre, that Willis consistently refers to Edward as “Rochester” and Eyre as “Jane” really takes the cake.