Mad Wife in the Attic?

[inuzrule]

Although I loved reading Jane Eyre, I must wonder...what was up with the wife up in the attic?

I mean, Mr. Rochester could've done something more humane for her, right? I'm unsure as to whether he took the correct course of action...

[Rosalind]

Well, given the condition of asylums during that period, locking her in the attic was probably a slightly /more/ humane option. Not that I'm saying it's acceptable, mind, or that Mr. Rochester doesn't have his own share of mental screwiness.

[MissDay7000]

Also consider, the law at the time would have allowed him to dump her into an asylum and forget about her, but he didn't do that either. I think Rochester did the only thing he really could do while still keeping his wife with him.

MissDay

[Vedrana]

But that doesn't answer why he had Bertha kept under the care of a drunk woman, and why she had to survive a diet of porridge.

If Rochester had wealth of that kind, surely he might have been able to keep her in a quiet country residence with air and space at least. I mean, how do we know that her condition was not aggravated by the environment she lived in?

[godhelpme2]

I wonder whether the atmosphere in the jaillike attic will add to the mental problem of the wife or not. And it will do no good to such an insane person except give her more love and more treatment.

[Stephanie B.]

I don't know that I would feel safe with some crazy lady running up and down the hall setting my bed on fire. So honesty for me that would have been the last straw and I'd have dumped her. Sorry if that offends anyone

[5c0H]

I would have done it sooner!

[soleann]

I don't think that Rochester could ever have even thought that the environment Bertha was forced to live in added up to the mental issues she had. After all, he hated her and thought of her as something of a beast, not as a human being. But I do wonder why he did not just simply send her away to a place as far away from him as possible? I would have done something like that.
Oh yes, and I think that Rochester wasn't perfectly mentally stable himself.

[jensacurlyfries]

One thing that it is important to remember, is that Bertha and, Jane for that matter, are living in a world dominated by men. Is Bertha actually mad? Is the question you have to ask yourself. Numerous feminist critics have argued that she isn't. Bear in mind that ANY passionate outburst was seen by the men in Victorian society as a sign of madness. In the recent BBC version of Jane Eyre, the director presented Bertha as having committed adultery. Rochester, in those times, had every right to lock her up in this way. BUT he could not divorce her without parliamentary consent. Personally I think his decision to lock her up has two levels. 1. she was not in an asylum (in my opinion, this slightly redeems his actions) 2. he could not risk her being found out, as it would damage his reputation, and so he imprisioned her in his home and tried to escape as much as possible. Bronte was making a point when she had a "mad woman in the attic" about the society which she lived in.

[Newcomer]

First, congratulations for posting your opinion. That is what the Forum should be: discussion, in my view, enriches all. Jensacurlyfries writes:'Bronte was making a point when she had a "mad woman in the attic" about the society which she lived in.' Permit me to dissent. To make sense, I think we have to limit ourselves to what Charlotte Bronte wrote in Jane Eyre. Charlotte's art, aim, is very different from Dickens or Thackeray, who through irony and sarcasm criticized Victorian society. Charlotte wrote about the personal, not the general. And if one reads the background material, one is left with the inescapable impression of how autobiographical the creation of Jane is. From the death of her sisters, to the growing up in a home that lacked parental warmth much less the expression of parental love, to the aspiration of emotional and intellectual stimulation of the adult woman.
As to the views of Feminist critics, while I understand the desire to create historical heroines and models for the young woman, please point out where in Jane Eyre such idealogical basis exist. I think I have read the novel carefully and I did not find any views corresponding to contemporary Feminism. Quite to the contrary and I will gladly quote passages to substantiate this interpretation.

[vin1391]

Well like everyone said Rochester could have sent her to an Asylum but he did not.Maybe he still in a way cared(not completely though) for her enough to not let any harm come to her.If I remember right he did try to save her when the House catches fire didn't he? He did not have to do that.He could have just gone out and saved himself from his fate.Anyway it was life during those times.One could not possibily do anything else.I am not sure but I think Divorce was not possible then or it was not popular.(I am not familiar with that time period)

But that doesn't make me forget the fact that he did not tell Jane and would have married her if not for the sudden interuption.I dislike him for that fact.But other than that.He could not have done anything more for Bertha.And regarding Grace Poole..he did say that she could keep Bertha atleast under some control(that is more than what can be said about others.So what if she drunk a bit it didn't matter to him).

Like someone said above Rochester could have sent Bertha to a country side...but maybe he wanted her within reachable distance reagrding safety or some such reasons....Then again this is just my opinion it does not justify the fact that Bertha was imprisoned in the attic and could have gotten some care...But still...Anyway thats what I think.

[Lyn]

I think Bronte stuck her in the attic as an inversion of the typical Gothic structure of sticking the 'evil unknown scary thing' in the cellar. The house in original Gothic fiction (and all cheesy 1980s horror movies eg Nightmare on Elm Street) is of course a symbol of the human psyche, and the cellar (or the boiler room) could be seen as the 'unconscious' where all the bad stuff lurks, just hiding out and waiting to be revealed, aka the monk and all that. Bronte turns this around, hiding the 'evil' at the very top of the house (ie the surface of the mind), linking into the madness idea - that madness is the truth living above what seems to be 'real' but is in fact just fakery - the upper class controlled nature of the lower house, the richness and apparant civility of it all. The lives that are lead in the lower house are not real - what is real is the madness that lives on top of it all, but we're hiding that cos we're scared of what it might do. There's also the whole feminism aspects, turning things upside down and round the other way from the masculine treatment of the subject. I'm sure I pinched these interpretations from some book or other, its just I can't remember which one.

[sciencefan]

Interesting comments.
I read this too many years ago to comment in any detail,
but I enjoyed reading the comments.

I may have to go read the book again so I may comment.
;-)

[dirac1984]

i think the mad wife in the attic is not easy character to understand. you must know that in the victorian period, madness can really mean many mental states which we now consider to be absolutely normal. for example, many men confined their wives just because the wives are a little active in sex life. this fact has been mentioned in Laine Scholwater's <a literature of their own>. i know that some feminist have interpretated Bertha as a psychological reflection of jane herself, which is very fascinating interpretation. but i prefer to interpretate this character in a colonialism perspective, for it is more related to the text itself. remember Bertha is from Jamaica. and when rochester married her, she is not mad. how came she is mad? rochester mentioned that she was too actvie, vehement. little jane is also very vehement in gateshead. so rochester, in my opinion is just after her family's large fortune. and when he is tired of bertha, he just makes up a excuse, then confines her. then he can enjoy his dissipated life. i recommend close reading in solving this seeming mystery.

[sciencefan]

i think the mad wife in the attic is not easy character to understand. ... i recommend close reading in solving this seeming mystery.I agree.

Here are a couple of clues I have dug up from chapter 26:

""Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations? Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard!--as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points.""

""You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing,""

From these quotations,
we can see that Bertha was mad before Rochester married her,
but it was hidden from him.
He was tricked into thinking she was one thing
when in fact she was another.
He was betrayed in a most hateful and awful way

[dirac1984]

what you quote is told by rochester. how could he provide evidence to exonerate himself. i do not think we can trust his own words. you know a man can make up anything before his lover. i would advise you to think about the following question: if bertha was mad before the marriage, how could he had no idea of it? what is madness in rochester's opinion? remember what rochester himself said about bertha.she is just too vehement and too demanding. and consider the fact that she is from jamaica, her nature is less restrained than her victorian counterparts in britain. rochester also said that bertha became more and more violent after the confinement. we all would become monsters if we are confined to an attic. recall jane eyre's experience in gateshead. she was also confined in a red room when she was vehement. she was also considered to be mad at that time. so really, we have to read the text in a comprehensive and historical way. merely depend upon what the defendant says is not serious investigation. also, i must caution that even the narrator can sometimes be a conspirator of rochester, when he suppressed bertha.

[sciencefan]

what you quote is told by rochester. how could he provide evidence to exonerate himself. i do not think we can trust his own words. you know a man can make up anything before his lover. i would advise you to think about the following question: if bertha was mad before the marriage, how could he had no idea of it? what is madness in rochester's opinion? remember what rochester himself said about bertha.she is just too vehement and too demanding. and consider the fact that she is from jamaica, her nature is less restrained than her victorian counterparts in britain. rochester also said that bertha became more and more violent after the confinement. we all would become monsters if we are confined to an attic. recall jane eyre's experience in gateshead. she was also confined in a red room when she was vehement. she was also considered to be mad at that time. so really, we have to read the text in a comprehensive and historical way. merely depend upon what the defendant says is not serious investigation. also, i must caution that even the narrator can sometimes be a conspirator of rochester, when he suppressed bertha.
Are you a law student?
I take his words as absolute truth.
The author is finally explaining to us what this woman is doing in the attic.

The answer to your question:
"if bertha was mad before the marriage, how could he had no idea of it?"
is in the quotations of my previous post.

""they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points.""

""You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing,""
These quotes are from chapter 26.


The only point I make is that she was mad before he married her.

[Newcomer]

Are you a law student?
I take his words as absolute truth.


Very good Sciencefan!
But I took you as a Vestal in the shrine of Jane Austen. Don't you risk heterodoxy in defending Charlotte Bronte?

[dirac1984]

again, i have to remind you that your quotation does not count.
do you think that before their marriage rochester never saw bertha? do you think he could not discern it if he saw her. remember he is a very sharp man. he is not a fool.

[sciencefan]

again, i have to remind you that your quotation does not count.
do you think that before their marriage rochester never saw bertha? do you think he could not discern it if he saw her. remember he is a very sharp man. he is not a fool.Well, let me be direct,
since that is how you are being with me.
You are wrong.
How is it that you cannot tell the difference between lies and truth?

You will have to find me at least two expert literary critics
who agree with you for me to even begin to change my mind.

[dirac1984]

You will have to find me at least two expert literary critics
who agree with you for me to even begin to change my mind.----seriously, two expert? i can tell you for sure,i can find more than two hundred critics. i recommend to search for Wide Sargasso Sea, which is an excellent interpretation of jane eyre. in fact, most of the critics would agree with me. although i understand that many people will not accept this interpretation, it is normal. especially for people who live in conutries with no colonism experience .

[Newcomer]

Well, let me be direct,
since that is how you are being with me.
You are wrong.
How is it that you cannot tell the difference between lies and truth?


So Janus like, Athena/Aphrodite, visage. You'll confuse me as to which I'm addressing!

I would rather see her lovely step
and motion of light on her face
than chariots of Lydians or ranks
.............. of footsoldiers in arms

It should be in Attic Greek but since I do not know it, a translation. A quote from,
If Not, Winter – Fragments of Sappho by Anne Carson


You will have to find me at least two expert literary critics who agree with you for me to even begin to change my mind.----seriously, two expert? i can tell you for sure,i can find more than two hundred critics. i recommend to search for Wide Sargasso Sea, which is an excellent interpretation of jane eyre.

Dear dirac1984,
Your quote “literature is not easy but really fascinating.” implies thought, or at least passion under the control of thought. When sciencefan asked for 'two expert literary critics' and you replied that you could cite hundreds but gave Wide Sargasso Sea as an example. That is a misunderstanding of what a accepted literary critic is. Wide Sargasso Sea is a novel, not academic criticism. It is also a feminist viewpoint attempting to refute Bronte's characterization as Bertha being mad, hardly an impartial interpretation of Bronte's characterization of Bertha.

[Lote-Tree]

I agree.

Here are a couple of clues I have dug up from chapter 26:

""Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations? Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard!--as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points.""

""You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing,""

From these quotations,
we can see that Bertha was mad before Rochester married her,
but it was hidden from him.
He was tricked into thinking she was one thing
when in fact she was another.
He was betrayed in a most hateful and awful way

Perhaps Bertha represents plight of women in those time - when they were either mere possesions of men who took control of them or something to be despised because of their sex as sex leads to sin etc etc...

[sciencefan]

but i prefer to interpretate this character in a colonialism perspective, for it is more related to the text itself. remember Bertha is from Jamaica. and when rochester married her, she is not mad. how came she is mad? rochester mentioned that she was too actvie, vehement. little jane is also very vehement in gateshead. so rochester, in my opinion is just after her family's large fortune. and when he is tired of bertha, he just makes up a excuse, then confines her. then he can enjoy his dissipated life. i recommend close reading in solving this seeming mystery.
I placed in bold a couple of your statements I would like to address.

Firstly, I have come to the realization that we may have a semantics problem here.
I agree with you on one hand that she was not showing signs of madness when he met her.
The text tells us as much, but also says she hid her family secrets from him.
The fact remains that she came from a family in which insanity was genetic for at least 3 generations.
The family hid that fact from him.
Bertha Mason was predisposed to going insane and that fact was hidden from her future husband.
Furthermore it made itself known very quickly within the 4 following years after their marriage.


Secondly, the fact that descriptions of Bertha's behavior itself speaks to severe mental illness, you can not possibly be correct in Rochester having invented her madness. Confinement itself, no matter how "severe" does not cause mental illness.
As an example, I would bring to your attention Senator John McCain, a former POW who was treated severely in confinement for many years.
He is no more crazy than you or I.


what you quote is told by rochester. how could he provide evidence to exonerate himself. i do not think we can trust his own words. you know a man can make up anything before his lover. i would advise you to think about the following question: if bertha was mad before the marriage, how could he had no idea of it? what is madness in rochester's opinion? remember what rochester himself said about bertha.she is just too vehement and too demanding. and consider the fact that she is from jamaica, her nature is less restrained than her victorian counterparts in britain. rochester also said that bertha became more and more violent after the confinement. we all would become monsters if we are confined to an attic. recall jane eyre's experience in gateshead. she was also confined in a red room when she was vehement. she was also considered to be mad at that time. so really, we have to read the text in a comprehensive and historical way. merely depend upon what the defendant says is not serious investigation. also, i must caution that even the narrator can sometimes be a conspirator of rochester, when he suppressed bertha.
You say that Rochester is making up his story.
I say he is not.
The text itself uses the word "recklessly" to describe Rochester's abandon at explaining himself.
His audience is not simply a lover (who he is not even directly addressing) but rather his audience is a priest, a lawyer, and Bertha's brother who could very easily have shouted, "LIAR!" if he were not telling the truth.


While you may know a great many things about this book,
this is one small detail I feel you may have misunderstood.


So Janus like, Athena/Aphrodite, visage. You'll confuse me as to which I'm addressing!

I would rather see her lovely step
and motion of light on her face
than chariots of Lydians or ranks
.............. of footsoldiers in arms

It should be in Attic Greek but since I do not know it, a translation. A quote from,
If Not, Winter – Fragments of Sappho by Anne Carson
Ah well.
I used to be rude and arrogant before I learned to be diplomatic.
I am capable of it still. :blush:
But I have learned "You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar."

[dirac1984]

Wide Sargasso Sea is a novel, not academic criticism. It is also a feminist viewpoint attempting to refute Bronte's characterization as Bertha being mad, hardly an impartial interpretation of Bronte's characterization of Bertha.----i know it is a novel, i just want him to search about this novel, and he will see that it receives many praises from the literary circle. because it is a good interpretation of both bertha and the novel.

[cardplay]

I"ve always been deeply disturbed by Jane Eyre. We have a totally one-sided narration (by the female 'heroine' who is in love with the male 'hero') so of course she says the wife is mad and all that.

BUt in our modern age when everyone is skeptical and narrator-bias comes into question, what was really going on? Maybe his wife was going crazy thanks to her hats or her face whitener (back then they used chemicals linked to mental illness for hat velvet and face whitener). Did Rochester refuse to get his wife treated because he didn't like her anyway? etc. etc.


One thing that it is important to remember, is that Bertha and, Jane for that matter, are living in a world dominated by men. Is Bertha actually mad? Is the question you have to ask yourself. Numerous feminist critics have argued that she isn't. Bear in mind that ANY passionate outburst was seen by the men in Victorian society as a sign of madness. In the recent BBC version of Jane Eyre, the director presented Bertha as having committed adultery. Rochester, in those times, had every right to lock her up in this way. BUT he could not divorce her without parliamentary consent. Personally I think his decision to lock her up has two levels. 1. she was not in an asylum (in my opinion, this slightly redeems his actions) 2. he could not risk her being found out, as it would damage his reputation, and so he imprisioned her in his home and tried to escape as much as possible. Bronte was making a point when she had a "mad woman in the attic" about the society which she lived in.

[sciencefan]

i know it is a novel, i just want him to search about this novel, and he will see that it receives many praises from the literary circle. because it is a good interpretation of both bertha and the novel.I did read a little bit about it.
I think you and I will never see eye to eye because I despise feminism and you appear to espouse the views of that ideology.
(By the way, I am female.)


I"ve always been deeply disturbed by Jane Eyre. We have a totally one-sided narration (by the female 'heroine' who is in love with the male 'hero') so of course she says the wife is mad and all that.

BUt in our modern age when everyone is skeptical and narrator-bias comes into question, what was really going on? Maybe his wife was going crazy thanks to her hats or her face whitener (back then they used chemicals linked to mental illness for hat velvet and face whitener). Did Rochester refuse to get his wife treated because he didn't like her anyway? etc. etc.
What is this narrator bias everyone speaks of?

Wouldn't that only come into play if the author deliberately made their character lie to you?
Is that what authors do nowadays?
I don't read modern novels, and now I think I am glad I don't.
One expects the author to be giving clues about the truth,
not lying to them.


That item about chemicals being linked to mental illness is very interesting.
Naturally, they did not realize that then.

The famous composer, Beethoven, supposedly died of lead poisoning
and some of his erratic behavior is blamed on it,
though his type of deafness is not.
There is a wiki if you want more info.

[drunkenKOALA]

Actually, I think we would be giving the author too much credit by assuming that she deliberately made Rochester a lying man. However, I don't think that was her intention. It came across to me that she simply did not see, or care to see, the unrealistic behaviors and impossible situations she subjects her characters to: How can Rochester marry a woman and not realize that she's mad? It must follow that either she wasn't all that mad, until she married him--and what would that say about his character? Or that she was mad, but Rochester didn't find out because he never got to know her very well, much less love her--so why did he marry her then? money, which he scorns his father and brother for making him marry for?

But I take the harsh and skeptical view that Charlotte Bronte wasn't even aware of these inconsistencies, and consequently that the readers aren't expected to ask these, though logical and reasonable, pointless and irrelevant questions, but simply to accept the story as it is without questions and feel sorry for Jane.

[sciencefan]

Actually, I think we would be giving the author too much credit by assuming that she deliberately made Rochester a lying man. However, I don't think that was her intention. It came across to me that she simply did not see, or care to see, the unrealistic behaviors and impossible situations she subjects her characters to: How can Rochester marry a woman and not realize that she's mad? It must follow that either she wasn't all that mad, until she married him--and what would that say about his character? Or that she was mad, but Rochester didn't find out because she never got to know her very well, much less love her--so why did he marry her then? money, which he scorns his father and brother for making him marry for?

But I take the harsh and skeptical view that Charlotte Bronte wasn't even aware of these inconsistencies, and consequently that the readers aren't expected to ask these, though logical and reasonable, pointless and irrelevant questions, but simply to accept the story as it is without questions and feel sorry for Jane.

I do believe I agree with you!

[optimisticnad]

Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman in the Attic' is a fantastic read!

[malwethien]

I think the main reason why Rochester kept Bertha "on the third floor" was because he saw her has his property - and nothing more. He had no love for her, no sympathy, no compassion - just a mere possession. And it is because of this that he felt responsible for her and could not leave her to die in an asylum or in Ferndean as he would like...he saw her as his problem, as his lunatic and therefore felt responsible for her. Kinda like how a person would feel about a family pet that he/she is not particularly fond of...he/she will probably not let the dog die because that would just be cruel, but since he/she is not particularly fond of it, and because it is a family pet he/she will keep it alive, but won't exert any great effort either. I know that sounds harsh, but that is what I think of the matter...

[sciencefan]

It was MY impression that putting Bertha in an insane asylum would have been much more cruel than the private care Rochester provided for her. The public institutions of those days were not known for their compassion and comfort. Bertha was better off where she was.

In my own experience, it is my opinion that those who have private care have their needs much more closely looked after, and more quickly attended to, than those who are in a hospital.

[malwethien]

But her "private care" was not so great either. Why didn't Rochester give her the whole of Thornfield instead? Why did he just keep her on the third floor?

[sciencefan]

But her "private care" was not so great either. Why didn't Rochester give her the whole of Thornfield instead? Why did he just keep her on the third floor?The WHOLE mansion.

I have 3 children.

When they were very young but old enough to be a danger to themselves, they spent much of their playtime in a play pen with carefully selected age-appropriate toys to play with.

As they got older, and needed room to amble around in, but still not so much as the whole house, I kept them confined to one special play room that was childproofed and safe for them.

This is in the best interest of the child. You only give them as much as they can handle. You don't allow them into situations where they can injure themselves.

Bertha Mason was a danger to herself and to others.
You don't just let people like that roam around free without boundaries.


I do not find fault with what Rochester did because the author did not lead me to find fault with him.
She goes out of her way to describe him as wholly "good" in his care of Bertha. Therefore, regardless of how we today might treat a person in Bertha's condition, apparently, according to the author, what Rochester did was "good". I am not going to harshly judge a time and place over 150 years removed from my own.

[Newcomer]

The WHOLE mansion.
I do not find fault with what Rochester did because the author did not lead me to find fault with him.
She goes out of her way to describe him as wholly "good" in his care of Bertha. Therefore, regardless of how we today might treat a person in Bertha's condition, apparently, according to the author, what Rochester did was "good". I am not going to harshly judge a time and place over 150 years removed from my own.



But her "private care" was not so great either. Why didn't Rochester give her the whole of Thornfield instead? Why did he just keep her on the third floor?

The difference between sciecefan post and malwethience, is maturity. Experience and memory that allows discrimination, hence understanding and perspective.
Jane Eyre is Charlotte Bronte's work of art, her experience and best read very carefully. To second guess, to judge from our own view point, is to brush aside Charlotte Bronte's insights, even worse is to assume that ours are equal or better. Literature is not philosophy nor morality, it is fiction for grownups.

[drunkenKOALA]

I do not find fault with what Rochester did because the author did not lead me to find fault with him.
She goes out of her way to describe him as wholly "good" in his care of Bertha.

I agree with you that the author meant Rochester to be a good man and did not intend to have her readers find fault with him. Whether I, as a reader, agree with the author's point of view, is another issue--and one on which I believe we hold very differing opinions of.

I do not share the author's views that Rochester is a good man. Contrary, I think he is far from faultless.

[malwethien]

To second guess, to judge from our own view point, is to brush aside Charlotte Bronte's insights, even worse is to assume that ours are equal or better. Literature is not philosophy nor morality, it is fiction for grownups.

I don't think I agree with you. When you read something - anything, you don't just sit back and accept everything the author tells you. It's not a matter of whether we think our ideas are better than the authors' or even equal - readers should question the material they are reading, and writers, know this - I'm sure most even welcome it.

[sciencefan]

I agree with you that the author meant Rochester to be a good man and did not intend to have her readers find fault with him. Whether I, as a reader, agree with the author's point of view, is another issue--and one on which I believe we hold very differing opinions of.

I do not share the author's views that Rochester is a good man. Contrary, I think he is far from faultless.

BTW, when I said she portrayed him as faultless, I only meant in his care of Betha,
for she does bring forward the faults in the way he interacts with people.

Was there a huge outcry when this was published that it was unrealistic?


I don't think I agree with you. When you read something - anything, you don't just sit back and accept everything the author tells you. It's not a matter of whether we think our ideas are better than the authors' or even equal - readers should question the material they are reading, and writers, know this - I'm sure most even welcome it.
I agree with this statement, generally speaking.
Certainly if I am reading the newspaper or a magazine, I will think critically for myself. I will not be led silently to the slaughter.

But when I am reading literature that is one or two hundred years old, a "fairy tale", and I come across thinking that is wholly foreign to anything I know today, I don't think, "Oh those horrible, wicked people!"
No. I think, "Isn't it strange how different it was back then?"

And then there is the very difference between fiction and non-fiction.
Certainly I would hope you always carefully discern right from wrong and truth from lies (even though I have heard there is no such thing any more- but that is another subject) when you are reading non-fiction.

But when we are reading fiction, we have entered the author's artificial world. The author gives us clues to lead us to conclusions. We discover what the author thinks. Once we do that we are certainly free to agree or disagree.
But to judge as right or wrong is impossible because it is an opinion. And nobody's opinion is wrong. It's an opinion.

Anyway, have a wonderful day.

[B-Mental]

Has anyone read Wide Sargasso Sea? There is a mad wife in the attic there too. I can understand her madness, but I still wonder about the symbolism. I think that in WSS the marriage is like a prison cell and the wife is in solitary.

[malwethien]

I agree with this statement, generally speaking.
Certainly if I am reading the newspaper or a magazine, I will think critically for myself. I will not be led silently to the slaughter.

But when I am reading literature that is one or two hundred years old, a "fairy tale", and I come across thinking that is wholly foreign to anything I know today, I don't think, "Oh those horrible, wicked people!"
No. I think, "Isn't it strange how different it was back then?"

But when we are reading fiction, we have entered the author's artificial world. The author gives us clues to lead us to conclusions. We discover what the author thinks. Once we do that we are certainly free to agree or disagree.
But to judge as right or wrong is impossible because it is an opinion. And nobody's opinion is wrong. It's an opinion.

Anyway, have a wonderful day.

Of course...I agree with what you said and when you read a work of fiction - it is as if you are argreeing to be led into the world of the writer...and though ideally we would like to say "isn't it strange how different it was back then?" instead of "Oh those horrible people..." the truth is, there will be people out there who will not think that way....and there will be people obsessed with the little thing in the novel of the hero locking up his mad wife on the third floor instead of being more interested in the whold novel as a work of art or whatever the writer inteded it to be....

But anyway....I think I have lost the point I was trying to make ;) It's a good discussion though...;)


Has anyone read Wide Sargasso Sea? There is a mad wife in the attic there too. I can understand her madness, but I still wonder about the symbolism. I think that in WSS the marriage is like a prison cell and the wife is in solitary.

B-Mental...yes....the "mad wife in the attic" in WSS and the mad wife in the "attic" in Jane Eyre are one and the same....the infamous Bertha Antoinette Cosway Mason Rochester ;) the nameless English gentleman in WSS is none other than Mr. R. himself....

[ophelia2602]

Not only was the locking up of bertha mason representitive of female subjugation, it is important to note that bertha was west-indian; many critics have argued that the characterisation of bertha, as well as the portrayal of rochester's treatment of her, is bronte's indictment of slavery and of colonialism. many post-colonial critics, therefore, read this as bronte's depiction of white, slave-master oppression (note the continuing slave allegories throughout the novel). some critics have also argued that when rochester claims she was insane without his knowing, she was too sexually adventurous for him (due to her foreign, west-indian background) and therefore he had to lock her up - this then drove her to the level of insanity that she eventually reaches (however, i do not wholly trust this argument as yet - but just thought i'd throw it out there)
xxx

[Newcomer]

Not only was the locking up of bertha mason representitive of female subjugation, it is important to note that bertha was west-indian; many critics have argued that the characterisation of bertha, as well as the portrayal of rochester's treatment of her, is bronte's indictment of slavery and of colonialism. many post-colonial critics, therefore, read this as bronte's depiction of white, slave-master oppression (note the continuing slave allegories throughout the novel). some critics have also argued that when rochester claims she was insane without his knowing, she was too sexually adventurous for him (due to her foreign, west-indian background) and therefore he had to lock her up - this then drove her to the level of insanity that she eventually reaches (however, i do not wholly trust this argument as yet - but just thought i'd throw it out there)
xxx

If Charlotte Bronte was alive, under British law what you write could be construed as defamation of character. As it is, the harm that you do is only to young gullible minds who through repetition of such nonsense, will wonder if there is some validity in such claims.
Before opinionating what Charlotte Bronte's intentions were, as a start, read the novel and read it carefully without preconception. It is not an ideological tract. Second, read the background material of Charlotte's life, a good reference would be - Charlotte Bronte, The Evolution of Genius by Winifred Gerin, - to gleam an understanding of where such characterizations and incidents as used in Jane Eyre came from. Third, get familiar with 19th. century social histories of England and colonialism before making generalizations applicable to Bronte or contemporary women writers, as to 'female subjugation', 'sexual adventurousness'. Charlotte was very concerned with “The place in society of unmarried and unendowned woman was constantly and increasingly in Charlotte's mind”, but there is no suggestions of current feminism in Jane Eyre. Familiarize yourself with Harriet Martineau, a social reformer and champion of the under-privileged and not the polemics of Jean Reys. Fourth, when using phrases, “many critics”, “some critics”, please differentiate between literary critics and feminists idealogues, as per your example - “many critics have argued that the characterisation of bertha, as well as the portrayal of rochester's treatment of her, is bronte's indictment of slavery and of colonialism.”, such does not occur in any contemporary reviews of Jane Eyre. Neither Thackeray nor the literary critic H.R. Lewis, nor the magazines Fraser's or Spectator, raised the issues that you deemed important. The only unfavorable review was in the Quaterly by Miss Rigby (later Lady Eastlake), who wrote that if the book was written by a woman it was by one “who had forfeited the society of her sex....”. Feminism, especially as presently conceived, can not be extracted or justified by any phrase or idea in Jane Eyre. If you maintain the contrary, please provide examples, and from the text, not secondary sources.
What are “ the continuing slave allegories throughout the novel”? Do you understand allegory as a symbol representing an idea or an extended metaphor? If either, would you cite the phrases and places where such occur in the novel? Please diagram “the allegory”, as I doubt their presence, as I understand Charlotte's compositional style.
You state “ it is important to note that bertha was west-indian”, if it is important, you should have checked the text! The only phrase 'west indian' in the text occurs in chapter 23, -”west indian insect; one does not often see so large..”, or are you suggesting a praying mantis as an allegory for Bertha? Bertha Mason was descended from - “mason, merchant, and of antoinetta his wife, a creole”, chapter 26 . Rochester explaining his desires in a wife, in chapter 27 - “I could not find her. Sometimes,for a fleeting moment, I thought I caught a glance, heard a tone,beheld a form, which announced the realisation of my dream: but I was presently undeserved. You are not to suppose that I desired perfection, either of mind or person. I longed only for what suited me--for the antipodes of the Creole:”. Now this is important: the only usage of the term 'creole' is in these two instances and Charlotte usage does not impute any denigration. However the feminist tract of Jaen Rheys that presumes to 'explain' Bertha Mason, - “An unidentified black is a source of menace and a threat to Antoinette.. . .in much of Rhys's writing there exists only the Manichaean division of "good blacks"--those who serve--and "bad blacks"--those who are hostile, threatening, unknown. . .. the relationship [between Tia and Antoinette] is based on the production of difference through the racialist stereotypes of the hardy, physically superior, animallike, lazy negro. . .[lazy black--sleep after eating] and the sensitive whilet child, on the other hand, contemplates nature, seduced by the "reve exotique."- from a biographical site of Jaen Rheys, from http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/worldlit/caribbean/rhys.htm. Thus it is quite apparent that it was Rheys and not Charlotte who harbored racial prejudices.
A similar analysis of “she was too sexually adventurous for him (due to her foreign, west-indian background)”, has no basis in the text of Jane Eyre. Such examples of muddled thinking, mixing of attributions to rationalize an ideological view point, is pervasive in Ophelia2602 note.
It is critical to keep in mind that Bertha Mason, Rochester, are fictional characters and the attributes that they posses are only those given by the author. You can not expand, analyze or attribute to them any other characteristics than what Charlotte gave them. Jaen Rheys' Bertha is not Charlotte's Bertha. Like it or not.

[drunkenKOALA]

How is Rochester's locking Bertha up any better than Mrs. Reed's locking Jane up? Or his sending Adele (?) away to boarding school any better than Mrs. Reed's doing the same with Jane?

[janel34]

In my opinion, stowing Bertha away in the attic was one of the best things Rochester could have done for her (in that day and age). She was in his home, where he could ensure she stayed out of trouble and was taken care of well enough. As to someone's comments about the diet she was fed - I don't think she would have cared what she had to eat, were she truly mad. It was dangerous (and he found out the hard way) to keep his ward and governess there in the same home though. Honestly, my heart broke for him when his secret was discovered and the horrible story told. Remember, didn't Bertha's family never let him be alone with her (not for a moment) before they were married? That tells much on its own.

[Freshley]

I am new to these forums, so if this question has already been addressed, please disregard or provide the title of the thread if possible. Why wasn't divorce an option for Rochester? It is legal in the Church of England, I believe (Henry VIII, etc.) Although I am sure it was looked upon with disfavor and scandal by the Victorians, wouldn't it have been understood by society in this instance? Does anyone know something of the mores of and attitudes toward divorce in England during this time period, especially in extreme cases of "madness"?

[Black Rose]

Divorce wasn't an option for Rochester because his wife was declared mad. Thus legal divorce, despite being socially unpopular, was impossible to attain because it would not be agreed upon by both parties.

[sciencefan]

I am new to these forums, so if this question has already been addressed, please disregard or provide the title of the thread if possible. Why wasn't divorce an option for Rochester? It is legal in the Church of England, I believe (Henry VIII, etc.) Although I am sure it was looked upon with disfavor and scandal by the Victorians, wouldn't it have been understood by society in this instance? Does anyone know something of the mores of and attitudes toward divorce in England during this time period, especially in extreme cases of "madness"?
http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/pptopic2.html
There are also reasons why marriage was not a state to be entered into lightly. Marriage was almost always for life -- English divorce law during the pre-1857 period was a truly bizarre medieval holdover (readers of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre will remember that Mr. Rochester couldn't divorce his insane wife). Simplifying a bit ("saving myself the trouble of writing what I do not perfectly recollect", as Jane Austen wrote in her History of England), almost the only grounds for divorce was the sexual infidelity of the wife; a husband who wished to divorce his wife for this reason had to get the permission of Parliament to sue for divorce; and the divorce trial was between the husband and the wife's alleged lover, with the wife herself more or less a bystander. All these finaglings cost quite a bit of money, so that only the rich could afford divorces. There was also the possibility of legal separations on grounds of cruelty, etc. (where neither spouse had the right to remarry), but the husband generally had absolute custody rights over any children, and could prevent the wife from seeing them at his whim.


http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/charweb/DIVORCEI.htm

[RobinHood3000]

That, and you can't sign divorce forms with either a candle or a knife.

From ROCHESTER'S point of view, he was being benevolent to Bertha/Antoinette, and he probably was - he could just as easily have pushed her from the battlements, and no one would have blinked an eye anywhere. However, I see little reason to take his account of his marriage at face value - he's a man who was force-fed a marriage to a woman who, for reasons he does not understand, goes insane. What Jean Rhys addresses in Wide Sargasso Sea is the possibility that Bertha's insanity, as well as the insanity of her family, is not genetic but is instead the perception of British colonials of what was brought on by British colonials. The cause-effect relationship of Bertha's insanity/bringing Bertha to England could go either way, but considering that Rochester transplanted Bertha from her home to an environment totally foreign to her and locks her away, I'm somewhat inclined to believe Rhys rather than Bront&#235; on the point (though I may just be channeling my professor's bias).

Anyway, my thinking is that Rochester could have done worse, but he has not done as well by Bertha as he believes he has. That's just my opinion.

[Newcomer]

.... What Jean Rhys addresses in Wide Sargasso Sea is the possibility that Bertha's insanity, as well as the insanity of her family, is not genetic but is instead the perception of British colonials of what was brought on by British colonials. The cause-effect relationship of Bertha's insanity/bringing Bertha to England could go either way, but considering that Rochester transplanted Bertha from her home to an environment totally foreign to her and locks her away, I'm somewhat inclined to believe Rhys rather than Brontë on the point (though I may just be channeling my professor's bias)


(RobinHood3000 speaks fluent Rubber Duckese.) Quackedy quack quack Quack-Quackedy.

QED.

[sciencefan]

I am new to these forums, so if this question has already been addressed, please disregard or provide the title of the thread if possible. Why wasn't divorce an option for Rochester? It is legal in the Church of England, I believe (Henry VIII, etc.) Although I am sure it was looked upon with disfavor and scandal by the Victorians, wouldn't it have been understood by society in this instance? Does anyone know something of the mores of and attitudes toward divorce in England during this time period, especially in extreme cases of "madness"?There is a good little essay that makes an excellent point about why Bronte chose to not have Rochester divorce his wife.

http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/charweb/DIVORCEI.htm

How Divorce Would Affect the Novel

Melissa Ziemba

If Mr. Rochester had been able to divorce Bertha and marry Jane without any complications the novel itself would become less powerful. For the central thrust in Jane Eyre is the development of Jane's strong character. If Rochester obtained a divorce from Bertha, his actions would be viewed as even more adulterous than they were portrayed in the novel, for he would be ending a marriage on account of his love for Jane. ...


Click on the link to read the rest.

[Newcomer]

The argument of How Divorce Would Affect the Novel, as pointed out by Sciencefan, catches the central point, the only point. Jane Eyre is a novel, ie. a fiction, a creation of Charlotte Bronte. The ethical decisions of the characters are valid only within the pages of the novel. It would be quite a stretch of imagination that they reflect Charlotte's morality, ie. that of the pre-Victorian society and ludicrous to judge the characters by our contemporary morals. To do such is the height of subjectivity, the inability to see the novel but through our own myopic vision.

[kiki1982]

Actually, at the time Charlotte wrote the book, many people were disgusted by Rochester locking up Bertha, because lunatic assylums were good places where they tried to cure people the best they could (we don't have to look at it in a contemporary kind of way) and, if even they couldn't cure them, looked after them so that they would be happy (host balls, feasts etc).
I think, as Charlotte put a lot of the bible in her book, maybe she meant the locked up wife in the attic as a kind of Christ figure who is being blocked out of Rochester's life. He is 'incredulous', up to three times (as the folowers of Christ in the bible): the first when she sets his bed alight, the second time when she stabs and bites Mason (her brother, maybe this was meant for Rochester though) and a third time on the wedding day, when he still argues that she may be his wife on paper, but not in spirit. It is only when he 'believes' (tries to rescue her from the fire she caused herself a month after Jane has left) that she disapears (read: is taken up to heaven) and that there is place for Jane who is to be resurected in a kind of Pentcost-ish scene (shimmering hearth, 3 candles, thinking she is a ghost etc)...
Bertha is very useful in the book as she decides what is to happen although she is in the attic and nobody knows that she is there. She apears on all the crucial moments.
Maybe she was also brought in the book by Charlotte to complain about the materialism of the rich in those days: Rochester's father was too stingy to devide his fortune between his two sons and so Edward had to marry rich although probably the fortune was big enough for the 2 of them. He got 30000 pounds from his wife who turned out to be mad. His father and brother didn't even take to pains to actually check her out first... Later in the book he (or the gipsy) tells Miss Ingram about the fact that his fortune is not a third of what is supposed and she doesn't want him anymore. Disgusting, because if 5000 pounds was enough for Jane to build a house next to Rochester's and to live comfortably for the rest of her life, then Rochester's fortune was certainly more than sufficiant (it must have been 100000 pounds about, if I can make an educated guess)... He was as rich as the sea is deep (as they say in Dutch) and still he needs to marry rich... I suppose many of those rich gentlemen were saddled with a wife like the sisters Eshton and Ingram. Most of them were bored stiff, because that kind of woman you can't talk with, only make conversation, yet a smart and clever woman as Jane can't make a claim on any gentleman like Rochester because she is not rich.
Both Bertha's and Rochester's family are punished and sacrifice for this materialism: the Masons sacrifice their daughter for a name, but she becomes mad and she is not noticed as the wife of, and Edward is sacrificed by his brother and father but both die and Rochester inherits everything, but he also gets punished for materialism: although he wants Jane and not any of the rich ladies, he still cares about his wife's (Jane's) appearance and takes her shopping. So he gets punished by the fire that takes his house, his 2 eyes, his hand and his looks away. So nothing of everything he had stays, apart from his briliant mind, that is the most important.
That the 2 caracters come together in the end is maybe a sneer at the conventions of the rich and materialistic world: Rochester can't actually say that his appearance as any good anymore (it was not even good to start with, and it got worse as he lost one eye, is blind and also lost a hand, and his face is scarred) and his house is no more and on top of that he does not care about appearance any more ('The thrid day from this will be our wedding day, Jane. Never mind about nice clothes and fine juwels. All that is not worth a fillip.'), although, at the first proposal, he took her shopping and he sent for the family juwels.
Comments are welcome...

[sciencefan]

Actually, at the time Charlotte wrote the book, many people were disgusted by Rochester locking up Bertha, because lunatic assylums were good places where they tried to cure people the best they could (we don't have to look at it in a contemporary kind of way) and, if even they couldn't cure them, looked after them so that they would be happy (host balls, feasts etc).
I think, as Charlotte put a lot of the bible in her book, maybe she meant the locked up wife in the attic as a kind of Christ figure who is being blocked out of Rochester's life. He is 'incredulous', up to three times (as the folowers of Christ in the bible): the first when she sets his bed alight, the second time when she stabs and bites Mason (her brother, maybe this was meant for Rochester though) and a third time on the wedding day, when he still argues that she may be his wife on paper, but not in spirit. It is only when he 'believes' (tries to rescue her from the fire she caused herself a month after Jane has left) that she disapears (read: is taken up to heaven) and that there is place for Jane who is to be resurected in a kind of Pentcost-ish scene (shimmering hearth, 3 candles, thinking she is a ghost etc)...
Bertha is very useful in the book as she decides what is to happen although she is in the attic and nobody knows that she is there. She apears on all the crucial moments.
Maybe she was also brought in the book by Charlotte to complain about the materialism of the rich in those days: Rochester's father was too stingy to devide his fortune between his two sons and so Edward had to marry rich although probably the fortune was big enough for the 2 of them. He got 30000 pounds from his wife who turned out to be mad. His father and brother didn't even take to pains to actually check her out first... Later in the book he (or the gipsy) tells Miss Ingram about the fact that his fortune is not a third of what is supposed and she doesn't want him anymore. Disgusting, because if 5000 pounds was enough for Jane to build a house next to Rochester's and to live comfortably for the rest of her life, then Rochester's fortune was certainly more than sufficiant (it must have been 100000 pounds about, if I can make an educated guess)... He was as rich as the sea is deep (as they say in Dutch) and still he needs to marry rich... I suppose many of those rich gentlemen were saddled with a wife like the sisters Eshton and Ingram. Most of them were bored stiff, because that kind of woman you can't talk with, only make conversation, yet a smart and clever woman as Jane can't make a claim on any gentleman like Rochester because she is not rich.
Both Bertha's and Rochester's family are punished and sacrifice for this materialism: the Masons sacrifice their daughter for a name, but she becomes mad and she is not noticed as the wife of, and Edward is sacrificed by his brother and father but both die and Rochester inherits everything, but he also gets punished for materialism: although he wants Jane and not any of the rich ladies, he still cares about his wife's (Jane's) appearance and takes her shopping. So he gets punished by the fire that takes his house, his 2 eyes, his hand and his looks away. So nothing of everything he had stays, apart from his briliant mind, that is the most important.
That the 2 caracters come together in the end is maybe a sneer at the conventions of the rich and materialistic world: Rochester can't actually say that his appearance as any good anymore (it was not even good to start with, and it got worse as he lost one eye, is blind and also lost a hand, and his face is scarred) and his house is no more and on top of that he does not care about appearance any more ('The thrid day from this will be our wedding day, Jane. Never mind about nice clothes and fine juwels. All that is not worth a fillip.'), although, at the first proposal, he took her shopping and he sent for the family juwels.
Comments are welcome...What kind of authority do you have to make the claims that you do?
How many times have you read the book?
Have you read it recently?
Where did you get the idea of the "Christ figure"?

I don't recall Rochester being incredulous that Bertha attacked Mason.
I remember Rochester scolding Mason for having been warned.

""She bit me," he murmured. "She worried me like a tigress, when
Rochester got the knife from her."

"You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at
once," said Mr. Rochester.

"But under such circumstances, what could one do?" returned Mason.
"Oh, it was frightful!" he added, shuddering. "And I did not expect
it: she looked so quiet at first."

"I warned you," was his friend's answer; "I said--be on your guard
when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-
morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the
interview to-night, and alone.""

I have not read the book recently enough to disagree with you with any authority,
but I feel uncomfortable reading that much hidden meaning into any document.

[kiki1982]

What kind of authority do you have to make the claims that you do?
How many times have you read the book?
Have you read it recently?
Where did you get the idea of the "Christ figure"?

I don't recall Rochester being incredulous that Bertha attacked Mason.
I remember Rochester scolding Mason for having been warned.

""She bit me," he murmured. "She worried me like a tigress, when
Rochester got the knife from her."

"You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at
once," said Mr. Rochester.

"But under such circumstances, what could one do?" returned Mason.
"Oh, it was frightful!" he added, shuddering. "And I did not expect
it: she looked so quiet at first."

"I warned you," was his friend's answer; "I said--be on your guard
when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-
morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the
interview to-night, and alone.""

I have not read the book recently enough to disagree with you with any authority,
but I feel uncomfortable reading that much hidden meaning into any document.


I don't have any authority over this, but I thought as this is a literature interpretation forum it would be in its place. It would be nice to discuss this without any nasty remarks. The only person who would be able to tell us what was really meant by this story, would be the writer, but that is a little difficult I guess. It is not how many times you have read the book, that matters (I read it 3 times, actually), but how you read it. At any rate, 19th century writers that are still printed now never wrote anything without a proper meaning in it. At university we went a lot deeper than this...
Rochester was not incredulous about Mason being bitten by Bertha, but he is about the fact that she is his wife. If you take into account that Bertha tried to burn Rochester in his bed before and tries to bite him on the wedding day and that she did NOT try to burn Jane as she appeared in her bedroom 2 nights before the wedding, it seems hardly plausible that she tried to stab and bite her own brother, Jane actually being her worst enemy. It seems more plausible to me that by the light of a candle (which is not that much), she didn't recognise her brother and so took him for Rochester and tried to kill him. Then those three appearances make up the three of Christ before being taken to heaven. The fire being the forth and ascension to heaven.
There are many literature critics who believe this to be true and as Charlotte was a clergyman's daughter, it is possible. There are many other writers who have done this, and still many who do. Jane also is believed to be a Christ figure who is resurected in the end, like I said in a Pentcost like scene.
The appearances of Bertha seem to foretell the end of each phase in the relationship between Jane and Rochester. 1. After the first few laughs, Jane meets Rochester (not knowing it's him) on the causeway. After that the interview takes place. 2. After the next two meetings with him, Bertha tries to burn Rochester in his bed. After that he disappears in thin air (leaving for the Leas, the Eshton's place). 3. When Rochester returns he starts on the seduction of Jane straight away. This phase comes to a close when Mason is (mistakenly?) bitten by Bertha. Jane will leave for her aunt soon after that. 4. When Jane returns the party have left and a fortnight after that Rochester asks Jane to marry him. This Phase comes to a close when all are introduced to Bertha. After that the conversation between Rochester and Jane will take place and Jane will leave.
(5.?) Then Jane wanders around and is taken in, 'just before dying' by St John Rivers, his 2 sisters and the servant Hannah (read: Joseph of Arimathea, Mary of Magdala, Mary and Salome who put Jesus in the grave). After three days she gets up. A month after this they get a letter telling them that their uncle has died, this making Jane the heiress (not getting her money until around a year after that, but the situation is there), coincidentally at the same time Thornfield burns down.
In the Bible it says that when Christ died the curtain of the temple tore in 2 pieces. Guess what Bertha did with Jane's vail when she appeared in the room... She tore it in 2...
The fact that Jane seems to know that she cannot marry Rochester, that the wedding will not take place, makes her write to her uncle, who is still living causing Mason to find out. It sounds like Jesus telling his diciples that one amongst them was going to betray him. She also asks several times to make the situation go away like Jesus asked his father on the mount of olives.
Rochester also seems to know that it will be Mason who will finally tell on him. He tells Jane and she tells him that he doesn't have to fear Mason. They marry on the 3rd day after the 2nd proposal. Rochester will see again in the third year he is married to Jane, when they will also get a son.
The fact that the place is called Thornfield of all names and that it is circled by thorn trees, would be a big coincidence if nothing was meant by it. Thorn trees are believed to be the tree of life and good and evil that stood in the garden of Eden. Eve ate from one of them and was banned with Adam from the garden. If you look carefully, the two most important conversations between Jane and Rochester take place in the orchard (the conversation after Mason got bitten and the first proposal). The second proposal will take place also under the trees, but at Ferndean, a fearn being in many cultures a symbol of eternal happiness. There are numerous allusions to Genesis in the book as well.
The colour purple, light/darkness and wind also appear numerously in the book. Not without a reason I guess.
The book even ends with these words: 'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’. And according to critics not only because they come from a clergyman (St John), but also because they are the essence of the book.

[sciencefan]

I don't have any authority over this, but I thought as this is a literature interpretation forum it would be in its place. It would be nice to discuss this without any nasty remarks. The only person who would be able to tell us what was really meant by this story, would be the writer, but that is a little difficult I guess. It is not how many times you have read the book, that matters (I read it 3 times, actually), but how you read it. At any rate, 19th century writers that are still printed now never wrote anything without a proper meaning in it. At university we went a lot deeper than this...
Rochester was not incredulous about Mason being bitten by Bertha, but he is about the fact that she is his wife. If you take into account that Bertha tried to burn Rochester in his bed before and tries to bite him on the wedding day and that she did NOT try to burn Jane as she appeared in her bedroom 2 nights before the wedding, it seems hardly plausible that she tried to stab and bite her own brother, Jane actually being her worst enemy. It seems more plausible to me that by the light of a candle (which is not that much), she didn't recognise her brother and so took him for Rochester and tried to kill him. Then those three appearances make up the three of Christ before being taken to heaven. The fire being the forth and ascension to heaven.
There are many literature critics who believe this to be true and as Charlotte was a clergyman's daughter, it is possible. There are many other writers who have done this, and still many who do. Jane also is believed to be a Christ figure who is resurected in the end, like I said in a Pentcost like scene.
The appearances of Bertha seem to foretell the end of each phase in the relationship between Jane and Rochester. 1. After the first few laughs, Jane meets Rochester (not knowing it's him) on the causeway. After that the interview takes place. 2. After the next two meetings with him, Bertha tries to burn Rochester in his bed. After that he disappears in thin air (leaving for the Leas, the Eshton's place). 3. When Rochester returns he starts on the seduction of Jane straight away. This phase comes to a close when Mason is (mistakenly?) bitten by Bertha. Jane will leave for her aunt soon after that. 4. When Jane returns the party have left and a fortnight after that Rochester asks Jane to marry him. This Phase comes to a close when all are introduced to Bertha. After that the conversation between Rochester and Jane will take place and Jane will leave.
(5.?) Then Jane wanders around and is taken in, 'just before dying' by St John Rivers, his 2 sisters and the servant Hannah (read: Joseph of Arimathea, Mary of Magdala, Mary and Salome who put Jesus in the grave). After three days she gets up. A month after this they get a letter telling them that their uncle has died, this making Jane the heiress (not getting her money until around a year after that, but the situation is there), coincidentally at the same time Thornfield burns down.
In the Bible it says that when Christ died the curtain of the temple tore in 2 pieces. Guess what Bertha did with Jane's vail when she appeared in the room... She tore it in 2...
The fact that Jane seems to know that she cannot marry Rochester, that the wedding will not take place, makes her write to her uncle, who is still living causing Mason to find out. It sounds like Jesus telling his diciples that one amongst them was going to betray him. She also asks several times to make the situation go away like Jesus asked his father on the mount of olives.
Rochester also seems to know that it will be Mason who will finally tell on him. He tells Jane and she tells him that he doesn't have to fear Mason. They marry on the 3rd day after the 2nd proposal. Rochester will see again in the third year he is married to Jane, when they will also get a son.
The fact that the place is called Thornfield of all names and that it is circled by thorn trees, would be a big coincidence if nothing was meant by it. Thorn trees are believed to be the tree of life and good and evil that stood in the garden of Eden. Eve ate from one of them and was banned with Adam from the garden. If you look carefully, the two most important conversations between Jane and Rochester take place in the orchard (the conversation after Mason got bitten and the first proposal). The second proposal will take place also under the trees, but at Ferndean, a fearn being in many cultures a symbol of eternal happiness. There are numerous allusions to Genesis in the book as well.
The colour purple, light/darkness and wind also appear numerously in the book. Not without a reason I guess.
The book even ends with these words: 'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’. And according to critics not only because they come from a clergyman (St John), but also because they are the essence of the book.Thank you for your explanation.
I apologize that you felt I was nasty toward you.
I was addressing the ideas which you shared.
I do not agree with all the hidden symbolism certain crtics feel is there.

When I read this:
"the place is called Thornfield of all names and that it is circled by thorn trees"
I thought for sure you were going to say it represented the crown of thorns.
Certainly the Crown of Thorns was a circle.
It is too subjective of a subject for me to feel comfortable discussing it.

As I said, I am more comfortable accepting things for the face value and not trying to read too much into it.
That is just a reflection of my preference.

[kiki1982]

No problem, sciencefan.
I am sure there is even more about the gospel in the book than I can see, as I don't know it by heart and in detail. And I am not prepared to go and read it especially for this :alien:
Still I find it an interesting concept.
I'll come and have a look regularly here.

About the divorce: if Rochester would have succeeded in divorcing his wife, then Jane would have married him after the first proposal and she wouldn't have had St John's proposal. St John Rivers is planning to marry on the conventional grounds: duty, support for his work etc. He does not want to marry her because he likes her or anything like that. She tells him that she wants to help him but doens't want to get married, but he says that he, a 25 year-old, cannot go to India with her, a 20 year-old, without being married. Jane doesn't see that as a good ground for marriage, nor do his sisters, but probably this was a very popular ground in those days, I can imagine. Jane is about to yield when she hears Rochester call out for her.
If she would have married Rochester from the first time there wouldn't have been a choice for her between a proper marriage (marriage in spirit, as it should be) and marriage for the outside world.

[plainjane]

I've read Jane Eyre many times over the years, first time when I was about 10 or so. Someone up the thread spoke of the truthfulness of the narrator. I've read plenty of unreliable narrators, and do not consider Jane unreliable in the least. She presented the good and bad in an even handed manner as far as I am concerned.

It was also brought up that the term Creole was used in a [possibly]derogatory manner. There are many definitions of Creole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole) but it only sometimes refers to someone of African descent. So to imply prejudice on Rochester's part on that account is not applicable IMO.

Regarding The Wide Sargasso Sea...I started it, and couldn't finish, didn't care for the writing style. It felt totally untrue to the original. Which I suppose was the point, but still put me off.

Regarding hiding Bertha in the attic. It was first of all loads better than Bedlam, which was the usual course at the time.
And as far as hiding her madness from the young Rochester.....in that time and place I imagine it was quite easy to hide something of that nature.

Wish I'd found this thread before! :)

[kiki1982]

Hello!

I just found this article on the internet...

http://caxton.stockton.edu/browning/stories/storyReader$3

frightning...

But what I found was this:

Men often found themselves honeymooning with a frightened, sometimes hysterical bride who was afraid of her husband. Young women were absolutely ignorant in matters of sexual intercourse. For them the wedding night experience was nothing more than a bodily assault. The typical Victorian man, highly skilled in matters of courtship, but unenlightened to the considerate lovemaking his wife craved, merely exercised his rights and she performed her duty (Battan 176).

James Russell Price, a physician, can attest to the fact that forced sex occurred with frequency. Having studied one hundred cases of wives seeking separations from their husbands, he found that sixty eight percent cited sexual abuse “on the first night of married life.” He related one account of an eighteen-year old bride. Filled with fear on her wedding night, she pleaded with her husband not to kill her. He proceeded to lock the door and “took her against her will.” The young bride assured Dr. Price that she was incapable of forgiving or forgetting her husband’s brutality (Battan 169).


Maybe Rochester was too brutal on the wedding night with Bertha :lol: . One would go mad for less...

It is a very interesting article...

This was just a morbid joke though... :p

[RobinHood3000]

I've read Jane Eyre many times over the years, first time when I was about 10 or so. Someone up the thread spoke of the truthfulness of the narrator. I've read plenty of unreliable narrators, and do not consider Jane unreliable in the least. She presented the good and bad in an even handed manner as far as I am concerned.

It was also brought up that the term Creole was used in a [possibly]derogatory manner. There are many definitions of Creole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole) but it only sometimes refers to someone of African descent. So to imply prejudice on Rochester's part on that account is not applicable IMO.

Regarding The Wide Sargasso Sea...I started it, and couldn't finish, didn't care for the writing style. It felt totally untrue to the original. Which I suppose was the point, but still put me off.

Regarding hiding Bertha in the attic. It was first of all loads better than Bedlam, which was the usual course at the time.
And as far as hiding her madness from the young Rochester.....in that time and place I imagine it was quite easy to hide something of that nature.

Wish I'd found this thread before! :)I have no doubt that Jane was true to the intent of Charlotte Brontë, but how balanced is Brontë's view?

Creole with reference to Bertha is not referring to African descent, but it nonetheless decries prejudice on Rochester's part. She's from the Caribbean islands, and even that alone (the lack of a traditional British upbringing) would be enough for a Victorian man to mistreat her on the basis of prejudice.

And trust me, you'll want to finish Wide Sargasso Sea. You'll have to if you want as much perspective on Jane Eyre as possible.

[plainjane]

I have no doubt that Jane was true to the intent of Charlotte Brontë, but how balanced is Brontë's view?

Creole with reference to Bertha is not referring to African descent, but it nonetheless decries prejudice on Rochester's part. She's from the Caribbean islands, and even that alone (the lack of a traditional British upbringing) would be enough for a Victorian man to mistreat her on the basis of prejudice.

And trust me, you'll want to finish Wide Sargasso Sea. You'll have to if you want as much perspective on Jane Eyre as possible.
Good question, how balanced could it have been given the time and place?
I seriously doubt Bronte [within herself] was prejudiced, but could have of course been under the common misconceptions of the times.

The fact that she used the ambiguous term 'Creole' could be evidence she was implying African descent, which would have been looked down upon then. In the States in that time, especially in the South, there were many free people of African descent that were commonly referred to as 'Creole'.

With that recommendation, I suppose I'll have to throw WSS back into the stack. Although I hasten to add I don't think it adds to Jane at all, it seems to me that being written by a different author totally skews the equation.

But I didn't like the sequel to Gone With the Wind either. :crash:

[RobinHood3000]

Good question, how balanced could it have been given the time and place?
I seriously doubt Bronte [within herself] was prejudiced, but could have of course been under the common misconceptions of the times.

The fact that she used the ambiguous term 'Creole' could be evidence she was implying African descent, which would have been looked down upon then. In the States in that time, especially in the South, there were many free people of African descent that were commonly referred to as 'Creole'.

With that recommendation, I suppose I'll have to throw WSS back into the stack. Although I hasten to add I don't think it adds to Jane at all, it seems to me that being written by a different author totally skews the equation.

But I didn't like the sequel to Gone With the Wind either. :crash:You'll notice in Jane Eyre that Rochester's French and German lovers are portrayed somewhat less-than-favorably. Heck, Brontë makes them out to be decadent tarts - and not the good kind, either.

"Creole" is also used to apply to whites raised in the Caribbean - Jean Rhys, who wrote Wide Sargasso Sea, patterned a great deal of her novel on her life there, and her use of the term "Creole" seems much more likely. (And incidentally, those Creoles were not looked upon much more favorably.) After all, in Brontë's novel, Bertha was supposed to come from Jamaica or thereabouts, and what do you anticipate a middle-class Victorian woman who's never been out of the United Kingdom would think of an exotic (in Victorian times, synonymous with "savage") locale like the Caribbean?

[plainjane]

You'll notice in Jane Eyre that Rochester's French and German lovers are portrayed somewhat less-than-favorably. Heck, Brontë makes them out to be decadent tarts - and not the good kind, either.

"Creole" is also used to apply to whites raised in the Caribbean - Jean Rhys, who wrote Wide Sargasso Sea, patterned a great deal of her novel on her life there, and her use of the term "Creole" seems much more likely. (And incidentally, those Creoles were not looked upon much more favorably.) After all, in Brontë's novel, Bertha was supposed to come from Jamaica or thereabouts, and what do you anticipate a middle-class Victorian woman who's never been out of the United Kingdom would think of an exotic (in Victorian times, synonymous with "savage") locale like the Caribbean?

True she did tend to stereotype the former lovers.
I well know the various definitions of Creole, but I included a link to the wiki article in my post above because I know it is a term that has had many meanings over the years to different people.

[kiki1982]

But did she stereotype his former lovers because they had been mistresses, or because they were foreign? I know she does stereotype Adèle as well in the end, but maybe on his girlfriends their was more of a purity theme in it...

On Bertha: I don't so much think that the lack of British upbringing was good enough to actually cast her off... Besides the West-Indies and Jamaica were colonies, so there was enough British upbringing available. Otherwise Mason wouldn't come forward as a normal person, though also a little affected by his mother's 'madness', according to Rochester. Don't forget, Mason was half a Creole as well as his sister... And anyway, if Rochester's father and brother would have thought anything about a Creole in the family, they would have been able to find him another wife, who would get a dowry that was sufficiant. They would certainly not have dishonoured their own name by adding unpure blood to the family. I rather think that the term 'creole' was used in the manner of 'many people of black descent are weak, and this one too.' 'I need a mad wife in the attic, so let's make her a Creole'. I don't think Rochester locked her up just because she was a Creole, otherwise he wouldn't have married her.
I think none of them knew that there was something the matter with her and she went 'mad'.
But then the question here is rather: what did all three (Jan as the marrator, Charlotte as the writer and Rochester as the first source) mean by 'mad'? I remember Rochester telling Jane (in the conversation after the wedding where he tells his story) that he couldn't have a serious conversation with her, because she would answer in a rough, uninspired, perverse or imbecile way. She would also have a changeable temper and she would give contradictory and absurd orders and she would also be exacting, causing no servant to stay in the household.
Maybe she was just mentally retarded and was not treated in a good way like we can do now, causing her to develop violent tantrums and aggressive attacs. I am no a specialist, but people who are heavily autistic can show that kind of behaviour and also develop these things.
Only remember that in those days, everything that was not normal was considered as 'mad'. Even deaf people were considered as retarded because 'they could not express emotional feelings'. Of course not, as they couldn't take part in any conversation as they didn't hear what was being said. They also weren't allowed to go to school, so writing the conversation down was also not an option, and were not allowed to own any property, nor were they allowed marriage. If you consider this, Bertha wasn't maybe as mad as we think.
The fact that Charlotte calls Bertha the daughter of a Creole, who was mad and a drunkard, was, even in those days, considered as racist and people were shocked to hear it.

[plainjane]

It has been quite a few years since I last read Jane Eyre, but I seem to remember Rochester had a reputation for being wild and he was the younger son. A sacrificial younger son. He only inherited Thornfield Hall on account of the elder brothers death. He was not meant to inherit.
The younger son fob off? Sounds like it to me....and if he could bring money into the family from far away all the better.

As far as what mental defect Bertha suffered from, she at least did turn violent. Horribly so, remember how she slashed her brother when he visited? Her "madness" whatever it was escalated, as it will if left untreated, and what was there to treat something like that then...nothing. From what I recall as well the brother was considered not quite right as well. But I can't remember exactly where I got that impression...book or film.

Someone mentioned earlier why keep a woman like Grace Poole as a keeper...well who else? Had to be someone physically strong, and willing to keep a secret, someone that probably was not above the law herself. And who wouldn't drink under those circumstances? Dreadful. But better than Bedlam.

As far as the prejudice shown the mistresses...now that I think of it, I don't really remember the German woman. What about the English Miss he was supposedly courting, and her mother? They certainly were stereotyped, as was the Gypsy troop, the stereotyping was even handed at least. ;)

[kiki1982]

Yes, there was something wrong with the brother as well, but... according to Rochester. Remember that he enters the room unexpectedly when Rochester has been called away from his party (just before the gypsy aka Rochester will arrive)? Charlotte portrays him as kind of normal. Nice looking but still revolting, similar to St John. It is only when Rochester tells Jane the story after the desastrous wedding, that he puts a judgement about Mason in it. 'Like the sister, like the brother, like the mother.'
To start with (at the party, the bloody scene and also at the wedding) he comes forward as a normal , though kind of pathetic figure, but so did the rest of the party: rich, nothing to do all day, not smart... The younger, the more stupid. Only the elder gentlemen came forward as somewhat normal. The ladies though, of any age were obnoxious (the dowagers and the Ingrams), or just plain stupid (the Eshton sisters, they can't even speak alone). Mason, as any elder gentleman comes in as a normal figure. At the wedding he turns a little bit pathetic, but who would not be afraid of a Rochester, when you try to prevent his marriage? Even the priest was getting a little apprehensive...
Rochester no doubt had to gather his own fortune to live on by marrying. So his father and brother got him a bride, far away in Jamaica, because Rochester's father knew Mason, the merchant. The two of them knew that Bertha's mother was 'mad' in an assylum and that she had a younger brother who was the same. But what they didn't know was that Bertha was the same off as her mother and younger brother. After the honeymoon Rochester wrote a letter home to tell of the 'madness' of Bertha and so they never made the marriage public, because they themselves did not want to be dishonoured by this problem. I don't know, maybe the 'madness' of Bertha was costing them too much, and they got rid of her so the unfortunate husband had to pay for her care?

[sciencefan]

Good question, how balanced could it have been given the time and place?
I seriously doubt Bronte [within herself] was prejudiced, but could have of course been under the common misconceptions of the times.

The fact that she used the ambiguous term 'Creole' could be evidence she was implying African descent, which would have been looked down upon then. In the States in that time, especially in the South, there were many free people of African descent that were commonly referred to as 'Creole'.

With that recommendation, I suppose I'll have to throw WSS back into the stack. Although I hasten to add I don't think it adds to Jane at all, it seems to me that being written by a different author totally skews the equation.

But I didn't like the sequel to Gone With the Wind either. :crash:
I understand your reluctance to read WSS.
I agree with you about how it skews our understanding of the original author's intent.
I am thankful I never had to read it.

[kiki1982]

Here is an interesting article about madness in the Bertha-era:

www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/iwama8.html

[plainjane]

Here is an interesting article about madness in the Bertha-era:

www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/iwama8.html

So, it looks like things were changing a bit by then, but I have to think about the WWI vet in Mrs. Dalloway and the treatment, or lack really. I do think that was represented truthfully by Woolf as it was a subject that was close to her.
So perhaps the changes that were signaled in your excellent link were not really implemented, but at least were in the wind.
Of course that was not insanity, but it was a mental condition.

[sciencefan]

Here is an interesting article about madness in the Bertha-era:

www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/iwama8.htmlI have a habit of thinking the best of people, instead of the worst.
So while the article comes down quite hard on Bronte, I don't agree with it's rush to condemn her.
From my own personal life experience, I have noticed that it takes a l-o-n-g- time for "proposed changes" to actually be put into effect AND be widespread enough for them to be felt as the general experience of average people.

This is what I am trying to say.
Bronte wrote from her own personal knowledge of what she thought insane asylums to be.
While she had probably never been in one herself, she had probably heard horror stories about them from the time she was a little girl.
Who knows, perhaps even one of parents threatened to have her sent to one when she was naughty!

I dare say that the 4 years between when Parliament wrote a paper- which possibly Bronte never heard of- and the time she wrote Jane Eyre is not enough time for the asylum reforms which were still in their infancy, to have reached the collective consciousness as a palpable change.

Was their some kind of outcry against Bronte at the time her book came out?
Were people shouting her down with charges of "cruelty"?
I don't think we would be talking about her today, if she were the cruel ignorant racist the article you cited accuses her of being.

I think Bronte's book reflected the fears of the people of her day, and the common superstitions and collective consciousness, and in that sense she is entirely innocent, in my opinion, of any wrongdoing.

Personally, I think people give Bronte more credit than she deserves.
She's not that great of a writer.
I think she was quite immature when she wrote it.

[plainjane]

I have a habit of thinking the best of people, instead of the worst.
So while the article comes down quite hard on Bronte, I don't agree with it's rush to condemn her.
From my own personal life experience, I have noticed that it takes a l-o-n-g- time for "proposed changes" to actually be put into effect AND be widespread enough for them to be felt as the general experience of average people.

This is what I am trying to say.
Bronte wrote from her own personal knowledge of what she thought insane asylums to be.
While she had probably never been in one herself, she had probably heard horror stories about them from the time she was a little girl.
Who knows, perhaps even one of parents threatened to have her sent to one when she was naughty!

I dare say that the 4 years between when Parliament wrote a paper- which possibly Bronte never heard of- and the time she wrote Jane Eyre is not enough time for the asylum reforms which were still in their infancy, to have reached the collective consciousness as a palpable change.

Was their some kind of outcry against Bronte at the time her book came out?
Were people shouting her down with charges of "cruelty"?
I don't think we would be talking about her today, if she were the cruel ignorant racist the article you cited accuses her of being.

I think Bronte's book reflected the fears of the people of her day, and the common superstitions and collective consciousness, and in that sense she is entirely innocent, in my opinion, of any wrongdoing.

Personally, I think people give Bronte more credit than she deserves.
She's not that great of a writer.
I think she was quite immature when she wrote it.
Maybe not so immature as sheltered in many aspects, that could come across as immaturity at times without actually being immature.

But I do not think she receives more credit than she deserves...her scope is quite breath taking IMO.

Otherwise you've put quite well what I was attempting [half asleep] to put across. :)

[kiki1982]

I didn't put the link on here for condemnation in the article, because that's actually not to the point (see the reply I put about Wide Sargasso see in the Bertha & criticism thread), but it just puts things into a victorian perspective... We think they didn't care, though they did. Of course not in the way we would care.
Also, through history sometimes there is a decline in principles... For example in the Edwardian era (just after the victorian period) I believe they shut 'mad' people up in asylums and they were forgotten for society and you were not supposed to come and visit. Or later when they used to perform electro shocks and lobotomy. That is a big contrast with the victorians who actually tried their best to cure them. And if that wasn't possible, at least try to make their lives as comfortable as possible.
Of course maybe Brontë didn't know this because of her sheltered life. Some people must have been appalled at the idea of the woman locked in the attic. Certainly people who had that kind of relatives they loved...

Anyway it is not as if she locked a real person up in an attic. And Bertha still had her merits as a character. What would have happened if Charlotte wouldn't have put her in the attic and so would not have burnt down the house??? Then the whole story would have been changed into a cheap melodrama and that would have been sad for literature on the whole.

[kiki1982]

I think the main reason why Rochester kept Bertha "on the third floor" was because he saw her has his property - and nothing more. He had no love for her, no sympathy, no compassion - just a mere possession. And it is because of this that he felt responsible for her and could not leave her to die in an asylum or in Ferndean as he would like...he saw her as his problem, as his lunatic and therefore felt responsible for her. Kinda like how a person would feel about a family pet that he/she is not particularly fond of...he/she will probably not let the dog die because that would just be cruel, but since he/she is not particularly fond of it, and because it is a family pet he/she will keep it alive, but won't exert any great effort either. I know that sounds harsh, but that is what I think of the matter...

Indeed no love was certainly a problem, but don't forget: after 5 years he comes back and is saddled with a mad wife. He cannot divorce her. He cannot let her walk free at Ferndean for example because, as some also said, she is a danger to both herself and any servant that is not strong enough. So, conclusion, he has to shut her up. But the marriage can on no account be made public, because then Rochester's honour is destroyed and on top of that he has decided that he wants to look for another wife. If society knows that he already has a wife, he's not going to find a second one. So Bertha must remain a secret.
He could go to an asylum but they would have asked a name. The name Rochester would have rang a bell. He could have used her maden name, but who would she have been? His bastard daughter? Too old (5 years his senior). His sister? All of society knew that he didn't have a sister.
And anyway, someone had to pay for her care and that would have been associated with his name. So it would only have taken one suspicious person to actually make inquiries and he would have been exposed.
So actually he was bound by hands and feet to lock her up in his own attic, so that only Mr Carter (his surgeon) and Grace Poole would know.

[Newcomer]

Actually, at the time Charlotte wrote the book, many people were disgusted by Rochester locking up Bertha, because lunatic assylums were good places where they tried to cure people the best they could (we don't have to look at it in a contemporary kind of way) and, if even they couldn't cure them, looked after them so that they would be happy (host balls, feasts etc).....
Comments are welcome...

Of the several themes in the note I shall initially address only the asylum issue. At the time of publication the reviews that I had read, fail to mention any disgust of Rochester's locking up Bertha. I hope that you are referring to some unpublished material. If so please give the citation. However this is a minor point in your description of the pre-Victorian asylum. Your statement lacks documentary credibility.
I have included several web site references that refute your characterization of “looked after them so that they would be happy(host balls, feasts etc).” First the asylums treated patients for a maximum of one year and the treatment was bizarre if not cruel. Second and most importantly, confinement of a mentally ill household member at home or by hired help was quite common among the upper classes. Charlotte Bronte was aware of the above mentioned and based the character Bertha on contemporary experience. You are entitled to your opinion, but in my view you are not entitled to distort the work of Charlotte Bronte's.


Site http://www.gmcro.co.uk/ftpfiles/education/asylums.pdf
The treatment of patients in the pre_Victorian society was characterized as : “Where patients had violent tendencies, they were often beaten, chained up and starved in order to control them. In these cases patients were treated like beasts, and not seen as human. In fact insanity was considered as the loss of any human qualities. “ also “Mental illness was seen as a spiritual problem (so the church was responsible for them), and because of this people did not try to find medical cures for it.”
While the poor and women suffered the most “Even people of great importance were treated badly: For example, George III was restrained by chains, beaten and starved because he was considered insane, despite the fact that he was King of England.
Bethlem Hospital normally allowed non-private or non-criminal lunatics to stay for a maximum of twelve months.

Site http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1044494, Dept. of History, Birkbeck College, University of London,a scholarly study has the following characterization, “On July 20 1870, Catherine Tyrrell found herself transferred to another asylum. The 32-year old nurse suffering from melancholia had previously been a patient in Bethlem Hospital; but having had her twelve months expire at that institution, she was conveyed across the metropolis and into the beucolic countryside and country asylum of Buchinghamshire. ... On admission, the medical superintendent described, with transparent disapproval, the precautionary clothing that held her suicidal impulse in check: She was brought in a canvas garment which fitted her person even down to her ankles, the arms however not going through the sleeves, but folded across her chest close to her skin, the hands being locked in leather gloves. ... There was no clothing of ordinary kind under it.”

The following is an ideological citation and to be read with caution.
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/femhist/madness.shtml#Pre1850

Before the mid-eighteen hundreds, common belief was that those who suffered from mental illness suffered because they had a "disease of the soul" (Goldberg, 24). Their madness supposedly stemmed from an evil within, and they thus were treated as animals. Patients in these early asylums were kept in cages, given small amounts of often unclean food, had little or no clothing, wore no shoes, and slept in dirt. Because the patients could often live many years in such conditions, the caretakers became more confident that these human beings were in actuality closer to animals and thus deserving of such abuse (Ussher, 65).

Women during this time were deemed to be highly susceptible to becoming mentally ill as they did not have the mental capacity of men, and this risk grew greatly if the woman attempted to better herself through education or too many activities. In fact, women were seen as most likely having a mental breakdown sometime during their life as "the maintenance of [female] sanity was seen as the preservation of brain stability in the face of overwhelming physical odds" (Ussher 74). Thus, women often suppressed their feelings, as to not appear mad and reassumed the passive, housewife role.

Spinsters and lesbians were considered a threat to society during the nineteenth century as these women chose an alternative lifestyle. They went outside the social norms of women as passive housewives, and instead made their own decisions. They were thought to be mentally ill, as doctors claimed being without continued male interaction would cause irritability, anaemia, tiredness, and fussing. These women were also controlled by the term "frigid" which was used to describe them. Women did not want to be "frigid" and thus married to avoid becoming labeled this manner (Ussher 81). Those who were admitted to the asylum for being a spinster or a lesbian were submitted to forced marriages by family members or even encouraged sexual encounters where patients were sexually abused or raped under the care of their doctors (Ussher 81). It was assumed these women could be cured by repeated sexual interaction with men.

Consequently Bronte's description of Bertha's treatment has to be viewed from the perspective of the times, not from the subjective bias of the reader. Rochester's treatment of Bertha was humane by the examples of Victorian standards. His attempt to rescue her from the inferno should be proof enough. Suicide and suicide attempts, it would seem, were reality of the Victorian mental hospital.

[plainjane]

Newcomer,
You have confirmed my thoughts on the situation of insane asylums in that time period. That is what I thought it still was like, but had not done any research to corroborate my ideas. I only had impressions of reading in the past.

Thanks for posting those links.

[kiki1982]

This article gives a history about the ideas of mental illness in the victorian era in England. As it seems from the middle of the 18th century until the middle of the 19th century there was a reform taking place, started by the Quaker William Tuke in 1796. He was the first to disapprove of mechanical restraint and to untie patients in his hospital in York.
In the beginning of the 19th century the philanthropic (Tuke) approach made its entry. From 1815 and for the next 30 years these progressive people wanted legislation. They would campaign in the press by making horror stories public. Finally in 1845 the Asylum Act would be approved. All asylums now had to be run by a qualified practitioner.
However this soft approach was abandoned by the 1860s as it cost too much.

www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1044494&blobtype=pdf (]content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft9r29p2x5&chunk.id=d0e23936&toc.id=d0e6679&brand=ucpress[/URL)
Although it is only about suicidal patients this article also states that Victorians were concerned with their patients and even the amounts of suicides had to be notified to the Coroner and Asylum Committee. Fines were issued and bad carers could even be made redundant.


[URL=]http://www.mcmaster.ca/ua/opr/courier/jan1000/research.html

For the benefit of those who view these institutions with Dickensian-tinted glasses, Wright would like to dispel some myths. The facilities were progressive for their time, he says -- in the asylums, the patients were fed, clothed, sheltered and given medical treatment on a level better than most would have experienced in their communities.
Despite the horror stories of popular literature in which helpless victims are wrongfully incarcerated by their enemies, in actual fact there were strict admission procedures and the signatures of at least one physician and one magistrate were required for commitment. It was thus rare for a person who was not truly suffering from some mental disorder to be committed. Moreover, in rural communities it was typical for the family to take care of and assume full responsibility for a relative suffering from a mental problem before, after, and in lieu of confinement in an asylum. From David Wright, researcher in the field of the history of mental institutions in 19th century England

The hosting of balls as I mentioned it, I saw in a BBC documentary called "How we built Britain" with David Dimbleby. It was the 19th century/industrial revolution episode. There was a small contribution about a mental asylum in it. As well as a silk warehouse that was also very interesting in connection with this book... When I saw it I was pretty amazed about the principle of entertainment of mental patients.

I do not consider Brontë a bad person for locking Bertha up in the attic, if anything she was usefully locked up (see reply in that other thread) and so I do not wish to distort her work because it is brilliant.
But as for the locking up of Bertha and this discussion I do not believe that Charlotte locked her up because it was more humane in those days. At least it was not very modern. She must surely have heard of these progressives who believed that mentally ill shouldn't be locked up. If anything she must have heard horror stories about it, as they were made public and discussed to win over public opinion for the philanthropic approach. She must have heard something of the debate. Certainly in her life, as her father was a clergyman and certainly was involved in the question what had to happen to people of that kind.
Rochester was supposed to be a person who lost the way: he was arrogant, he had mistresses, a bastard daughter he does not recognise, so he also locks up his wife despite all his money and despite public opinion about restraining and locking up mentally ill patients. He also disowns her as he always blames Grace Poole for Bertha's actions. And he wants to commit bigamy. He lies to her. He has a brilliant mind and is progressive enough to take her as a wife, but not progressive if it comes to caring for his wife?? He makes out that this is the good way to go and not the bad one, like he does not think it is wrong to have mistresses, and to actually suggest to Jane to be his mistress.
If not knowingly cruel, he was certainly meant to be conservative about it.

[plainjane]

If anyone thinks the treatment of Bertha was brutal and thinks that things have improved across the board, take a look at this... :flare: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/08/60minutes/main2448074.shtml

At least she was fed and clothed as well as was possible.

[Newcomer]

On 07-15-2007 kiki1982 posts “lunatic assylums were good places where they tried to cure people the best they could (we don't have to look at it in a contemporary kind of way) and, if even they couldn't cure them, looked after them so that they would be happy (host balls, feasts etc).” And on 07-22-2007 post the justification is given as “The hosting of balls as I mentioned it, I saw in a BBC documentary called "How we built Britain" with David Dimbleby.” I would think that an educated woman, a teacher could distinguish a TV dramatization from a historic data and not state that lunatic asylums were good places where they cured people by hosting balls.
With the 07-15-2007 kiki1982 posts “...Characters in books are not real people and consequently don't have a life as such. Their lives stop when they stop appearing in the book. .... She was as important as the weather was in the story. Nothing more. Discussing Bertha is good, as far as it concerns the book Jane Eyre, but as soon as the discussion is about anything else than something in connection with the book, it is not to the point. “
I supposed that we were on firmer grounds to hold a reasonable discussion on Jane Eyre, the novel. However on 07-22-2007 she writes “Rochester was supposed to be a person who lost the way: he was arrogant, he had mistresses, a bastard daughter he does not recognise, so he also locks up his wife despite all his money and despite public opinion about restraining and locking up mentally ill patients.”
The historic data about the Victorian asylums seems not to have made any impression and she repeats the unsubstantiated opinion that “ despite public opinion about restraining and locking up mentally ill patients”.
Making a moral argument on a fictitious character. Before making such an argument she should have been have been cognizant that such a prominent social critic as Thackery had 'locked up' his mentally ill wife rather that give her free reign in his home or sent her to an asylum. Perhaps she should have studied Charlotte's juvenilia writings to understand the genesis of the Rochester in the figure of Zamorna of the Angrian stories. (A synopsis can be read in “Slave of a Fixed and Dominant Idea : Charlottes Brote's Early Writings – Preliminaries or Precursors. Paragraph 3 @
http://books.google.com/books?id=0TwAO6qiS7EC&pg=PA80&ots=nj63mLxjX7&dq=Charlotte+Bronte+early+writings&sig=5Ou184e6FZbE1N05bSiljHluzJg)
Rochester is conceived as a counterpoint to Jane. Drawn from Zamorna, his character is Byronic and has been suggested as Satanic. Mark Kinhead-Weekes essay, The Place of Love in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, states that “the house itself is a metaphor of Rochester's heart, a physical embodiment of the tropical hell he has tried to escape, enclosed within the half-life which is all he has found. The hell of mindless and uncontrolled passion is barred into the attic, hidden away in the form of his lunatic wife.” Note that no moral judgment is made, only commentary on the novel. Note the difference in analysis from On 07-11-2007, kiki posts “... maybe she meant the locked up wife in the attic as a kind of Christ figure who is being blocked out of Rochester's life.”
??? What is the textual association to the fictitious character???
Certain well-off ladies that had supported Charlotte broke of relationships because they deemed Jane Eyre as anti religious due to the characterizations of Blockenhurst and St. James but the interpretation that Bertha was a Christ like figure is surely too bizarre for a literature based comment.
On 07-12-2007 kiki posts “Maybe Rochester was too brutal on the wedding night with Bertha . One would go mad for less...”

What are we to make of these contradictions? Apparently for kiki 'maybe' qualifies as a studied opinion. Given the above postings, kiki's opinions seem to be schizoid.

The recent criticism of the characters Rochester and Bertha, are an underlaying gender and morality based attempt at a subjective reading of Jane Eyre. It seems that the reader does not or is uncomfortable with the poetic structure of the novel and wishes to reinterpret Charlotte Bronte in a 'objective' way. The 'objective' being a singular and ideological interpretation.
Andre D. Hook in Charlotte Bronte, the Imagination and Villette, writes, “The pivotal conflict in Jane Eyre is newer clearly defined as that between the appeal of imagination and the world of moral choices and decisions. Rather, more conventionally, it is portrayed as a clash between Reason and Passion. Passion comes to include all the possibilities of excitement, change, experience, even love, which the romantic imagination so intensely celebrates. As the conflict develops within Jane herself it is often given a strict moral, or even religious, significance. It is as thought, in allowing the world of imaginative indulgence and hope its human vitality and warmth, Charlotte felt compelled to circumscribe the debate within the categories of orthodox morality. So successful is she that on occasion the true meaning of the novel is in danger of being obscured or betrayed. In the matter of the key issue of Rochester's previous marriage, for example, we may choose to see Jane's dilemma as no more than that of the conventional Victorian heroine choosing between passionate but illicit love on the one hand, and duty and moral integrity on the other. While it is true that the text sometimes invites us to see the matter in this light, it is nonetheless not the true light. The real danger that threatens Jane is not that of becoming a fallen woman, but of allowing herself to be swept out of the world of moral responsibilities altogether into that other seductive world of high passion and romance that Charlotte herself had for so long imaginatively indulged.”
Charlotte does a balancing act in Jane Eyre and at least in part it is the appreciation of this balance that makes the novel a work of art. To reduce, to read it as one or the other, is to bleach, to emasculate the novel.

[kiki1982]

I would think that an educated woman, a teacher could distinguish a TV dramatization from a historic data and not state that lunatic asylums were good places where they cured people by hosting balls.

I am an educated woman and for your information BBC documentaries do not tend to spread untrue information. If the British Broadcast Corporation makes documentaries they make them interesting and above all crammed with information. They do not dramatise nor tell stories that are out of time, like the article on suicide in the 1860s, rather than in the 1840s. Already for 100 years there was a revolution in care for the poor, the mad and the criminals going on by the time Charlotte wrote her book. William Tuke openend his hospital in York in 1796. Mad people were not seen anymore as punished by the devil (17th - 18th century), but rather as sick in the mind. This was the consequence of the Enlightment that partly caused the French Revolution to take place. Tuke's hospital attracted a lot of attention, so I cannot believe that Bront&#235; would not have known about it as it was even in the same county. Charlotte was born in the middle of the industrial revolution and in the middle of all these changes. She cannot have totally escapecd the discussion, certainly not because her father stood at the centre of society as a priest. He must have had connections with asylums, workhouses etc.
By the 1860s the whole philosophy of actually untying patients had passed, because it cost too much money a now the state had the task to care for the poor, mad and small criminals. Also giving them good food was too expensive, so they increased the amount of patients in the asylums and started to tie them up again.

The historic data about the Victorian asylums seems not to have made any impression and she repeats the unsubstantiated opinion that “ despite public opinion about restraining and locking up mentally ill patients”.
Making a moral argument on a fictitious character. Before making such an argument she should have been have been cognizant that such a prominent social critic as Thackery had 'locked up' his mentally ill wife rather than give her free reign in his home or sent her to an asylum.

For your information I actually posted historical data and/or also data that came from historians and specialists. As the interview with Mr David Wright. He also made a statement about Thackery. That he locked up his wife was revealed just after Jane Eyre was released. And the public was shocked. The article does not want to be displayed so I can't quote. In the meant time I can quote again:

"People today need to balance the descriptions of the early asylums with a greater understanding of the medical and social attitudes and conditions of the times, says Wright. "These facilities may appear horrific by our standards today. But that would also be true of our view of the typical living conditions for the ordinary labourer of the day," he says."


I think we are seeing it from our point of view now and not from the point of view in 1847. This is an article of Mc Master University in Canada. Mr Wright spent 10 years in England researching in this field.
I don't think we can call this very modern:
"whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face." (Bront&#235;)

As it says in the wikipedia article:

"In 1700 it is recorded that the "lunatics" were called "patients" for the first time, and within twenty years separate wards for the "curable" and "incurable" patients had been established. Mental illness was now no longer an affliction, but a disease, to be diagnosed and potentially cured."

And this is about Bethlam hospital, notorious for its bad treatment of patients. Even there they called the 'lunatics' 'patients' 150 years before Bront&#235; wrote her book... Rochester doesn't even speak to his wife. She doesn't speak back. She only yells...
It says about moral treatment on wikipedia:

An English Quaker named William Tuke (1732-1819) independently brought similar reforms to northern England, following the death of a fellow Quaker in a local asylum in 1790. In 1796 he founded the York Retreat, where about 30 patients lived as part of a small community in quiet country houses and engaged in a combination of rest, talk, manual work. The efforts of the York Retreat centered around minimizing restraints and cultivating rationality and moral strength.
The entire Tuke family became known as some of the founders of moral treatment. They created a family-style ethos and patients performed chores to give them a sense of contribution. There was a daily routine of both work and leisure time. If patients behaved well, they were rewarded; if they behaved poorly, they were punished. The patients were told that treatment depended on their conduct. In this sense, the patient's moral autonomy was recognized.

This Tuke died in 1819, as you can see. So 28 years before Jane Eyre. I don't see much talk, rest or manuel work in Bertha's treatment... I do not say that this type of treatment was available everywhere but surely in general doctors had another perception of mental illness than before...

A typical day at the Pennsylvanian Hospital, opened in 1841:
http://www.phillyhistory.org/PhotoArchive/blog/blosxom.pl/All/Public&#37;20Services (]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_therapy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_hospital[/URL)

This was certainly better than what Bertha got...

Certain well-off ladies that had supported Charlotte broke of relationships because they deemed Jane Eyre as anti religious due to the characterizations of Blockenhurst and St. James but the interpretation that Bertha was a Christ like figure is surely too bizarre for a literature based comment.

Jane Eyre anti religious????
Here is my answer: the book is packed with allusions to the Bible and the Common Book of Prayer as it states in this article:
[URL=]http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/bolt3.html
That people clamed it to be anti religious... Well, people also clamed it was a bad book. And the painter Van Gogh was told he couldn't paint...
This link comes from an essay written by Peter Bolt (department of English, North East Worcestershire College): Rochester vs. St. John Rivers: or why Jane Eyre preferred a cynical sinner to a religious zealot. On victorian web it says 'last modified in 1999'. The essay was divided in 6 parts. I don't think there was any numerology involved.

What are we to make of these contradictions? Apparently for kiki 'maybe' qualifies as a studied opinion. Given the above postings, kiki's opinions seem to be schizoid.

With 'maybe' I want to say that we are not sure, as even studies are not sure that what they say is right and according to the author's opnion. This is a discussion forum so I am not writing a paper so I do not state articles to actually back up my statements. I make a statement and whoever wants to discuss it is welcome and then we can maybe result in stating other studies that approve of that opinion.
And anyway: books have layers and can be interpreted in several ways as with this one. You can interpret it in a feminist way, religion can be analysed, the story as such is interesting, we can look what it says about society as a whole, even the Enlightment can be discussed in it. Am I supposed to only have one statement about this book or am I also allowed to express different ones about different layers in the book?
If you want I can write you a paper (even a book) about it and post it here, if that ensures you about the scientificness of my opinions.
We were discussing lunatic assylums in the victorian era... Sadly the first half of the victorian era was quite different to the last half... But that seems to be forgotten.
If I have to talk about the articles you stated:

The first one was acceptable but was meant for children so it can hardly be called 'scientific'. It was very short and didn't say much about the conditions and principles...
The second one was about suicides from the 1860s on. As I stated before, the second half of the victorian era was quite different from the first half. They started of with determination to better the conditions of people in general. But as this turned out to be quite expensive, they stopped with it. Furthermore the article is about suicides which will of course focus on bad places and conditions to cause suicide. It will not say that patients committed suicide in spite of good conditions, will it? So it is not a good article to state in this case, because the timing is not right, as it is with statistics of 20 years too late, and the subject is not really the one of Bertha.
The third one was a feminist site that stated that mad people were thought to be possessed by the devil. This was the case about 100 years before 1845. Even at the end of the 18th century it was believed that mad people had a mental disease, or disease of the brain. It was a feminist site so it was very stereotypical.

[sciencefan]

The recent criticism of the characters Rochester and Bertha, are an underlaying gender and morality based attempt at a subjective reading of Jane Eyre. It seems that the reader does not or is uncomfortable with the poetic structure of the novel and wishes to reinterpret Charlotte Bronte in a 'objective' way. The 'objective' being a singular and ideological interpretation.
Andre D. Hook in Charlotte Bronte, the Imagination and Villette, writes, “The pivotal conflict in Jane Eyre is newer clearly defined as that between the appeal of imagination and the world of moral choices and decisions. Rather, more conventionally, it is portrayed as a clash between Reason and Passion. Passion comes to include all the possibilities of excitement, change, experience, even love, which the romantic imagination so intensely celebrates. As the conflict develops within Jane herself it is often given a strict moral, or even religious, significance. It is as thought, in allowing the world of imaginative indulgence and hope its human vitality and warmth, Charlotte felt compelled to circumscribe the debate within the categories of orthodox morality. So successful is she that on occasion the true meaning of the novel is in danger of being obscured or betrayed. In the matter of the key issue of Rochester's previous marriage, for example, we may choose to see Jane's dilemma as no more than that of the conventional Victorian heroine choosing between passionate but illicit love on the one hand, and duty and moral integrity on the other. While it is true that the text sometimes invites us to see the matter in this light, it is nonetheless not the true light. The real danger that threatens Jane is not that of becoming a fallen woman, but of allowing herself to be swept out of the world of moral responsibilities altogether into that other seductive world of high passion and romance that Charlotte herself had for so long imaginatively indulged.”
Charlotte does a balancing act in Jane Eyre and at least in part it is the appreciation of this balance that makes the novel a work of art. To reduce, to read it as one or the other, is to bleach, to emasculate the novel.I agree with Hook's insight.
I had thought those things myself, but had not really put the ideas so consisely as he did.
Thank you for sharing that quote.

[Newcomer]

Jane Eyre anti religious????
Here is my answer: the book is packed with allusions to the Bible and the Common Book of Prayer as it states in this article:
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/bolt3.html
That people clamed it to be anti religious... Well, people also clamed it was a bad book.
In the posting of 07-23-2007, kiki1982, cites the following article by Peter Bolt:”The Prayer Book lists every day of the year, starting in January, as does Jane's journeying. Each day has four Lessons to be read, two at the Morning Service and two at the Evensong. Two readings are taken from the Old Testament, two from the New Testament, one each per service. In addition, particular Psalms are listed each day of the month, to be used in rotation. Also laid down are various "saints days", set against the days of the year put aside for their special commemoration. It is this calendar, with the list of Lessons and Saints, that has been used in a extraordinary way throughout the novel Jane Eyre.” .... And “ Thus January 15th gives the following: Morning Service first Lesson, Genesis Ch.XXI v33 to Ch.XXII v20; Evensong first Lesson, Genesis Ch.XXII. The former Lesson ends, "And Abraham sojourned in the Philistine's land for many days". The later describes the testing of Abraham's faith in God to the very limit. Both Lessons portray an accurate description and forewarning of Jane's predicament in her early days at Lowood.”
However the date cited in the novel is as follows: “It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning: Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been summoned to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to go and feed the poultry, an occupation of which she was fond; and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and hoarding the money she thus obtained.”
Only a description of the winter and avarice of Eliza. Nothing of January 15 in the Prayer Book or Morning Service or the Evensong. This should be sufficient as proof that Peter Bolt's reading of Jane Eyre is very peculiar. A reading of a religious zealot, of a numerologist and in my opinion of no literary significance. The remaining dates used by Peter Bolt are similar unique misinterpretations in Jane Eyre.

Quote - “Am I supposed to only have one statement about this book or am I also allowed to express different ones about different layers in the book?”

No question that you can express yourself but when it comes down to substantiating your claims, then a critical reading is required and a reference in the Victorian Web by itself is not sufficient proof of the validity of a religious interpretation of Jane Eyre. What is required is a logical argument that is referenced to the text. In this Peter Bolt fails.
Please do not interpret this as a personal attack. I value your opinion more than the usual 'fact' expressed and followed by silence when challenged. But on this issue we have an irreconcilable disagreement.

[kiki1982]

If we want to see how Bertha is treated and to know what she was used for we need to first see what the use of the character of Rochester was for the book. An examination into what Rochester and other characters have to say about the treatment of Bertha:

‘Bridewell’ is the word Rochester’s party acts out and Dent’s party has to guess in the charade-scene. What does it mean?
http://www.answers.com/topic/bridewell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridewell
It is a house of correction… Later a prison… Obviously this word was chosen by the writer and not by Rochester as he is not a living person. The word was put there for a purpose. What’s more: Jane doesn’t state the word Rochester’s party had to guess because she was more interested in what Mr Rochester and Miss Ingram were doing, in other words it is not important to the story. Miss Ingram even states that ‘of the three characters, she liked him in the last best.’ The last one was the acting out of the word ‘bridewell’ because Dent’s party couldn’t guess it. The scene resembled a dungeon.
The least we can say is that Bridewell was a correction house of the old times, set up in 1555. Later it became a prison. The prison was closed in 1855 and demolished in 1863. The name itself started to lead a life as a general denomination for detention centers throughout England, Canada and Ireland. Why would
This is the first allusion to a prison of some kind, involving Rochester himself and not Lynn, who was also available?

After Mason got bitten and stabbed and he's brought to the carriage by Rochester himself, Mason says:

‘Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: let her—‘ he stopped and burst into tears. (Brontë)
Then Rochester replies:
‘I do my best; and have done it, and will do it’, was the answer: he shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.
Mason, and then also Charlotte, obviously knows about the concept of tender care as he suggests it himself.
And after that Rochester says:
‘Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,’ he said; ‘that house is a mere dungeon: don’t you feel it so?’
‘It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.’
‘The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,’ he answered; ‘and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark.’
On all words dictionary it says about the word ‘dungeon’:

A prison cell, especially underground

So says Collin’s English Dictionary

Now why would Charlotte have put this word into Rochester’s mouth if it were not applicable? He even insists on it being a dungeon. The only one who is locked up in the house, is Bertha as we will later learn, but if she was locked up humanely, the house does not merit the name of ‘dungeon’, does it. Taking into account that Mason asks to take care of her ‘tenderly’, the word ‘dungeon’ can only mean one thing and that can not be ‘humane’. I don’t think we can call tying someone’s hand behind her back and tying her to a bed, tenderness. Not in 1847 and not now.
Before the marriage Jane thinks this about her future life as Mrs Rochester:
‘For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now,—a very little while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be capricious; and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to please you: but when you get well used to me, you will perhaps like me again,—like me, I say, not love me. I suppose your love will effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband’s ardour extends. Yet, after all, as a friend and companion, I hope never to become quite distasteful to my dear master.’

He assures her this is not the case because he loves her. Later however, after the put-off wedding, when Rochester is telling his story to her in a last attempt to make her stay she tells him about how he should not talk hateful about his wife:
‘Sir,’ I interrupted him, ‘you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady: you speak of her with hate—with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel—she cannot help being mad.’
Then he says:
‘Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don’t know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?’
‘I do indeed, sir.’
So Jane thinks he would also treat her like Bertha if she were mad. He tells her not, and goes on that he would care for her with ‘untiring tenderness’.
What are we supposed to think after that? First you see a woman who is not really well kept (weather because of her condition or not, we do not judge), then we learn that he hates her and then he says that he doesn’t hate her because she’s mad but just because, and that he would take care of Jane differently than Bertha. So what makes that of Rochester and, in relation to that, of Bertha’s treatment? Is it normal that he cares for her in this way? There is a difference between Jane and Bertha then? Yes, he loves Jane and not Bertha. In addition to that we can also assume he knows about the concept of tender care as he suggests it to Jane, if she were mad.
He assures her now that he will ‘keep to [her] as long as [he] shall live’, but can she believe that after what she has seen? After what he did with his three mistresses? He even told Jane at some point that he thought he loved Bertha.
Through all the situations Rochester’s character develops. Can’t we see the presentation of Bertha as the last ‘chapter’ in this development? What use would this scene have, apart from the unveiling of the gothic element and sensation, if it is not used as that last image of Rochester? At other times Charlotte seems to quickly pass over things that are not really important, like the second charade, the month of courtship, the fortnight between her return and the proposal, the three first months at Thornfield, yet the scene with Bertha must be told. After all, the impediment has already been unveiled so why should we see the figure through Jane’s eyes? The only one who substantially speaks in the scene is Rochester, Mason who says one sentence ‘We had better leave her,’ and of course Grace who needs to warn Rochester. Charlotte chose the other scenes so well, so why put in a piece if it would be of no importance? Charlotte could have added another sentence, talking about the violent attacks and it would have been clear for whoever hadn’t understood yet. Why would Charlotte make Rochester act this scene if it is not necessary for the development of his character?
What did journalists think of the Character of Rochester in the times the book was written? Here are a few examples, although they were not easy to find: http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/peter.friesen/default.asp?go=240
It includes reviews from both Engand and the US

Elizabeth Rigby of the Quarterly Review, however conservative, states in her review of Jane Eyre in 1848 about the character of Rochester:
'For Mr. Rochester's wife is a creature, half fiend, half maniac, whom he had married in a distant part of the world, and whom now, in his self-constituted code of morality, he had thought it his right, and even his duty, to supersede by a more agreeable companion.'
and further:
'Mr. Rochester is a man who deliberately and secretly seeks to violate the laws of both God and man, and yet we will be bound half our lady readers are enchanted with him for a model of generosity and honor.'

So she found him a very bad figure to say the least and she didn’t see where the generosity and honor lies. She also didn’t approve of his conduct towards young ladies.

Graham’s Magazine (Philadelphia) in 1848 about the character of Rochester:
‘The ruffian, with his fierce appetites and Satanic pride’
‘Every person who interprets her description by a knowledge of what profligacy is, cannot fail to see that she is absurdly connecting certain virtues, of which she knows a great deal, with certain vices, of which she knows nothing.’
.
This is what Edwin Percy Whipple in the North American Review in 1848 had to say about Rochester:
‘but when the admirable Mr. Rochester appears, and the profanity, brutality, and slang of the misanthropic profligate give their torpedo shocks to the nervous system’

The Spectator in 1847 wrote:
‘The reader cannot see anything loveable in Mr. Rochester, nor why he should be so deeply in love with Jane Eyre; so that we have intense emotion without cause.’

They didn’t at all see him as a noble character with faults like we see him now… Not only because his conduct was bad, arrogant and improper towards Jane (see various articles on the site), but also because he was ‘immoral, misanthropic’.
Of the 14 articles on the site, there were 7 that made a statement about the character Rochester and 6 of them classed him as negative. Only one talks about him in a positive way (The Westminster Review in 1848 states: ‘the eccentric Mr. Rochester, whom with all his faults and eccentricities one can't help getting to like’.) They all agree on the fact that his character ‘is from the life’, and some also say that they cannot help to like him, but they all see him as a bad figure.

This article is a letter from Amariah Brigham to the American Journal of Insanity:
http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/lib/docs/1303.htm
It does not talk at all about beating, restraining to a chair or anything of that kind. So we can conclude that this was not common practice or at least not approved practice. However it speaks about the use of opium, oils and warm/cold baths as a soothing tactic. Seen as the reform of mental asylums in the US only started in 1841 by Miss Dix, we can conclude that this treatment was also available in England as the revolution in treatment for the mentally ill started with the York Retreat end of the 18th century.
http://www.cbmh.ca/archive/00000304/01/cbmhbchm_v11n2edginton.pdf
This is an article that focuses on the design of asylums in the 19th century. Although it states that ‘the placement of windows in the post-1845 period is different from their placement in the earlier period which resembles prisons’, there are still windows involved, which we can’t agreed upon in Bertha’s case. Besides why would Charlotte have stated especially that Bertha was locked in ‘a room without a window’ if this was not significant? Descriptions are only there when they are important.
‘Treatment throughout the 19th century made relatively little progress, although much was done to improve the general lot of the patients. Attention was given to diet, hygiene, accommodation, pastimes and amusements.’ (Ashworth, Stanley Royd Hospital, p. 33)
Hence the balls I was talking about. Apparently there was even possibility for tennis, bowls and other such things in other asylums. Also tranquil grounds seemed to be very important and in the most modern asylums they didn’t even have walls, only ditches so the patients couldn’t escape. They were allowed to walk freely in the grounds as a way of soothing. Hence the importance of windows for the views. So, as Rochester was a rich man, he could have put Bertha in such an asylum, but he did not.
Add this: when Jane has wondered for 2 days on the moorland and is about to collapse at the door of the Rivers’ house, she sees the two sisters, Diana and Mary, quoting two sentences from a poem. It seems to be a play from Friedrich Schiller from 1782, called ‘Die Räuber’ (The Robbers), from the Sturm und Drang period (early romantic period in Germany). The sentences are taken out of the first and one before last scene of the fifth and last act. The play is about two brothers, Karl and Franz, who fight against the wrongs society rules have as a consequence. Franz’s older brother Karl will inherit everything. Franz doesn’t agree with that and he is jealous. Because of a list his brother Karl ends up as the chief of a gang of thieves. Franz dies in the end, by killing himself because there is no way back: either he will die by the hand of his brother or he will burn in hell, as he intends to kill both his brother and father. Karl also ends up bad, killing his love because he cannot live with her (because of his oath to his gang) and she cannot live without him, but saves himself by doing a noble deed: handing himself in to a common worker who will then be able to claim the money on Karl’s head and feed his 11 children with it. Thus showing that fundamentally he is a good creature.
Sturm und Drang characters are ‘driven to action not by pursuit of noble means nor by true motives, but by revenge and greed. Further, this action to which the primary character is drawn is often one of violence.’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm_und_Drang).
You can see more on the characters and backround of the play on http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_R%C3%A4uber
Charlotte states two sentences of a dream about the Last Judgment of Franz, just before he kills himself. Taking into account what characters of Sturm und Drang usually are like, this seems to be parallel with the character of Rochester: he commits wrongs because he was tricked into marriage by his father and brother, and even with an insane wife. He hates her and he will even ‘try violence‘ against Jane ‘if she doesn’t listen’ to his story. After Jane has left he indeed becomes violent: ‘he never was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her.’
True, he is a Byronic Hero in a sense, but not really: in chapter 18, when Rochester and Blanche Ingram are talking about the charade they have just performed, Rochester asks her, ‘You would like a hero of the road then?’ To this Blanche replies, ‘An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be surpasses by a Levantine pirate’ By ‘English hero of the road’ Blanche clearly means a Byronic hero, as it was the most notable hero in English literary history (Thorslev 189), and here Blanche states that she views Rochester as such a character. The response that Brontë puts in Rochester’s mouth, however, provides evidence that he is not so convincingly defined. He responds, ‘Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour since, in the presence of all these witnesses’ When Rochester says, ‘Well, whatever I am . . .,’ he discretely rejects what she has implied. Rochester is a Byronic Hero in the sense that he is a rebel, a wanderer, he’s not impressed by rank/privilege, he’s proud, he has a hidden curse, he is passionate, but when it comes to self-destructiveness, he doesn’t really live up to that. He is more than self-destructive: when Jane has left him, he sends all the servants away and ‘turns violent’. He even trashes Jane (‘My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it. It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords. It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.’) and also, to a certain extent Blanche Ingram by playing with her feelings (courting her while he doesn’t intend marriage). At the end of his story, he ends up alone on the stage, as in a Shakespearean tragedy with the servants gone, Jane ‘dead’ (so he believes after having sought her), isolated from the gentry and living ‘as a hermit’ in the shut up Hall. This is more like the Sturm und Drang behavior: not only destructive for the life of the character itself, but also to the world round him, as the fate of Franz in ‘Die Räuber’ demonstrates.
http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/charweb/ROCH_835.htm
Charlotte Brontë herself didn’t even want to create a true Byronic hero: she specifically says he is ‘ill-educated,’ ‘has a good nature’ and a ‘feeling heart,’ and is ‘not selfish’ or ‘self-indulgent’ -- all of these characteristics seem to be at odds with that of a Byronic hero. Yet she also describes him as ‘radically better than most men,’ and through this description, that Rochester learns from his experience, she implies that he possesses self-awareness -- a characteristic that is consistent with those of a Byronic hero.

Rochester seems to believe that he is doing the right thing, first concerning his mistresses, but also his bigamous marriage. He even gets the Bible involved: ‘and remember with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged’. Clearly he’s in such a state of illusion, that he doesn’t see that he is committing adultery and that he is breaking the law both of God and Man. This state of illusion always occurs in characters with Sturm und Drang behavior, usually they wake up at the end of the story, as happens during the fire that destroys Thornfield.

When Jane forgives him but not in words (chapter XXVII) , she maybe forgives him his conduct: his lying, his deceit, but she cannot live with him because he cannot love like he should. He suggests to go to France with him, as his mistress, like Franz does in the play with Amalia (Karl’s love). She rejects him also. If both Rochester and Franz would truly and deeply love, they would not suggest this.
Later Jane tells Rochester: ‘I pity you—I do earnestly pity you’ (chapter XXVII), but is this pity because he is in that situation, or pity because he’s glad that he has all the money and the house and that, with those, he can do now with Bertha what he wants, because he speaks like that about her? Pity because he has fallen so low as to show contempt for another human being and also for God, showing contempt at his first marriage?

If we look at what happened two months after Jane left Rochester, we see that the house burns down and that, while the house is burning, Rochester saves everyone in the house. Yet, seeing that his wife is not among them, he goes back into the house, to the third storey, to take her out of her cell. The others shout to him that she is on the roof and so he decides to go there and get her. When he shouts ‘Bertha!’, she jumps from the battlements and falls to her death. Rochester descends but crashes down, together with the staircase, loosing one hand and one eye. Thus paying for adultery as it says in Matthew 5, 27-30. But why does he need to loose everything else if he pays for adultery/bigamy by loosing his hand and eye? There must have been something else that he had to pay for.
If we look at the Schiller quotation in chapter XXVIII, it is not the time for the end yet. Jane doesn’t speak German yet and the noble deed at the end is still to come. If we then look at the Sturm und Drang behavior Rochester has showed, then it is not at all necessary for him to have done a noble deed yet. If he would have done, the story would have been allowed to end already, yet this is not the case. So where does the treatment of Bertha stand in this story. Surely it can’t be the noble deed of Rochester, because the end hasn’t come yet. The noble deed, by which he proves to be worthy to get another chance, is the one of risking his life for Bertha’s well-being. After that he is rescued from the fire and acknowledges God in his sufferings. So therefore we can’t see Bertha’s treatment as a humane solution. It doesn’t fit the story, nor the circumstancial evidence. So we need to see Rochester not in a noble light before the end at all, but rather as negative, like most journalists agreed.

If we see the character of Rochester in the light of Schiller’s Sturm und Drang play, for which there is an indication in the book itself, then we can see the treatment of Bertha as very bad. We can add to that the ‘room without a window’, the letter if Amariah Brigham, the ‘tender care’ remarks of Mason and Rochester himself and the choice of the words ‘bridewell’ and ‘dungeon’ to back it up. If Rochester is a Sturm und Drang character, he can be totally bad without being unnatural, but he will also be a character to be pitied and so to be liked. And that fits with what readers feel. At the end he can even turn noble and be forgiven. The treatment of Bertha then is bad and inhumane, as the articles show, to show the character’s bad nature. Rochester ultimately shows his fundamentally good nature by trying to rescue her from the fire. We don’t have to blame Charlotte for Bertha’s bad treatment, as she probably used Bertha to serve the character of Rochester. She didn’t mean to be racist or (anti-)feminist. She merely followed a classical, though foreign and dated, path of writing.

I strongly believe that Charlotte meant Bertha's treatment to be inhumane, rather than humane. There is more proof on the internet about the treatment of the mentally ill in that age in Enlgand and it almost all puts Bertha's treatment in a bad light. This is the last I will say about my view of Bertha/Rochester as it seems futile to convince anyone that in those days they were more modern than we think.

[Newcomer]

If we want to see how Bertha is treated and to know what she was used for we need to first see what the use of the character of Rochester was for the book. An examination into what Rochester and other characters have to say about the treatment of Bertha: ...
Sturm und Drang characters are ‘driven to action not by pursuit of noble means nor by true motives, but by revenge and greed. Further, this action to which the primary character is drawn is often one of violence.’ Taking into account what characters of Sturm und Drang usually are like, this seems to be parallel with the character of Rochester....This is more like the Sturm und Drang behavior: not only destructive for the life of the character itself, but also to the world round him, as the fate of Franz in ‘Die Räuber’ demonstrates..... he goes back into the house, to the third storey, to take her out of her cell. The others shout to him that she is on the roof and so he decides to go there and get her.... Rochester... loosing one hand and one eye. Thus paying for adultery as it says in Matthew 5, 27-30. But why does he need to loose everything else if he pays for adultery/bigamy by loosing his hand and eye? There must have been something else that he had to pay for.

I strongly believe that Charlotte meant Bertha's treatment to be inhumane, rather than humane. Tconvince anyone that in those days they were more modern than we think.

Rigby and Kiki have a phonetic similarity, but there is more than just phonetics at play, there is the same myopic vision based on a tyrannical moral certitude. In her reply kiki1982 chooses Elizabeth Rigby as an example of a early critic that has lambasted Jane Eyre. In her enthusiasm to find support for her views, she misses the irony that Elizabeth Rigby's critique in the London Quarterly Review of December 1848 is included in Bronte's anthologies as an example of a biased reading of Jane Eyre. Rigby denounces the novel on moral and aesthetic grounds. Rigby is indifferent to the literary quality of the novel, morality is the issue. Similarly kiki1982 uses Jane Eyre to drive a particular religious view point.

She seems to be a reincarnation of Blockenhurst in her moral certitude. Incapable of understanding the need for love, or poetry in the novel, she is a preacher of retribution and damnation. She reads the Bertha incidents as :”Then those three appearances make up the three of Christ before being taken to heaven. The fire being the forth and ascension to heaven.” ... “Jane also is believed to be a Christ figure who is resurected in the end, like I said in a Pentcost like scene.” Continuous with “Here is my answer: the book is packed with allusions to the Bible and the Common Book of Prayer as it states in this article:” - by Peter Bolt, where particular dates used in the novel, are misinterpreted as references to Morning and Evening Prayers in the Common Book of Prayers. When the textual references prove to be vacuitous, she blithely states, “ Rochester .... Thus paying for adultery as it says in Matthew 5, 27-30. But why does he need to loose everything else if he pays for adultery/bigamy by loosing his hand and eye? There must have been something else that he had to pay for.”

And that something is expanded into an analogy from a play by Schiller - “Charlotte states two sentences of a dream about the Last Judgment of Franz, just before he kills himself. Taking into account what characters of Sturm und Drang usually are like, this seems to be parallel with the character of Rochester:” continuing with “ If Rochester is a Sturm und Drang character, he can be totally bad without being unnatural, but he will also be a character to be pitied and so to be liked. And that fits with what readers feel. At the end he can even turn noble and be forgiven. The treatment of Bertha then is bad and inhumane, as the articles show, to show the character’s bad nature. Rochester ultimately shows his fundamentally good nature by trying to rescue her from the fire.”

But the actual passage in the text is - “”Listen Dianna”said one of the absorbed students: “Franz and old Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream from which he has awakened in terror – listen!”.... crucially Jane says- “though when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on sounding brass to me – conveying no meaning:-” The German has 'no meaning' for Jane. And the question is how much meaning can it have for two young women trying to “ We don't speak German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us.” Therefore it is a safe assumption that poetic and philosophical allusions in the quoted text are beyond the comprehension of Diana and Mary, certainly beyond that of Jane. But not beyond the inflamed imagination of kiki. She draws a tortured interpretation of Rochester as a 'Sturm und Drang' character. I would venture that the obsession is to make Rochester into a Beelzebub, so as to justify Bertha as a Christ-like symbol.
Where does the text justify such an interpretation? Nowhere!

It has been observed that Charlotte was not deeply read, in the sense of a formal education, unlike her father who was a Cambridge graduate. She had an avaricious intellect and an acute skill of observation, however nowhere is there a suggestion that she knew world philosophy and especially Germanic literature.

I'm curious why you are spending so much energy on Jane Eyre when you do not like the novel? Is it that like St. John you are driven by missionary zeal to convert the heathen? Apparently the lessons of the Europe's religious wars has not been absorbed by you.

If you'll substitute “reading of Jane Eyre” for “idea of love” in Jane's speech, it will be a fitting end to our dialog. “I scorn your idea of love” I could not help saying; as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. “I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it.”
Perhaps you should redirect your interpretations to the Religion Forum, as you might find like minded readers. In interpreting of literature, you offer no meaningful insights.

[kiki1982]

I am not a bible basher, in contradiction to what you think, and I don't like to be called one and I do not care to be compared to an Elizabeth Rigby! But if you refuse to see that Charlotte, as a clergyman's daughter, incorporated a lot of the blible in her book, then you are blind, not even myopic anymore.

I do not use my faith (if it can be called that, because I never go to church) to interprete this novel. So I do not care to be compared to a Brocklehurst. So take it back!

So in your words: Charlotte took a random book out of a random library and it happened to be a German book. And even a play about 2 brothers and one who would like all the power!! Is that not a coincidence??? Talk about myopic.
Jane says: 'when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on sounding brass to me'. So she didn't understand at first, but later she does... Indeed, later she learns German. Charlotte would have been able to make her learn another language, but no, she chose German. Curious, isn't it? 'We don't speak German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us.' So they need something else to be able to understand... Like Jane needs St John to understand that she must go back to Rochester?
I do not have an obsession to make Rochester the devil, it is merely an observation and I have never understood why you seem to be irritated by that. Are you Rochester himself? Or are you a reincarnation of Charlotte Brontë? Why is it that when something occurs that you don't agree with, you cruisade against it?
You can maybe deny Rigby's review, but you can't get around the rest. Certainly the choices of the words 'Bridewell' and 'dungeon' must mean something.

I studied a lot of German Sturm und Drang plays, poems and novels and I can tell you that it comes back in this book with an English echo. If I have to make a reply, I will start a new topic if you like.

Charlotte might not have been deeply read, but that is no reason to assume, that she never read this play.

The Bertha-Christ idea, I stand corrected, was not right, but it is no reason to attack someone personnally. But why is Rochester in your eyes not allowed to be wrong?
This doesn't seem to be a discussion about the charater itself, but it seems a way for you to attack me if I don't agree with you. I do not like this kind of discussion, because it passes the original one.

[Newcomer]

To the general reader,
My disagreement with kiki1982 on Jane Eyre has caused personal anguish for which I am deeply sorry. My objections to textual interpretation was intellectual not personal but kiki1982 has taken such as a personal attack. It was not meant as such and I have apologized in a private note to kiki1982 and here do so publicly.
Hopefully this will close the issue.

[kiki1982]

Newcomer, thank you for your note. Apology accepted.
I hope that in future we can discuss on more topics without offence.

To the general public who reads this: it will be a fruitful experience to read it.

The discussion is now closed.

[smq123]

Wow. As a medical student doing my psychiatry rotation, it's really interesting to read different people's preconceived ideas about mental illness. Some of the ideas that people have about mental illness are very outdated and quite inaccurate. For example....


I wonder whether the atmosphere in the jaillike attic will add to the mental problem of the wife or not. And it will do no good to such an insane person except give her more love and more treatment.

Bertha Rochester is (based on the description in the book) certainly very, very psychotic. She may have something like severe schizophrenia or a psychotic manic disorder. Putting her in the attic didn't make the mental illness worse. You could have given Bertha all the love in the world, and it wouldn't help her. She's psychotic and the only thing that might have helped her is medication, which they didn't have back then.


you must know that in the victorian period, madness can really mean many mental states which we now consider to be absolutely normal. for example, many men confined their wives just because the wives are a little active in sex life. this fact has been mentioned in Laine Scholwater's <a literature of their own>.

This is a very gray area. Some mental disorders are characterized by promiscuity and hypersexuality. What happens is that, in some mental illnesses, the areas of your brain that prevent you from risky behaviors (like spending too much money, driving too fast, sleeping with random strangers) don't work anymore. Your brain can't control your body's urges - psychiatrists often look for signs that a person has lost their inhibitions. This can be a sign of mental disease.


what you quote is told by rochester. how could he provide evidence to exonerate himself. i do not think we can trust his own words. you know a man can make up anything before his lover. i would advise you to think about the following question: if bertha was mad before the marriage, how could he had no idea of it? what is madness in rochester's opinion?


again, i have to remind you that your quotation does not count.
do you think that before their marriage rochester never saw bertha? do you think he could not discern it if he saw her. remember he is a very sharp man. he is not a fool.

When psychiatrists evaluate people who might be mentally ill, it can take several hours. It takes a long, long time for psychiatrists to gather enough observational evidence before they can decide on a diagnosis. Part of the problem is that, especially in the early stages of mental disease, many of the symptoms don't seem that bad. Some of the symptoms temporarily disappear (and then later re-appear, worse than ever).

Rochester says in the book that he had little contact with Bertha before they were married - he only talked to her when other people were around, and they were rarely alone. It's very possible that he never saw any signs that she was a little abnormal.

[sciencefan]

Wow. As a medical student doing my psychiatry rotation, it's really interesting to read different people's preconceived ideas about mental illness. Some of the ideas that people have about mental illness are very outdated and quite inaccurate. For example....

Bertha Rochester is (based on the description in the book) certainly very, very psychotic. She may have something like severe schizophrenia or a psychotic manic disorder. Putting her in the attic didn't make the mental illness worse. You could have given Bertha all the love in the world, and it wouldn't help her. She's psychotic and the only thing that might have helped her is medication, which they didn't have back then.

This is a very gray area. Some mental disorders are characterized by promiscuity and hypersexuality. What happens is that, in some mental illnesses, the areas of your brain that prevent you from risky behaviors (like spending too much money, driving too fast, sleeping with random strangers) don't work anymore. Your brain can't control your body's urges - psychiatrists often look for signs that a person has lost their inhibitions. This can be a sign of mental disease.

When psychiatrists evaluate people who might be mentally ill, it can take several hours. It takes a long, long time for psychiatrists to gather enough observational evidence before they can decide on a diagnosis. Part of the problem is that, especially in the early stages of mental disease, many of the symptoms don't seem that bad. Some of the symptoms temporarily disappear (and then later re-appear, worse than ever).

Rochester says in the book that he had little contact with Bertha before they were married - he only talked to her when other people were around, and they were rarely alone. It's very possible that he never saw any signs that she was a little abnormal.Thank you so much for your educated opinion concerning this topic!
Very enlightening!
I appreciate you taking the time to post.

[Newcomer]

may[/I] have something like severe schizophrenia or a psychotic manic disorder. Putting her in the attic didn't make the mental illness worse. You could have given Bertha all the love in the world, and it wouldn't help her. She's psychotic and the only thing that might have helped her is medication, which they didn't have back then.

Thank you for the post.
It's a relief to read a rational discourse on Bertha's character. My only caution is that a psychiatric view of 2007 is drastically different from the views of 1847. Whatever the qualms, it's a relief from reading the personal ideological views expressed on some of the Forum notes or the fantasies of Bedlam trowing balls to cure the patients.
My view is that mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, not in the mind, and the cure lies in the understanding of the neuro-anatomy and processes. And it is good to remember that our understanding is quite recent and incomplete, re the psychiatric theories of the early 20th. century. With all the advances, we still do not understand or can cure schizophrenia.

[smq123]

It's a relief to read a rational discourse on Bertha's character. My only caution is that a psychiatric view of 2007 is drastically different from the views of 1847. Whatever the qualms, it's a relief from reading the personal ideological views expressed on some of the Forum notes or the fantasies of Bedlam trowing balls to cure the patients.

It wasn't really meant to be a discussion about Bertha's character - I didn't even read the long discussion between you and Kiki1982 until just now. I was just responding to things that people had said earlier in this thread.


Now why would Charlotte have put this word into Rochester’s mouth if it were not applicable? He even insists on it being a dungeon. The only one who is locked up in the house, is Bertha as we will later learn, but if she was locked up humanely, the house does not merit the name of ‘dungeon’, does it.

Actually, that's not quite true. Rochester (for all intents and purposes) is also locked up in the house. He can't really leave it or sell it entirely - where would he put Bertha? What would he do with her? Thorndale is kind of a dungeon for Rochester as well.


I don’t think we can call tying someone’s hand behind her back and tying her to a bed, tenderness. Not in 1847 and not now.

First you see a woman who is not really well kept (weather because of her condition or not, we do not judge)

I strongly believe that Charlotte meant Bertha's treatment to be inhumane, rather than humane. There is more proof on the internet about the treatment of the mentally ill in that age in Enlgand and it almost all puts Bertha's treatment in a bad light. This is the last I will say about my view of Bertha/Rochester as it seems futile to convince anyone that in those days they were more modern than we think

I find it interesting that some people feel that Rochester treated Bertha poorly. The treatment that Bertha gets is pretty good, even by today's standards. She was kept in a locked room, but most psychiatric units nowadays are locked units - the chances that someone will run away and hurt themselves/other people is very high. Bertha had one-on-one "nursing care" (which is rare even in the best nursing/assisted living homes), and she was only restrained when she was clearly violent and "combative." No, we don't use physical restraints as much nowadays, but that's because we have access to Haldol and Ativan (i.e. "chemical restraints").

If they were more "modern" than we think, then they were more modern than we are. Bertha's living conditions don't seem that much different (and, in some ways, are better) than what we would use for similar patients nowadays.

Reading over some of the links that you've provided, I think the biggest thing that reformers attempted to do was to differentiate between different levels of mental illness. In very early insane asylums, everyone with a mental illness was treated the same, whether or not they were violent - they were kept in large windowless buildings without clean food, any kind of activities, or any kind of freedom. And you're right - people with depression, mild paranoia, or hysteria/anxiety would have benefited from those reforms and newer practices (like tennis and afternoon strolls). However, someone like Bertha, who was extremely psychotic, violent, and (worst of all) very strong and tall, would not be kept in the newer types of asylums that you mentioned. Someone with Bertha's level of mental illness, whether in 2007 or in 1847, would HAVE to be kept in an isolated room, possibly in physical or chemical restraints. She would not be allowed to be alone, especially in the bathroom (risk of impulsive suicidal/self-injurious behavior is too high), and would not interact with other patients. For some combative patients, tenderness is kind of out of the question.

[Newcomer]

Actually, that's not quite true. Rochester (for all intents and purposes) is also locked up in the house. He can't really leave it or sell it entirely - where would he put Bertha? What would he do with her? Thorndale is kind of a dungeon for Rochester as well.

Very interesting, as Schults would say.
As a background question, if it is not personal: you seem to differentiate between the brain and the mind, while many on the Forum fall into the fallacy, egz. loose your mind, sick in the mind etc. Is your view of the mind, similar to the concept of emergence; from the Chaos theory of complexity. This relates to the concepts of consciousness and personality.

[kiki1982]

It is indeed so that she was violent and that she had to be locked up and she was a danger to everyone who came into her neighbourhood. I never said she wasn't allowed to be locked up. But it was the way she was kept that puzzeled me. In relation to the question 'Where would he have put her?': Charlotte herself must have known about the phenomenon of asylums. Her sister Anne was governess for a time near York, where she can have heard about the York Retreat and even visited the place. Charlotte made her character Rochester rich enough to put her in a very secluded place where nobody would notice her. (then again you only need one suspicious person...)
Charlotte didn't take a lot of time to portray Bertha in a very good way, like Dickens would have done (it's so good that nowadays, psychiatrists are able to say what those patients in his books have), and obviously her condition as such was of no real concern to Charlotte. But that she states especially 'in a room without a window' if it was of no importance that there were windows or not, and before that the use of the word 'bridewell', is for me a very big indication that even she as the writer, didn't really care for his treatment of his wife.
I don't think the house was a real dungeon to Rochester... After all he toured Europe for 10 years or so before he came back to it and met Jane. There was no reason why he should live there and so he was not 'imprisoned' as such. As I said, Charlotte made him rich enough to be able to do whatever he wanted (with mistresses and without) and keep his wife locked up in the attic. Then one can argue that he was 'imprisoned' in his marriage to Bertha, but he doesn't care about that in the least...

There was something that I wanted to ask you, smq123. In connection with Jean Rhys' version of Rochester's story: is it possible that, if you lock someone up who is totally sane, 'in a room without a window', that that person can become like Bertha: violent and totally mad? It is just a matter of interest. I don't think a writer should 'finish off' the story of a colleague, but I am rather interested in whether it would be possible or that she's just telling gibberish...

[smq123]

I never said she wasn't allowed to be locked up. But it was the way she was kept that puzzeled me. In relation to the question 'Where would he have put her?': Charlotte herself must have known about the phenomenon of asylums. Her sister Anne was governess for a time near York, where she can have heard about the York Retreat and even visited the place. Charlotte made her character Rochester rich enough to put her in a very secluded place where nobody would notice her.

I think that it could be said that Rochester was more humane for keeping Bertha in his home. He also didn't tie her up and put her in a straitjacket, although there's no reason why he couldn't have. Instead, because Bertha wasn't restrained, he has to hire Grace Poole, and risk discovery (and injury). If he had put Bertha in an asylum, she almost certainly would have been restrained around the clock. Plus, in an asylum, there's no telling how she would have been treated - I doubt that the attendants and nurses in those asylums were kind and loving people.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize just how much trouble it must have been for Rochester to keep Bertha out of restraints. He may not have liked her, but it seems like he certainly gave her a lot of liberty, relatively speaking.

I'm not sure about the lack of a window - I think that it would have explained why no one knew about Bertha for 10 years (i.e. because there was no window for her to scream/jump out of).


There was something that I wanted to ask you, smq123. In connection with Jean Rhys' version of Rochester's story: is it possible that, if you lock someone up who is totally sane, 'in a room without a window', that that person can become like Bertha: violent and totally mad? It is just a matter of interest. I don't think a writer should 'finish off' the story of a colleague, but I am rather interested in whether it would be possible or that she's just telling gibberish...

I'm not a psychiatrist (just a medical student), but I honestly do not believe that that is likely. I would think that the more likely response would be for that person to develop deep, deep depression and apathy. If you lock someone up in a room long enough, and thwart any attempts at escape, that person will gradually realize that escape is not possible. That would create a pervasive and persistent feeling of helplessness, which would cause the person to sink into a severe depression. They did psychological experiments at Penn in the 1960s that showed that "learned helplessness" can be enough to sink dogs into clinical depression. Clinically depressed patients are rarely energetic enough to be violent like Bertha.

At worst, if you lock up (for years and years) someone who is sane, they might become delusional or excessively anxious/"hysterical," but probably not violent.


As a background question, if it is not personal: you seem to differentiate between the brain and the mind, while many on the Forum fall into the fallacy, egz. loose your mind, sick in the mind etc. Is your view of the mind, similar to the concept of emergence; from the Chaos theory of complexity. This relates to the concepts of consciousness and personality.

I'm not sure if I think about the "brain" vs. "mind" in those terms. The way it's usually taught is that the "brain" is the actual neuro-anatomy. It can cause disease because of chemical imbalances or structural damage. The "mind" refers to the psychological parts of mental illness - stress, memories, emotional connections, personality, etc. We're still not sure how the two are linked. It seems like, maybe, the psychological parts of mental illness ("the mind") can eventually lead changes in the "brain," by reducing the number of neuron connections, or by changing the chemical equilibrium. No one's really sure, though.

I don't know if that answered your question...let me know if it didn't!

[Newcomer]

.... I'm not sure if I think about the "brain" vs. "mind" in those terms. The way it's usually taught is that the "brain" is the actual neuro-anatomy. It can cause disease because of chemical imbalances or structural damage. The "mind" refers to the psychological parts of mental illness - stress, memories, emotional connections, personality, etc. .... I don't know if that answered your question...let me know if it didn't!

Yes, thank you. I was trying to understand your answers dealing with the psychological aspects of the novels characters. Trained in medicine, an analytical perspective, your views are more complex than the usual projection of the readers personality on the novels characters as creations of the author.
I see a similarity in your analytical judgments and the authors creativity based on observation.



I don't know if that answered your question...let me know if it didn't!

Could not pass over the opportunity!
It seems to me that the brain under anesthesia and fainting experiences a similar loss of consciousness. In particular the loss of sense of passage of time, is the same. While anesthesia is externally induced by chemical means, what is the mechanism in fainting (specific neural region)?
However regaining consciousness from anesthesia is a gradual process: the processing of sound and sight returns first and is followed by the hippocampus, (memory process), and the amigdola, (assigning of value to the memories}. This would seem in line with the assumption that the deeper processing regions, recover last from the drug induced state. While the recovery from fainting is almost instantaneous. So there is a difference in the two states of loss of consciousness. What accounts for this difference?
If my question is meaningful, ie. sufficiently precise for an answer, thank you for your patience.

[plainjane]

I don't think the house was a real dungeon to Rochester... After all he toured Europe for 10 years or so before he came back to it and met Jane. There was no reason why he should live there and so he was not 'imprisoned' as such. As I said, Charlotte made him rich enough to be able to do whatever he wanted (with mistresses and without) and keep his wife locked up in the attic. Then one can argue that he was 'imprisoned' in his marriage to Bertha, but he doesn't care about that in the least...



I thought of the house as more of a mill stone around his neck than a prison to Rochester. Bertha's presence there was an overbearing, and depressing thing to him representing his incarceration in the marriage. He had to come home sometimes if only for business purposes, but his visits were overshadowed by Bertha. At some point he spoke of his marriage and her madness as being the prod that made him act in such an irresponsible and reckless manner. And yes, that is an excuse to some extent, but otoh, perhaps he simply did not care what happened to him because he thought his life was over anyhow.
This might sound as though I blame Bertha, and that is the furtherest thing from what I mean. She was one of the completely blameless characters in the book, as both families conspired to palm her off on Rochester.

[Literary_Cat]

An excellent discussion! For further reading, do look up "The Madwoman in the Attic" by Sandra M. Gilbert, about nineteenth century women authors and characters.

[GERBAM]

Hello
I am a complete newbie and am thrilled to find such an interesting discussion related to one of my absolute favorite novels.

Litarary Cat ... I agree with you about MADWOMAN IN THE ATTIC by Gilbert and Gubar which remains seminal reference tome regarding 19thC women writers. The Bronte section is especially insightful and really puts the whole novel into perspective. I recommend it highly, too.

Also since I have not had a chance to read all of the posts on the subject I don't know if anyone mentioned Jean Rys's WIDE SARGASSSO SEA which is her interpretation of Bertha and especially why Rochester's life was so painful since his marriage to her. Yet he takes good care of her especially since she is a danger to herself adn others. He never committed her to a Snake PIt which was what asylums/bedlams were in the 19thC (and sorrowfully into the 21st in some cases.)

Someone made a reference to a window in Bertha's "prison" ... there was one if you remember while on the grounds Jane sees a face or thinks she sees a face at a window high up in the house.

I'm looking forward to more discussions of Jane Eyre adn the Bronte family.

READING IS A GIFT TO OURSELVES
GERBAM

[Mr_Donnelly]

This may seem like a pedantic point, but one that I do feel needs to be made. It is that Mrs Rochester is not kept in the attic of Thornfield Hall, but in a room in the third story, immediately above Jane Eyre's bedroom. On the day Mrs Fairfax shows Jane around the house, she is shown into this room - the closet where Bertha is kept is concealed by a tapestry. They then go up to the attic to see the view from the leads. Jane comes down first, and it is while she is waiting on the landing for Mrs Fairfax that she first hears what she is soon told is Grace Poole's laugh. On the night Mr Rochester's bed is set on fire, Jane has previously been awoken by a murmur directly above her. On the night Mason is stabbed, she, along with the rest of the house, hears his cry, but only she hears what follows, as she sates twice that the noise had come 'ot of the third story' from the room above hers. I could quote more but I think I have made the point. I think it is significant because it makes the much-used phrase 'madwoman in the attic', which has been derived from Bronte's novel quite incorrect. I wonder if anyone has noticed this before.

[kiki1982]

I also think that is significant, so you are not alone.

Look in my moon essay for more on Jane and Betha's relationship, or how it can be read.

Anyway, I seem to remember that the term 'the madwoman in the attick' actually came from a Gilbert and Gubar book with the same name, which explored the madwomen in several novels of the Vistorian period. Maybe some of them were sitting in an attick? Not really Bertha's case, but almost anyway.

I don't really think there is any impotance at all in the fact that she is in the attick or not. The fact is that the place where Bertha lives is described as a Bluebeard kind of castle place and a place from the past. Thus evoking her being a nasty secret and totally forgotten (or so Rochester wishes her to be).

[sciencefan]

This may seem like a pedantic point, but one that I do feel needs to be made. It is that Mrs Rochester is not kept in the attic of Thornfield Hall, but in a room in the third story, immediately above Jane Eyre's bedroom. On the day Mrs Fairfax shows Jane around the house, she is shown into this room - the closet where Bertha is kept is concealed by a tapestry. They then go up to the attic to see the view from the leads. Jane comes down first, and it is while she is waiting on the landing for Mrs Fairfax that she first hears what she is soon told is Grace Poole's laugh. On the night Mr Rochester's bed is set on fire, Jane has previously been awoken by a murmur directly above her. On the night Mason is stabbed, she, along with the rest of the house, hears his cry, but only she hears what follows, as she sates twice that the noise had come 'ot of the third story' from the room above hers. I could quote more but I think I have made the point. I think it is significant because it makes the much-used phrase 'madwoman in the attic', which has been derived from Bronte's novel quite incorrect. I wonder if anyone has noticed this before.
I have never noticed that detail before, but you are obviously quite right!
Good catch!


I also think that is significant, so you are not alone.

Look in my moon essay for more on Jane and Betha's relationship, or how it can be read.

Anyway, I seem to remember that the term 'the madwoman in the attick' actually came from a Gilbert and Gubar book with the same name, which explored the madwomen in several novels of the Vistorian period. Maybe some of them were sitting in an attick? Not really Bertha's case, but almost anyway.

I don't really think there is any impotance at all in the fact that she is in the attick or not. The fact is that the place where Bertha lives is described as a Bluebeard kind of castle place and a place from the past. Thus evoking her being a nasty secret and totally forgotten (or so Rochester wishes her to be).I think the difference is significant.
The picture one gets of an attic is much different than a third floor of a house.
Mr_Donnelly has pointed out that she actually lived in regular living quarters of the house.
It is only in the movies where she has been relegated to living in less than desireable quarters.
It's easier to demonize Rochester by accusing him of storing his wife in the attic like a useless relic.

[kiki1982]

The picture Brontë painted of Bertha's quarters wasn't all that favourable. Maybe Bertha wasn't sitting in an 'attick' per se, but she was sitting locked up, in a room without a window, no fresh air, was not kept, was concealed, was wrestled to the ground etc. etc.

Most film adaptations tone it down quite a lot. If they were to show it as in the novel, people would be horrified and rightly so.

At any rate, the attick should probably not be read as a place under the roof where there is only storage space. Attick spaces in places like Thornhield Hall were likely to have been converted for the many servants in former days (under Rochester's father for example) who all had to live somewhere. Servants' quarters were usually located in the third storey or the attick spaces because they were too cold and too low to be of real use to the owners of the house. Ground floors were mostly reserved for minor spaces to receive people of lower standing, first floors were reserved for more private and state rooms as they were less cold, second floors were for private bedrooms and apartments - if they could not be included in the first floor. Mostly important family memebers slept on the first floor, like the master and his wife. The housekeeper is likely to have slept somewhere near there too, in case she was needed. The children in the nursery were also likely to sleep there or on the second floor, with their governess and nursery maid - and third floors and any rooms quite remote from the main and spare bedrooms were for the rest of the footmen, maids and other servants. Though grooms mostly slept with the horses and coachmen sometimes had their own cottage, as did drivers later in history. Though that depended probably on the house. Servants' quarters were also mostly divided in male and female, to make sure that both sexes didn't mingle to avoid pregnancies and relationships in general. That didn't always work, but there you go.

So essentially, Bertha is sleeping in the servants' quarters in pretty appalling conditions (even for those days). Victorians were obcessed with cleanliness, certainly after the big stink in London and its ensuing cholera epidemic from about 1838. They felt that disease was spread by smell.

Just imagine the smell in Bertha's bedroom a minute. No proper toilet like we have now. A chamberpot. The fumes of excrement. It was regularly taken away, no doubt, but smells linger, right. The oil lamp on the ceiling, which doesn't only make the room permanenty half dark, but it smokes a lot, which was one of the reasons that it didn't actually take off as a source of lighting. When people had money, they used candles. That smell and smoke mixes itself with the excrement. No window to refresh the air. Then there is evidently the hearth, which will also produce a smell. And then there is Bertha herself. I can't imagine that there was much washing involved as she doesn't even seem to have her hair properly done.

In view of newspapers taking up the plight of poor in their slums in London and philanthropists doing their utmost to teach the poor cleanliness, I don't think that it is demonising Rochetser at all, but rather to take contemporary readers' feelings into account.

Victorians were also obcessed with useful employment. No useful employment here. And they rigidly used to believe in this, in terms of that it could cure anything (yes, even the mad).

I think the terms 'useless relic' may well have been what Brontë intended, discarded and hidden away, because no good anymore to see like the rest of the old-fashioned furniture, and that is not demonisation, but rather realism.

[Currer Bell]

After perusing the descriptions of Bertha and her behavior, my one question is: How did Grace Poole manage?

Other than that, I would just like to add my thoughts to this already quite verbose thread. I believe that Mr Rochester did the best thing in keeping Bertha at home. Unfortunately, due to Bertha's condition, I cannot see that any great amount of space/ liberty could be afforded to her without encouraging harm to herself or others. In fact, the whole concept of keeping her home is more dangerous overall. But this topic has already been discussed in depth...

I would like to point out that although Mr Rochester does not love Bertha and has come to hate her as a burden, I believe he takes his responsibility of care seriously. Notice the passage when Bertha is revealed as his wife, and she attacks him. Rochester does not resort to violence to subdue Bertha, but rather holds her at bay until she can be restrained (an effort particularly noted by Jane - who well knows his passionate nature). He even risks his life to save Bertha from the fire that devours Thornfield (a fire of her own creation). I think these points shine a light on Mr Rochester's character quite different from some persons view of the spiteful husband who locks away a woman (insane or not to begin with) whom he is simply tired of.

[KCurtis]

First, congratulations for posting your opinion. That is what the Forum should be: discussion, in my view, enriches all. Jensacurlyfries writes:'Bronte was making a point when she had a "mad woman in the attic" about the society which she lived in.' Permit me to dissent. To make sense, I think we have to limit ourselves to what Charlotte Bronte wrote in Jane Eyre. Charlotte's art, aim, is very different from Dickens or Thackeray, who through irony and sarcasm criticized Victorian society. Charlotte wrote about the personal, not the general. And if one reads the background material, one is left with the inescapable impression of how autobiographical the creation of Jane is. From the death of her sisters, to the growing up in a home that lacked parental warmth much less the expression of parental love, to the aspiration of emotional and intellectual stimulation of the adult woman.
As to the views of Feminist critics, while I understand the desire to create historical heroines and models for the young woman, please point out where in Jane Eyre such idealogical basis exist. I think I have read the novel carefully and I did not find any views corresponding to contemporary Feminism. Quite to the contrary and I will gladly quote passages to substantiate this interpretation.

Jane was outspoken considering the time period, she had her own views, and she was able to survive quite well when she ran away from Rochester. For the time period, this was considered feminism.

[Bloodywren]

"I think the difference is significant.
The picture one gets of an attic is much different than a third floor of a house.
Mr_Donnelly has pointed out that she actually lived in regular living quarters of the house.
It is only in the movies where she has been relegated to living in less than desireable quarters.
It's easier to demonize Rochester by accusing him of storing his wife in the attic like a useless relic"

Actually, there is one movie version of Jane Eyre where I especially like how they portrayed Bertha Rochester. In the Masterpiece Theater version she lives in the north tower, in a room with with red flowered wallpaper that she has clawed off in places... There is comfortable furniture in that room, a dressing table, the perfumes and makeup I'm assuming she enjoyed before she was locked up. Their Bertha wanders around in real clothes, not just a nightgown, and still has all the beauty that might entice a young man to marry quickly. In short, she is haunting, in an appropriately creepy way. Now whenever I read the book she's who I imagine when I picture Bertha.

[Bloodywren]

After perusing the descriptions of Bertha and her behavior, my one question is: How did Grace Poole manage? .

Considering that the woman drank like a fish, I don't think she was managing very well. Then again, "most freeborn persons will submit to anything for a salary."