Critical interpretations???

[Dinosaurrr]

As you may know, I need to write an essay on how secrets are portrayed in Jane eyre...and I need to write it using critical interpretations or viewpoints to give a balanced arguement.
Soo, i tried looking for some interpretations on google, but I really struggled to find anything. I'm looking for how a marxist may view the text, a femininst etc.
Thanks :)

[kiki1982]

Oh, no problem finding feminist! Marxist may be a bit difficult, but I think you may find something in the feminist regarding that too.

Bluebeard is another one. THat could be interpreted in a Marxist way (i.e. how Rochester deals with male power). Maybe you can do something with my essay on Bluebeard on this forum.

If you can get access to it, you may find something interesting feminist in Gilbert&Gubar (or however that is spelled)'s essay on the mad woman in the attick. I have never been able to access it (for free), but maybe you'll have more success.

Just to answer your other topic:

Rochester is a tormented character, a bit traumatised I think by his marriage to Bertha. He knows he has to blame himself, but can't face that, so he blames everyone else. As he has told his personnel who know about Bertha not to tell the new governess out of fear she might not want to be hired, he cannot tell Jane after such a long time. However, I don't think he counted on ever still meeting a woman whom he sincerely loved; well, as he can love then. He has a problem. Bertha can also be viewed as an evocation of the pain, hate (whatever you want to call it) from his past life and he cannot abandon himself to anyone. He wants to hide it and flee in impressions, which he does in over-compensating with his charming nature. You really have to say that he is charming to his guests. But as soon as his guests are gone, he returns to his moody self. It is quite sad, really, sitting in your living room alone in the evening as he says, 'with the fireplace and candles for company' (or something similar), and nothing else to think about than the woman upstairs. He despises having mistresses because it is demeaning. Naturally, the kind of woman he can get is a mean creature; another does not let herself be bought.

But then he starts to get interested like he was never interested before and before he knows it, he is madly in love with a woman who doesn't know his real self, who doesn't know his past and whom he can't tell. Although he can be blamed for lying and cheating on her, he is also to be pitied (as evoked in Jane's foregiveness at the end). He cannot help being 'a scoundrel', but he must see that his ways were wrong; his ideas about people as outsides and appearances alone, are wrong. During Jane's time in Morton, he learns to do this, if only because he has gone blind. He can no longer look and judge, he needs to listen and judge. Whatever he looks like, whatever she looks like, he will only be able to love by his thoughts, and the passion he feels is evidently died down a bit (the fire in the grate that is so small by the end and which he can't really see).

According to the philosophy of Plato, true beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and virtue is the light through which it can be seen. If Rochester seeing the candles as 'a dim cloud' is read in that way, we may presume that he finally 'sees' by his virtue, something he could not before. Then his frequent journeys to the attick with a candle are an evocation of him trying to see, but not being able to in the dark place he is in. And behold, after three years of marriage (would that three be a coincidence?), Rochester sees Jane, in a sky blue dress (epitomy of womanhood in Victorian times) and after a few months he sees his first-born son lying in his arms. Before this, Jane has mentioned that he saw things through her, so indeed, she has led him to 'see' through virtue.

Though he may come across as moody, there are clear indications that in fact he enjoys certain things like Adèle's carresses. Brontë was very clever in portraying Rochester in this case (and thus explaining why he did keep her there and didn't send her to school). While the outside of his character is practically insupportable, she makes his dog a soft character who likes children. During Victoria's time, Prince Albert's favourite dog was often portrayed as an avatar for Victoria. Her status was a bit ambiguous as she did declare to obey him in her vows, something she refused to be scrapped from them, despite also being, in essence, his superior as queen. So painters used his very favourite dog to portray Victoria. If marriage partners have become one flesh, Pilot is an avatar for Rochester and his behaviour is consistent with how Rochester must really feel. How he runs instinctively up to her in his first scene and being hypnotised by the fire, then, at the end, being almost so enthusiastic as to knock the tray out of her hands. It is endearing really.

[Ecurb]

The mad wife in the attic may represent irrational male lust and the male desire for promiscuity. Grace Poole (I may be getting the names wrong, because it's been a few years since I read the book) is the matron who keeps these insane lusts in check. Jane is Rochester's soul mate -- the spiritual and incorporeal lover who (small, unattractive, otherworldly, and rational) differs so dramatically from the chained wife in the attic.

St. John Rivers is the flip side of Jane -- he's the spiritual lover (as opposed to the Earthy, sexual Rochester, with his mad wife and illegitimate daughter). However, he's too spiritual for Jane -- all goody, goody and obsessed with God rather than with the petite Miss Eyre. The powerful, male Rochester must be crippled and blinded before he can win his Jane. Only when he has lost his traditional male virtues of health, strength and independence does love come to him.

I'm not sure if any of this shows a feminist perspective, other than in that it shows a perhaps stereotyped view of men. From a Marxist perspective, the downtrodden Jane is oppressed until she gets her inheritance, when, all of a sudden, she has St. John Rivers proposing marriage, and her newly inherited social equality with Rochester allows the lovers to get together.

[L.M. The Third]

If you actually want to read a feminist reading you would do well with Gubar and Gilbert's The Madwoman in the Attic. Although it explores many 19th century women's works, its one-chapter interpretation of Jane Eyre is central. It has been faulted for certain areas in which it's narrow, but I think it will be helpful in looking at disguise and secrets in JE.

Central, of course, to Gilbert and Gubar's thesis is that women (especially as artists) have had to break out of two molds that men/literature place them in - the angel of the house and the madwoman. Thus, Bertha Mason becomes Jane Eyre's double - she does things that Jane secretly longs to do - like subduing Rochester. But Jane ultimately defines herself as a unique, rational, yet passionate individual - neither the "mad thing" that Mrs. Reed sees her as or the "good angel" that Rochester tries to make her.

Hm, I don't have much on secrets at the moment myself (and nothing on Marxism) but you will find some interesting things about the connection between secrets and the mysteries of sexuality in The Madwoman.

By the way, fascinating hypothesis on Pilot, kiki! I'll keep that in mind.

[kiki1982]

The mad wife in the attic may represent irrational male lust and the male desire for promiscuity. Grace Poole (I may be getting the names wrong, because it's been a few years since I read the book) is the matron who keeps these insane lusts in check. Jane is Rochester's soul mate -- the spiritual and incorporeal lover who (small, unattractive, otherworldly, and rational) differs so dramatically from the chained wife in the attic.

St. John Rivers is the flip side of Jane -- he's the spiritual lover (as opposed to the Earthy, sexual Rochester, with his mad wife and illegitimate daughter). However, he's too spiritual for Jane -- all goody, goody and obsessed with God rather than with the petite Miss Eyre. The powerful, male Rochester must be crippled and blinded before he can win his Jane. Only when he has lost his traditional male virtues of health, strength and independence does love come to him.

I'm not sure if any of this shows a feminist perspective, other than in that it shows a perhaps stereotyped view of men. From a Marxist perspective, the downtrodden Jane is oppressed until she gets her inheritance, when, all of a sudden, she has St. John Rivers proposing marriage, and her newly inherited social equality with Rochester allows the lovers to get together.

Yes the name is right and yes that shows a feminist perspective ;)

Though feminists are always a bit quick to judge...

I have found that feminists tend to downplay Rochester's wealth at the end very much together with his rights as a hudband. Where Jane may be dominant in the marriage as the able one and he has to abandon himself totally to her (which is endearing and essentially the very purpose of love in itself), in pactice he could still, even blind, terrorise her. He still has her money, everything; when she marries him she will have no penny to her name and even everything she earns would be his to demand if they were to separate at all. This won't happen as he is a loving man, but English law enabled him to do this. Blind or not, Jane is still his possession, as much as she was when he still saw and was his forceful self.

Feminists have also claimed that she is kind of his equal with her £5,000. Needless to say that that is also not really right... Even if he 'nearly ruined' himself and has lost Thornfield (+ its passive value, which was also included in the estimation of riches, taken seriously by Ingram), he still has Ferndean, his lands and tenants (Hay, adjoining hamlets and maybe Millcote), plus investments (loans given to private people or stocks) plus his jewellery box in London. He is hardly penniless as some feminists have claimed. He is severely plucked, also by his debauchery in France (he is likely to once have had a fortune of 100,000 or more, dowry of 30,000 plus his father's riches which must have been considerable regarding the age of Thornfield), but he is by no means poor. So Jane's £5,000 is maybe a nice little sum that will bring in approximately 500 a year, depending on the interest rate (in Austen's time this was 10% more or less), but it is not his whole income.

The point is not that he is disabled, as feminists tend to claim, but that he has turned into a softer and more loving man. His dominance has made room for humility and in that, his blindness is a tool of Brontë to evoke that idea. He will be ruled by Jane, not in practice, but in his mind and that is what counts. Where she will be her own woman, so to say, so that she may be married but is not forced to do anything by a husband who cares more about his authority than his wife. And that is how a marriage should be. Laws are of no importance if they are not abused.

Marxism could put a spin on this as it is about power someone told me recently. How Rochester deals with that male power before and after being blinded could be a point of discussion. Also how he perceives secrecy before and after.


Hm, I don't have much on secrets at the moment myself (and nothing on Marxism) but you will find some interesting things about the connection between secrets and the mysteries of sexuality in The Madwoman.

By the way, fascinating hypothesis on Pilot, kiki! I'll keep that in mind.

Thanks! Although pets, and certianly dogs, usually have some importance in the characters of their masters... The expression hasn't come out of nowhere. 'A dog is like his master'... The breed is also of importance: Pilot is a Newfoundland. Known for their somewhat heavy and forceful exterior, but also for their loving character, incredible fidelity and love of children. I think it can't really be a coincidence that Brontë let her eye fall on that breed of dog. It would be too great and too poignant an 'accident'.

He is also black and white, which could raise some questions as to good and bad points in his character. Black and dark people were often dangerous, certainly in earlier novels. Such characters were often put on black horses too. Brian de Bois-Guilbert in Scott's Ivanhoe (a book Brontë adored), a character very similar to Rochester, was also portrayed as having black curly hair and sitting on a black horse. Rochester himself too. White horses and fair exteriors were reserved for honest and sincere people, like Helen Burns (I think) and possibly the sisters Elton/Eshton (?). In terms of this, Pilot having both is ambiguous, like Rochester. Rochester is sincere in his love, but he is so far gone in his delusion that he can't see anymore what is really going too far.

[Dinosaurrr]

I cannot believe the detail you guys have gone to! This helped such a tremendous amount! I will check out that G&G feminist essay.... :D :D :D

[L.M. The Third]

I think I failed to mention that "The Madwoman in the Attic" is a book not an essay, so you can't get it free online. Maybe you could find it in a (university) library system.

Thanks for the elaboration on Pilot, kiki. I also think I'll have to reread "Ivanhoe" sometime to compare Brian de Bois-Guilbert with Rochester. I don't remember any theme of redemption with the former. Maybe my memory serves me ill.

[kiki1982]

Maybe not redemption, although when Rebecca is being tried due to the delusion of Bois-Guilbert's boss, he tries to help her by handing her a note that he will fight for her in a divine duel. Knowing that he is one of the best, he will certainly win. He doe snot believe in God's power to determine the battle, as his boss does. But the latter, assigns the task of fighting for 'God' (i.e. the Knights Templars) to him before this can be made public (or something). In the end, maybe there is some kind of divine intervetion so that Bois-Guilbert doesn't need to kill the good Ivanhoe on his white horse and thus kill innocent Rebecca (= crime leading to eternal damnation) or kill himself (= crime too, also leadig to eternal damnation). For a Christian man like Bois-Guilbert that is a pretty sad choice. So, the judgment of God evoked in the duel of Ivanhoe and Bois-Guilbert, which will determine Rebecca's lot, is solved by possibly divine intervention, killing Bois-Guilbert on the spot without any fight happening. Thus, saving Rebecca as she is not a witch and saving Bois-Guilbert from eternal hell for suicide.

Maybe that is redemption, even if it is not bliss in a Rochester kind of way.

Although it has been argued somewhere, that the Brontës carried the Byronic hero to his next level. Maybe Scott started that in some way, but the Brontës made it more obvious.

[gabrielacellini]

I think Jane's autobiography fulfills her desires more than drawing. I think writing is more expressive of her ideas than her drawings.

[gabrielacellini]

First I have to agree that Jane is Rochester's soul mate. I think that I have to disagree that Rochester had to become disabled before he could win Jane. I think that he had won Jane before that.