Mad Wife in the Attic?

[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."