Jane Eyre: Conduct Manual - Assignment Example

Jane Eyre: Conduct Manual? The Victorian age is at once identified generally as a time of nostalgic perfection and rigid oppression. It is the age of change and social advances as well as the age of strict social structure and a severe regard for the customs of the past. Under the reign of Queen Victoria, the Industrial Revolution came of age, blossomed and brought sweeping change across the country and the world. Life switched from being primarily dictated by the land one owned to a social structure based on commerce and manufacturing (Greenblatt, 2005). In this switch, there was a great deal of social upheaval as people living in these changing times began to question the status quo. Social class structures were beginning to break down as common men were able to make fortunes in industry and landowners found it more and more difficult to keep the idyllic life they’d constructed alive. Women, too, were beginning to question their allotted place in society as more and more opportunities opened for them in the urban centers of the country, providing them with a means of supporting themselves and freeing themselves from the yoke of male domination. However, at the same time, these positions were not the equal rights positions of modern times, so it was often difficult to determine whether one wanted to sacrifice freedom for comfort or comfort for freedom. Rarely was it possible to attain both. All of these social and economical concerns can be found in the novels written during this time period. “The Victorian novel, with its emphasis on the realistic portrayal of social life, represented many Victorian issues in the stories of its characters” (Greenblatt, 2005). As a result, novels such as Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre were often used as conduct manuals, examples for the entertainment and simultaneous education of young men and women regarding the behavior expected of them. Fiction is often mistaken as being synonymous with fantasy, something that cannot, will not and has not been true. And in some respects, this assessment is true as the very definition of fiction indicates it is “an imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented” or “a literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact” (“Fiction”, 2000). However, fiction can often illustrate truths better than fact and to a much greater degree. This is especially true when demonstrating various ways of life, or aspects of social culture. Although Jane Eyre tells the fictional tale of a young woman’s maidenhood tracking her from her early childhood through to her eventual marriage, her journey reveals a great deal of information regarding the way of life of women during this period in history. Unlike much of the non-fiction articles that have been written about life in Victorian England and elsewhere, Bronte’s novel provides a glimpse of a specific female type living during this period who merely wished for the basics in human comforts. By tracing through the novel and comparing it with non-fictional accounts of this period and critical evaluation, one can begin to gain a sense of how women were expected to behave in this society, what their restrictions were and even a glimpse into how they learned to work within it to achieve their own sense of identity. Jane’s Childhood: lessons unlearned Jane’s journey to becoming a governess is depicted as essentially the only option open to her. She has no independent income and depends upon others for her well-being. As it is traced through the novel, it is shown that this is largely through no fault of her own as she is left orphaned by her parents and must depend upon a selfish and domineering aunt for her support as a child. However, at the same time, she is a willful child interested in doing things different from the interests of her cousins. It is her inability to sincerely conform to expectations that incites her aunt’s ire and thus is the catalyst into her educational life at Lowood, in which she is trained out of the common society and, left without resources, is not capable of moving into the upper society. As a result of this, Jane’s choices are narrowed down significantly, the best being that she can go to work as a governess if she is capable of finding a position. Growing up in an unloving home, an orphan living in her aunt’s house and suffering cruel treatment from this aunt as well as her cousin, Jane knows what an unjust world she lives in and recognizes it as such. This was not just a condition for Jane alone but for a number of young girls and women living during this time period. For children who ‘slipped between the cracks’ of Victorian society, the novel becomes a conduct manual to steer them back onto the narrow track of happiness. Jane is unable to keep quiet when the apothecary questions her about her melancholy spirit following the red room incident which eventually leads to her being sent to school. Throughout this early part of the book, she is shown to be a very thoughtful child, often thinking about the people around her and the ways of the world. In this respect, she is very much like her future friend Helen Burns. Like Helen, Jane does her best to control her emotions and her behavior to meet the expectations of her benefactors, but the injustice of the situations in which she finds herself often overwhelm her sense of decency. Unlike Helen, Jane’s passions often get the best of her. By the time she arrives at her new school, Jane has already developed her own philosophy on how to relate to other people she encounters in life: “If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way:  they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse.  When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard” (Bronte 60). Jane continues to question everything she is told to believe, indicating her own level of intelligence. Her understanding of God, shaped early by the hypocritical teachings of the adults around her, is characterized by this same deep questioning and analysis. This contrasts sharply with the opinions of her friend, Helen, and is largely the reason she cannot be accepted into the social world around her. She hasn’t yet learned the lessons of how to be an acceptable woman at the same time that she is at peace with herself. Lowood Lessons The Lowood School reinforces to Jane that there are specific expectations her society holds for her because she is a woman and she must find a means of working within the boundaries, regardless of what she thinks of them. Mr. Brocklehurst, principal of the Lowood School, is introduced in chapter 4 with a forbidding description that is proved to match his outlook on life and the proper upbringing of a young woman. For Mr. Brocklehurst, the ideal girl will adopt an attitude of being meek and mild, completely without pride or willful spirit as is evidenced in the way in which he runs his school. In this respect, his ideas of proper female behavior in the face of adversity match up fairly well with the concepts expressed by Helen, who feels she should be grateful to others for helping her to overcome her various personal faults. Mr. Brocklehurst’s philosophy in running the girls’ school is to “to render them hardy, patient, self-denying” (Bronte 67), using every instance possible to drive this message home, including the deprivation and starvation of children placed in his care. Yet, he does not see this as cruelty. Rather, he feels it a far greater sin to nourish the body at the expense of the lessons that can be learned by the soul. Mr. Brocklehurst is not sincere in his beliefs as expressed in the appearance of his wife and daughters at the school, lending support to Jane’s assessment and rightful indignation of the situation. Despite being allegedly concerned more with the welfare of the spirit in the girls placed in his care through the school, his own daughters appear in precisely the exalted state he professes leads only to moral degradation (Bronte Ch. 7). In addition, he behaves in much the same manner as Jane remembers Mrs. Reed’s behavior, quick to point the finger of blame and slow to discern the truth behind it. Helen Burns at the Lowood School becomes someone Jane can finally call a friend, despite their individual differences, and begins to introduce Jane to the process of successful conformance. Like Jane, Helen is at the Lowood School because she is a ‘charity case’ having lost her mother. Also like Jane, Helen is constantly suffering ridicule and punishment because of things she cannot help. In chapter 6, Jane notices Helen is being singled out in her class for various minor infractions such as being criticized for the way she is standing, the way her chin pokes out or for not holding up her head. Despite being able to answer all the various questions regarding the day’s readings when none of the other girls can do so, Helen is reprimanded for not cleaning her nails. However, where Jane’s passion flares up at this injustice, knowing that the water in the wash basins had been frozen that morning so that none of the girls were able to clean, Helen merely stands silent. She later enlightens Jane on this philosophy by saying, “It would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear” (Bronte 58). She finds the strength to bear her own particular persecution through her unique philosophy based upon a strong concept of Christian charity. She concentrates on the good in people as a means of overcoming the injustice. She tells Jane, “Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world … I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention, but in which I delight … for it extends hope to all” (Bronte 62). Although Helen provides Jane with the lesson that she must discover a means of living within the expectations of the society she was born in regardless of how much this might irritate her, but Helen’s answer is not acceptable to Jane, particularly as she watches Helen die still suffering abuse and neglect. Following Helen’s death, Jane continues to fight against the mind-numbing, physically draining environment of Lowood and begins to seek new means of containing her passions within a socially acceptable mold. “In Jane Eyre, the verbal vignette serves as a narrative strategy for incorporating Jane’s potentially explosive passions, passions noted by many scholars as symptoms of Victorian restrictions on women’s ambitions and desires” (Taylor, 2002). Jane finds inspiration despite the best attempts of her surroundings rather than as a result of them through her teacher Miss Temple. “I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line … and encouraging us, by precept and example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, ‘like stalwart soldiers’” (Bronte 64). And, like a soldier, Jane begins to seek reasons to celebrate life in her language through the remainder of the passage. She finds “solace” at tea-time “in the shape of a double ration of bread – a whole, instead of a half, slice – with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter” (Bronte 64) in which Helen’s influence can be discerned. However, within this quote, there is also an element of double-speak in which Jane is able to convey two completely different ideas at once. While she recognizes the extra serving of bread as a treat and she attempts to ‘march on’ finding a reason to continue fighting, Jane’s passionate emotions of injustice remain just below the surface. Comments such as “a whole, instead of a half, slice” smack of sarcastic overtones, yet Jane continues to attempt talking herself into a more ‘stalwart’ disposition by describing this extra food as a “treat” and a “bounteous repast”, admitting all the girls looked forward to this time of the week. She also indicates the younger girls are “thrust forward” as a means of controlling them and forcing them to participate in the Sunday night catechism, and “propped up” when they became too tired, but such terms can also be seen to be bringing the younger girls further forward socially, perhaps in terms of individual recognition, education or empowerment in ways that were not available to the older girls. Jane as Governess? The role of the governess in Victorian society was ambiguous because of the very function she performed. While she was highly educated in all the fine arts and manners of high society by necessity as her function was to teach these things to her young charges, the governess remained a servant in the household and was dependent upon the family to see to her welfare (Roth, 2002). Therefore, as has been demonstrated with Jane, she did not fit in with the upper classes because she was a servant, yet did not fit in with the servants because of her advanced training and had few other options in securing her support and welfare. Moving into Thornfield, Jane finds herself falling in love with the house’s owner, Rochester, but fears her feelings will again be subjugated under his domination. Even before she finds out about Bertha, Jane realizes that while she is every bit as capable intellectually as Rochester is, her poverty and social standing would never allow her to be his equal and she would therefore be forced to subjugate her emotions to his wishes at every turn. “Both he and she believe implicitly the things they read in eyes, in nature, in dreams” (Brownell, 1993), yet Jane realizes her interpretations will never carry as much weight with his as long as she comes to him from a lesser position. She tells him “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you – and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you” (Bronte 291). The example has already been set for her in this house in the form of Bertha, Rochester’s first wife, who has gone mad from her enclosure in the third floor of the house. “Bertha is considered insane because of her intense sensuality. Bertha is represented as a sort of taboo sexuality that is forbidden to the others” (Crookston, 1999). Because she has not learned how to couch her emotions in Victorian terms, Bertha is considered insane and her confinement only serves to heighten her anxiety. In many ways, Bertha can be seen to be Jane’s alter ego, providing a prophetic example of Jane’s future should she come to Rochester on similar terms as Bertha had or fails to discover a means of conforming, in some way, to her society. Although it was perhaps the romantic dream of every young governess sent to tutor in large manor homes, Jane refuses to become the mistress of Rochester at the same time that she realizes it is important to her to find approval in her society. Despite realizing that she has fallen in love with the fiery Rochester, Jane is certain her emotions will be subjugated under the domination of the man just as Bertha’s had been at the same time that she will become as cut off from peers as poor Bertha is in her tower. Although she realizes that she is every bit as capable intellectually as Rochester is regarding life, she also knows her own poverty and social standing as well as her gender would necessarily place her in a subservient position to him. The argument of the female Victorian character against the man is perhaps put best here as Jane tells Rochester why she will not stay. “I am no bird and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you” (Bronte 292). Even though she has spent her life chafing against the system that held her, this decision illustrates to her and to the audience how important it is that she remain connected with the outside world. However, Jane is not able to give herself completely to Rochester until she is brought up to more equal footing with him, both meeting the requirements of society by having her marry within her appropriate class economically and educationally as well as by bringing her behavior more in line with social expectations following her realization of its importance. The expectation of the perfect Victorian female is perhaps better illustrated in A.S. Byatt’s novel Possession. The character Ellen Ash, the wife of Randolph, represents the ideal Victorian woman as she smiles “demurely under her bonnet, holding her skirts away from the wet” (Byatt 129) on her honeymoon and displayed “a sweetness, a blanket dutiful pleasure in her responses to things” (Byatt 136) in her journal even as she seemed to consider herself unworthy of the attentions of her husband: “I can never say enough in praise of Randolph’s unvarying goodness and forbearance with my feebleness and inadequacies” (Byatt 136). While he is traveling in Yorkshire with Christabel, Ellen writes in her journal about the many tasks she has instigated around the house “for improvements in his comfort to be effected whilst he is away” (Byatt 272). The journal pages produced within the novel include notes regarding the various projects as they are undertaken and completed as well as the mention of a fiery confrontation with a mysterious woman who is believed to be the irate Blanche educating Ellen regarding Randolph’s affair. Despite this knowledge, Ellen’s journal reveals nothing about the nature of the woman’s visit, the information Ellen has been given or indeed any expression of rage, despair or betrayal. Ellen’s placid acceptance of her husband’s actions as well as her seemingly unshakeable confidence in his commitment to her demonstrates the traditional, though erroneous, views of Victorian female sexuality as a dead and lifeless thing This concept of female sexuality as being something nonexistent is also expressed through the complete separation of sex from the marriage of Ellen and Randolph Ash. “In her representation of Randolph Ash’s marriage to Ellen, Byatt follows the Victorian tradition of displacing the sexual act from the marriage relationship. We learn that Ellen Ash marries Randolph after she has already lost her youth, implying that she has also lost her sexual attractiveness. She thinks back on her life, ‘A young girl of twenty-four should not be made to wait for marriage until she is thirty-six and her flowering is over’” (Farrell, 1997). Their relationship, though always depicted as loving and fond, is never shown to be passionate or erotic in any way. They spend their evenings with Randolph reading to her rather than any mention of a shared bed. Ellen’s memory of her wedding night indicates the couple may be involved in a completely Platonic relationship. “She did not remember it in words. There were no words attached to it, that was part of the horror. … An attempt. A hand not pushed away. Tendons like steel, teeth in pain, clenched, clenched. The approach, the locked gateway, the panic, the wimpering flight. Not once, but over and over and over. When did he begin to know that however gentle he was, however patient, it was no good, it would never be any good? … The eagerness, the terrible love, with which she had made it up to him, his abstinence, making him a thousand small comforts, cakes and tidbits. She became his slave” (Byatt 544-45). For Ellen, the social convention of marriage establishes not a partnership between two people in which each provides pleasure and assistance to the other, but rather a master-slave situation in which she must somehow ‘make-up’ for her revulsion concerning the sexual act. “By removing sexual intimacy from the marriage of Ellen and Randolph, Byatt is drawing on typical Victorian notions of female sexuality and marriage” (Farrell, 1997). This view was primarily fostered by an intense concentration of Victorian studies to focus on a restrictionist view on sexuality as being the central focus. “Often quoted in the medical literature of the time was the English restrictionist adviser, William Acton, who claimed that ‘the majority of women (happily for society) are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind.’ Acton greatly admired W.R.Greg, a classic moralist, who stated that ‘sexual indulgence... is then, accompanied by love, a sin, according to nature …’” (Murphy, 2003). Thus, female passion, any expression of excessive emotion, was considered deviant against social expectations of female nonsexuality. For this reason, Bertha was locked in an attic, for this reason Jane was not able to fit in her society. However, if she could find a means of harnessing this emotional rush as Helen did, she might yet find a means of living as an accepted member of her society even given her natural personality. Considering Options Jane’s last big adventure in the novel is her time in Milton where she develops a relationship with St. John and his family. Now that she finally realizes how important it is to her that she finds acceptance within her society, this segment of her life provides her with one more warning regarding the inherent dangers of completely subsuming personal identity. In the character of St. John, Bronte illustrates the passion for glory and self-aggrandizement inherent in some people at the expense of any true emotion. Although Jane has found a couple of kindred spirits in St. John’s sisters, she also finds herself falling under the cold calculation of St. John himself. “By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind … I fell under a freezing spell” (Bronte 461). Unlike Rochester, St. John is perfectly willing to accept Jane on her own terms, as an intelligent, thinking woman, but he also offers a life devoid of passion. His proposal of marriage encourages her to sacrifice her emotions in order to fulfill her moral duty as it is defined by the Victorian society, but this type of life is also not acceptable to her. “As his curate, his comrade, all would be right … But as his wife – at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked – forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital – this would be unendurable” (Bronte 472-473). While she wants the respectability of society and the recognition of her own intelligence and ability to contribute, but she must acknowledge that she cannot completely ignore her emotions. “St. John feels that the proposed union would be logical; he reasons that Jane would be the perfect fit as a missionary wife and entreats her to simplify her various [feelings and thoughts]. … After listening to her adamant statement, St. John shows little emotion, except for a pair of compressed lips, and once again responds very calmly by reasoning why he did not deserve that statement” (Sorenson, 1995). Faced with the prospect and consequence of living an emotionless life, Jane discovers she cannot accept this sort of life either. Resolutions Just when it seems there is no valid option for Jane to discover a happy life, she is saved by yet another male relative. There is a final resolution to the story, though, when Jane is reunited with Rochester after Bertha is dead and he has been blinded. At this point in the story, she has inherited her own money from her uncle, making her finally Rochester’s social equal as well as able to provide for herself whether he is there or not. Having always been his intellectual equal, she no longer has need to fear subjugation of her emotions by him either. Because she approaches from a respectable social position, he is newly widowed and injured, she is newly independent, Jane will be able to take up a position within her husband’s social circle, now reduced by his need. Indeed, since he now must lean on her for support in his blindness, she has achieved even more freedom than most Victorian ladies had a right to expect and rejoices in the balance: “I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. . . . To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. . . . We are precisely suited in character—perfect concord is the result” (Bronte 523). These same types of results are disclosed to have occurred for both Mary and Diana, who still make regular visits to her home and whom she and her husband continue to visit. She has started a family of her own, having delivered Rochester with a first-born son with the same snapping eyes his father once possessed before his accident. She is able to interfere in the progress of Adele’s life, withdrawing her from a rigid school full of many of the same kinds of constraints she once endured and eventually finds her a more forgiving school that is more open to the concept of a female with thoughts and dreams beyond the mere serving of men. While she is still her own woman, still capable of expressing herself and making decisions, she has also found acceptance by her community, having earned the adoration of Adele and developed a strong bond of friendship with a group of people she shared her early life with at the same time that she’s built her family. Conclusion In the progression of the story, Jane Eyre reflects not only the Victorian attitudes toward feminine emotion, but points out the importance of allowing that emotion some form of expression for the happiness of all. Although the novel reinforces the importance of the young person finding a means of conforming to the more important strictures of their society, it also questions some of these strictures, suggesting that a more balanced approach to marital relationships is beneficial for the whole. It is only through the affections freely exchanged that the characters are able to attain any true degree of happiness and those characters that encourage the loss of feeling display woeful views on life and relationships. Rather than being able to appreciate the entire woman, characters such as St. John and the younger version of Rochester are only able to see the side of Jane that they wish to possess. As the story closes, we see Rochester enjoying the complete Jane because of who she is rather than as a thing to be owned. At the same time, characters such as Jane, Mary and Diana are able to discover happiness as a result of balancing their internal emotions with the external niceties of society by discovering acceptable means of exploring their thoughts and ideas. The novel works as a conduct manual as it instructs young women on how to bring their more spirited natures into line with their social expectations at the same time that it instructs young men to refine their concepts of women. Although Jane eventually marries Rochester and lives a very happy life with him, it was because she didn’t give in to her emotions that she was able to finally achieve all that she dreamed of and more. Although Rochester eventually marries Jane and shares a very happy life with her, it is not possible until he is able to acknowledge his own emotional involvement and her value to him as a thinking, feeling person. Works Cited Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003. Brownell, Eliza. “Passion, Dreams and the Supernatural in Jane Eyre.” The Victorian Web. (December 1993). Brown University. May 8, 2009 Byatt, A.S. Possession: A Romance. New York: The Modern Library, 2000. Crookston, Beth. “Bertha Mason: The Enigma.” (1999). Kent State University. Farrell, Timothy. “A.S. Byatt’s Possession: A Critique of the Victorian Omission of Sexuality.” Postimperial and Postcolonial Literature in English. Singapore: University of Singapore University Scholars Programme, 1997. “Fiction.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. (4th Ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. Greenblatt, Stephen (Ed.). “Introduction: The Victorian Age.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 8. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. Murphy, Kim. “Frigid Victorian Women?” The Citizen’s Companion. December-January 2002-2003. Rose, Felicity. “Angel and Demon: Female Selfhood and the Male Gaze in Byatt and Bronte.” The Victorian Web. Brown University, 2004. Roth, Christine. “The Victorian Governess.” Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin, Department of English, 2002. May 7, 2009 Taylor, Susan B. “Image and Text in Jane Eyre’s Avian Vignettes and Bewick’s History of British Birds.” Victorian Newsletter. Ward Hellstrom, 2002. Read More