Literary Article Analysis on Jane Eyre - Essay Example

The writer examines the stand taken by several critics, such as Gilbert and Gubar, Schorn, Craig and Hoeveler, who analyze Jane Eyre’s hunger and self-starvation in the context of the Irish famine, psychological deprivation, Bronte’s experience of losing her mother, and the cultivation of “the perfectly disciplined body” (Renk, 2). Renk rejects the approaches which equate Jane’s hunger with anorexia nervosa, holding that anorexics and starving saints demonstrate completely different motivations.

The writer argues that Jane Eyre’s hunger is not anorexia, which is a psychopathology, but is closer to the spiritual desire of starving medieval saints. Renk supports her contention that Jane’s fasting does not conform to anorexia by pointing out that Jane’s protest is neither passive nor suppressive of emotions, and does not reflect the anorexic’s characteristic self-loathing. Renk equates Jane Eyre with medieval starving saints, such as Clara of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, and Lidwina of Schiedam, terming them “female hunger artists who use their relationship with food to attempt to refashion their own lives.” (3). .

In this context, Jane, like the saints, protests her lack of female agency, rejects the Reeds as her family and wants to choose her own path. Renk identifies Jane’s attitude to food with Mikhail Bakhtin’s and Mary Russo’s concept of the ‘grotesque carnivalesque.’ Jane’s starvation and her fits are definitely attention-getting spectacles. Both the saints and Jane use food to “symbolically denote female power” (Renk,6) and to strive for control and liberation. Renk carries this analogy further by comparing male priests’ denial of the Eucharist to the saints to Mr.

Brocklehurst’s denial of food to the Lowood orphans. Again, Renk paints Jane’s hunger artistry in the colors of religious discourse: she rejects Mr. Brocklehurst’s “creed of self-denial,” and Helen Burn’s “doctrine of endurance.” She rejects the heavenly after-life in favor of earthly justice. Like the starving saints, Jane’s hunger strike represents the banner of revolt raised against the injustices of the world. However, while the sustenance of the saints is their “intense personal relationship with a God” (Renk, 3), Jane Eyre’s sustenance is book and female community.

Even Rochester’s attempt to control Jane’s sustenance with the symbolic ‘manna’ is rejected by Jane. She wishes to feast on “the work of her own hands” (Renk, 9). Jane’s hunger is for female communion, creativity, justice and liberation from the shackles of male imposition. The final proof of Jane’s refusal to submit to patriarchal authority is seen in her decision to flee from Rochester’s proposal. While Renk’s contention that Jane uses self-stavation as a weapon for reform is credibly supported by her arguments, some aspects of the