Gilbert, Sandra M. “Plain Jane’s Progress.”
Introduction:
Jane Eyre is probably one of the most famous women novels of all time with its wonderful story of trials, tribulations and finally eternal happiness found in redemption. Charlotte Bronte’ creates a character which has been immortalized in several films and other articles although there have been critiques of the story’s structure especially in authors such as Sandra Gilbert.
Gilbert argues that even the beginning of Jane Eyre is unlike other Victorian novels which normally begin with elaborate paragraphs. She simply begins with Jane’s musings on the possibility of taking a walk. Her sense of insecurity and self-effacing grovelling is also very much in evidence when she describes how she is glad not to go out since she feels ‘dreadful coming home in the raw twilight’ since she will be ever more conscious of her physical inferiority.
Gilbert seems to argue that the general opinion of this part is that Charlotte Bronte consistently used the opposed properties of fire and ice to add spice and character to Jane’s experiences with her technique evident in these opening passages. She describes the world of Gateshead as unbearably wintry and cold to the point of freezing. However Jane’s inner world is also very tiring, boring and claustrophobic.
Jane Eyre’s conflict with the tyrannical John Reed continues to emphasise her loneliness especially in the episode where she stares into the looking glass. She describes her mind as a mysterious chamber or a mysterious enclosure in which she is herself trapped like a number of parchments. Jane’s descent into superstition also shows the adult version of the woman that she is imprisoned in her own self. She is also feeling frustrated and angry, meditating on the injustices of her life while fantasizing on some liberating situation which will rid her of the oppression which she also describes as insupportable. Gilbert argues that the option to escape is something which recurs continually throughout Jane Eyre but the spectre of starvation also looms quite high.
Comparisons with other fictional characters.
In a sense, Jane Eyre makes a spiritual and self-cleansing journey which is similar to John Bunyan’s character Christian in ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’. She makes a sort of mythical progress from one significant name place to another. Her story begins in Gateshead, an important starting point where she also encounters a career without much satisfaction – an adoptive family with a selfish older brother rather in the vein of Oliver Twist’s own miserable life. Her stepfather is personified in her brother who rules over the house with tyranny. Her step sisters are also selfish beings who are also similar to the Cinderella sisters creating another parallel. Jane embarks on a journey as a kind of Ugly Duckling without any prospects or cares in the world where she also encounters great trials and tribulations much in the same manner as Christian in ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’
‘I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child – though equally dependent and friendless – Mrs Reed would have endured my presence more complacently,’ is her reflection as an adult (ch. 2).
Jane is also eager for a kind of new servitude which brings her painful experience to the apex which is the grim mansion of Thornfield. Almost like Christ, she is to be crowned with thorns and cast out into a field of desolation. Her terrible experience in the Red Room is also a life changing experience. The novel then explores Thornfield itself which is a kind of cleansing for Jane and one could describe the gloomy and dark mansion as another gothic trapping which was perhaps introduced by Bronte to appeal to Victorian readers of the day, similar to Horace Walpole’s ‘The Castle of Otranto’ or Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’. The appearance of Rochester who at first seems to be haughty and remote and his mad wife Bertha who is the anti-thesis of the story help Jane achieve her final end of salvation through love.
An intriguing quote from Chapter XII describes her take on women which almost mirrors Gilbert’s view in Plain Jane’s Progress;
“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex”. (Chapter XII)
This analysis describes the innate nature of the women’s psyche and the deep frustrations which affected the woman in Bronte’s time. In a sense, the character of Jane Eyre is one which moves with the times and is a heady description of the new found independence which was not to be the woman’s lot until several decades later. The stock position of lowly paid teacher or governess or worse still, a life of domestic drudgery confined to a home was the woman’s lot and she could not get out of it very quickly.
Confronting her demons
Jane is embedded in the gloomy rooms at Thornfield where she is confined to discover herself. She embarks on a spiritual journey of discovery down that long narrow passage which has two rows of small black doors and which are all shot like a corridor in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. The chilly evocations of the sinister wailing and laughing of the insane Bertha Rochester who is holed up in a secret room – one of the favoured Victorian selling points send Jane into an ecstasy of self-discovery. The artefacts and walls filled with forbidding figures create a sense of Gothic horror as she herself is redeemed. She has to confront her demons to be cleansed once and for all. This is indeed a powerful passage in the book and demonstrates the avant garde tendencies of Charlotte Bronte. The upper wing of the house holds the secrets which must be unlocked by a key that also demonstrates the true character of Jane who although fearful, must confront her new reality and catharsis.
Comparison with Wordsworth
In the poem, ‘Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey’, William Wordsworth explores the beauty of this scenic spot in Monmouthshire, Wales where this ruined abbey was abandoned in 1536. Wordsworth indulges in the beauty of nature and observes the intrinsic magnificence of this incredible spot which is full of ghosts of the past. Here one can detect the similarities with Jane Eyre’s Thornfield which eventually ends up as a ruined shell as it is burnt to the ground.
The poem is full of recollections and nostalgia and is, in a sense the views and philosophies of Wordsworth with regard to nature. At times one is drawn into the creative descriptions of the beauty spots which are full of witty comparisons but in a way this is a heart on a sleeve poem demonstrating the inner power of Wordsworth’s writing.
The River Wye is a central part of the whole narrative and Wordsworth takes a different angle to proceedings as he seems to be conversing with the river itself. There is also a sense of conversation with nature as Wordsworth seems to take the poetry to another plane as he espouses on the incredible beauty of his surroundings.
Wordsworth’s relationship with his past lover is also an important part of the narrative as it shows that he was still haunted by this episode. So in a sense the poem is a recollection of past ordeals and experiences with the abbey remaining the centrepiece of it all. The poet becomes a conversationalist delving deep into the philosophical conundrums of society culminating in a glorious ode to nature and its incredible beauty.
Conclusion – The Pilgrim’s Progress
Does Jane Eyre reach the Celestial City is the question we ask ourselves? This goal is a dream for those who accept the great inequalities of this earth although she believes deeply in freedom from the shackles of society. The fact that Charlotte Bronte was full of rage and hunger when she wrote Jane Eyre adds to the spice of the novel which comes across as an expostulation for the rights of women like no other.
Works Cited:
Gilbert, Sandra M. “Plain Jane’s Progress.” From ‘The Madwomen in the Attic’, Ch 2 University of Chicago, 1977, Print)
Bronte Charlotte; Jane Eyre; Norton Critical Edition, ed. Richard J. Dunn
(New York: Norton, 1971).
