Jane Eyre as gothic novel Jan 25 - Page

Jane Eyre as Gothic Novel
The Gothic Novel
Goths—Germanic tribe that fought the Roman Empire
Gothic architecture—medieval architecture (spires and narrow windows) differs from
neo-Classical style of eighteenth century
Gothic novel—often set in such medieval castles, abbeys, etc. (very popular in early
C19—Romantic period
Gothic fiction
Horror stories (contemporary examples: Stephen King, Anne Rice)
Setting evokes atmosphere of horror (the red room/ the attic of Thornfield)
Supernatural/sublime elements (may be explained, e.g. screams of Bertha Mason
Hero is often lonely and lost (Rochester and Jane)
Villain is epitome of evil (Bertha or Rochester, even St. John’s Rivers) either due to a fall
from grace or innate malevolence
Many tales include a character who is “The Wanderer,”
—left to wander in perpetual exile (Rochester/ Jane)
Purpose of the Gothic
Elements of the Gothic thought to reveal the repressed (the unconscious)
A way of representing the unrepresentable
A way of understanding oneself by confronting horrors/fears
Outlet for forbidden emotions, desires, and ideas
Personified repressed emotions are more horrific because individuals become enslaved by
them
Bertha Mason and the Gothic
Ghostly presence—there and not there
Cause of the inexplicable laugh, the fire, attack on Richard Mason
Associated with the gothic architecture of Thornfield
The villain from Rochester’s perspective
Bertha’s story
Told by Rochester (395-400)
Encouraged by his father to marry her for her money (394-5)
She was beautiful like Blanche Ingram (395)
He did not love her (does this confession influence Jane’s reaction to St. John’s offer of a
loveless marriage?)
He was blind to her faults (calls himself a “gross, grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead”
(396)
Family history—nature vs. nurture
Learns Bertha’s mother is mad (in an asylum) and her younger brother is “a complete
dumb idiot” (396)

Discovers that “her cast of mind [is] common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of
being led to anything higher”
Could not hold a conversation with her (396)
Physiognomy: character can be read from facial characteristics—character a result of
nature
190: Jane’s description of Rochester
198: Mrs Fairfax on nature: “it is his nature—and we can none of us help our nature”
207: Rochester: “Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man”
211: Rochester about Jane: “You are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally
vicious” (austere=harsh/stern or cold in manner or appearance)
Bertha as Excess
A “violent and unreasonable temper”
“[I]ntemperate and unchaste” (397) –vices of drunkenness and promiscuity
Implication that sex and alcohol lead to insanity (sexually transmitted diseases such as
syphilis did lead to insanity)
But suggestion is not that Bertha went insane because of a sexual disease, but that her
excess sexual desires were a sign of her insanity and contributed to her degeneration
Bertha and the moon
Bertha associated with the blood-red moon (398)
Moon associated with femaleness, menstruation
Bertha’s madness is an excess of femaleness
Full moon when Bertha attacks her brother (287)
Jane describes her attacker as a “vampire” (371), also associated with a full moon
Richard Mason bitten by a vampire: “She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my
heart” (294)
In what ways is Jane Eyre similar to Bertha Mason?
Both women possess passion, anger, and sexuality
These are more or less controlled in Jane
Jane must learn to restrain her passion
In Bertha they are increasingly uncontrolled--excessive
If Jane is prone to excess passion (as with John Reed, in the red room, tale to Helen) she
may become like Bertha Mason
Bertha representative of Jane’s repressed desires
Bertha is Jane Eyre’s doppelganger (double)—ghostly counterpart
Consider Rochester’s suggestion that Jane has seen a ghost—“ghosts are usually pale”
(371)
Jane thinks it was a vampire
Bertha a “ghost” as Jane does not learn Bertha exists until her wedding day
Expresses the anger Jane represses
A monstrous version of Jane

Bertha’s madness unknown until her marriage
Jane unaware of Bertha’s madness until her marriage
Suggestion that marriage brings about the conditions that foster this “madness”
Connection in the charades between marriage and madness—words “bride” and
“Bridewell” (261-263)
Female Gothic
Female Gothic” (term originated by Ellen Moers) “to define a tradition of Gothic writing
by women . . . that represents the female experience within domesticity as one of
imprisonment, claustrophobia and terror”
Repression/suppression (by marriage) gives rise to the monstrous
Bertha confined by her family, marriage, and then in Thornfield
Confinement in Jane Eyre
Gateshead
Jane confined because of the weather
Confined to the window seat because of John Reed
Confined to the red room by Mrs Reed
Jane’s confinement to the red room links to Bertha’s confinement
Jane and Bertha—confined
Jane sees herself as a ghost figure in the mirror (71)
Sees Bertha as a ghost in the mirror on her wedding night (371)
Jane “utter[s] a wild, involuntary cry” (74), echo Jane’s first hearing of Bertha (175)-corridor
equated to that of Bluebeard’s castle
Reference to Bluebeard's castle also plays with the entrapment in marriage theme
Lowood
Confined by the schedule
Must be in a certain place at a certain time
Confined to the grounds
Can only walk in the courtyard or to the church
Confined by the uniform—hair cannot even curl
Jane and Bertha
Madness and marriage
Bertha—insane—loss of self
Can no longer recognize oneself
Jane
Jane fears marriage will be a loss of self
During engagement she resists becoming an economic dependent
When she tries on her wedding gown the image looks unfamiliar
The name does not feel like her own.
Also Jane is reluctance to let Rochester buy her an expensive wedding veil--the very veil
that Bertha destroys

Visual imagery in Jane Eyre
Gothic has a strong visual component
Jane’s paintings, her many dreams, description of nature (and dreams) to Rochester
Her initial interest in the pictures in the books in the Gateshead Library Bewick’s History
of British Birds
Engages with gothic imagery and with Jane’s desire not to be confined
Appropriation of God
Brocklehurst
For social control and class oppression
How does St. John Rivers’ conception of God differ from Rochester’s?
St. John: complex, not hypocritical--denying all sexuality, especially female sexuality
(cf. St. Paul
Consider how Jane feels after hearing one of his sermons (446-47)
St. John’s God is not a loving God (any more than Brocklehurst’s is)
St. John’s God is demanding—wants self-sacrifice, physical deprivation, denial of the
body
St. John has “not yet found that peace of God which passeth all understanding” (447)—in
that he is like Jane
Rochester too comes to an understanding of God
Once willing to defy God’s law and social law, to profane “Holy matrimony”
At Ferndean he acknowledges the existence of God, “the hand of God in my doom” and
he believes that Jane comes in answer to his prayer (she therefore can be seen to remain
his good angel)
Both note that God sees not as man sees (514, 549), though both are also claiming in
these passages that they can see in the same way as God (they are little Gods)