Confinement and the Social Stratification of Women in Jane Eyre*

Many of us now voluntarily sequestered or under forced confinement due to the worldwide Corona Virus, Thus, it may be a good time to read some books that help us to relate how others may have felt about confinement and struggling through adversity.  Recently, our Classic Book Club (near Richmond, Virginia), considered, Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 masterpiece as our early March discussion. Note that the actual in-person meeting was one of the last in-person events held before everyone was strongly advised by the state and federal government to not held events with more than 10 people. Currently, our book club has about 20 active members. Most of our experienced members know that Jane Eyre is modeled after some of the significant events of Charlotte Bronte’s life. Connecting to our own situation Charlotte, and her four sisters were sent to a typhoid fever infested school for destitute children which was closed until the disease subsided, and the school was cleaned-up and reformed.

Regarding my current situation, health officials say that because I am at the high-risk senior-citizen group, I should not go out for social events, entertainment, or even religious outings for somewhere between the next two weeks and two months?  However, I am aware that the virus is marching forward and getting stronger each day and that many people have been affected and many have already died from it. I have never faced any struggles that were near as threatening as Charlotte Bronte or her fictional character, Jane Eyre did But, the thought of how she stood firm and believed in herself and her principles has inspired me to keep referring to this book again and again. I also think that my continued interest in reading classic literature will sustain me through this voluntary Corona Virus pandemic. Previously, I have taught classes and lead book club discussions on this book in several settings and written about it before in this blog. Some sections from this article also appeared in my previous Litchatte article entitled “Charlotte Bronte’s Life Informs Jane Eyre (September 29, 2016).

Charlotte Bronte lived in Victorian England and in her novels focused on the themes of gender restrictions, the lack of social mobility opportunities for women, their forced confinement and subsequent madness. In the Victorian era, there was an assumption that women could not be writers. It was thought that they could mainly fulfill their destinies by being married to men in the same social class. See Jane Austen’s, Pride and Prejudice or Emma illustrates how this model worked in an era before the Brontes, but with upper-class women.

The Bronte’s sought to break through these barriers and publish poetry and fiction that highlighted how women in their lifetimes struggled to overcome these barriers. For example,  they could only publish under pseudonyms as men. The name that Charlotte Bronte (CB) first used to publish Jane was Currer Bell. Other Bronte books, also first published under Bell surnames were Agnes Gray and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Ann Bronte and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Only after their books became very successful were they able to reprint them in their own names. All of the Bronte’s’ books dealt with the limitations, inequalities, and injustices conveyed on women in Victorian times. This column shall highlight some of the cruelties and confinements experienced throughout the novel of Jane Eyre.

In the opening scenes,  Aunt Reed sends her eleven-year-old orphan niece, Jane, to their library. Reed does not consider Jane to be worthy of joining their family gatherings, and Jane has repeatedly spoken up against this injustice. She reminds her Aunt that she promised her uncle (Reeds’ brother) before he died, that she would raise Jane like one of her own family. After Reed confines Jane to the library, Reed’s young teenage son, John, intrudes on Jane and shouts:

You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do and wear clothes at our mama’s expense.  Now, I’ll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me or will do in a few years

John struck her and threw a book at her, knocking her down and drawing blood from her head.  When Aunt Reed arrived on the scene, she took up her son’s side without considering Jane’s position. She reacts:

“Dear! Dear!  What a fury {for you} to fly at Master John!”

“Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion?” Does this not look like Jane is being unjustly confined and assumed to be mad and needing restraint?

Then Mrs. Reed subjoined—

“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.”  Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs. To Jane, this was the ultimate confinement. No one in the family ever wanted to go into the red bedroom because Uncle Reed had died in the bed in that room.  The torture that Jane feels being restrained in that room matches the Gothic element of Edgar Allan Poe.it was quite possibly inspired by his earlier horror stories. Perhaps readers will want to reconsider this opening scene of Jane Eyre when they summarily agree with Mr. Rochester about his wife’s madness. Consider that he locked her up against her will for acts of passion. Because we can see what has happened to Jane, we are convinced that the accusation of madness is unjust. I argue that we don’t know what Bertha Mason experienced being married to Mr. Rochester. Thus, we cannot conclude whether she was inherently mad or driven to madness due to the constraints that her husband put on her. But, that detail is skipping way ahead in this story. I discussed these issues in my previous September 28, 2016 blog on Madwomen of the Nineteenth-Century Gothic period. Due to its popularity and repeated viewing, I plan to publish it again as my next entry.

After many epoch struggles, Mrs. Reed sends Jane away to a school for the orphans and children of poor clergymen meagerly funded by charitable individuals. Paralleling the Bronte children’s life, their mother died when they were young. Their father, who was a poor clergyman who was absent to them and also raised by an aunt who they did not like. Jane’s feelings of anger toward the aunt who never fully accepted her and resentment toward her neglectful father must have been very strong. In Jane Eyre, Bronte only mentions that her father died and that is the only word about him in the book. The five Bronte girls were subsequently sent by their aunt to a charity school for orphans and children of poor clergymen. The schools that they attended had the lowest standards of education and physical amenities. Charlotte’s shocking description of the hypocrisies of the clergyman who was the overseer of the Lowood school (Mr. Brocklehurst) vividly illustrates that his aim was to prepare the girls for a life of poverty, austerity, and submission to their working-class husbands. The name of the school also suggests that it had the lowest possible stand. Its curriculum sought to prepare the girls to become good wives of the lower social class working men. It emphasized austerity, submission to authority, condemnation, and guilt.

For example, the school’s director, Mr. Brocklehurst, after seeing some of the girls had braided hair, proclaimed,  “I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-fadedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel.”  After this righteous proclamation, Jane observes the schoolmaster’s daughters walking through the school with finely braided hair and the most fashionable clothes.

Aunt Reed, who sought to avenge Jane throughout the story for speaking back to her, sent false accusations to the headmaster that Jane can’t be trusted and possessed with madness. Once he recognizes her at Lowood, he unjustly orders her to be confined to stand on a stool in the classroom. He announces that her classmates were not to have any contact for the rest of the day with such a liar. He added that she could not likely ever be saved. “Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child,” said Mr. Brocklehurst; “it is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the lake burning with fire and brimstone.”

After this day of humiliation and confinement, Helen Burns, her main friend, and ally at the school defies Brocklehurst’s isolation and comes to console Jane and reconstruct her negative thinking. Helen’s friendship and advice help Jane to endure the experience at Lowood and to face the serious threats of confinement that Jane faces throughout the novel. As Jane, who is presumably still standing on the stool, sees Helen’s approach. But, Jane speaks first:

“Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a liar?”

“Everybody, Jane?  Why there are only eighty people who have heard you called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions.”

The eighty, I know, despise me.”

“Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises or dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity you much.”

“How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?”

“Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man: he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”

“But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly.  It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.”

“It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury, responds Helen. She quotes the New Testament words of Jesus in the New Testament: “Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.”

Helen teaches Jane the most valuable lesson of her life, i.e., that she does not have to seek revenge for everyone who wrongs her. Thus, we can assuredly conclude that the inspirations for Helen Burns’s character were based on the grief she felt for her sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, who died at a boarding school, as Helen did in Bronte’s novel.

After completing six years as a student at two years as a teacher Lowood school, Jane became the governess for Adele, the young ward of Mr. Rochester at the Thornfield House. Perhaps the name, Thornfield, suggests that Jane might find some thorns and roses in her employment there. Bronte’s novel characterizes Jane as a capable governess. However, in real life, Charlotte was incompetent and not satisfied being a governess. At that time, the job of governess was the few that women could achieve. However, this position created ambiguities regarding a woman’s social status. Governesses were often more accomplished in writing, musical ability, knowledge of literature, and foreign languages than the mistresses of the houses they served in. However, their ranks in those homes were scarcely higher than servants.

The ambiguities of Jane’s role in the households of two very different men, who both aimed to influence her thinking and character in ways that go against her grain.  However, these experiences are the glue that sustains the later part of the novel. I won’t spoil the plot any more than I may have already done. Suffice it to say that Charlotte Bronte, who lived the majority of her life as a reclusive single woman, has written an enduring Romantic and Gothically-tinged novel, which principally focuses on the lives of nineteenth-century women. However, it also highlights the struggles that men were involved with as they were forced to redefine their roles and expectations when relating to the opposite gender.

Jane Eyre is a groundbreaking work of both feminist and humanitarian literature. It is also an excellent piece of lyrical writing. It offers realistic characterizations of nineteenth-century life in England, portraying aspects of its underclass women in ways that had not been exposed previously. These factors justify its perennial position as an essential read for teenagers and for men and women of any age. Unfortunately, many more women are drawn to read it than men. Some of our book club men concluded that the book offered no positive male characters in the story. Some men and women conceded that Mr. Rochester eventually moved toward becoming a positive person after he had been significantly diminished as a male. But others pointed out that he was mainly able to accept Jane at the end of the novel when she became his equal on both the social and economic strata. The issue of whether Mr. Rochester is a worthy male role model is a reader’s choice.  I invite readers of this blog to respond to this question or any other points raised in this blog by submitting their comments to me in the box below. Also, you may get automatic postings of this blog, if you submit your email address in another dialogue box below. I am also willing to publish commentary about classic literature from guest writers, for which they will receive credit. For this, send an inquiry or a sample submission to me in an MS Word Document to ellisonms2@vcu.edu

*Some selections from this article also appeared in Murray’s previous Litchatte article, entitled “Charlotte Bronte’s Life Informs Jane Eyre” (September 29, 2016).

The cover photo of this blog is from smeyer501.wordpress.com

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