Female_Consciousness_in_Jane_Eyre

Before a discussion about the work, it may be rather helpful for us to have a look at the author and her background. The Victorian Era, which began in the year 1837 when Queen Victoria came into power and ended in 1901，is characterized as the age of domestic excellence, epitomized by Queen Victoria who represented a kind of femininity centered on the family, motherhood and respectability. Everything in the Victorian society is defined. Every person has specific roles that they have to play, thus the social classes. But not only so, genders make a key difference too. Queen Victorian during that era had set the suppressive impression that all women should basically reproduce like her and take care of domestic household businesses like her. Women’s voice in the Victorian society was not very strong either. In the Victorian Era, married women were stripped of all legal rights. After marriage, Victorian brides abandoned all rights to property and personal wealth, leaving these to their husbands. Women were legally incompetent and irresponsible, as defined by law. In Margaret Fuller’s opinion, What Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded, to unfold such powers as were given her. If fewer talents were given her, yet if allowed the free and full employment of these, so that she may render back to the giver his own with usury, she will not complain; instead, she will bless and rejoice in her earthly birth-place, her earthly lot.( Fuller, 256 ) Charlotte lived in the age of Victoria. At that period, England had started its bourgeois democratic reform. At the time when it was published in 1847, the working class was organizing political protests in England, asking for rights to vote. Charlotte belonged to such a class. With the disappearance of this class, she and her family lost economic status and social status. To Charlotte she had only two choices, one was to adapt to the fate and poverty, the other was to hew out a path through her own efforts. When she was very young, her mother died. Then her aunt raised her and her sisters up. Although isolated from the outside world and Victorian luxury, she was not very conservative. She is indulged in her own world, passionate and full of love. Then Charlotte Bronte published her extraordinary novel Jane Eyre. To some degree, its heroine Jane’s life experiences resemble a lot Charlotte’s own life: being mundane, living in poverty, working as a governess but being rather self – independent and strong willed. As a woman writer, she is “concerned solely with those primary aspects of life which are unaffected by time and place” (Cecil, 117). She thought that her soul should have peace only after death. In fact she is a person out of the earth. Her Jane Eyre is worth reading and discussing as one outstanding novel of the Victorian period that serve to illustrate feminist thinking of the time. As one of the first generation of professional female writers, Charlotte Bronte, with her legendary life story, represented to the feminist critics the typical image of the woman writer living in the middle of the Victorian age. Moreover, the unusual,and in whatever sense predominant, female experiences and sentiments depicted ,the passions of what Matthew Arnold properly called “hunger, rebellion and rage” conveyed, as well as the peculiar narrative techniques employed in her works, all recommended themselves as valuable texts to explore into the issue of female authorship at that unusual period of time. Now, there is a brief discussion on the feminist spirit reflected in Jane. First of all, she shows us her firm pursuit of equality in her love relationship with Rochester. The stage of childhood is very important, for it will affect a person for his or her attitude towards life. A childhood full of love is the best way to sow the seed of care and gratitude for others, and to provide a healthy psychological status for a child. But little Jane is not that lucky. In the family of her aunt, where she is looked upon as a “bad animal” and abused, she “resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather out of myself, like any other rebel slave to go all lengths”.(Bronte, 46) Though she is very weak, she is brave enough to fight with John who is strong and arrogant. Then later when she went into society and met her two suitors, her female consciousness was awakened and strengthened. The more she realized it, the fiercer she rebelled against oppression .She longed for marriage happiness but she couldn’t surrender to the oppression. She knew she must keep self-respect and self-identity first. Conventional marriage can give her happiness, but she must have a person who can understand her and who can enter her inner world. In order to get it she had to overcome a lot of difficulties. “…orphaned, poor, and plain, faced with the pressures of making her own way in a world which measured the likelihood of her success by the degree of her marriageability” ( Moglen,106). The most moving part of this novel is the love story that is full of ups and downs between Jane and Mr. Rochester. When readers share the joy of their final reunion after numerous trials and hardships Jane had experienced, they are imprinted most deeply in their minds by her clear consciousness of like and unlike, her audacity to face difficulties, and her wisdom to tackle the problems on her way of love pursuing. Apart from it, we can also see clearly Jane’s ardent pursuit of equality when love is unsaid. On Jane’s way back to Thornfield after sending a mail, she met her master for the first time. When hearing the sliding sound of the horse, Jane went forward and offered help, but got refused. This aroused her interest. “I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, heroic-looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked…” (Bronte, 114). At the time when Mr. Rochester’s true identity did not revealed to Jane, she took it as a natural thing of helping a stranger in need on equal footing, it was an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life. My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have done something trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive…”(Bronte, 116) Maybe it is from then on, she began to be attracted, to be needed and to be deeply involved. When Jane got to know who the rider is, she began to feel the difference and the distance they had in between. “It was rather a trial to appear thus formally summoned in Mr. Rochester’s presence”(Bronte,1999:120) and she “sat down quite embarrassed”(Bronte, 1999:121).But as more and more contacts they had, they began to get to know each other further, Jane’s smart expression of her attitude of the “cadeaux” left deep impression on Mr. Rochester, and the showing of her three pictures helps Rochester understand her better. During their first relatively long-time conversation, they talked about appearance, superiority, inferiority, and even about Mr. Rochester’s past. Both of them are very sincere to each other, and they both have a straight way of telling the truth. Jane begins to be important to Rochester, and she begins to realize that Rochester is also an upright person. But she learns to appreciate Rochester. “Unconscious pride”, “so much ease in his demeanor”, “indifference to his own external appearance”(Bronte,133). Instead of telling these words to Rochester, she has it in her mind. But finally she couldn’t hide it and expresses them out. Gradually, they treated each other as confidants, and Rochester begins to read her mind and to tell her inner world. I see, you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother—or father, or master, or what you will—as I find it impossible to be conventional will you;…I see, at intervals, the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of the cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud—high. You are still bent on going'”(Bronte,140). The words to some extent shocks Jane who has been hiding her own true feeling for such a long time, because the words are spoken from the mouth of Mr. Rochester, but actually they are also the crying from Jane’s heart. The strict doctrines and monotonous life in Lowood School suppressed her real feelings and passions. She is like an encaged bird longing for freedom and love. Now another person appears, he wants to take her to fly higher, to lighten her inner passion, to help her forget miserable period. Although she indicates Rochester to stop, Jane could not turn a deaf ear to these words. The more she stayed with Mr. Rochester, the more feeling of intimacy she has towards her master. His figure becomes gentle, his presence cheering. He is a man of better tendencies, higher principles and pure tastes. From those slight changes in Jane’s heart, we know that she begins to fall in love with Rochester. In addition, this novel presents us as well Jane’s insistence on equality when love is said. The fire of love cannot be extinguished at her heart, and she is so resolute that she tries to accept her master despite that he is still proud, sardonic and harsh. Even she is in love with Rochester, Jane still keeps a clear mind of rationalizing herself and keeping her integrity. She tries to be equal with him. Jane’s personality is depicted incisively and vividly through her pursuit of plain and pure love. In capitalist society, human being’s love is always related to money. Being influenced by this snobbish guidance, many young men and young women’s pure love is strangled. To their surprise, Jane, a plain and ordinary girl, transcends the worldly traditional idea. She claims that marriage does not equal a trade contract but a free union of hearts. She believes that the integrity of her personality can be maintained even though she could encounter a lot of bitter events. She would never abandon her search for a fulfillment capable of retaining her essential qualities. Being a governess, she begins to understand the meaning of economic independence and the connotations of class inferiority. “a governess’s experience is frequently indeed bitter, but its results are precious; the mind, feeling, temper are there subjected to a discipline equally painful and priceless”(Shuttleworth,1985:23). Jane Eyre never stops striving for freedom, equality and human dignity on the process of pursuing love and happiness. She loves Rochester passionately, but she does not tolerate his gesture of the Redeemer. According to Jane, she is equal to her master in spirit except in money and in experiences of society. Of course, she does not feel depressed and discriminated before him. From the viewpoint of Jane, a human being can never lose one’s value and human dignity. Otherwise, he has no significance of existence as a man. For this reason, she would-14- rather scarify everything to win equality and to defend dignity. When Mr. Rochester came back after two weeks absence, he invites many guests, including Miss Ingram, and holds a large party. In face of this beautiful, elegant and rich lady, who is commonly taken as the most suitable one to be Rochester’s wife, Jane did not felt self-inferiors. After careful securitization she realizes later that Miss Ingram is not equal to Rochester, since she could never understand his inner mind, which is very important to a person, and the only weapon she could use to please him is her beautiful voice. So Jane knows that Miss Ingram and Rochester could never belong to the same group. In Jane’s eyes, Mr. Rochester’s colorless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth-all energy, decision, will-are not beautiful, according to rule; but they are more than beautiful to her-that takes her feelings from her own power and fetters them in his. She finds his sneer and asperity natural and interesting. In a word, the unique love between them is not out of beauty but true love. Her love to him is more passionate, she believes he is not to them what he is to me; he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;—I am sure he is,—I feel akin to him,—I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him…every good, true, vigorous feeling I have, gathers impulsive round him… (Bronte,177) Undoubtedly, it is a great progress that the philosophy of love is based not on beauty, but on mental understanding and equality. Although all the guests look down upon this governess, Jane knows she is equal with others. She knows that she has the equal rights to pursue love with others. Through her observation and analysis, she knows very clearly Rochester is herself. She is aware of her superiority to Miss Ingram. To Jane:“…her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original…” (Bronte,1999:188).All that Miss Ingram lacks are exactly the qualities Jane attracted Mr. Rochester. Jane disdains the money-hunt marriage, and she thinks the marriage should be based on true love and mutual equality in spirit, not on social positions. Her viewpoint shows she has clear self-consciousness, self-esteem, and awakening sense of love. On a mid summer afternoon after Jane came back from Gateshead to bid farewell to her aunt Ms. Reed, she meet Rochester in the garden by chance. Mr. Rochester intentionally deceives her into believing the fact that he soon will marry Miss Ingram. When Jane knows her master’s decision to marry Miss Ingram and sent her away to Ireland, she could not help pouring out her true feelings. The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within her heart, is naturally poured out: 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. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh:---it is my spirit that addresses to your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal,---as we are!”(Bronte, 257) In Jane’s declaration of love and protest of indignation, we see through all her boldness and her persistence of equality in love. Finally, Mr. Rochester convinces her of his love and Jane gives Mr. Rochester her hand. Obtaining equality in love is Jane’s ambition. It is equality that makes her love Rochester all of her heart and soul, and it is mutual understanding that makes them achieve harmony in spirit. According to the marriage principles of those days, Rochester and Miss Ingram are equal to each other in marriage, while Jane is an ordinary-looking woman without wealth, so she can never match Rochester. But the fact is that Rochester is deeply stricken by Jane and gives up Ingram. What’s more, we readers are also deeply shocked by Jane’s pursuit of equality by breakaway. When Jane falls in their beautiful dream and is welcoming a new life, Rochester’s bigamous marriage destroys their love. Jane is disclosed that Mr. Rochester has married once and has a mad wife who is still alive. Though Jane is thunderstruck, she does not behave like the common girls would, she does not cry, nor have a quarrel with Rochester She does nothing but accept the fact. She now faces delimits as whether to stay with Mr. Rochester as a mistress or to leave her lover to retain her dignity and independence. For hours she remains alone in her room, analyzes the whole matter objectively and attentively. How can she accept the fact that Mr. Rochester, who promised to give her happiness and love, become someone else’s husband' To leave or to stay really bothers her. To be a lover of Mr. Rochester, she could have rich life and material abundance, and she could stay by the side of her love forever. But if she chooses to stay with him, she could not have mental peace and safety. To leave Rochester means losing everything at hand, no love, no family. What she confronts is loneliness and all kinds of troubles. Maybe she would come back to the life she has experienced in Gateshead and Lowood. She is so contradictory within herself. Jane is terrified at the solitude and suffering before her. Then she makes her final decision resolutely and gives up Rochester. It is not because of hatred. On the contrary, she has pardoned Rochester. Jane’s ambition, of course, forbids her to accept the unequal position of being the mistress of someone’s husband. She has her self-respect and must keep her nobility. Being an illegal mistress benefits her nothing but reducing her virtue and demoralizing her personality .She could not live with Mr. Rochester as his dependent mistress because she knows that relationship would become destructive to her. Then she would have to depend on Rochester and lose her equality, independence and freedom. So she chooses the distress of leaving Rochester to realize her pursuit. For her pursuit of equality, Jane has paid her prize. After her flight from Thornfield, She begins a long way of purgatory. Penniless, hungry, thirsty and desperate, Jane keeps wandering outside for days, she gets wet in the rain, and even eats the cold porridge a little girl intended to put into the pig trough. All these animal-existence level on the moors nearly destroy her delicate body. Jane is in a total despair and thinks herself would die if she still find no place to shelter and to rest. It is at this crucial moment, St. John helps to save her life by admitting her into his house during the heavy rain. When she get bodily recovered and mentally revived, Jane feels no longer outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world, or rather in St. John’s home with his two sister s, Jane feels at ease and finds a sense of belonging in her heart even though she does not know their kinships at that time. During their daily contacts, Jane and St. John begin to know each other further. She respects St. John as her cousin and tries her best to please him, but to do that, she feels daily more and more that she must disown half her nature. It is because they are not of the same kind, and Jane is clearly aware of that. So Jane rejects his proposal at last and expresses her scorn for him though she is attracted by the good manner and kindness of St. John Rivers at a time. He is a pedantic and confident guy who dedicates all his sensations to his imaginary sacred religion. Being cold-hearted and severely deceptive, St. John Rivers puts forward his loveless proposal to Jane and asks her to accompany him to preach in India; meanwhile, his selfishness is concealed in the name of holy mission. Similarly, Jane’s final resolve to refuse St. John’s proposal of marriage reflects her requirement of equality and respect. Jane thanks for St. John’s friendship and admires his devotion to religion, but she does not love him. She also realizes that. John does not love at all. As his name implies, St. John wants to be a saint, although he forgets that most saints preserve their celibacy. However, the marriage tie he offers is almost a celibate union, based as it is on duty, sacrifice, discipline, eventual martyrdom. Significantly, Jane Eyre understands thoroughly that John denies her value as a human being. “He prizes me as a solider would a good weapon; and that is all.” And he wants a wife only for his missionary work. What he needs is not a true love, but an obedient, diligent female assistant, he does not put her as wife on an equal footing with himself, so Jane rejects his proposal by saying that she scorns his idea of love and the counterfeit sentiment he offers. As Jane said, he has chosen an instrument to fulfill a great mission. She understands thoroughly that if she married him, it would mean she must lose herself and try her best to help him. “I can do what he wants me to do”. “If I go to India, I go to premature death.” Jane is unwilling to sacrifice herself, what Jane has been pursuing is her own happiness and value as a human being. Though St. John ask s her to be wife, John has no more of a husband’s heart for her than that frowning giant of a rock, down with the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. Fortunately, her strong sense of equality makes way for reunion It seems that Jane has experienced a calm life at Marshend, but she had not forgotten her dear master even for a moment and her concern for him increased with each passing day .Her consistent mind and emotion impel her to escape John and look for her true love in a hurry. On hearing Rochester’s calling, Jane hurries to leave. Jane comes back to Thornfield Hall, only to find it in ruins. People tells her what has happened, and she is dread to know that Rochester is “stone-blind” in a fire set by his mad wife and feels more eager to see him. She is full of mixed feelings of sadness and gaiety when Rochester really appears before her eyes. Knowing that Rochester’s wife has died in the fire, the barrier that once existed as unshakable disappears. Jane decides to marry Rochester at once ,in spite of the fact that Rochester is old, stone-blind, crippled and has lost all his properties in the fire. His misfortune can remove nothing off Jane’s love, since their love is not based on appearance, money or social status. At the end of the novel, it reads, I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest---blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as fully is he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh…” (Bronte,462) From these words, we can feel the extreme joy and content of Jane’s married life. Their marriage which was based on true love, harmony of spirit, mutual equality of personality finally brings them endless happiness. By the way, Jane also demonstrates her pursuit of economic independence, early awareness of economic independence, pursuit of autonomy. All of them and the virtues mentioned above are perfect incarnation of feminism. Jane is strong-minded girl in nature. Jane’s consciousness experiences its suppression, awakening, strengthening course. The love between Jane and Mr. Rochester seems more down to earth. Though their social status differ greatly---one is a governess, the other is a rich Gentleman, Jane finally get financial equality with her master by the unexpected heritage of a handsome sum of legacy, so it could be said to meet the social convention to a certain extent. Jane has a strong feminist consciousness. She could overcome self-inferiority and fight for the same rights with men. Working as a governess and the rebellion against four main male oppressors, namely John Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, St. John, and Mr. Rochester, reflect indirectly her pursuit of feminist consciousness. Even to her lover Rochester, Jane has a great attraction and affectation. At the same time she still keeps her integrity. Her resolve to leave Mr. Rochester was the important step of her independence. She has discovered that there is something more important to her than pleasing those whom she loves, or giving satisfaction to those who love her. When Jane finally returns to Rochester, she is no longer a poor governess who lives on poor salaries, but an economically independent woman.To this point, love and equality, or independence, are of the same importance to Jane. Her strong and clear female consciousness is seldom in nineteenth century England, and brings her final happiness. Biliography Altick, Richard. Victorian People and Ideals. New York: Avon, 1972. Berg, Maggie. Jane Eyre :Portrait of a Life. London: G.K. Hall & Co, 1987. Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Beijing: Foreign Language and Teaching Press, 1999. Fuller, Margaret. Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: W. W. Norton &Company, Inc, 1998. Hutton, Elaine. Beyond: Sex and Romance. London: The Women's Press Ltd, 1998. Robbins, Ruth. Literary Feminisms. London: Macmillan Press Ltd,2000. Sherry, Ruth. Studying Women's Writing. London: British Library Cataloguing in Public Data,1988 张岩冰，《女权主义文论》. 济南：山东教育出版社，1998.