The Life of the Author
Charlotte Bronte was born on April 21, 1816 to parents, Reverend Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell in the parsonage in Haworth, West Yorkshire. Charlotte Brontë, the third of six children, would soon experience the sense of downtrodden isolation of her heroine Jane Eyre, starting with the death of her mother after the birth of Charlotte’s youngest sibling. Soon after Maria’s death the Brontë’s aunt Elizabeth Branwell became the maternal presence in the Brontë household.
The death of their mother was only the first step towards seclusion for Charlotte; the siblings were further isolated from their family when Charlotte and three of her sisters were sent to were sent to Cowan Bridge, a school for clergyman’s daughters that was so negligent that scholars believe it to be the inspiration behind Lowood School. Consumption broke out at Cowan Bridge while the three Brontës were in attendance, and shortly after the outbreak, the four sisters were sent home. “Maria and Elizabeth returned only to die in their turn, aged 11 and 10,” leaving Charlotte the eldest sister, and further intensifying the familial sense of agoraphobia as well as the closeness of the remaining siblings.
While being taught at home Charlotte and her siblings wrote extensive works of juvenilia based in the fictional worlds of Gondal and Angria; through these works, and by reading and imitating the Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Charlotte and her sisters Anne and Emily would refine their writing and style. Charlotte Brontë would go on to attend, and eventually teach at Roe Head School before moving on to become a governess. Continuing to follow the same general story trajectory as Jane Eyre, Charlotte’s dream was to open up her own school where she and her sisters would teach.
Tragically, the comparisons between heroine and author were not to end at their personal ambitions. In 1842 Charlotte and Emily traveled to Brussels to improve their language teaching abilities; it was during this time that Charlotte fell in love with her tutor, Monsieur Heger, the first person to recognize her potential as a writer and most dreadfully for Charlotte, a married man. After being summarily dismissed by Madam Heger Charlotte and Emily returned to England, this time to mourn the death of their aunt Elizabeth and give up their dreams of creating their own school.
The three sisters instead started on their literary career that they would become famous for. Cautious of the scorn that women writers might face in their efforts to publish, the Brontë sisters chose to use gender ambiguous pen names. Charlotte wrote and published Jane Eyre, as well as a collection of the sisters’ poetry under the name Currer Bell, but the sensation that Jane Eyre stirred, as well as the admiration for Emily and Anne’s own literary success, soon thrust Charlotte and her sisters into the public eye. This public exposure was unpleasant for Charlotte but necessary both to satisfy the curiosity of readers as well as to prove the separate identities of the three authors who suddenly all emerged from an obscure, unknown family.
Charlotte would go on to publish two more novels in her lifetime: Shirley and Villette, though neither creating the same level of international sensation as Jane Eyre, a result Charlotte attempted to mitigate by writing under a different pseudonym, but in the end both were published under the name Currer Bell. By 1853 Charlotte was the last of the Brontë siblings and caring for her father when she received, and turned down, a marriage proposal by Arthur Bell Nichols, one of her father’s assistants. Charlotte later accepted the proposal and married Nichols in June of the next year, forgoing affection likely to satisfy the convention that every woman must marry, and time for that was running out for Charlotte at the age of 38. Charlotte Brontë, as well as her unborn child, died the next year, wasting and sickening away from what historians presume to have been severe morning sickness. Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, was finally published posthumously in 1857.
Critical Discourse Surrounding the Work
Fairytale and the Romantic Gothic in Jane Eyre
Themes of Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella make appearances in these articles. Monstrous features also come into consideration, as well as the complexities of the sublime and how difficult it can be to translate a sublime fairytale into non-English languages.
Campbell, Jessica. “Bluebeard and the Beast: The Mysterious Realism of Jane Eyre.” Marvels & Tales, vol. 30, no. 2, 2016, pp. 234-250. JSTOR, Accessed 2/20/2021.
This article discusses the ways that two fairytales, “Beauty and the Beast” and “Bluebeard,” are evoked in Jane Eyre and how their evocation underpins the novel’s unique brand of realism. Jessica Campbell notes that many critics treat Mr. Rochester as either a Beast figure or a Bluebeard figure, but she argues that Charlotte Brontë’s use of both these tales is crucial. The “Bluebeard” narrative is at its most dominant in Jane Eyre when Rochester must reveal Bertha, paralleling the fairytale heroine’s discovery of the wives in the chamber. Of course, Bluebeard’s former wives are dead, and his current wife’s challenge is to avoid ending up like them.
In a way, this is Jane’s challenge, too – she refuses to become Rochester’s mistress because all of his prior mistresses have become nothing to him. Jane must leave Rochester and return to him willingly, just as in “Beauty and the Beast,” and she chooses him even though the fire has made him more outwardly beastly than before. Campbell then argues that “‘Beauty and the Beast’ resolutely gives precedence to that which unexpectedly lies under the surface. The fairy tale is thus an apt intertext for Jane Eyre not only for its capacity to illustrate the kinship that Jane and Rochester feel but also because Brontë’s narrative strategy subordinates a superficial sense of realism to a deeper psychological ‘nature’ and ‘truth’” (244). In other words, though there are some fantastical events that occur in Jane Eyre, the depiction of Jane’s internal emotional reality is highly realistic, and the use of fairytale parallels helps emphasize that.
Klitgard, Ida. “Tweaking the Sublime: Translating the Poetics of the Sublime in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.” Journal of Comparative Literature & Aesthetics, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 33–41.
In this scholarly article, Ida Klitgard, an associate professor of the English Department at Roskilde University, delves into how a translator might be able to recreate the same emotional and visual feeling of the sublime shown in works like Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre into a different language. Klitgard further explores the definition of the sublime as defined in Cassius Longinus’ On the Sublime to better understand how the emotion is achieved through the mechanics of writing and poetry. The article finally demonstrates how this battle between passion and control helps stimulate the sublime feeling in the larger-than-life concepts and landscapes that dwarf Jane in the narrative and is successful in capturing that feeling across a language barrier.
Schaffer, Talia. “Charlotte Brontë and Disability Studies.” Victorian Review, vol. 42, no. 2, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016, pp. 265–69, doi:10.1353/vcr.2016.0062.
In this scholarly article, Talia Schaffer, a professor of English at Queens College, explains how Bronte’s work, Jane Eyre, can be analyzed as a study on impairments and disabilities. Schaffer points out that there are many examples of the “nurse-patient, teacher-student, or parent-child dyad” presented in the story and these moments of dependency are highlighted by, sometimes, gothic and grotesque disabilities that require another character for assistance. However, the writers explains that these disabilities are presented as remarkably ordinary and can lead to a life of either care and assistance or else venomous neglect and trauma.
Sullivan, Paula. “Fairy Tale Elements in Jane Eyre.” Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 12, no. 1, 1978, pp. 61-74. ProQuest. Accessed 2/21/2021.
This is an earlier piece of Jane Eyre scholarship that aims to provide an in-depth study of all the fairytale elements found in the book. Sullivan writes that Brontë makes use of fairytales through “allusions, parallels, characterization, and overall plot structure” (61). After all, Brontë was writing in a tradition of Romanticism that celebrated fairytales and folklore. I
n the first part of the novel, allusions to Gulliver’s Travels and “Little Red Riding Hood” help emphasize Jane’s childhood view of the world as one in which she is small and surrounded by others who are bigger, threatening, and more powerful. Sullivan also notes the obvious parallels with “Bluebeard,” as Rochester has a wife hidden in a chamber. In particular, she points to a 1797 novelization of “Bluebeard,” written by Romantic author Ludwig Tieck, as a possible inspiration for Brontë. Brontë has a similar goal in Jane Eyre, as she uses references to childhood tales to communicate a very adult story. Sullivan points out the clear parallels between Jane Eyre and “Beauty and the Beast” and “Cinderella” as well.
She also goes over how Jane Eyre is similar to fairytales in its characterization, as many characters are opposite reflections of each other – Miss Temple and Mrs. Reed are the good and evil mother figures, Mr. Brocklehurst is a male equivalent to Mrs. Reed, the Rivers and the Reeds are good and evil cousins, etc. Sullivan finally explores the various ways through which Brontë referenced real-world events in her novel – Jane fell for a married man just as Brontë did, both Rochester and Brontë’s father dealt with partial blindness and somewhat recovered, and there are similarities between Brontë’s siblings and various characters like Helen Burns and the Rivers sisters. Overall, Sullivan sees Jane Eyre as a sort of wish fulfillment fantasy along the lines of a fairy tale.
Feminism and Religion in Jane Eyre:
Feminism plays a prominent role in Jane Eyre, what makes it interesting is how scholars combine feminism with religion and how spiritual freedom can also be connected to personal freedom.
Griesinger, Emily. “Charlotte Brontë’s Religion: Faith, Feminism, and ‘Jane Eyre.’” Christianity & Literature, vol. 58, no. 1, Pepperdine University, 2008, pp. 29–59, doi:10.1177/014833310805800103. Accessed 22 Feb. 2021.
This article discusses feminism in Jane Eyre. Griesinger, in her interpretation of the feminism through religion in the novel, states, “On the positive side, a “religion of the heart” appealed to women because it validated intense emotion and passionate feeling as ways to know God” (36). Griesinger goes on to argue that through religion that women gained a sense of independence and power, especially in the case of the Evangelical religion. This seems especially relevant when considering Helen Burns’ love of her religion. Griesinger also demonstrates how Jane Eyre is presented as a “bildungsroman” or a novel written at a critical moment in Charlotte Brontë’s life where her faith in Christianity is being challenged by her feminist ideas. Griesinger discusses how religion has been gendered and Brontë’s work deals with the balance of being a woman, fighting for women’s rights, and practicing one’s religion which has largely suppressed the female voice. The author comes to the conclusion that Bronte uses her faith to openly express her feminist ideas in a positive and progressive work.
Lamonaca, Maria. “Jane’s Crown of Thorns: Feminism and Christianity in Jane Eyre.” Studies in the Novel, vol. 34, no. 3, 2002, pp. 245-263. ProQuest. Accessed 2/20/2021.
This article analyzes Jane’s religious beliefs and how they intersect with her search for personal development in the historical context of 19th-century Evangelical Christianity. The author addresses a number of possible interpretations of this aspect of the novel, and doesn’t necessarily settle on one. She finds the book’s ending passage, which returns to St. John, particularly complicating. First, she discusses how many critics view Jane’s faith through the lens of feminism: “By discerning for herself what she perceives to be God’s will, Jane effectively resists Rochester’s and St. John’s attempts to control her spirit as well as her body” (246). Marrying Rochester on her own terms is Jane’s divine vocation, and the conclusion about St. John’s work in India is meant to show that they each found God’s will for them.
Furthermore, Jane’s Christianity is the root of her feminist ideals; her insistence on independently discovering God’s path for her life is at odds with contemporary Evangelical teachings, which taught that wives should be led to God through their husbands. In a way, Jane Eyre could be seen as a criticism of this idea, since Jane, before leaving Thornfield, was in danger of idolizing Rochester. However, Lamonaca notes, it could also be argued that at the novel’s end, Jane “may not have entirely freed herself from the dangers of human idolatry,” since she is the source of Rochester’s spiritual redemption.
She also lives a life of normal domesticity, which she had expressed disdain for earlier in the novel, at the behest of a God who only allowed Jane and Rochester to be happy after deep suffering; “the specter of a God allowing no individual choice in the matter of personal salvation… uncomfortably suggests the final, lingering possibility of a patriarchal force that no amount of renunciation can surmount” (259). Ultimately, the author concludes that the novel’s ending and complicated theology offer no easy answers.
Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre:
How much of Jane Eyre could be considered as Charlotte Brontë’s biography? Well, when you look at Charlotte’s life in comparison with Jane’s, there are a startling number of similarities that bear consideration.
Cox, Jessica. Brief Lives: Charlotte Brontë. Hesperus Press, 2011.
Brief Lives focuses on Charlotte Brontë’s personal life, particularly addressing her childhood and early struggles with publishing; but also paying close attention to her psychological state and examining how her experiences with loss, with religion, with teaching impact her literary work. Cox proposes that the persistent theme of the governess, or teacher character, was Brontë’s way of expressing the isolating otherness that a governess would experience.
Stoneman, Patsy. Charlotte Brontë. Northcote House, 2013.
Providing a truly spectacular and comprehensive biographical timeline of Charlotte Brontë’s life, Stoneman follows through by delving into each of Charlotte’s novels, picking them apart and using the chronological order of the novels and Brontë’s life and losses to pull the themes of death, loneliness, and desperation together, placing these themes not only in the context of Brontë’s life, but also the atmosphere and political climate of the times.
Literacy and Slavery in Jane Eyre?
Literacy among woman can easily be connected with freedom and feminism, and the amount of emphasis Brontë places on reading, as well as how many times slavery is hinted at in then novel, presents the idea that Jane Eyre could be read as a slave narrative.
Lee, Julia Sun-Joo. “The (Slave) Narrative of “Jane Eyre.”” Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 36, no. 2, 2008, pp. 317-329. JSTOR. Accessed 2/20/2021.
In this article, Julia Sun-Joo Lee states that Jane Eyre draws significant inspiration from contemporary American slave narratives. At the time of the book’s publication, England had already abolished slavery, and many abolitionists had turned their attention to the plight of slaves in the United States. Although there is no definitive evidence that Charlotte Brontë consumed abolitionist media or attended the talks of fugitive American slaves, Lee points to historical records of anti-slavery lectures in churches close to Brontë’s home. However, she asserts that the text of Jane Eyre itself paints clear parallels with widely-read slave narratives such as Frederick Douglass’s. Lee especially emphasizes the importance of literacy for Jane – “In a fit of proprietorship, [John Reed] exclaims, ‘You have no business to take our books’ … a claim that encompasses both the material form of books and the act of reading itself” (Lee 319).
Jane’s prior reading of The History of Rome enables her to articulate her feelings that John is a “slave-driver.” Lee also argues that Jane’s resistance as she is dragged to the red room “evokes Frederick Douglass’s famous resistance to Mr. Covey” (319) through its language. She also notes similarities between descriptions of punishment in slave memoirs and the scenes of punishment at Lowood. Later in the novel, Rochester compares both being a governess and being a mistress to slavery, making Jane’s flight from Thornfield seem even more similar to a slave’s escape from a plantation. Finally, literacy leads Jane to financial freedom when she scrawls her name beside a drawing, revealing her identity and her fortune. This brings full circle the idea that literacy leads to freedom.
Zonana, Joyce. “The Sultan and the Slave: Feminist Orientalism and the Structure of ‘Jane Eyre.’” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society , vol. 18, no. 3, 1993, pp. 592–617., doi:10.1086/494821.
The purpose of this article is to explain the analogy of women in Gothic novels towomen in the East in the 19th century. At one point, Jane is referred to as a slave to a sultan, which has a negative connotation. Not only does this imply that women are in an inferior position to men, but it also shows the European belief that the West was far superior to the East due to the offense Jane took to the way she was being treated.
Lesbianism and Desire in Jane Eyre:
There is not a lot of evidence to lead to the idea that Jane Eyre has a homoerotic inclination, but scholars have found and theorized enough evidence to make the reading the novel through that lens valid.
Armstrong, Mary A. “Reading a Head: Jane Eyre, Phrenology, and the Homoerotics of Legibility.” Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 33, no. 1, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 107–32, doi:10.1017/S1060150305000756. Accessed 22 Feb. 2021.
This is an article about how phrenology—the study of the shape and size of a head to determine character and intelligence—explains some of the homoerotic desires in Jane Eyre. It explains how through phrenology you can see the desire that is written throughout the book. The use of phrenology is very apparent in the Lowood scenes. Armstrong claims, “the Lowood section of Jane Eyre then brings these qualities together powerfully by intersecting Jane, Helen, and Miss Temple in a sensual, shared reading scene,” (117). It is explained that reading throughout the novel is the center of desire.
London, Bette. “The Pleasures of Submission: Jane Eyre and the Production of the Text.” Elh, vol. 58, no. 1, 1991, pp. 195–213. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/2873399. Accessed 22 Feb. 2021.
“Submission” tackles some heavy subject matters, not the least of which is the authenticity of Jane Eyre’s progressive, feminist narrative. Ultimately, London’s article pushes the idea that Jane’s outbursts of passion, the ones so lauded by feminist theorists, are, in fact, created by the oppressive grip of society’s conventions of proper femininity; Helen Burns dies silently, Adele is vapid, Bertha Rochester is passionate (psychotic), and Jane is perfectly submissive and servile…until she suffers a bout of “delinquency” and outrageously speaks her mind.
Morse, Deborah Denenholz. “Brontë Violations: Liminality, Transgression, and Lesbian Erotics in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.” Literature Compass, vol. 14, no. 12, 2017, pp. 1-14. Wiley Online Library. Accessed 2/20/2021
This essay adds to existing scholarly speculation that Charlotte Brontë may have experienced same-sex attraction. However, as Morse says, little of this scholarship has focused on Brontë’s most canonical novel since so much of the plot revolves around a heterosexual relationship. Morse argues that Jane Eyre’s interactions with women throughout the novel could indicate repressed lesbian desire. For instance, two of her most significant early relationships are with Miss Temple and Helen Burns, who she admires deeply for their beauty and character. Morse notes that Jane leaves Lowood after the marriage of Miss Temple, which she parallels with Jane’s flight from Thornfield after learning about Rochester’s marriage to Bertha.
Morse also writes that Jane’s “final embrace of Helen surely can be interpreted as a displacement and expression of sororal, filial, and erotic desire, indistinguishable from one another” (8). The drawings that Jane creates also feature women a great deal, from imaginary ones, to the real Blanche Ingram and Rosamond Oliver, who are described as extremely beautiful by Jane. Morse believes that when Jane shows St. John the portrait of Rosamond, “their mutual gaze upon the beautiful woman’s likeness seems oddly akin to a homosocial gesture…” (9). Finally, although Jane ends up with Rochester in the end, his “wounded body has, as so many scholars have noted, in some way feminized him” (10). Morse overall argues that “in fact Jane Eyre’s most insistent passion is lesbian” (10) and that only after Rochester has been through a symbolic castration can he measure up to the intimate connections she’s shared with women.
Feminism in Jane Eyre:
Finally, there is straight up section on feminism! But mostly, scholars are looking at how Charlotte Brontë tackled feminism in her life and how she pulls some of the same themes into her novel. The domestic sphere is also brought up, as well as a little more information on a certain book mentioned in the novel.
Gao, Haiyan. “Reflection on Feminism in Jane Eyre.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 3, no. 6, Academy Publication Co., LTD, 2013, p. 926–, doi:10.4304/tpls.3.6.926-931. Accessed 22 Feb. 2021.
Feminism as a theme throughout Jane Eyre is studied in this article. Gao compares Charlotte Brontë’s life to that of Jane in the novel, stating that, “The growth of Jane Eyre mirrors the growing up of Charlotte Bronte.” The feminism in the novel revolves around a woman finding self-realization and self-importance.
Richard, Jessica. “‘I Am Equally Weary of Confinement’: Women Writers and ‘Rasselas’ from ‘Dinarbas to Jane Eyre.’” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 22, no. 2, 2003, pp. 335–356. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/20059156. Accessed 22 Feb. 2021.
Analyzing the works of Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Richard does a close reading of a rather minute passage in Jane Eyre, the moment where Jane meets Helen Burns and they briefly discuss the novel Rasselas, a novel about a woman fighting societal restraint, fighting to restrain her own passions. Written by an author who understood how few options and liberties were afforded to women, Rasselas, as Richard emphasizes, is a subtle if cynical nod to the sometimes-pointless nature of life and the lack of liberty that both Jane and Charlotte experienced.
Wynne, Deborah. “Approaching Charlotte Brontë in the 21st Century: Charlotte Brontë Studies.” Literature Compass, vol. 14, no. 12, 2017, p. e12355–, doi:10.1111/lic3.12355.
In this scholarly article, Deborah Wynne, an author and professor at the University of Chester, explores how Charlotte Brontë’s works have not finished offering new ideas to present-day readers and goes on to demonstrate the many papers that have been written in the last few decades in response to Brontë’s writings. Most importantly, Wynne establishes that Charlotte Brontë was a consumer of political pamphlets, and historians have used her works to establish elements of the nineteenth century culture through her perspective. Lastly, these papers continue to draw conclusions about race, gender, sexuality, politics, the domestic sphere, psychology and much more from Bronte’s creative works. Wynne finally emphasizes that there is more still left to study from novels like Jane Eyre.