Jane Eyre Critics

Jane Eyre Critics

1. Reception and early reviews

   • Well received, but censure due to critical representation of religion,vivid emotio, love which transcens class
   • Elizabeth Rigby 1948 'the tone of mind and thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code human and divine.... Is the same which nas also written Jane Eyre'
   • Critics saw as having a dangerous underlying message
     • Jane seen as strong minded and independent, godless and unrestrained
     • Seen as reflecting Bronte's personality

2. Contemporary approaches

   • Psychoanalytical readings
     • Bertha seems opposite to Jane
       • Imlay 1989 both women are represented at times in similar ways
         • Bertha seen as ghost/vampire, Rochester sees Jane as witch/imp.
         • Bertha scratches and bites, Jane scratches John Reed
         • Jane loses control and put in red room
     • Gilbert and Gabbar
       • Bertha is Jane's night-time double
         • "Bertha is Jane's truest and darkest double; she is the angry aspect Of the orphan, the ferocious secret self Jane has been trying to repress ever since her days at Gateshead
   • Souvlaki 1985
     • Jane has more rational approach then Bertha
       • Jane is middle class Protestant
       • Bertha colonial subject
         • Rhys novel WideSargasso Sea gives different perspective as give Bertha's prequel

3. Feminist criticism

   • Radical text in which a woman wrote successfully about the treatment of women in society
     • Gilbert and Gubar 1979: Madwoman in the Attic
       • Tend to stress political purpose of novel and advocate for women, as was criticised for initially
       • Fairy tale transposed to real world and radical implications

4. Early 20th Century

   • David Cecil 1934 critics scathing because novel is in part fairy tale or narrative of wish fulfillment
   • Seen as
     • Incoherently written
     • Containing unnecessary over poetic prose
     • Plot seen as dependent on luck and coincidence
   • Q.D. Leavis 1966
     • Argued it was tightly composed with coherent structure and thoroughly controlled in the interest of the theme
     • That Jane's thoughts and feelings are imagined on the deepest level

5. Marxist criticism

   • Reassessed the context.....ambiguity of Jane'ssocial position and social mobility which belied the time
     • Williams 1970
       • Tensions reflected in representation of desire and fear of isolation
         • The novel's passion is communicated through a kind of private conversation between reader and narrator
     • Eagleton 1975
       • Key theme is submission and when this ceases to be a good thing
         • Jane is able to climb the social ladder on her own terms
       • Deconstructionist
         • Can have interpretations that are opposites yet intertwined
           • Eg Rochester thinks his marriage destroyed home yet reader can see it gave him financial independence and social position