Opinions of key
characters in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane
Eyre have developed over the century-plus of people reading and
interpreting the novel. Obviously the world is a vastly different place than it
was in the mid 1800s, so opinions and interpretations are vastly different in
the 21st century. Despite her minimal appearances and lack of
dialogue, Bertha Mason has always been one of the novel’s most discussed and
examined characters.
A common
interpretation of Bertha Mason is highlighted in an article titled “Bertha
Mason: A 21st Century Woman Stuck in 1847” by Maria the Writer.
Maria describes the male-female relationship at the time of the novel, writing,
“Men of the Victorian era reduce women to one-dimensional personalities conditioned
to embody angelic purity, inferiority, and suppressing of their genuine
personalities”. Bertha represents everything wrong with a Victorian marriage
that Jane should fear. She has lost track of who she is because she is married
to a man who values her as an owner values a pet, and because of this has
descended into an animalistic madness. Perhaps Rochester was telling the truth
about Bertha’s madness being hereditary, but his treatment of her—locking her
away like a neglected animal—is nonetheless unacceptable and demonstrates his
general lack of respect for women.
Another
interpretation that has developed further in recent years is the idea that
Bertha Mason represents the ugly side of European imperialism, where white
Europeans looked at people of other racial backgrounds as more animalistic and
controllable. Bertha being a creole is noted in correlation with her madness,
as if it is part of the reason. Rochester describes, “Bertha Mason is mad; and
she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations? Her
mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard!” (Bronte 557).
Rochester has no reason to mention that Bertha and her family are creole here; he
could have just declared that she is mad and her family is mad, but he
emphasizes that she is not white to rationalize her imperfection. Bertha is
trapped in the metaphorical cage of marriage to a controlling European man, and
her subsequent madness drives Rochester to literally lock her away “like some
strange wild animal” (Bronte 559). Had Rochester married an English woman who
displayed the same madness as Bertha, I do not think he would have treated her
in as harsh of a manner as he treats Bertha. While I doubt Charlotte Bronte
intended to critique race relations when she wrote Jane Eyre in the 1800s, interpretations like this have developed over
time and carry more and more merit as the world becomes more accepting.
Regardless of what Bronte actually meant in
her depiction of Bertha and the way Rochester treats her, I struggle to understand
how Jane continues to be so drawn to a man who treats his wife in the way that
Rochester does. Is Jane truly to believe that Rochester is not at all at fault
for his wife’s insanity?
Link to
article:
(Note: I will apologize ahead of time for using the word “interpretation” so many times. Also, my page numbers are different.)
ReplyDeleteI think that it is both very interesting and very important to consider different interpretations of Bertha Mason while reading Jane Eyre. The differences between past and present interpretations highlight the values and beliefs of the society that those interpretations are, or were, made in. The two interpretations that are focused on in Braden’s post are, in my opinion, some of the most important. The relationship between them is one which is pertinent both today and when it the book was originally written. It is made very clear that Bertha is supposed to be seen as an animal of some sort (she is described as a “clothed hyena”, and it is hard to tell whether she is a “beast or human being” (559)). And the fact that she is creole plays no small part, as colonizing white Europeans often viewed people of color as animals and savages, being less than human and more like animals. This racist view goes hand in hand with the description of Bertha as a mad animal. When the book was written, these two viewpoints were relatively normal (as is touched upon in the article that Braden has linked). Today, these viewpoints are looked down upon, but they are not unfamiliar—history has given us a lens with which we can understand them. The passing of years has not stripped away the importance and meaning of these interpretations and the interplay between them, and through them we can see the beliefs of the past, and how those beliefs have changed from then to now.
Though I believe that Bertha’s madness, and subsequent treatment by Rochester, may be strongly influenced by the fact that she is Creole, I also think that it is important to look at the way in which the fact that she is a woman affects the way she is treated. Bertha is described as “fearful and ghastly” (530), and is often depicted as snarling, crawling, and biting in animalistic ways. These descriptions of Bertha serve to strip her of her femininity and humanity, thus turning her into a lesser being who Rochester can control easily. This close relationship between femininity and madness reminded me of the story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In this story a woman is confined to the uppermost room in the house, where she is left in solitude much of the time. This closely mirrors Bertha’s prison of the attic at Thornfield, where she rarely has interactions with anyone besides her caretaker Grace Poole. The narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper and Bertha both lose their sense of individuality and femininity as they are confined to their prisons, and I believe that this closely relates to the ways in which they are treated by the men who have control over them. This stripping of their humanity and more womanly traits allows their caretakers to see them as less than human, making it seem acceptable to lock them away because of their apparent madness.
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