Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

It has been a long time since I first read this book. I remember enjoying Jane Eyre as a child, but I didn't remember much about the plot, beyond the first chapter at Gateshead, a scene that made a large impression on me. This time, I have read the book in conjunction with lots of criticism, especially of the Madwoman in the Attic type, so I am seeing a lot of Jane in both Bertha Mason and Helen Burns.

I was particularly disturbed by Mr. Rochester this time through; he was a bit more controlling than I had remembered. Neither did I particularly care for St. John Rivers, who forces Jane to learn Hindustani and wants to force her to marry him and sacrifice her to his missionary missions.

The racial ambiguities in this novel (especially as they center around Bertha (the creole), Mr. Rochester, Blanche Ingram, and Mrs. Reed taint both the colonized people and the colonists by association. Brontë seems to contrast the "fairy" and "elf-like" Jane with Bertha Rochester, who is figured as a witch and a vampire. Ultimately, though, Jane is tainted by the same colonial money that taints Rochester--and even from the same family as Uncle Eyre is an agent for the Masons. So while Jane's return to Rochester seems to be from a position of more independence (she has money of her own, and he can no longer subject her to his possessive gaze as he is now blind), that return is complicated by her accession into the colonialist part of the British Empire.