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A Study of Conventionality and Unconventionality in Jane Eyre
MA thesis proposal
Alice Huang 991202013
Professor Kuo
April 29, 2013
Since its publication in 1847, Jane Eyre has aroused great attentions among
readers through generations. After listing the historical responses to the novel,
especially to the unusual hero and heroine, Debra Teachman concludes that “Jane
Eyre was an instant success with many early Victorian readers” (1), but the novel does
move to assure its being a world classic position today. For a long time, despite
readers’ warm welcome, Jane Eyre has gone through harsh judgments, and mostly it
is accused of being too conventional or too unconventional. In the Victorian age,
people admired the novel for its freshness, which differentiates it from the traditional
Gothic romance; however, this quality, besides making the novel unique, at the same
time also brought criticisms on its rebellious spirit. Even to the 1960s, with the rise of
feminist study and post-colonial study, Jane Eyre was still called a conservative work,
and critics such as Spivak and Moglen mostly focused on the controversial way it
tackles the gender issue and the implied racial problem, that is, Jane Eyre, an English
woman’s rise and Bertha Mason, a Creole’s madness and fall.
It is now time for us to investigate the conventionality and unconventionality of
the novel. Astonishingly, even though Jane Eyre had been repudiated for being
unconventional and even deviant in the Victorian period by some contemporary critics,
it has been criticized for being conservative from time to time. For the responses it
caused in the Victorian period, Miriam Allott points out, “It rapidly became a topic of
conversation in fashionable literary circles, and also a target for a few self-appointed
guardians of public morality who warned against its ‘improprieties’” (20). In other
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words, Jane Eyre has experienced both praise and criticism; yet, surprisingly, it has
built its own literary fame in this process. In this respect, its conventional and
unconventional elements hold lavish importance.
Those different criticisms mentioned above on Jane Eyre indeed exactly
demonstrate what a rich social context the novel is in. Jane Eyre is neither a radical
feminism manifesto nor a prop of patriarchal coercion. In fact, it depicts Victorian
people, including men and women, rich or poor, to see what life is like in that specific
society in a faithful way, and then develops a possible life in both
practical and ideal way.1
To see Jane Eyre in a more complete prospect, we have to examine the Victorian
society. Such a task involves not only the characters’ inner feelings but their actions in
different situations; thus, I will investigate the reason why a character behaves in a
specific way. Jane Eyre, as a Victorian novel, contains Victorian features; therefore, in
my thesis I will use a historical and social approach to study them so as to see what
frames this novel. Hopefully, by doing so, the conventionality and its counterpart in
that novel may become clear as to the following questions. Why did the story happen
in Victorian period? What in Victorian period was so distinct that made Jane Eyre
enduring? Only by answering those questions can we understand Brontë’s work rather
than misread it. To reach this goal, I will analyze main characters and study their
actions, reactions, and most importantly, their interactions with others. To avoid
overemphasizing personal feelings of characters as well as making them extremely
unearthly, I will put them in the context of the Victorian society, the world which the
characters live in.
As it is usually called, Victorian society has long been seen as an exceedingly
conservative and prudent society. Although undoubtedly, part of this statement is true,
there is still room for further discussion. Generally speaking, the Victorian society is a
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highly gender-determined society, which decides a person’s social position chiefly:
men in the public working place and women for the private home. Just as Lamonica
Drew explains in We Are Three Sisters: Self and Family in the Writing of the Brontë’s,
The middle class vision of domesticity sanctioned the division of the
world in- to ‘separate spheres,’ the public workplace and the private
home, and fixed the proper place for men and women according to sexual
difference: men had the necessary intellectual and assertive qualities to
tolerate ‘rough work in the open world’; women, by virtue of their moral
influence and tender affections, were best suited to raise children and
counsel husbands in the home (11).
Notably, this socially expected division constructed the prevalent domestic ideology
in Brontë’s times. In the Victorian age, a respectable family gave a person supports in
financial, social and emotional ways. On the other hand, a person without a decent
family, or even being non-familial, would certainly be in great disadvantage. That’s
why the heroine Jane in Jane Eyre is not in a favorable situation in her younger days
as she is an orphan and a moneyless one. Being denied her place in the household by
rich relatives (the Reed family), Jane is sent to a charity school, where she gets
educated. In a way, the education is a blessing in disguise to Jane, for she has to earn
wages to support herself. Yet, in 19th century, the most respectable job for poor yet
well-educated women is being a governess;2 therefore, Jane has to stay at others’
houses as a plain governess. In almost all the parts of the novel, Jane’s poor situation
makes her in dire need of a job for survival until the fortune from her uncle gives her
wealth and liberty. Again, Brontë uses her heroine’s long-time insufficiency to
illustrate that whereas coming from a good family is no doubt important in the
Victorian society, not every individual could enjoy this advantage. Moreover, the
orphan Jane’s struggle suggests the society’s emphasis on good linage as well as
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things a good family could offer to its members: money, protection, care. Without a
family (especially a good one), one could probably suffer.
While Jane Eyre’s experience shows a supportless woman’s predicament, the
male protagonist Edward Rochester is usually considered a commanding and superior
figure, and sometimes even a patriarchal representative.3 Truly, compared with Jane,
Rochester holds advantages; however, unlike a mere patriarchal tyrant, Rochester is
subject to misfortune, and like Jane, a victim to a dominant social system. In
Rochester’s case, family also decides, but for Rochester, he is obstructed by the law of
primogeniture. Being the second-born in his family, Rochester has no right to claim
the fortune which belongs legally to his order brother. His lack of sufficient
financial guarantee later leads him into an unwilling marriage to Bertha Mason, a
wealthy Creole woman, which, due to the so-called, legitimacy pins Rochester down
and makes it impossible for he marrying Jane Eyre, since divorce was not permissible
according to the British law at that time. Therefore, if Jane represents a non-familial
individual, showing the difficulty a poor woman can face in the Victorian England,
Rochester, with a better financial and social condition than Jane’s, suggests an
oppressed gentleman’s struggle against law of primogeniture and marriage.
From Brontë’s representation, we see both Jane and Rochester struggle because
of social conventions. Interestingly, Jane fights to make her a family, while Rochester
must erase his previous one to make a new one. In the two characters, it is easy to see
Brontë’s emphasis on domestic ideology and legitimacy. Besides, she reveals concern
for legitimacy and morality in bigamy because we can see the marital ceremony of
Jane and Rochester is interrupted and not continued until Rochester’s tie to his first
wife is forever removed by the news of Bertha’s death. In brief, the novel’s stress on
familial ties and law makes it conventional.
In spite of the social conventions mentioned above, Brontë does care about
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unconventionality. Though the author’s emphasis on the orthodox family is great, she
makes space for deviants4 by putting her two main characters both in non-familial
positions. Jane is an orphan, while Rochester is a suffering gentleman, morally
deficient and emotionally injured, in spite of his superior rank and wealth. Their
distressing social identities and their desire to convert fate strongly suggests the
unconventionality of the novel; however, Brontë wields her characters, not just
to overthrow the existing social system entirely, because she sees the difficulty and
impracticality in doing that. Instead, she makes her characters go through some
transformations, making them suitable to gain a favorable place in the society. Jane
and Rochester’s marriage is one between a gentleman and gentlewoman.5 Their
marriage is lawful and agreeable to the society. In Jane’s uplifted position, we see the
reward for meek morality, which she shows in her refusal to be Rochester’s mistress
after they both realize that a legal marriage is impossible for them as long as
Rochester’s mad wife is alive. Out of concern for morality, Jane leaves Thornfield,
suffering not only poverty in the countryside but keen loneliness because of her
separation from Rochester. The governess Jane, at that time, turns to be a school
teacher. Later, after Bertha’s death, effective as Jane’s lawful marriage with Rochester
and the fortune from her uncle are, her social position is still decided by things other
than law and property; therefore, we can see her good manners, her education, along
with her moral conduct, together provide her with other social capitals that make her a
respectable gentlewoman. As it turns out, the fortune from her uncle guarantees Jane’s
rise among social levels. With the money, Jane’s economical condition is greatly
improved; thus, she becomes able to consume commodities for house decoration in
the Rivers-house and to distribute her fortune, the twenty thousand pounds,
maintaining only one-quarter of it, while giving the other three-quarters to the Rivers,
her kind relatives, who helped her when she was in difficulty on the moor. Brontë’s
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changing of Jane, a plain governess, into an heiress practically manifests the
importance of property in the Victorian age. There are still other requirements for Jane
to meet, however, if she wants to obtain a better social position. As Daniel Pool points
out, the “progress into a higher class necessitated mastery of various social rituals,
speech patterns, and even habits of spending” (Pool 47). According to Pool, even
though with the fortune, Jane’s manners and intellect still play important roles in
defining her as a gentlewoman. Interestingly, however, in the end of the novel, Jane
becomes not simply a gentlewoman but Rochester’s wife. The heroine’s final identity
shows the author’s primary concern, the making of a respectable person in the
Victorian age. From childhood to adulthood as well as from the margin to the center,
“Jane progresses from despised and dispossessed orphanhood to the alter true love
and much wealth” (Drew 69). In this sense, although disadvantageous because of her
lack of property, Jane finally overcomes her predicament. Her gradual progress in
obtaining public recognition reveals both revolutionary and conservative atmospheres
in the Victorian society, which the novel is placed in. On the whole, the spirit of Jane
Eyre is revolutionary because Brontë transforms poor Jane into a respectable
gentlewoman, giving Jane rich resources which a non-familial person usually find it
hard to obtain; yet, at the same time, it is conservative because the author still
emphasizes standards such as hierarchy and wealth. From an orphan to a Young lady,
Jane gradually develops her respectable image in that “involving society” of the
Victorian age (Altick 17).
Jane’s change is perceptible, yet Jane’s other half, Edward Rochester is not so
fortunate as she. Rochester gains through losing. In the fire caused by Bertha,
Rochester loses his chief land property (Thornfield) and becomes handicapped.
Whereas the ruined property and health are endearing to him, Rochester is forever
released from his first marriage since his wife dies in the fire. On the other hand, the
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way Brontë presents Bertha Mason as a merely beastly creature locked in the attic has
caused much dispute. The mention of Bertha’s Creole blood, which suggests her
improper manners as an English gentlewoman, and her tragic death have provoked
negative responses, among which the most influential work may be Jane Rhys’s Wide
Sargasso Sea. Critical as it is, Wide Sargasso Sea mainly focuses on Bertha Mason’s
life in Jamaica; however, it dose not really comment on Jane Eyre’s responses to the
specific Victorian society because it mainly criticizes Brontë‘s arrangement of
Bertha’s tragic life. Here I would like to argue that it is reasonable for Brontë to move
her characters upward or downward to make them fit into social categories. The
Victorian England, as Brontë consciously senses, puts so much emphasis on gender
and property, consequently building a highly gender-determined and closely
hierarchical society. As we can see, the social distinctions between Jane and Rochester
are so immense that they make their connection socially unacceptable; moreover, their
connection, bigamy, is even punishable. Thus, Brontë then has to modify her
characters’ conditions; otherwise, Jane and Rochester’s marriage will never be
approved. The hero and the heroine attempt to disregard social conformity only to
find the impossibility of doing so. Thus depressed, Rochester asks Jane to be his
mistress, intending to escape away from England with her; yet, Jane, not so rebellious
as Rochester, senses the dominant conventions that regulate their personal life. As for
this, Teachman has some good observation. Analyzing Jane’s rival, Miss Ingram,
Teachman claims, “In Blanche Ingram, Jane sees the kind of woman that society
expects men like Mr. Rochester to marry. Similarity of vision, compatibility of
character, and shared passions are qualities that Rochester shares with Jane, not
Blanche, but they are not qualities that society considers to be important for a husband
and wife” (Teachman 16). Facing the social distinctions between Jane and Rochester,
Chris R. Vanden Bossche observes, “Brontë has shaped social circumstances so as to
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reshape the marriage relation in a new form, albeit a form that does not solve all of the
problems the novel raises” (91). In this way, Bertha’s death, which is caused by her
insanity, is the only way to make a lawful marriage for Jane and Rochester.
Emphasizing the domestic ideology in the novel is conventional, but the actors’6
approach to it is unconventional. In other words, Brontë uses both conventionality and
unconventionality to make marriage and life possible in the novel.
Besides Rochester and Jane, I will also discuss Bertha and St. John Rivers. The
two characters go extremely to the unconventional side, but I will study Bertha’s
madness and St. John’s service to God through conventional standards and social
responses to them.
One thing important about Bertha’s madness, which should be remarked but
often overlooked, is her danger to others. It is her existing madness, I claim, rather
than the cause of her insanity, that matters in Jane Eyre, for Ian Ward offers us
abundant information about 19th century regulations and treatments toward the insane
in Law and the Brontës. Inhuman though the laws were, they revealed Victorian
people’s foremost regards: reputation, family names, and property concerns.
According to Ward, the confinement of insane people, whether enacted by the family
involved or by social institutions, served for “public safety’ (76). Besides, to Victorian
people, this confinement assured not only the society’s safety but also family’s name;
thus, for Victorian families, confinement of lunatic members was important. As Ward
points out, by controlling insane family members Victorian people “evaded public
embarrassment; and few ailments caused middle class Victorians greater concern than
familial insanity” (76-77). To further discuss this social exclusion, I will use
sociologist Mary Douglas’s views to prove that Bertha’s improper and insane
behavior harms the cherished social standards and cause the necessity to imprison her.
As Brontë points out, Rochester accuses his wife of possessing inglorious qualities,
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such as intemperateness and unchastity, which make her to an indecent woman as in
contrast to the Victorian discourse that women should be the angel of the house. In
this sense, Bertha is excluded from the community because of impropriety and
insanity; yet, as the novel shows, it is Rochester, her husband, that executes her
imprisonment in the attic. In a sense, Bertha’s forced exclusion indicates the close
relationship between the individual and the community. Her stay in the attic shows
serious consequence will come if an individual fails to reach the community’s
expectation. Because of the insanity and impropriety, her property as well as herself
becomes objects which Rochester holds right to dispose of. Bertha’s story
emphatically suggests women as the weaker sex in the Victorian age, and a married
woman was inferior in front of law because of coverture, as Rappoport records, “The
legal doctrine of coverture undermined women’s individual rights to property” (46).
Seen from this angle, the modern feminist reading of Bertha may help illustrate the
disadvantageous standing of Victorian women. Her conduct and others’ conception
about her together decide her position in that English community. Thus, while lunatic
Bertha’s existence may add unusual horror and weights on Brontë’s work, her
exclusion results from the author’s concern for conventionality.
Bertha’s exclusion is forced; on the contrary, with unshakable determination St.
John chooses his exclusion from mundane and familial happiness to be a missionary
in India. Later found out to be Jane’s distant cousin, St. John, who is a clergy man, is
the oldest son of the Rivers, a respectable genteel family in spite of poor financial
condition. Undoubtedly, St John is devoted to his career; however, he still maintains
his connection to his community. Thus, instead of concluding that St. John is an
absolutely religious figure who lives away from the worldly Victorian England, I will
examine St. John’s acknowledged social identity so as to affirm Brontë’s use of
conventionality and unconventionality in Jane Eyre.
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St. John’s social and economic condition shows how a genteel family can
descend to the level of insufficient property, as he explains his condition to the poorer
Jane who asks for his help to find a job,
I am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father's debts, all the
patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of
scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the yew- trees and
holly-bushes in front. I am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the
three sole descendants of the race, two earn the dependant's crust among
strangers, and the third considers himself an alien from his native country
─not only for life, but in death. ' (353-354)
This passage clearly indicates that the Rivers no longer owns much property as it had;
therefore, unlike John Reed, Jane’s another cousin, who proudly claims his access to
family fortune according to the law of primogeniture, St. John, as the oldest son, has
almost nothing to inherit. Yet, though his poverty is obvious, St. John is a potential
marriage partner to Rosamond Oliver, a wealthy and beautiful lady in the village, who
sees his genteel blood and harmonious good looking with great favor. However,
St. John, as Jane observes, resists Rosamond’s attraction with deliberate self-restraint.
Attractive as Rosamond is, for St. John, who intends to go to India as a missionary,
she will be an unfit wife, for she can only live with her comfortable upper-class style,
which cannot be obtained in India. Later, St. John proposes to Jane because he
believes she will be a great help to his missionary work, only to be refused. After
experiencing some unpleasant interactions due to Jane’s refusal to his offer, St. John
finally builds a friendly connection with Jane, and interestingly, the novel ends in
praising St. John’s missionary devotion in India. To present the mixed atmosphere of
Christian duty and secular pursuit in Victorian England, Brontë describes St. John’s
being both conventional and unconventional; therefore, she shows the mixture of
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earthly and heavenly values in the novel again. The earthly value stands in one’s
responding to social conventions and in making recognizable achievements such as
wealth, while the heavenly value in St. John’s viewpoint mainly means religious
devotion. If in the previous case of Jane and Rochester we see they struggle to obtain
social acceptance, then St. John’s exclusion brings us another instance of acquiring
social acknowledgment as a respectable individual in the Victorian age. It is worth
noting that St. John, a socially acceptable young man, expects not happiness in
England but difficulty in India. Although his excessive passion for missionary
contradicts the general concept of Victorian domesticity, because he gives up marriage
without any regret, St. John still acquires good reputation by his effort in the religious
work, which will be the “foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven” (374). St.
John’s willing exclusion from his homeland and the social responses, including their
respect to his holy mission, from the parishioners (among them especially Jane, the
ex-member) make us see the intervolved worldly and heavenly value systems; which
in a high degree suggest the general concept of the Victorians. In his study of Jane
Eyre, Eagleton notes St. John’s religious zeal, “Rivers can gain a taste of mundane
glory only by embracing danger, obscurity and premature death….Rivers has
temporized between world and spirit, even if we are now asked to forget the fact and
revere him as an image of saintly self surrender” (37). Accordingly, though St. John’s
ending as a faithful servant of God shows the remarkable emphasis on Christianity
which Brontë puts in the novel, it is not to say that the religion fully surpasses worldly
needs; on the other hand, an individual can advance himself by following social and
moral conventions, while maintaining what he is interested in (Eagleton 30). In brief,
St. John’s willing exclusion from England involves his sacrifice of giving up his own
family. Likewise his missionary in India makes him a martyr for English Christianity.
Furthermore, his religious service corresponds to the domestic ideology which many
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Christians value because home is also a center for Christian values to be internalized
at 19th century England (Drew 12). In brief, St. John embodies both mundane and
religious value systems, which sometimes fight for dominance while sometimes
forming social standards together; thus, in a sense, Brontë’s characterization of St.
John Rivers again strengthens this novel’s concern about conventionality and
unconventionality.
In my introduction, I will examine Jane Eyre’s literary legacy and its being
revolutionary and conservative at once. Then I will argue that the distinctive quality
of Jane Eyre is its mixture of conventionality and unconventionality, so the novel
cannot be defined as conventional or unconventional because it contains both. In the
subsequent chapters, I will go deep to examine major characters, including their social
backgrounds, their actions, their interactions with each other, and I hope my study of
their social positions will better readers’ understanding of the Victorian society that
Brontë writes about.
Chapter 2 will focus on Jane Eyre, the heroine of the novel. I will investigate
Jane’s social positions in different periods, her development of self-identity, and most
importantly, her growing consciousness of comprising in the social contexts in which
she has to be. Following Jane’s sense of being poor and non-familial, we may see her
struggle and her efforts to obtain a respectable position in the society. Chapter 3 will
discuss Edward Rochester, to see the issues of gender and property in Victorian
society. Remarkably, Rochester’s advantages of being a wealthy and genteel man
enable him to enjoy luxury and independence; yet on the contrary, they also restrict
him. Rochester’s fear of the exposure of his mad wife, alive and legitimate, comes
from his fear to be stigmatized. This secret will certainly hurt his reputation and will
prevent him from marrying lawfully again. Rochester’s relations with women,
property and laws will be a good resource to study the sexuality and law in the
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Victorian society. In this chapter, Rochester’s long confession to Jane after their
wedding is cancelled will be discussed carefully to examine the conflict between his
desire and obligation.
Coming to chapter 4, I will study Bertha and St. John Rivers to point out that
Bertha is imprisoned for the sake of public safety while St. John’s willing exclusion
from family and homeland is due to his devotion to religion and concern for secular
reputation. This chapter will use the conventional standards to discuss Bertha’s and St.
John’s seemingly unconventional exclusion.
In the final chapter, I will draw a conclusion to my discussions in the previous
chapters. I will put all the characters together to examine their interrelations in Jane
Eyre and use them to illustrate the Victorian society Brontë deals with in the novel. I
will again summarize the conventional and unconventional elements and point out
that they should be tackled together so as to avoid misreading the novel. It is exactly
this mixture of conventionality and unconventionality that gives the novel an enduring
position in the literary history.
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End Notes
1
In the novel, Jane obtains a happy ending with her marriage to Rochester, a
gentleman whom she loves. By connecting herself with Edward Rochester with a
legitimate tie, and also by inheriting the fortune her uncle left for her, Jane turns
herself into a better social and financial position from a plain teacher. Her marriage is
an example of social expectations and personal feelings. The necessity of her lawful
marriage is practical, and the way she achieves it is slightly ideal. I will discuss more
Victorian social and economical issues in my thesis.
2
Daniel Pool points out in What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, “Being
a governess was one of the few occupations considered suitable for middle-class girls
who needed to earn their own living, but although the governess was expected to have
the education and mien of a ‘lady’, she was treated as a servant” (224-225). Pool also
complements that the governess’s ambiguous position, provides a “standpoint” at
which “the novelist could describe at close quarters the workings of a household”. In
Jane Eyre, Charlotte faithfully describes Jane’s ambiguous position as a governess.
This issue will be further discussed in my following chapters.
3
In her discussion on Jane Eyre, Helene Moglen lays stress on Jane’s development of
independence and her relationship with Rochester, a man who preponderates her in
rank and wealth; thus, Moglen claims that Rochester’s domination in their relation
harms Jane’s independence.
4
This may has something to do with Charlotte’s personal experiences. Lamonica
Drew states, “The Brontës’ interest in orphans and fractured families, as expressed in
their fiction, no doubt from their personal loss” (11).
5
Jane Eyre is with genteel birth. Later, her upper-middle class position is guaranteed
with the fortune she inherits from her uncle.
6
The term “actor” comes from Erving Goffman’s discussion on human rituals in
Interaction Ritual. An “actor”, which does not refer only to man, means a subject in a
social context, whose actions are seen, evaluated, and acknowledged by others. I will
use this concept in my subsequent chapters.
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Working Bibliography
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