简爱女性主义解读

Introduction

Jane Eyre is such a great novel that it holds an important position in the history of British literature. It is also the masterpiece of Charlotte Bronte, who is a famous talented realistic woman novelist in English literature history. It has been translated into various languages and adapted for movie, dazzling generations of readers all through the world.

This thesis mainly discusses the female doctrine of Jane in the social background of realism. Jane is neither a very beautiful woman, nor rich, but her genuine, selfless love for Rochester, and her good personality strike us deeply. It was written successfully to portray its heroine --Jane Eyre , a independent woman, who takes an positive and progressive attitude toward love, life , society and religions, and who dares to fight for the liberty and equality. Jane's sufferings are the deep reflections of the lives of lower-class people in Britain . The author shaped her heroine as a lower-class, awaken, and new feminine , who resists oppression and social prejudice strongly, fight for independent personality and dignity firmly ,and pursue happy life consistently. It is rather rare in the novels of that period. The period when Jane (the heroine in the novel Jane Eyre) lived roughly corresponds with the time of queen Victoria’s ruling. Victoria who ruled over the British Empire for over 60 years was a well known queen in English history. She mounted the throne in 1837 when British literature reached a prosperous period. In the 1940s, British literature reached its peak. The realists were one of the main groups at that time, and the author of Jane Eyre belonged to this group.

A brief information about Charlotte Bront?

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855) was born in the family of a poor country clergyman at Haworth, Yorkshire, in northern England. In this period of tense class struggle appeared a new literary trend-critical realism. English critical realism of the 19 th century flourished in the forties and in the early fifties. The critical realists described with much vividness and great artistic skill the chief traits of the English society and criticized the capitalist system from a democratic viewpoint.She

had two elder sisters, two younger sisters and one younger brother. Her mother died when she was five years old, leaving six children. Fortunately, her father was an intellect, so he often taught his children to read books and magazines and told stories to them. It influenced Charlotte in developing her interest in literature. When she was very young, she was sent to a boarding school with her three sisters. In 1825, her two elder sisters died of infectious disease in that school. Then, her younger sister Emily and she were forced to go back home and compile a journal named “Youth”, which laid a solid foundation for their later creation of literature. When she was 15, she went to another school to study. And in order to support her family, she became a teacher in this school after her graduation. After she left this school, she went to a rich family to be a tutor for twice, during which she declined to men who wanted to marry her.

In 1847, under the name of Currer Bell, she published her first novel Jane Eyre which was a great shock at that time and made her successful. Her two younger sisters also published their novels and succeeded at that time. The great success of the Bronte sisters brought great happiness to their family. But in the following years, Charlotte suffered from great sorrow: her younger brother and two younger sisters died one by one in two years. But she persisted in writing and published another three fictions. She got married with a priest when she was 38 years old. After she enjoyed happiness for six months, she died in the next year.

A Brief Contents about Jane Eyre

This novel begins with little Jane as a despised orphan in the house of her uncle’s widow. Being rebellious, she is packed off to a charitable boarding school, which administers harsh discipline with especial vigor. Jane sets herself to learn, qualifies herself as a teacher, advertises for a post, and is employed as governess of the illegitimate French daughter of Rochester in his country mansion, Thornfield. A love relationship develops between Jane and Rochester. Jane’s resolute free spirit, her soul of fire, brings from the dominant Rochester a proposal of marriage. But at the

very moment, the wedding ceremony was interrupted, for Rochester is discovered to have a mad wife who is hidden in that house. Jane doesn’t want to be Rochester’s mistress and subsequently leaves Thornfield, wandering far away. She is rescued by the Rivers family and urged to marry John Rivers in order to undertake missionary work at his side. Almost she consents, but as she ponders, Rochester’s voice crying her name resounds in her ears. Then Jane gains a large amount of inheritance from her uncle whom she has never known before. She returns to Thornfield, but the mansion has been destroyed by a fire started by the mad wife. In a scheduled country house nearby, she finds Rochester, blind and alone; they marry and find happiness together.

In that society, it is impossible for Jane and Rochester to be really equal in social class. They are just equal in spirit.

Causes of the thought of female doctrine in Jane Eyre.

1.Social and Cultural Backdrops of Jane Eyre..

The period when Jane (the heroine in the novel Jane Eyre) lived roughly corresponds with the time of queen Victoria’s ruling. Victoria who ruled over the British Empire for over 60 years was a well known queen in English history. She mounted the throne in 1837 when British literature reached a prosperous period. In the 1940s, British literature reached its peak. The realists were one of the main groups at that time, and the author of Jane Eyre belonged to this group.

In this period of tense class struggle appeared a new literary trend-critical realism. English critical realism of the 19 th century flourished in the forties and in the early fifties. The critical realists described with much vividness and great artistic skill the chief traits of the English society and criticized the capitalist system from a democratic viewpoint.The method of critical realism was further adopted by such writers as Charlotte and Emily Bronte, and Elizabeth Gaskell. In writing Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte chiefly resorts to the realistic approach, but her realism is heightened by her sparkle of romantic imagination. The novel is marked throughout by intensity,

intensity of vision is the descriptive passages, intensity of feeling in the emotional scenes. The passionate involvement of the heroine Jane Eyre in every situation endows the novel, like Emily’s Wuthering Heights, with the quality of poetry, even in the medium of prose. Bront? uses the novel to express her critique of Victorian class differences. Jane is consistently a poor individual within a wealthy environment, particularly with the Reeds and at Thornfield. Her poverty creates numerous obstacles for her and her pursuit of happiness, including personal insecurity and the denial of opportunities

2 .Charlotte Bront?’s thought of female doctrine in her Personal Life.

Charlotte Bronte was born in a Priest’s family in York shire. She had two elder sisters, two younger sisters and one younger brother. Her mother died when she was five years old, leaving six children. Fortunately, her father was an intellect, so he often taught his children to read books and magazines and told stories to them. It influenced Charlotte in developing her interest in literature. Her sufferings are likely to her novel’s heroine, Jane Eyre, who is neither a very beautiful woman, nor rich, but her genuine, selfless love for Rochester, and her good personality strike us deeply. Charlotte, the only surviving child of the family, outlived her sisters and brother by some years, with restless energy, she wrote two other novels, “Shirley”(1849), her second novel, dealing with the life of workers at the time of the Luddites’ movement. The last novel by Charlotte Bronte, “Villette”, came out in 1853. In Villette, the author again draws from her own life experience and creates a woman character from a poor family who fights her way in the world with her intelligence, and strong will. The heroine is shown as having no money, beauty, or friends, and in order to support herself she teaches at a girls’ school at Brussels, Belgium. In 1854 she married her father’s curate A.B. Nicholas, but died a few months later

An analysis of Images of characters in Jane Eyre.

1.Image of Jane Eyre

The development of Jane Eyre’s character is related to her lif e environment. From the beginning, Jane possesses a sense of her self-respect and dignity, a commitment to justice and principle, a trust in God, and a passionate disposition. Her integrity is continually tested over the course of the novel, and Jane must learn to balance the frequently conflicting aspects of herself so as to find contentment. Jane loses both of her parents shortly after birth. She lives at the household of her aunt, Mrs. Reed, an unfeeling woman, who is rude and unjust to the poor orphan. Her children also find pleasure in teasing and mocking Jane. Living under this circumstance, Jane feels exiled and ostracized at the beginning of the novel, and the cruel treatment she receives from her aunt Reed and her cousins only exacerbates her feeling of alienation. Afraid that she will never find a true sense of home or community, Jane feels the need to belong somewhere. This desire tempers her equally intense need for autonomy and freedom.Jane also struggles with the question of what type of freedom she wants. While Rochester initially offers Jane a chance to liberate her passions, Jane comes to realize that such freedom could also mean enslavement. By living as Rochester’s mistress, she would be sacrificing her dignity and integrity for the sake of her feelings. St John Rivers offers Jane another kind of freedom: the freedom to act unreservedly on her principles. He opens to Jane the possibility of exercising her talents fully by working and living with him in India. Jane eventually realizes that this freedom would also constitute a form of imprisonment, because she would be forced to keep her true feelings and her true passions always in check.

Charlotte Bronte may have created the character of Jane Eyre as a means of coming to terms with elements of her own life. Much evidence suggests that Bronte, too, struggled to find a balance between love and freedom, and to find others who understood her. At many points in Jane Eyre, Jane voices the author’s radical opinion at that time.

2.Image of Rochester

The expressions of female doctrine in Jane Eyre.

1.Jane’s pursuit of equality in family and personal life

The main quest in Jane Eyre is Jane's search for family, for a sense of belonging and love. However, this search is constantly tempered by Jane’s need fo r independence. She begins the novel as an unloved orphan who is almost obsessed with finding love as a way to establish her own identity and achieve happiness. Although she does not receive any parental love from Mrs. Reed, Jane finds surrogate maternal figures throughout the rest of the novel. Bessie, Miss Temple, and even Mrs. Fairfax care for Jane and give her the love and guidance that she needs, and she returns the favor by caring for Adèle and the students at her school. Still, Jane does not feel as though she has found her true family until she falls in love with Mr. Rochester at Thornfield; he becomes more of a kindred spirit to her than any of her biological relatives could be.

However, she is unable to accept Mr. Rochester’s first marriage propos al because she realizes that their marriage - one based on unequal social standing - would compromise her autonomy. Jane similarly denies St. John's marriage proposal, as it would be one of duty, not of passion. Only when she gains financial and emotional autonomy, after having received her inheritance and the familial love of her cousins, can Jane accept Rochester's offer. In fact, the blinded Rochester is more dependent on her (at least until he regains his sight). Within her marriage to Rochester, Jane finally feels completely liberated, bringing her dual questsn for family and independence to a satisfying conclusion.

2.Jane Eyre’s pursuit of liberty and equality in love and marriage.

Love is the most beautiful characteristic of human beings’ life and love can not be measured by one’s status, power or property. In most individuals’ life, people like to seek a meaningful, romantic relationship resulting in love, commitment, companionship and happiness. In my opinion, it is most important that a man and woman have heart and feelings that find a perfect response, and also have mutual affinity. Shakespeare said :“The course of true love never runs smooth.”Jane and Rochester get true love after a lot of sufferings. Jane loves Rochester deeply always-from the beginning to the end. There should be no distinction of property, rank

or age in true love. Jane falls in love with Mr. Rochester. He who has rich experience and wisdom, is softhearted, wealthy and in high rank as well as having pride and rudeness. Rochester is older than Jane by nearly 20years and could be her father. Jane loves him, but not for his wealth and high rank, because he treats her equally and in a friendly manner, although she is very poor and in low position. She is such an excellent girl, good, intelligent,considerate that Rochester is attracted by her. It is Jane but not someone else who Rochester loves.The beautiful Miss Ingram's higher social standing, for instance, makes her Jane's main competitor for Mr. Rochester’s love, even though Jane is far superior in terms of intellect and character. Moreover, Jane’s refusal to marry Mr. Rochester because of their difference in social stations demonstrates her morality and belief in the importance of personal independence, especially in comparison to Miss Ingram’s gold-digging inclinations. Although Jane asserts that her poverty does not make her an inferior person, her eventual ascent out of poverty does help her overcome her personal obstacles. Not only does she generously divide her inheritance with her cousins, but her financial independence solves her difficulty with low self-esteem and allows her to fulfill her desire to be Mr. Rochester’s wife.

Jane thinks that it is a glorious thing to have the hope of living with him and being his wife. Jane loves him with her whole heart. They have a meeting of the mind. But in that social background, people pay too much attention to property, rank and status. If the disparity is great, a pair of lovers will suffer disagreement from their families and their f riends. Mrs. Fairfax, one of Rochester’s servants, is very surprised and feels puzzled that her master is madly clinging to Jane. But both of them do not care about the difference of status and property or others’ opinion. They pursue true love. They can smash the bonds of tradition and can surmount all obstacles. They are very happy and want to be married. But their marriage is stopped by the fault that Rochester is a married man; his wife is still alive. Rochester tells the fact to her, and he is full of regret about it. He tells Jane what he has done and confesses all his past history. Mr. Rochester had tried to conceal that he has a mad wife, because he loves Jane. He is worried that she could not endure the fact and would leave him if he tells her the truth.

Now he exposes his secret to Jane, which also proves his sincere love for Jane. Jane forgives him, but in order not to impair her dignity, she thinks she must leave him. She wants to be his real wife, not his mistress. Although Jane can not get married to Rochester, she still loves him. It is impossible for her to hate him. On the day she runs away, passing the door of Rochester, she can not keep the tears from raining down her face.

When she is away from him, she still feels anxiety about Roches ter. It’s too difficult for her not to miss Rochester. wherever she goes, she remembers him every moment, and she often dream of him :“she was embraced by him, hearing his voice, meeting his eyes, touching his hand and face. She loved him, and was loved by him, spent all her life with him .”That is Jane’s well-remembered love for Rochester! After leaving Rochester’s home, Thornfield Hall, Jane walks and travels without any aim. She lives in hunger and cold. As she roams about whitcross, she is nearly dead because she suffers terrible hardships. St. John helps her and saves her life. St John wants to marry Jane and takes her to India with him. Although he is a little merciful and handsome, he is also very harsh and arbitrary. He considers little of Jane’s be nefit. He does not respect her or give her selfless love. Jane says if she joins St John, she will abandon half herself and if she goes to India, she will go to premature death. Jane insists that true love should be based on equality, mutual understanding and respect. She knows that to marry such a stonehearted person is to become a tool of him to serve God, so she refuses John’s proposal. She hears the voice of Rochester in her mind, then she comes back to look for Rochester. She learns that Thornfield hall has been burnt down, and that Rochester, attempting vainly to save his mad wife from the fire, loses one of his hands, is blind in both eyes, and becomes a crippled man. Now Mr. Rochester is not as rich as he used to, and he is disabled. But Jane loves him more than ever. Jane decides to stay with him and look after him for all of her life. This pair of lovers comes together in the end. But in that society such a marriage is considered uncommon and untraditional.

People may think it’s strange that Jane makes her strong will to be Rochester’s bride. Nobody would like to marry him because he has lost most of his

wealth and is blind. As to Jane, she can marry a man who is much better than Mr .Rochester. Actually, not only in those days but also today, in a pair of lovers or a couple if one of them becomes disabled, maybe the other will leave him or her. But Jane is different,she considers that love is a kind of life; true love is the meeting of hearts and minds of two people. If you really love someone, you must love the bad along with the good. The base and the premise of genuine love are respect and independence between two persons. Jane’s love story is very moving and impresses us deeply. We can’t help showing our admiration for her and are encourag ed by such love. It’s easy to say that I will love you forever, but it’s difficult to do it. Yet in Jane’s genuine selfless love for Rochester, we can see this kind of love and we can see her inner beauty as a female to love. )

3.The equality of social classes between Jane and Rochester

In order to lead a life of independence, Jane works as a governess at Thornfield Hall. She is looked down upon by the rich ladies of the fashionable society, but she never despises herself, she never feels herself inferior. She is satisfied with, and even proud of her honest, independent work. Rochester is attracted to her qualify of mind, courage, independence, and strong personality, and falls in love with her. But it is Jane Eyre who declares her love to Rochester before he makes his sentiment clear to her ,“Do you think ,because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless ?”she cries,“You think wrong. I have as much soul as you, －and full as much heart! And if god had gifted me with some beauty, and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you through the medium of custom, conversation, nor even of mortal flesh:－it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet －equal,－as we are！”Here,“equal” is the word, she loves Rochester just because he regards her as a human being, or more importantly, as an equal. Equality is what she strives for, and in him she finds what she strives for.

Evidently, Charlotte claims equality between men and women through Jane’s

relations with Rochester, However, is it really equal between them? Although Jane is independent on economy as a family tutor, she is dependent on Rochester in spirit. It shows that Jane is not very mature in mind. Without Rochester, her material life can’t be affected, but she can’t part from Rochester in spirit and emotion. She is his intellectual, but not his social, equal. Rochester wins Jane’s heart, beca use she feels they are kindred spirits, and because he is the first person in the novel to offer Jane lasting love and a real home. Rochester is Jane’s social and economic superior and men were widely considered to be naturally superior to women in the Victorian period. When Jane knows Rochester has a mad wife, she decides to leave him because living with Rochester as his mistress would mean the loss of her dignity. Ultimately, she would come back and depend upon Rochester for love. There are no obstacles between them. Even if Rochester has not a mad wife, Jane will only get into marriage with Rochester after she has gained a fortune and a family. She waits until she is not influenced by her own poverty, loneliness, psychological vulnerability, or passion. The most important is that because Rochester has been blinded by the fire and has lost his manor house at the end of the novel, he has become weaker while Jane has grown in strength. Jane claims that they are equals, but in fact the marriage dynamic has tripped in her favor. The social gap has narrowed. Then they are really equal and get married.

4.The equality between men and women

Jane struggles continually to achieve equality and to overcome oppression. In addition to class hierarchy, she must fight against those who believe women to be inferior to men. Three central male figures threaten her desire for equality and dignity: Mr. Brocklehurst, Edward Rochester, and St John Rivers, Each tries to keep Jane in a submissive position, where she is unable to express her own thoughts and feelings. In her quest for independence and self－knowledge, she must escape Brocklehurst, reject St, John and come to Rochester only after ensuring that they may marry as equals. The last condition is met once Jane proves herself able to function, through the time she spends at Moor House, in a community and in a family. She will not depend

solely on Rochester for love and she can be financially independent.

Furthermore, Rochester is bind at the novel’s end and dependent on Jane to be his wife. In Chapter 12, Jane articulates what was for her time a radically feminist philosophy: women are supposed to be very calm generally but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow－minded in their more privileged fellow－creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bays. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex .After experiencing a lot of experience, Jane develops from an angry, rebellious, 10－year－old orphan into a sensitive, artistic, maternal, and independent young woman. Jane rejects marriages to Rochester and St, John because she understands she will have to forfeit her independence in the unions, and marries Rochester only when she has attained the financial independence and self－respect to maintain a marriage of equality.