Feminism & Postcolonialism in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre Essay

As a vocalization work of a female author who was well ahead of her times, Jane Eyre can safely be regarded as the magnum opus of Charlotte Bronte. A literary career that spanned for a meager six years, it was really incredible as to how Charlotte Bronte could excel so much as a novelist so as to be able to compose down the account of a l integrityly and principled woman who has since been looked up as the very digest of womanhood, let al ane the politic of womens lib. Moreover, elements of postcompoundism and their influence on individual behavior can also be traced in the polarized character sketching of Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason.In contemporaneous literature, gender and postcolonial discourses do not seem to rest just on any stereotypical convention of characterization. Instead, such approaches tend to de-categorize women according to their individual identity. In other(a) words, a female character in todays literature would rather have patchy dispositions, as opposed to having lofty and focused ideals. What makes Jane Eyre a true critique of postcolonial and feminist literature is its engrossment of the antonymous traits of womanhood good and bad, elegance and vileness, civility and impudence within a single narration framework.In the light of this observation, this paper attempts to justify Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre as a fictional illustration of feminism and postcolonialism. To stick protrude the thesis, the paper will look into chapters 26 and 27 a transitory phase in the storyline of Jane Eyre. Most of Charlotte Brontes novels, including Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853), deal with a vivid picture of colonial Europe and muniment how social conventions are shaped and redressed by colonial aggressions. At the end of chapter 26 of Jane Eyre, Mr.Rochester asks Jane to accompany him to France a place not colonized by Great Britain. This shows how the theorys of meta-colonization were imbued in the authors mind season writing the nove l. What it also brings out is how the male protagonists of Bronte, while most of whom have a sardonic and bipolar attitude to romantic relationships, invariably prefer women having a distinct colonial background in secernate to rule out the possibility of a foreign intrusion into their hardnosed Victorian veils.Meyer points out that there is a fusion of postcolonial societal doctrines and racial synthesis in the way Bronte treats her women characters in Emma (1853) and Jane Eyre. This hints at a wave-particle duality of social prejudices regarding how a common European would respond to the color of human skin on one hand, and how it would be treated as a benchmark for social permissibility. The paradigm of postcolonialism is embedded at the warmness of the novel when Mrs.Reed grows an aversion to little Jane on the ground of her ethnic background, alien to the formers own (249). Meyer further discusses the literary tropes Bronte uses in Jane Eyre to signify race relations prevalen t in contemporary English societies. Bronte, according to Meyer, uses the c at oncept of blackness in a figurative way to connect the existing history of British colonization with racial otherness. This psychological practice of attributing otherness to was a leave behind of a colonizers preoccupation with Whiteness.There is a paradigmatic shift from literature to life, however, in the way Bronte pinpoints the presence of both class and race discrimination in the British society. She does this to unmask the ancient impositions that were central to the overall aura of dominance practiced by the British over their colonies. The politics of feminism in Jane Eyre is quite complex in nature, simply because a number of related factors are interlocking in the plot. Quoting Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Meyer argues that Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason represent two distinct leagues of feminism.While Jane is a sober and progressive woman capable of bettering her situation on her own accord, Ber tha Mason is a compulsive character, almost an obstacle character, craft beyond the scope of self-improvement or redemption. Bertha Mason is a representative of the aboriginal race, precariously positioned amidst human and bestial instincts. In dealing with the development of a meaningful character, Bertha Mason is deliberately stark of the very qualities that are bestowed to Jane Eyre. Consequently, Jane grows to be the epitome of womanhood with all her feminine virtues (250). still Meyer does not vex Spivaks argument at face value. She further questions the validity of the claim that Spivak makes about the correlation among feminism and imperialism in Jane Eyre. If imperialism can be cited as a tentative offshoot of postcolonialism, it would be easier to substantiate the thesis. From imperialistic perspectives, Bertha Mason qualifies as a colonial woman who is supposed to have an individualistic entity of her own. But then again she is also portrayed as a native woman, which seems to obfuscate the earlier ascription to imperialism.Going by Meyers argument, it is clear that traits of both imperialism and postcolonialism cannot coexist within a single character, and if it does, one must remain dormant for the other to thrive (250-1). Hence, it is logically better to link patriarchy with colonial dominance, as both have their origins rooted in the nineteenth century British high-bloodedness that had historically been be to be discriminating on gender issues. Rositsa Kronast examines Brontes introduction of the female colonial Other in the context of a male dominated regime.Citing Jane Eyre as her principle reference, along with Jean Rhys Wide sargasso Sea, Kronast shows how the tables can turn with changes in power and hierarchy. It whitethorn be noted, however, that this change may or may not come from internal agents. As is the case with Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason, the change is imposed by the Victorian norms that were inexhaustible puritanical. Conseq uently, Jane, despite being a woman of substance, is pitted against seemingly insolvable situations especially when her love affair with Mr.Rochester comes under serious threat from Bertha Mason. While Jane is drained of her power, Bertha Mason steps in as an empower woman, capable of inflicting great damage at a public level. The reversal of fortune is exclusively executable because the Victorian times in colonial England allowed for total submission of women before male whims. The Victorian concept of womanhood that Jane embodies is based on relative compatibility with men. Women were seen to be playing second fiddles to their gender counterparts in a number of roles from mother to wife (3).What is interesting to note from Kronasts argument is that if Jane is the Other woman, she is at once powerless and empowered. This brings us to the same logical fallacy that has been mentioned earlier in the paper two contradictory traits cannot control a characters life in any way. So t o put matters in the right context, it is reasonable to infer that the Creole woman portrayed by Bertha Mason must crack in to the authors intention of representing the colonized face of womanhood, in order to accommodate for a lofty and ideal feminine role for the individualistic Jane (Staines 42).In essence, reading into the feministic and postcolonial components in Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre brings out the difference between what is intrinsically feminine and what is not. It is basically a novel based on new concepts of feminism. Janes personality exudes a rich ardor of feminine grace and beauty. Postcolonialism, on the other hand, is only introduced for putting the concept of feminism into perspective. Therefore, Jane and Bertha continue to hold their respective positions of significance, with the latter playing the role of a borderline character.Works Cited Kronast, Rositsa. The Creole Woman and the Problem of Agency in Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre and Jean Rhyss Wide Sargass o Sea. Munich GRIN Verlag, 2010. Meyer, Susan L. Colonialism and the Figurative Strategy of Jane Eyre. Victorian Studies. Bloomington, Indiana Indiana University Press, 1990. Staines, David. Margaret Laurence diminutive reflections. Ottawa, Ontario University of Ottawa Press, 2001.