Jessica Haber
Due: January 29, 2001
English 9-Mr. O’Toole
In Charlotte
Bronte’s Jane Eyre Bertha Mason and Jane Eyre share various attributes
in their characters: passion, restlessness, and a will to follow their
nature. Later in the novel Jane sees
Bertha’s burning passionate nature and it warns her that she will only become
the maniac that Bertha has if she follows her passion and her temptation for
her one love Mr. Rochester. In this way,
Bertha and Jane serve as doubles for one another how are described with passion
and fire, how their moods are reflected through nature, and how Bertha serves
as a warning for what Jane’s passion, like Bertha’s own, could become.
Throughout the
book Jane is described even from when she was young girl as “such a picture of
passion” (p.12). Being passionate in the
Victorian Era was associated with not being pleasant and useful, these
attributes were looked for to be married which was the ultimate goal of any
Victorian woman. But Jane was trying to escape the typical Victorian women’s
life, which is why she did not conceal her passion. “I have seen what a fire-spirit you can be
when you are indignant. You glowed in
the cool moonlight last night.” (p.392), Rochester describes her. Her passion for Rochester is so strong that
it takes over her mind and makes her go insane as she says, “‘I am
insane--quite insane’ with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster
than I can count its throbs.” (p.475)
This passion made her become “more restless than ever…I could not sit
still, nor even remain in the house…”(p.414)
Jane’s fiery passion led her to insanity of which she could not. It was
her nature of which she says should not be kept all bottled up inside a women,
“they need to exercise for their faculties, and field for their efforts as much
as their brother’s do.” (p.115) So Jane exercised her passionate nature for
everyone to notice.
Alike to Jane,
Bertha has a passionate nature too. At
Jane’s first sight her appearance was described as “the fiery eye glared upon
me-she thrust up her candle close to my face…I was aware of her lurid visage
flamed over mine…”(p.425) Bertha is described with the same fire as Jane
is. Bertha’s passion has affected her in
worse ways than Jane’s has. Bertha’s
passion leads her to such insanity that she has fits and tantrums like when she
bit her brother, Mason. Rochester
describes Bertha: “on all fours, it snatched and growled like some strange wild
animal…”(p.425), “a fanatic with burning eternity” (p.461). She is a maniac because she cannot control
her fitful passion like Jane refuses keep her passion inside of her. Their natures are full of passion and fire, which
they allow the whole world to see flaming.
Nature reflects
Jane and Bertha’s moods. Because they reveal their own nature it is reflected
through the nature in the settings of the novel, unlike any of the other women
in the book. When Jane is overcome with
happiness the day after Rochester confesses his love for her the weather is
depicted as “A brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the
night…Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy.”(p.384) This also occurs when Jane’s feeling of
passion for Rochester takes over her actions making her very restless, her passion
is described by the nature around her, “loud as the wind blew, near and deep as
the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightening gleamed,
cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours’ duration.”(p.383). As Jane’s passion was described with fierce
thunder and rain so is Bertha’s. As
Rochester discovers Bertha’s passion is leading her to madness “the storm
broke, streamed, thundered, blazed…”(p.462).
Both of their passions through nature depicted as fierce and
damaging. Though both natures described
in this way Jane doesn’t become mad and violent as Bertha does, she sees
herself in Bertha and knows she must leave what has been giving her this fiery
passion, her love Mr. Rochester.
Bertha’s madness
serves as a warning for Jane’s developing passion. Jane says, “I could not help it: the
restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.”(p.114) As it was in both of their natures, but Jane
knew she must resist the temptations of her passion before she became insane as
Bertha was. “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 efforts as much as their brothers do…
and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that
they out to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to
playing on the piano and embroidering bags.
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. When thus alone I not infrequently heard
Grace Poole’s laugh, the same peal, the same low, slow ha! ha!” (p.115) Grace Poole’s laugh though, was not really
Grace Poole. Jane was told it was Grace
Poole’s to hide Bertha’s identity so it was really Bertha who laughed after
this description of the role of women.
They should be able to experience what men experience: freedom. In several instances as well as this, Bertha
would laugh as a reminder of how this passionate nature drove her to
madness. The laugh symbolized a warning
for Jane to escape this passion of temptation that is taking over her mind
leading her to what could be Bertha’s state.
Bertha
also serves as a warning to Jane a few nights before her wedding day. Jane was dreaming one night, “the rain pelted
me, I was burdened with the charge of a little child, a very small creature,
too young and feeble to walk, and which shivered cold in my arms and wailed
piteously in my ear.” (p.421) The child
symbolizes the fitful passion that Jane had when she was a child that caused
her to have tantrums as she had in the red room of Gateshed and as Bertha has
locked up in her room. That same passion
was developing now which is why it was making her go “insane” as she said. At the moment the dream ended Jane woke up to
Bertha, “it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it into two parts, and
flinging both on the floor trampled on them.”(p.442). Bertha ripping the veil into two was a warning
that Jane’s fitful passion from when she was a young girl that was reoccurring
now could result in Bertha’s fitful passion as a woman. This reminded Jane to resist the temptations
of her passion and not to be Rochester’s mistress when she couldn’t be his wife
because of Bertha whom ashamed as he was, he was married to. In Bertha Jane saw what could become of her
so she strongly resisted what she wanted the most.
If
Jane and Bertha weren’t doubles of one another then Jane would not have seen
herself in Bertha and the consequence of her passion’s temptations. This would result in madness of Jane and would not make Jane the
hero that forced herself out of the typical role of women in the Victorian Era. Jane found her passionate nature in Bertha
and used Bertha as a warning of what may have become of her. Jane refused to conceal her passion and
refused for it to make her a victim.
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