Charlotte Brontë’s
Jane Eyre
Many Books in One
• Autobiography
• Fairy Tale Plot
• Marriage Plot
• Bildungsroman or Quest Plot
• Gothic/Mystery Plot
Jane Eyre as Autobiography
• 1816-1854
• Parents: Rev. Patrick Brontë + Maria
• Maria (1814), Elizabeth (1815), Charlotte
(1816), Branwell (1817), Emily (1818), Anne
(1820)
Haworth today
Jane Eyre as Autobiography
Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell:
Charlotte Brontë Emily Brontë Anne Brontë
1847
Jane Eyre as Autobiography
Branwell Brontë
Branwell’s painting of Emily, Charlotte, and Anne
Branwell’s painting of Emily
Jane Eyre as Autobiography
Angria
Map of Angria, drawn by Branwell
• Box of soldiers given to Branwell (1826 )
• Imaginary African world with extensive stories:
Glass Town Angria
• Obsession . . . “Farewell to Angria”
Jane Eyre as Autobiography
Reading at the Window Seat:
Bewick's History of British Birds (1804)
Jane Eyre as Autobiography
Education
• Clergy Daughter’s School, Cowan Bridge
• Roe Head School
Lowood School in Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
and the Fairy-Tale Plot
Cinderella--Poor girl with heart
of gold oppressed by wicked
stepmother and stepsisters
gets her chance to meet a
Prince and prove her
superiority, but not without
serious obstacles along the
way.
Jane Eyre
and the Fairy-Tale Plot
Beauty and the Beast?
Bluebeard
“I lingered in the long passage
to which this [staircase from
attic] led, separating the front
and back rooms of the third
story: narrow, low, and dim,
with only one little window at
the far end, and looking, with
its two rows of small black
doors all shut, like a corridor
in some Bluebeard’s castle”
Scene from Bela Bartok’s opera: Bluebeard’s Castle (91 Norton)
Jane as Otherworldly Sprite
• Mrs. Reed (22)
• Rochester (104, passim)
Titania’s Awakening by Charles Sims
“Poor Orphan Child”
Jane Eyre
Romance/
and the
Marriage Plot
“Once upon a time, the end, the rightful end, of
women in novel was social—successful
courtship, marriage—or judgmental of her
sexual and social failure—death.” Rachel DuPlessis
Jane Eyre
and the Bildung Plot
• a.k.a. Quest Plot
• Bildungsroman: growing up story; a novel dealing
with the growth and education of the protagonist
• Typically a male hero, on a journey toward self-
realization/independence
• Often orphaned or presented with other challenges
• e.g., Dickens’ Great Expectations, David Copperfield
Marriage Plot vs. Bildung Plot
Contradictory contemporary views:
19th c. women’s fiction typically ends in the female
protagonist’s setting aside the bildung plot by either
getting married or dying. (Rachel DuPlessis)
19th c. women’s fiction often shows that through marriage,
women and men develop individually by merging of
female and male spheres and gender roles. (Chris R.
Vanden Bossche)
Pride & Prejudice, Emma, Little Women, Wuthering
Heights, Return of the Native, Middlemarch, Mill on the
Floss, etc. (2 heroines already married, die anyway: Anna
Karenina, Madame Bovary)
Jane Eyre
and the Gothic Plot
• “Dark Romanticism”
• Mystery
• Haunted castle or house
• Dreaming and nightmares
Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare, 1781
• Doppelgänger or alter ego
• Physical imprisonment
• Psychological entrapment and helplessness
• Involvement of the supernatural
• Psychology of horror and/or terror
Jane Eyre
and the Gothic Plot
Mystery
Jane Eyre
and the Gothic Plot
The Byronic Hero
Lord Byron by Richard Westall, 1813 Byron in Albanian attire by Thomas Phillips
A.K.A. Villain-Hero: Aristocratic, charming, moody,
solitary, secretive, intelligent, cynical, and emotionally
wounded. Irresistable to women--relationships
destructive.
Jane Eyre
and the Gothic Plot
Byronic heroes
of Brontë sisters
Jane Eyre
and the Gothic Plot
The Distressed Heroine
“Female Gothic”
Female protagonist is pursued
and persecuted by a villainous
patriarchal figure in unfamiliar
settings and terrifying
landscape.
The Mysteries of Udolpho by
Ann Radcliffe
Lady Macbeth by Henry Fuseli 1784
Jane Eyre
and the Gothic Plot
Architecture of the Mind
Gothic heroines
explore their
unknown inner
selves as they
wander through
the mysterious
house
North Lees Hall, c. 1590
The Tragedy of the Brontës
• Branwell--addiction to alcohol and opium
• 1848: Family caught cold/flu leading to 3
deaths
– Branwell and Emily in 1848; Anne in 1849.
• 1854: Charlotte married Rev. A.B. Nicholls
and died same year (pregnant)
Acknowledgements
• Bossche, Chris R. Vanden. “Moving Out: Adolescence.” In A Companion toVictorian Literature and Culture.
Ed. Herbert Tucker. Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 1999. (82-96)
• DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. Writing Beyond the Ending:Narrative Strategies of Twentieth-Century Women Writers.
Blomington: Indiana UP, 1985.
• Gaskell, Elizabeth. Life of Charlotte Bronte, London: Smith, Elder, 1857.
• Glossary of Gothic Terms at Georgia Southern University’s Department of English and Philosophy:
http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/~dougt/goth.html
• Hall, Renee. "The DNA of Fairy Tales: Their Origin and Meaning"
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/general/ge-rhall.htm
Images:
• Angria map and woodcut showing school:
http://www.beepworld.de/members8/desireebouvier/emilybronte.htm
• Bewick’s birds: http://www.sharecom.ca/bewick/vignettes/vignettes.html
• Albanian Byron by Thomas Phillips, 1835: http://englishhistory.net/byron/life.html
• Charlotte Brontë, from the portrait by George Richmond. BBC Hulton Picture Library. Chalk:
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/victorian/topic_2/illustrations/imbronte.htm
• Emily Bronte by Branwell Bronte: http://chnm.gmu.edu/ematters/issue8/lathbury/lathbury_body.htm
• Henry Fuseli paintings: www.artchive.com
Acknowledgements, cont.
• Jane Eyre, 1996 film stills: http://www.angelfire.com/nc/janeeyre/moviepics.html
and http://www.math.utah.edu/~gold/gainsbourg.html
• Lord Byron at age 25 (1813 portrait by Richard Westall):
http://www.csulb.edu/~csnider/brontes.html
• North Lees Hall, photo: http://www.lovetripper.com/issues/issue-35/jane-eyre.html
• Portrait by Branwell Brontë of his sisters, Anne, Emily, and Charlotte (c. 1834):
http://www.csulb.edu/~csnider/brontes.html
• Titania’s Awakening by Charles Sims (1873-1928)
http://www.modjourn.brown.edu/mjp/Image/Sims/Sims.htm
Charlotte Brontë’s
Jane Eyre