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The Influence of Imperialist Ideology on the Dichotomy of Passion and Reason in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

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The Influence of Imperialist Ideology on the Dichotomy of Passion and Reason in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarsArchive@OSU Rhonda Dietrich for the degree of Master of Arts in English presented on August 1. 2000. Title: The Influence of Imperialist Ideology on the Dichotomy of Passion and Reason in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Redacted for Privacy Abstract approval: Laura Rice A prevalent belief during the Victorian age was that the world was divided between inferior beings governed by passion and superior reasoning beings. On the political level, this idea separated inferior passion-driven natives from superior reasoning Europeans. This division contributed to the maintenance and expansion of imperialist rule in distant lands, for it suggested that Europeans had a duty to civilize primitive natives. This view of the binary opposition between the passionate and the rational operated on a cultural level in that women were believed to be dominated by emotions unlike their male counterparts, who were seen as superior to women because of their self-control and rationality. As a result of this view, women were believed to be in need of the mental and physical regulation of doctors and psychiatrists in particular and men in general. Charlotte Bronte'sJane Eyrereflects her society's belief in the dichotomy between the inferior passionate being and the superior reasoning being on both the political and cultural levels. In her portrayal of Bertha Mason, the mad Creole woman, Bronte shows the passionate Bertha to be inferior to the articulate Jane and the self- controlled Mr. Rochester. Through the relationship between Rochester and Bertha, Bronte also points to the need for the rational European to govern the unruly passionate "other." On the cultural level, Bronte highlights and challenges the Victorian idea that due to their emotional nature women ought to be confmed to domestic life, through her depiction of Jane Eyre's struggle to ease the societal restrictions placed on women. Bronte also refutes the notion that women are in need of men's domination through Jane's fight against attempts by St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester to control her. Bronte extends the theme of passion versus reason to a personal level through Jane's struggle to govern her emotions through reason when she finds that she must leave Rochester. Hence,Jane Eyrereveals the prevalence of this imperialist notion of the need for domination in Victorian society as well as Bronte's ambivalence toward it. he Dichotomy of Passion and Reason in e's Jane Eyre ietrich :sis ed to University iliment of ents for the of )f Arts ust 1, 2000 it June 2001 Master of Arts thesis of Rhonda Dietrich presented on August 1. 2000 APPROVED: Redacted for Privacy Major Professor, representing English Redacted for Privacy Chair of Department of English Redacted for Privacy Dean of I understand that my thesis will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon State University libraries. My signature below authorizes release of my thesis to any reader upon request. Redacted for Privacy Rhonda Dietrich. Author ACKNOWLEI)GEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Laura Rice for her commitment to my thesis. Her guidance, encouragement, and infinite patience have been invaluable to the completion this work. I would also like to thank Dr. Peter Copek and Dr. Robert Frank for their valuable suggestions and for sacrificing their time in order to assist me in my project. To Dr. Ajoy Velayudhan, who graciously agreed to read my thesis and to be a neutral party in my committee, I would also like to say thank you. Special thanks to Lynne Wylie without whose encouragement, support, and tireless help this thesis would not have reached its fmal form. Thanks also to Richard Anderson who patiently listened in my times of frustration. He also believed in me and helped me tobelieve in myself. To my mother and sister, who encouraged me and shared in my little triumphsalong the way, I would also like to say thank you. Lastly, I would like to thank God forleading me to Oregon State University and for giving me the strengthand courage to complete this project. I would also like to thank Him for leading me to kind people, who were generous with their time, support, and knowledge. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 The Influence of Imperialist Ideology on Charlotte Bronte's Representation of Bertha Mason ............................................................... 34 Chapter 3 The Imperialist Woman as Passionate Other in Victorian Society ............................................................................................. 65 Chapter 4 Jane Eyre: The Inner World of Imperialism ................................................... 96 Chapter 5 Conclusion ....................................................................................... J 28 Bibliography .................................................................................... 135 The Influence of Imperialist ideology on the Dichotomy of Passion and Reason in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre 1. Introduction The novelJane Evre,written by Charlotte Bronte and published in 1847, chronicles the life of Jane from the age often until her marriage to Edward Rochester approximately eighteen years later. Narrated by the heroine from her memory of events, the story begins with a depiction of Jane as a passionate child, who angrily calls her tyrannical cousin, John Reed, "a murderer...[and] a slave- driver" (1996, 17). As her narrative continues, she leaves the Reeds' home to go to Lowood Charity School, where she learns, from her friend Helen Bums, to answer unfair treatment with submissive silence rather than wild outbursts, characteristic of "heathens and savage tribes" (68) in non-Christian lands. At the end of Jane's sojourn there as a student and later a teacher, we see that Jane has made great strides in her struggle to overcome her passionate nature, for she tells her readers that she had "what seemed better regulated feelings" (98). Her arrival at Thornfield, where she takes ajob as a governess, proves to be the main battlefield in her fight to rule her passions through reason, for it is there that she falls in love with her employer Edward Rochester, who is forced to admit to her on their wedding day that he is already married to, Bertha Mason, a mad Creole woman. Because of this, Jane is faced with the decision to run away with him (which is the advice of her passion)or flee temptation and live without love, the edict of her reason. This intense battle in which "conscience [another name for reason] turned tyrant [and] held passion by the throat"(335)takes place in Jane's mind after Rochester's confession, and she decides to leave him. However, her submission to the voice of reason is rewardeda year later, when she returns to find the violent Bertha has killed herself in an attempt to destroy Rochester. Her death allows Jane and Rochester to marry, a happy ending to Jane's embattled life. Clearly, Bronte's depiction of Jane's story creates a dichotomy between passion and reason. However, as I will argue, this opposition does not only exist for Jane: through her portrayal of this conflict, Bronte reveals her conviction that passion must be ruled by reason. The battle between these two forcescan be seen on three levels in the novel: the political level, in which white Europeans govern the darkraces, the cultural level, characterized by the European male's domination of the European female, and the personal level, manifested in the European's struggle toovercome emotionalism associated with natives. The rational Mr. Rochester's domination of the passionate Bertha represents the global aspect of the struggle between emotionality and rationality.' Their relationship isa microcosm of the imperial relationship between colonizing countries and the colonized ones, shaped by imperialist ideology regarding the nature of the "other." Therefore, when Bronte shows Bertha's need for domination by depicting her as having no way of caring for herself due to her madness, Bronte is reinforced by "ethnography...linguistics, racial theory, [and] historical classification" (Edward Said 1993, 108). Sh is also reinforced by the accounts of missionaries who return to Europe from far off countries describing the natives as being completely depraved. Her portrayal of Rochester as the long-suffering husband who does all hecan to care for his mad wife also falls in with imperialist ideology, for it alludes to what Abdul JanMohamed calls the colonizers' perceived mission to "civilize the rest of the world" (1983, 3). The cultural conflict which Rochester's relationship to both Bertha and Jane represent is the Victorian notion that men, who were assumed to be reasoning beings, had the right and the duty to govern women, for just as the passionate native required domination, Victorian women, who were thought to have an "animal or uncontrolled nature" (Shuttleworth 1996, 334), needed to be "externally regulated and controlled" (97-98). This constitutes domestic colonization where the colonizer is no longer merely the European but is now the white male. Rochester plays this part with Bertha by confining her to the third floor room at Thomfield, while he dominates Jane by seeking to show his ownership of her, after their betrothal, by adorning her with jewels and dresses that are to his liking but strip her of her own identity. She expresses her discomfort with what she perceives as his attempts to change her into his showpiece, when she states, "I never can bear being dressed up like a doll by Mr. Rochester" (Bronte 301). Jane sees these ornaments as strings that turn her into his puppet, taking away her independence. Finally, the psychological struggle between Jane's rationality and her propensity toward passion represents colonialism on a personal level. If she is to be an acceptable English woman, she is forced to dominate her own emotions just as a European would rule over a native or a husband would govern his wife.
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