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The Depiction of Orphans As a Threat in Victorian Novel: Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and Great Expectations Zehra GÖREN

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The Depiction of Orphans As a Threat in Victorian Novel: Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and Great Expectations Zehra GÖREN İstanbul Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatları Anabilim Dalı İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı Bilim Dalı Yüksek Lisans Tezi The Depiction of Orphans as a Threat in Victorian Novel: Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and Great Expectations Zehra GÖREN 2402313808 Tez Danışmanı: Yard. Doç. Dr. Canan ŞAVKAY İstanbul, 2010 Viktorya Dönemi Romanında Yetim Karakterlerin Tehdit Unsuru Olarak Betimlenmesi: Uğultulu Tepeler, Jane Eyre, ve Büyük Umutlar Zehra GÖREN ÖZ Bu çalışma, yetim karakterler üzerine odaklanan üç Viktorya dönemi romanının – Emily Brontë’nin Uğultulu Tepeler, Charlotte Brontë’nin Jane Eyre, ve Charles Dickens’ın Büyük Umutlar adlı romanlarının – analizinden oluşmaktadır. Yetim çocuklar gerçek hayatta kolayca incinebilmelerine rağmen, bu romanlarda ataerkil tolpumun geleneksel değerlerini tehdit eden bir karaktere sahip olarak betimlenmişlerdir ve bu da onların Viktorya döneminde orta ve üst sınıfları tehdit eden işçi sınıfıyla özdeşleştirilmelerine yol açmıştır. Toplumda kendine bir yer edinmeye çalışan yetim figürünün bu arayışı, işçi sınıfının üst sınıfları devirmeye çalışmasıyla paralellik gösterir. Otoriteye meydan okumanın yarattığı korku ve yetim figürünün bastırılmış öfkesi bu romanlardaki Gotik unsurlar aracılığıyla ifade edilmiştir. Romanlarda simgesel bir tehlike olarak görülmesine rağmen, aslında korumasız bir birey olan yetim karakter, toplumun çürümüşlüğünü ve acımasızlığını ortaya koymayı amaçlayan yazarlar için bir araç olmuştur. Yetim figürü, zor kullanan, ahlak değerleri çökmüş ve zalim olan toplum tarafından dışlanmış ve mağdur edilmiştir. Sonuçta da dışlanan ve baskı altında tutulmaya çalışılan yetim karakter hem onu ezenlerden öcünü almış hem de kişilik gelişimini tamamlayarak en sonunda toplumda kendine bir rol ve yer edinmiştir. iii The Depiction of Orphans as a Threat in Victorian Novel: Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and Great Expectations Zehra GÖREN ABSTRACT This study consists of an analysis of the three Victorian novels – Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations – that centre on the figure of the orphan, who is a vulnerable being in reality. The orphan figure in these novels is depicted as a threat to the conventional values of patriarchal society, which also makes him or her a symbol of the working class people, who pose a threat to the middle and upper classes. In his or her search for a place in society, the orphan figure parallels the attempt of the lower classes of overpowering middle and upper classes. The fear invoked by his or her potential of challenging authority and the repressed anger of the orphan are expressed through Gothic elements. The novelists who are also bent on revealing society’s corruption and cruelty employ the figure of the orphan, who, in fact, is an unprotected individual although he or she is symbolically regarded as dangerous in fiction. The orphan figure is excluded and victimized by society, which is violent, corrupt and cruel. As a result, the excluded and repressed orphan not only takes his or her revenge on his or her oppressors but also completes the formation of his or her self and eventually finds a role and place in society. iv PREFACE This study aims to explore the reasons why the orphan figure in Victorian fiction is portrayed as a threat to social conventions and old-established beliefs, and what this comes to represent. The painstaking process of writing a thesis from abroad has been made much easier for me thanks to the invaluable help and guidance I received from my thesis supervisor Assist. Prof Dr. Canan Şavkay. I am greatly indebted to her for her expertise, understanding and patience. I would also like to thank Prof. Esra Melikoğlu, who has been of great importance during my undergraduate and graduate academic life. Words will not be enough to express my gratitude to my dear friend and colleague Özlem Boyd, for her encouragement, support and valuable comments throughout the process of writing this thesis. I owe special thanks to my dear friend Şafak Gündüz for her usual support. Last but not least, I reserve my deepest thanks to my mother, father and sisters for their constant love, support and encouragement. v CONTENTS Öz …………………………………………………………….. iii Abstract …………………………………………………………….. iv Preface …………………………………………………………….. v Contents …………………………………………………………….. vi Abbreviations …………………………………………………………….. vii Chapter I: Introduction …………………………..………………….. 1 Chapter II: Wuthering Heights …..……………….……………….. 14 Chapter III: Jane Eyre ……………………………………………….. 35 Chapter IV: Great Expectations …………..……………………….. 56 Chapter V: Conclusion ……………………………………………….. 74 Bibliography …………………………………………………………….. 81 vi ABBREVIATIONS WH: Wuthering Heights JE: Jane Eyre GE: Great Expectations vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Victorian literature is full of orphans, who also filled the streets in real life. There are a number of reasons for the popularity of the orphan in Victorian novels and these can be categorized under two groups. On the one hand, the orphan figure is employed in order to reveal the corruption of society as shown by the abuse of the orphan in novels. There is a great sentiment and sympathy in Victorian novels for the homeless, abandoned and orphaned children, who are in fact vulnerable to the corruption of society. Victorians, who were orphaned of their traditional values due to social and industrial changes, were interested in the figure of the orphan in fiction to understand their origins and to explore the formation of the individual‘s identity. While showing the process of the orphan‘s self formation, Victorian novelists exposed the cruelty of society to orphans through their maltreatment and abuse at the hands of Victorian society. On the other hand, the orphan figure is depicted in novels as a threat to society‘s values and conventions. Orphans physically remind society of its debt, i.e. society‘s unfulfilled duty to protect orphan children. As society is supposed to take over the role of the parent, orphans represent the failed responsibility of society. Hence, they stir people‘s conscience and therefore represent what society has to repress in order to see itself as good. This disturbing position of the orphan brings about his or her association with the working class, which the middle and upper classes were trying to repress. The subordinate position of the working class to the middle and upper classes parallels that of the orphan in relation to society itself. Hence, both the orphan and the working classes disturb the society‘s conscience by embodying those responsibilities it has failed to fulfil, which results in the orphan‘s depiction in fiction as a threatening figure, needing to be repressed. Also, such children do not have a role or place in the Victorian family ideal or the concept of domesticity and thus they are portrayed in fiction as dark characters with destructive powers. In the Victorian novel, orphans ―posed a threat‖ to the Victorian notion of the family because they had no families, being ―displaced‖ as ―outsiders‖, who did not belong to any place. For the Victorians, the orphan figure represented, at worst, dangerously liberated ―pure selfhood, i.e. the orphan had nothing but his or her self; 1 no social identity, no property, no defined role or no past to fall back on in his or her struggle for survival‖ (Auerbach, 1975: 404). The Victorian imagination hence associated orphans with other outsiders, ―[g]ypsies, criminals, and colonized subjects, none of whom were thought to be properly rooted within English society‖ (Cunningham, 2003: 737-738). Heathcliff, the protagonist of Emily Brontë‘s Wuthering Heights (1847), is an orphan who is constantly associated with gypsies; Bertha Mason in Charlotte Brontë‘s Jane Eyre (1847) is Edward Rochester‘s wife from the West Indies and she is also depicted as Jane‘s dark double; and Abel Magwitch in Charles Dickens‘s Great Expectations (1861), who is portrayed as Pip‘s surrogate father, is a convict. Bereft of a familial or social identity, property, and especially a defined role, all of which are qualities essential for being acknowledged as a respectable member of Victorian society, the orphan cannot be integrated into the system, and turns into lawless energy that is out to overthrow this very system. In Victorian age, family background and descent from a preferably wealthy family were very important for the individual to be acknowledged as a respectable member of society, which made the orphan‘s position in society uncertain, and thus identified him or her as an anarchic element bent on undermining the status quo. The Victorians‘ love of orphan children in literature can be partly explained by the similar situation they found themselves in, namely the rapidly changing ideas and industrial developments which caused the Victorians to feel as if they had been orphaned of the strong traditional values they clung to: Industrialism, religious conflict, and scientific discoveries had orphaned the Victorian age of its sense of its own past; the other side of the orphan‘s freedom was his fear, his need of guidance in a world without maps. (Auerbach, 1975: 410) As well as feeling orphaned of their values, the Victorians had become concerned about their origins after Charles Darwin‘s theories on the evolution of mankind began to circulate ―from the 1840s onwards‖ shaking people‘s beliefs about their origins. His ideas influenced man‘s view of himself as the centre of all God‘s creation. Darwin‘s theory changed ―the
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