Eric Emer 21L.

007 04/07/11

Cleyre

The parallels between Jane Eyre and Clare Savage in a No Telephone to Heaven are powerful. While she is in London, Clare reads the novel Jane Eyre, and the parallels between Clare, Jane, and Bertha Mason become apparent. Through her employment of parallels, Cliff argues that Clare Savages character can be broken down into a combination of Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason. These two characters are feminist projections of Brontes social philosophy. Although No Telephone to Heaven is not necessarily a feminist book at its core, these characters are meant to be representations of aspects of Clares characterization. Bertha and Jane serve to magnify the strength and will of Clares constantly mutating character. Cliff argues that Clares behavior mimics an amalgamation of the characters Jane and Bertha. Whom had she awaited? Who was there in the world to seek her out in this room? No one. Not really. Unless it was the woman on the tube. A reasonable possibility presented itself in her mind. She grabbed it. (Cliff 115). The taxicab incident displays Clares solitary lifestyle. Clare hopes that an arbitrary stranger she met on the tube will seek her out at her apartment, so that Clare will have some company. Clare asks herself a question, which is the first sign that she is beginning to question her full sanity. Clare almost takes hold of the realization that she is losing her mind to her extreme solitude.

The final idea, that she pounces on a low probability idea, indicates her loss of rational thought. The narrator speaks from an omniscient point of view, and yet she is speaking directly through Clare, with her thoughts. The writing here is done in the form of stream of consciousness. The stream of consciousness continues, with the narrator abruptly pointing out through Clares stream of consciousness, Clare fled. (Cliff 115) The idea of her flight is actually referring to her mind abandoning the satisfying idea that the stranger is the woman on the tube. Poignantly, when Clare opens Jane Eyre, the first line reads, My daughter, flee temptation. (Cliff 115) Clares temptation was to latch onto the ridiculous false idea that she was actually being visited. The temptation is essentially to let her imagination overpower her. Clare barely escapes this temptation and leads herself to discuss the rationale as to why the idea is impossible. Not coincidentally, the taxicab idea is juxtaposed with Clares reading of Jane Eyre. This idea of Clares, a portrayal of her solitude, presents a possible temporary loss of sanity. Thus, Cliff intends to present Clares increasing likeness to Bertha. That is to say, her power is converted to from a Jane-like power of morality, to a deranged tendency like Bertha Mason. The narrator descends into a scrupulous and meaningful comparison of Clare and the book she is reading:
No, she told herself. No, she could not be Jane. Small and pale. English. No, she paused. No, my girl, try Bertha. Wild-maned Bertha. Clare thought of her father. Forever after her to train her hair. His visions of orderly pageboy. Coming home from work with something called Tame. She refused it; he called her Medusa. Do you intend to turn men to stone daughter? She held to her curls. Which turned kinks in the damp of London. Beloved racial characteristic. Her only sign, except for the dark spaces here and there

where melanin touched her. Yes, Bertha was closer the mark. Captive. Ragut. Mixture. Confused. Jamaican. Caliban. Carib. Cannibal. Cimarron. All Bertha. All Clare.

Jane Eyres character evolves as a result of her solitude. Her circumstances convert her into an extremely independent woman, ahead of her time. Clare strives to replicate this independent, self-reliant persona, but she actually discovers that she, like all people, has an innate need to identify with others, and that it is necessary to keep her sane. Clare has a vision of her mother speaking to her. This is identical to how Jane hears voices. As the parallels become evident to Clare, she chooses to identify herself with Bertha, rather than Jane. The monepic quotation describing the similarities between Bertha and Clare iterates just how much they share in common. The single-word, intermittent, period-divided structure of the list purveys Clares confused, increasingly deranged state. As Clare festers in her solitude, she exacerbates the ways in which her character mimics Bertha. Clares hair has a symbolism about it. Her hair serves as her primary connection to her culture. She has the option of abandoning this affiliation to her roots, but she chooses to maintain it by retaining her curls. Clares appearance may be predominantly white, but her hair is exclusively Afro-creole. Her fathers words indicate a similarity Clare has to Bertha, who is deemed unfavorable by men such as Rochester. In its natural state, her father believes her hair will make her dislikable to men, but Clare does not care because, like Jane and Bertha, she strives to be independent of the male-dominated social hierarchy. No matter how far Clare travels from her Jamaican homeland, her heritage remains with her not only internally, but also externally through her hair. The product her father gives her is called Tame. This indulges the reader to draw the connection to Bertha, refusing to tame herself and being animalistic. The word wild-maned, to describe Bertha, makes the reader aware of Berthas animalistic nature, even if the reader

has not read Jane Eyre. The comparison is scrupulous because some of the labels Clare uses for comparison are exceptionally rare and exact. Clare describes herself and Bertha as captives. This is obviously true of Bertha, who is locked in Rochesters attic. However, Clare is only a figurative captive. She feels like a captive in her isolation, but really she has the power to exit this state at any time. Clare cannot yet be Jane Eyre, because Jane feels empowered and free, whereas Clare apparently does not. However, Clares captivity is also present in her identity crisis. She is a captive of her two multiple identities, unable to ever choose to be only one. The description of ragut is very specific and unusual. She likens herself and Bertha to the idea of a hodgepodge, mixed soup. This peculiar, but fresh description is accurate. The recipe of a ragut is fairly vague. It is just a mix of vegetables and possibly other ingredients in a soup. Clare and Bertha can both be broken down into many elements. Like a ragut, Clare is, in essence, slow-cooked. It takes a long time for all her ingredients and elements to manifest themselves into a delicate and mature mixture. Bertha similarly develops at a slow but steady rate. As she is locked up in the attic she becomes psychotic. The ideas of caliban, carib, and cannibal, are all contain the same meaning, cannibal. Though Clare is obviously not a cannibal, her ancestors were, and she allows this to define her. Nor is Bertha a cannibal. However, both characters personalities feed off of their enemies. Bertha allows Rochesters opinions of her to feed her characterization. Likewise, Clare allows her personality to feed off of her English surroundings, which disdain Jamaican culture. This causes Clare to feel isolated and separate from the society, much like Bertha. Bertha is the human portrait of Clares inner-anguish. While Bertha is very clear about her rage and fury against society and expresses it with violence, Clare keeps hers

maintained for the most part. It is not until the end of the book that Clare takes up violence to express her disagreement with society. The parallels between Clare and Bertha show how Clare envisions herself as the madwoman Bertha Mason. Clare is extremely intelligent, and this comparison indicates that her idiosyncrasies can be attributed to her intelligence. However, her idiosyncrasies are really derived from her unique background and experiences. Clare is an individual who forges her own path, and although she identifies herself with Bertha, she is more of a mixture between Jane Eyre and Bertha. She may identify culturally with Bertha, but she is also strongly Jane. Clare comments, Yes, the parallels were there. Was she not heroic Jane? Betrayed. Left to wander. Solitary. Motherless. Yes, and with no relations to speak of except an uncle across the water. She occupied her mind. (Cliff 116) Clearly Clare is in a pessimistic mood during this stream of consciousness. In the Bertha comparison mentioned previously, Clare expresses all the ways in which she compares to the pitiful, monstrous Bertha. In this description, Clare omits all the positive qualities about Jane Eyre (some of which relate to Bertha as well) that she also shares: Janes independence, self-reliance, resilience, and intelligence. Clares pessimistic nature at this point in the novel causes her to omit these important traits. However, Cliff makes it so that the reader draws these conclusions without direct mention of them. Clare omits these positive qualities because she is even more like Jane. She does not pause and applaud herself for her accomplishments. Rather, she focuses on maintaining her freedom, independence and pursuing the quest for knowledge. In conclusion, the parallels between the characters Jane Eyre and Clare Savage expand the idea of Clares character. The readers confusion about Clares identity is

clarified with the connection to Jane Eyre and Bertha. Clare is an aggregate of the characters of Brontes novel. Clares actions throughout the book remind the reader of a strong, individualist, feminist character. Clares embodies this concept fully, and as she grows, her character evolves similarly to how Jane would. Cliff exposes the forms of Clares character to its fullest extent. Clare is a dynamic character, who, like Jane and to an extent, Bertha, drives her own destiny.