Quest for Identity: Power and Agency in J ane Eyre

Erin Terrall, Yahoo Contributor Network

May 12, 2008 "Share your voice on Yahoo websites. Start Here."
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One of the most constant themes in Charlotte Bronte's classic novel, Jane Eyre, is that of personal power.
Throughout the novel, the title character is locked in a struggle to find her place in the world, and establish
herself as an empowered person. This conflict is enhanced by Jane's social standing, family situation and
gender. Against many odds, she manages to establish her identity and breaks free multiple times from
disempowering circumstances. Feminist scholar Sandra M. Gilbert discusses Bronte's heroine and her narrative
in depth in her essay "Plain Jane's Progress," examining the nature of power within the novel, and the
importance of gender to the story. Gilbert particularly focuses on the power struggle between the characters of
Jane and Rochester, the enigmatic man who employs Jane as a governess for his illegitimate daughter, and who
eventually becomes her husband. She also discusses the other female characters within the book, and how they
reflect and affect Jane's need for empowerment throughout the story.
A central theme Gilbert emphasizes is that of Jane's "pilgrimage" - her life voyage from "one significantly
named place to another" (Gilbert 477). She focuses these discussions on examining Jane's role as a woman in
Victorian England - a decidedly patriarchal society where women's position was considered almost exclusively
domestic. Through examination of this article, and of the text of Jane Eyre, the nature of the protagonist's
"pilgrimage" becomes apparent as a quest for identity. She manages to slowly gain personal power as her life
goes on, and she shows an uncanny ability to use whatever power she has in order to overcome the next
obstacle in her voyage. Another theme that Gilbert works with is that of escape. Throughout the novel, Jane
escapes time after time from oppressive circumstances, only to end up in another position of disempowerment.
Specifically, her experiences at Thornfield and the events that follow are the most crucial in Jane's pilgrimage.
Eventually, Jane manages to find a place where she belongs with Rochester, where she becomes his wife,
caretaker, and social equal. Jane Eyre becomes a boundary breaking character who manages to transcend class
and gender stereotypes through her resilience and strength of character. She is a symbol of the struggle of
working-class women, and her pilgrimage exemplifies the difficult obstacles that must be overcome in order for
gender and class equality to become a reality. In essence, Jane's discovery of her personal identity in the world
correlates to the identity of an entire oppressed group.
Jane's journey begins in her childhood, as the orphaned ward of her aunt. From the very beginning of her tale,
she is a disempowered character, a Cinderella figure in a hostile environment. Bronte establishes the
disempowered child of Jane within the first few pages, with the narration the child uses to describe her
situation. "...dreaded to me was the coming home, ... humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to
Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed [her cousins]" (Bronte 20). These sentiments that seem to be present in Jane
likely do not stem from actual physical inferiority, but rather a psychological mentality of her situation. Like
any oppressed character, the impressionable young Jane assumes the stereotypes and insults directed at her are
true, and develops the idea that she is inferior in every way to her cousins. As a pariah in the only house that
will have anything to do with her, Jane has very few options to find empowerment. She must find an escape
wherever she can, and before she can truly escape physically, she must escape mentally. The first glimpse of
Jane's resourcefulness and mental escape comes from one of her first activities in the novel. She escapes from
her powerless post in the hostile household temporarily through a book - a rather mundane book at that - as she
retreats to a solitary window-seat, burying herself in A History of British Birds. Through the images and quotes
contained therein, Jane manages to acquire the only kind of power she has access to - knowledge. Her quest for
identity and power has begun, and the symbol of the working-class orphan woman has begun to discover - from
a young age - how she can begin her journey to find her place as a social equal.
Over the course of Jane's life in the Reed household, a decidedly patriarchal household in a decidedly
patriarchal society, there is a striking absence of the controlling male figure that signifies the ruler. In fact,
there is only one male in the house with any real power. This character is Jane's fourteen-year-old cousin, John
Reed, who abuses her verbally and physically on a regular basis. Without the presence of a strong male figure,
the need for control falls to John Reed, and through John's actions On one occasion, Jane retaliates in self-
defense, and then is punished for the whole affair by her aunt. She is placed in the Red Room, In this case, the
struggle Jane must endure is not one of gender, but one of class. With the absence of the late Mr. Reed (Jane's
biological uncle), Despite the punishment, she has gained power through her resistance to her abuse, as well as
through reading. Her character has begun to form as a steadfast young woman who knows when she has been
wronged, one who is not afraid to strike back.
While the struggles Jane endures in relation to her gender are certainly poignant and important to examine,
Gilbert seems to overlook the class struggles that are equally present. When Jane enters into her position at
Thornfield, she is still in the presence of serving-class women for the most part. However, there has been a
shift. As Gilbert points out: "Many of Jane's problems ... can be traced to her ambiguous status as governess at
Thornfield" (483). Jane has transcended another barrier at her new post, moving from a working-class orphan
bringing herself closer to a higher social position, but she is still "ambiguous," blurring the lines between
classes. As with every person, Jane's identity is moulded and (at least somewhat) determined by the people that
surround her, especially within her adolescence. Strikingly, nearly all of the important characters in Jane's life
seem to be female (with a few powerful exceptions). As a result of this, her most viable option as a woman of
discovering how to behave herself is to observe and learn from the women that surround her. Rather than doing
as the others do, she simply figures out what not to do from them. "...
As a counterpoint to Jane's representation of working-class women in her society, it makes sense that
Rochester - the most prominent male figure in the novel, represents the upper-class male that truly oppresses
Jane and her kind. The development of Rochester's character is second only to the development of Jane's
character. Interestingly, the first encounter between the two characters seems to be symbolic itself. While in the
woods surrounding Thornfield, Jane first encounters Rochester, where he has fallen from his horse and injured
himself. This could be interpreted almost as a slightly ironic and powerful metaphor about class. The upper-
class man has fallen from his "high horse" (so to speak), and cannot function without the working-class woman.
Not only does this meeting foreshadow the ending of the book, but it sets in motion the relationship between
Rochester and Jane to be unconventional.
One of the most prominent points within "Plain Jane's Progress" relates the character of Jane with that of
Bertha, Rochester's crazed first wife who lives in secret in the attic of Thornfield. Gilbert argues that Bertha is
the embodiment of Jane's darker side, the wild and violent aspects of Jane's character that would like nothing
better than to use physical force to break free of the oppression of Rochester. This seems to be complicated by
the nature of Jane's character, who has little trouble resisting when she feels she has been wronged. This is
shown by her resistance to John Reed's abuse, and her ability to escape from situations where she is
disempowered. Instead, while Bertha may embody some of Jane's repressed feelings, she seems to be more of a
cautionary tale. She represents the oppressed married woman of her time, forever bound to a fate of servitude.
Bertha has become so disgruntled that her description is chillingly animalistic. "What it was, whether beast or
human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours" (289-290). Rather than
attempting to simply steal away from Thornfield, Bertha tries constantly to physically destroy Rochester and
the prison that holds her. Bertha's violence represents the constant - yet futile - struggle of women in the
Victorian world to find their voices and destroy the patriarchal society that dominates and suppresses them, as
she struggles to break free of Rochester. Jane, in contrast, represents the progressive woman, a new approach
to woman's quest for equality that works not from a place of retaliation and destruction, but of escape. Jane's
departure from Thornfield shows her unwillingness to continue to be controlled by this oppressive society, and
she can only return to Rochester when he has lost the mansion and the wife that haunts him. These things are
representatives of the society that Rochester has always been a part of, and that he cannot break free of until
they burn to the ground.
The feminist argument that Gilbert and many others try to find in this novel is compelling, but becomes very
complicated by the ending of the novel. Jane does not truly become Rochester's equal until he has been crippled
by the fire that destroyed Thornfield, when they finally become wed. However, this development does not (as
one might immediately assume) undermine the feminist nature of the book or the struggle that Jane has had to
overcome in order to be in this position. In fact, if both Jane and Rochester are considered to be symbols for
their respective classes, Rochester's injuries become not about crippling or (as Gilbert quotes other critics) "a
symbolic castration" (Gilbert 499). Instead, the destruction of Thornfield represents the deconstruction of the
class-based, patriarchal society, and Rochester's wounds are the punishment for the perpetuation of said
society. Oddly enough, this deconstruction is not brought about by Jane's reason and escape, but by Bertha's
self-destructive and vengeful actions. In the end, Jane's pilgrimage - with help from Bertha - finally brings her
to a place of social equality. She finds love with Rochester, while staying true to her nature, which seems to