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Mansfield Park and Jane Eyre are certainly controversial
novels, and the debate about both heroines has yet to be decided. The question to
ask is: are they really subversive? Jane Eyre, from the time of Elizabeth Rigby
to that of Gilbert and Gubar, has always been seen as a rebellious heroine.
However, not all critics agree with this. The novel has had, though, a great
influence on its readers; this can be discerned from the title of Gilbert and
Gubar's book, The Madwoman in the Attic, surely a reference to Bertha
Rochester. The debate over Fanny Price has been far more virulent, as Joel
Weinsheimer notes: "Whether Mansfield Park presents Fanny Price as a prig,
a saint, or merely a young woman of mixed qualities is yet to be
determined" (1). Most readers dislike her, and both Weinsheimer and Shaw
can barely bring themselves to call her "human" (2). Yet this does
not mean that she is neither innovative nor experimental.
Charlotte Bronte invites the comparison of Jane Eyre with other
rebellious figures and times in history. Nancy Pell wrote: "Two allusions
in the novel to actual rebellions... suggest Charlotte Bronte's awareness that
Jane's struggle for a wider life has significant historical implications"
(3). Kathryn Sutherland takes this further, and reveals how the novel abounds
in references to revolutionary years. For instance, the year in which Jane Eyre
reached its audience was 1848, when the Germans and Italians were fighting a
popular battle for independence. This is mere coincidence though, one which
provided a useful context for anonymous reviewers (Rigby) to attack the novel.
Yet Bronte did write the novel less than a mile away from St. Peter's Fields in
Manchester, site of the Peterloo massacre. 1819 was a year
(1) Weinsheimer p.185.
(2) Weinsheimer p.203. Shaw p.294.
(3) Pell p. 405.
2
when revolution, as Sutherland argues, was a real
possibility, especially when protesters were shot at and killed, amongst whom
were "the Female Unions, demanding, like Jane, their chartered rights as
women workers" (4). It is significant, therefore, that Jane begins her
narrative in this year.
Miss Abbot describes Jane as `Guy Fawkes', the famous incendiary
plotter. There are a lot of fires in the novel, but these are set off by Bertha
Rochester, who some critics see as Jane's alter ego. Richard Chase wrote that
Jane asked herself, "May not Bertha... be a living example of what happens
to the woman who gives herself to the Romantic Hero, who in her insane
suffragettism tries herself to play the Hero, to be the fleshy vessel of the
élan?" (5). It is an interesting idea, but not much more than that, for
Chase fails to consider the fact that Bertha was mad before her marriage.
Besides, Bertha is the mistress of Thornfield, so Jane is the transgressor.
Bertha uses fire contrary to Fawkes' - she is trying to restore the rightful
authority. Moreover, it is on Guy Fawkes' night that St. John discovers Jane's
true identity. Some critics have seen the burning of Thornfield as a very
powerful wish fulfillment on Jane's part, resulting in the convenient death of
Bertha. However, November 5th has another connotation, which is probably more
in keeping with Jane's predicament, and that is the anniversary of William and
Mary in the Glorious Revolution. This was supposedly a peaceful takeover of
power, except of course, in Ireland. Yet Sutherland dares to suggest that there
may be "grounds for considering Fanny as the truer Bonaparte of the
two" (6). For, like Jane Eyre, Fanny Price was born in the revolutionary
year of 1789.
This relies on a comment by Marx, stating that history repeated itself;
the first time as tragedy, and the second time as farce. Yet few critics would
argue for Fanny
(4) Sutherland p.423.
(5) Fell p.410.
(6) Sutherland p.427.
3
above Jane in terms of heroic status. Women, such as
Adrienne Rich (7), feel a great deal of identification with Jane that they
would never feel with Fanny. This is because Fanny is a paradox, as
Weinsheimer wrote. Paula Cohen must think Fanny a very insignificant figure
indeed if she can write that: "Mansfield Park is Jane Austen's one novel
in which the life of the family takes precedence over the life of the individual"
(8). This is not necessarily so, for although Fanny comes to Mansfield as an
outsider, she eventually becomes the keystone of the household and its morals.
Both Jane and Fanny have been compared with former literary heroines.
Paula Cohen describes how Clarissa became scapegoated by her family.
"Richardson's myth of the scapegoated heroine has been adopted in
Mansfield Park not to produce a violent conclusion like that of Clarissa, but
to prevent just such a conclusion" (9). She goes on to call Fanny,
Clarissa's "most adept imitator." Whether this comparison is
deliberate on Austen's part is debatable. However, Jane Eyre mentions Pamela,
and so invites just such a contrast. Nancy Fell writes that Jane "rejects
the Pamela-role of fleeing whenever he approaches her" (10). The
suggestion is that Jane is not as weak as previous literary heroines, including
Fanny.
Pamela, in the novel of the same name, is regarded as part of female
tradition - its tales are related by Jane's nanny, rather like the oral
ballads. These stories feed her consciousness, and there is an argument,
proposed by Angela Carter, and supported by others, that these are just male,
patriarchal myths which enforce social control on women (and others). So Jane
is an innovative heroine when she refuses to behave like Pamela, a figure that
could almost come from a conduct book. Bronte also indulges in the
Gothic, but unusually her heroine survives intact, whilst the hero has to
eventually depend on her sight. These tales usefully reveal Jane's all too apt
feelings on her first night in
(7) London p.208.
(8) Cohen p.669.
(9) Cohen p.670.
(10) Fell p.408.
4
Thornfield, when she sees Bertha's hiding place -
"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" p.138. Carter echoes this in The Magic Toyshop:
"She felt lonely and chilled, walking along the long, brown passages, past
secret doors, shut tight. Bluebeard's castle" (p.82). This provides
evidence that the fiction of Jane Eyre has been thoroughly consumed by
Carter/Melanie, to become part of her unconsciousness. Fanny, we could say, is
more of a realist - ghosts do not seem to frighten her, solitary though she is.
She is more afraid of real life, as Weinsheimer writes: "combining a high
tolerance of pain with an extraordinarily low threshold, Fanny is variously and
sometimes tediously astonished" et cetera (11).
One need only remember the "bustle" at Portsmouth which
disturbs her so much. Indeed, Fanny is very much an innovation, which can be
seen from her comparison with Mary Crawford, a much more conventional heroine.
If one were to compare her with Jane, then one could say that they both make
the men in their lives see - only Edmund does not have to become blinded in the
process. Fanny wins her victory much more quietly, without actually seeming to
do very much. It may be insufferable to have a character that is always right -
but then one would want to argue that Fanny is not always so - notice
that she does not really prevent Maria from going over the gate at Sotherton.
By not saying what she thinks, you may say that she is responsible for a lot of
the catastrophes in the novel. Weinsheimer wrote that "`I am unlike other
people,' Fanny remarks, and her saintliness does indeed make her unique"
(12). One would like to argue though, that of all the characters in the novel,
Fanny is the most human, living her life through ridiculous fallacies and
fantasies, and sometimes seething with healthy rage. It would be rare for a
human being to be
(11) Weinsheimer p.194.
(12) Weinsheimer p.197.
5
as perfect and consistent as Jane Eyre is. Human beings are
a lot sillier than they like to think they are. We can see Fanny's faults
because Austen narrates the tale, whereas Jane supposedly tells her own story.
Bette London attacks Jane Eyre for representing the "pleasures of
submission". She argues that Jane uses the conduct books' ideas when
deciding what to do. "I would like to suggest that the desire to fix Jane
as the source of militant feminism represents... one of the preeminent dangers
of the text; it is to be dazzled by the spectacle of Jane's (controlled)
rebelliousness" (13). Austen was far braver in creating a totally
unlikable heroine in a `reader-resistant' book. The fact that it is,
suggests that it is as experimental and innovative, especially concerning
Fanny, as Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. Finally, this view can only be
enforced by Nancy Pell's comment that Bronte considered herself as the
"meekest of Christian Tories" (14), and was therefore deeply upset
about Rigby's attack on the rebelliousness of her heroine.
(13) London p.204.
(14) Pell p.399.
6
Bibliography
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, edited by Tony Tanner.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, edited by Q.D.Leavis.
The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter.
In the Window-Seat: Vision and Power in Jane Eyre by
Peter J. Bellis in E.L.H. vol. 54 no.3. Fall 1987.
Stabilizing the Family System at Mansfield Park by Paula
Marantz Cohen in E.L.H. vol. 54 no.3. Fall 1987.
The Pleasures of Submission: Jane Eyre and the Production
of the Text by Bette London in E.L.H. vol. 58 no.1 Spring 1991.
Resistance, Rebellion, and Marriage: The Economics of
Jane Eyre Nancy Fell in Nineteenth Century Fiction 1976-77 vol.
Jane Austen's Subdued Heroines by Valerie Shaw in
Nineteenth Century Fiction 1975-76
Jane Eyre's Literary History: The Case for Mansfield Park
by Katheryn Sutherland in E.L.H. vol. 59 no.2 Summer 1992.
Mansfield Park: Three Problems by Joel C. Weinsheimer in
Nineteenth Century Fiction 1974-75 vol.
|
Visit
our Jane Austen
page for Jane Austen biography, Jane Austen bibliography, Jane Austen
ebooks, free Jane Austen essays, and Academic Jane Austen essays |
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Visit
our Charlotte
Bronte page for Charlotte Bronte biography, Charlotte Bronte
bibliography, Charlotte Bronte’s ebooks, free Charlotte Bronte essays, and
Academic Charlotte Bronte essays |
