JANE EYRE ASSIGNMENT

Ques. What would have happened if Jane Eyre was written in an omniscient voice.

Jane Eyre is written as an autobiography giving the account of a young woman’s journey from being
an orphan and governess to a life of financial independence and marriage. Because of the novel
being narrated in first person, we see two Janes in the novel, the narrator -Jane and the Jane’s
remembered self i.e. Mrs. Jane Rochester talking about Jane Eyre. In literal terms, the Jane who
narrates her experiences and the Jane who lived the experiences as occurrences in the present are
separate entities, represented through the same unit in the narrative.

The narrator-Jane, however, is not easily separated from her remembered self and sometimes
Charlotte bronte deliberately avoids addressing the distinction to further her manipulation of the
reader’s perspective. As Jerome Beaty notes, ‘the reader hardly knows the Jane Rochester who has
narrated her life story’. Only with close textual scrutiny is it clear that Bronte, as author, maintains a
distinction between the Jane who experienced the events of the novel and the one who narrates
those same events years later, aware of what she did not know about Rochester’s marriage and his
deceptions in relation to her. The distinction, which amounts to a narrative and authorial gap, is
subtle and often deliberately obscured for dramatic effect.

The narrative gap between the narrator-Jane and her remembered self facilitate obscurity in key
aspects of Charlotte Brontë’s narrative commentary. Although the narrator-Jane must be aware of
Rochester’s manipulation, she does not comment on it and her narrative authority goes largely
unquestioned, even in criticism. The lack of comment, however, raises questions about Charlotte’s
intentions. It suggests the dubiousness of the novel’s resolution; a resolution that requires Jane to
remain silent about Rochester’s manipulation of her emotions and the specific attempt to trick her into
false marriage.

A third person narrative would have had Jane only as a character and would not have had any
complexity or obscurity in its narrative for the reader to ponder upon.

But the first person narrative contains an element of irony. The narrator jane guides us through her
life story that she remembers, simultaneously hiding or commenting on certain events. Therefore
giving only a single point of view. That’s why she becomes an unreliable narrator. In such a narrative
the narrator is incapable of observing his or her own actions with any detachment. We see a lot of
instances where jane the narrator tries to hide something or tries to justify the actions of her
remembered self.

A horrific incident when narrated as a personal story looks more convincing and impactful.The first
person narrative adds to the gothic theme of the novel. It had a great part in making the gothic
elements more convincing for the readers to consume. The reader could feel the terror that jane felt
and empathise with her.”Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly
round the dark room: at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it,I asked myself a ray from
the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No: moonlight wa still, and this stirred; while I
gazed,it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head.I an now conjecture readily that this
streak of light……………..but then prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by
agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world.
My heart beat thick my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings;
something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the
door and shook the locks in desperate effort.”

In a third person narrative we would have gotten an unbiased and objective overview of the entire
text without any conscious justifications or omissions. The commentary on the actions of the
characters would have been completely impartial. It would have been upto the vigilant reader to
decipher the motives of the characters from their actions or dialogues. The reader’s ideas about
various characters in the novel are infected by how Jane views them and finally presents them in her
autobiography. So, everything that jane says has to be taken with a pinch of salt.Through the course
of the novel we see that Jane spent most of her time engrossed with her own thoughts rather than
engaging with the people around her. Jane is unable to find an adequate listener in the people she
encounters. . The silence and solitude Jane endured as a child follows her into adulthood - she keeps
to herself, and in the presence of others, often says little.

While a third person narrative would have given us a fair overview of circumstances in Jane’s life. It
would have taken away the opportunity from the readers to actively engage with the text. The third
person narrative would have run plain without any attempt to make direct connection with the
reader. Whereas the original first person narrative continuously engages with the reader. jane eyre
on many occasions addresses the reader and her most celebrated address being,” reader I’m
married.”. We see that the power of the narrator becomes very clear as the novel progresses,
with Jane Eyre often speculating on her role as narrator, ‘A new chapter in a novel is something
like a new scene in a play;” and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader – you must fancy
you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote” (p95). She draws the reader into the story and in
doing so identifies the reader as someone akin to a companion or friend. Again, this tone of
narration enables us to connect and empathise with the narrator.

Jane’s reaction to the entire revelation of Rochester’s past is very composed and stoic and the
original first person narrative has done a great job in bringing about that. It is not conveyed through
a passionate scene but with Jane contemplating about the events that had occurred since morning.
“I was in my own room as usual- just myself, without obvious change: nothing had smitten me, or
scathed me. Or maimed me. “

A third person narrative would have entailed some criticism or commentary on Rochester’s action of
concealing the truth about his first wife from everybody. The narrative does not show us his
immediate reaction when jane leaves Thornfield forever.

Jane’s knowledge of bertha mason comes from Rochester. Therefore, we see that Jane does not
have any distinguished ideas about her. The reader is somehow not justified with Rochester’s
explanation about Bertha Mason’s past. This also limits the readers’ understanding of bertha
mason’s character and her dynamic with Rochester and jane. This limited understanding of events
can become problematic with regard to our judgement of Jane when it comes to the treatment of
Bertha. . Consequently the focal characters of the novel become Jane and Mr Rochester, forcing
Bertha into the peripheral role of obstacle to the desired marriage. This pro-imperialist stance
means that Jane consistently refers to the character of Bertha as bestial, irrational and violent:
Bertha Mason as a character fits perfectly into a gothic novel and her presentation succeeds in
only bringing us closer and feeling more empathy for the plight of Jane and Rochester. It is
extremely easy to sideline the character of Bertha and give her little thought other than as
another hardship in the life of Jane. We see her in relation to Jane and not as a character in
herself. Indeed, she is frequently addressed as it, and we are given little insight into her life
before Thornfield Hall. When we do receive information about her, it is largely biased towards
Rochester. For example, the act of bringing Bertha back to England is portrayed as an act of
duty to God and humanity. As a character in love with Rochester, Jane is able to narrate his
behaviour and actions in a positive light.

A third person narrative would have definitely elaborated on the Bertha Mason episode satisfying
the reader with a proper back story.

Jane injects her autobiography with a lot of elements that make the narrative a little emotional. A
first-person narrative usually implies acquired perspective or maturity. In many cases, a narrator
will write to reflect that change in perspective in order to share the lessons or value they found
The belief in true happiness or even the emotional description of love should not unsettle the
reader by itself, but the elapsed time sets up an expectation for maturity which is not reflected.
Jane writes with the language of a newlywed; she never moves beyond the initial raptures of
love, so any perspective she provides on her past life becomes filtered through that lens and
must be judged accordingly. The emotional influences on her writing reflect an underlying
motivation to relive her memories and to elicit emotional sympathy from the reader.

The narrator’s questionable motives become apparent even in the early chapters of the novel
through the incredibly vague description given. The novel begins with the simple statement, “There
was no possibility of taking a walk that day” and the young Jane’s observation, “I was glad of it”
(Brontë 7). Jane’s narrator voice emerges gradually through verbs in the present tense such as “I
see” or “I remember” (Brontë 7). She draws some connection to the present in snippets, as with her
account of the red room when she describes a “shock of which I feel the reverberation to this day”
(Brontë 20). Jane, in fact, makes a point not to reveal her age or distance from these accounts.

Jane uses the present tense to provide fragmented details about herself as the narrator, but she
slips recurrently into the present tense when describing past events as well. These moments upset
the normal flow of the story’s chronology and bring the reader into close proximity with particular
events in order to heighten his or her emotional understanding. These disruptions may serve the
reader by allowing them to see “with the eyes of the girl rather than the woman” and to share in
Jane’s vision and development, but that interpretation shows a lack of confidence in the reader and
introduces much potential for readers.

Jane does have her moments in which she shows greater awareness of her listener as a person, but
even those passages are informed by a desire founded upon her own miserable experience. When
she describes her arrival at Whitcross, Jane again addresses the reader directly and recalls the events
in the present tense. Her description mimics the form of a prayer: “Gentle reader, may you never
feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured
from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonized as in that hour
left my lips” (Brontë 322). Charitable readers should assume that Jane sincerely means all the best
for them, but even so, her hopes are centred on the extremity of her own history. Her agony and
destitution from that moment overshadow this interaction between narrator and reader. Even
though she hopes to serve others, the expression of these experiences proves to fulfil some
particular need for Jane to elicit sympathy.
In a third person narrative the narrative voice remains constant without any fluctuations or
modulations

Through the course of the novel Jane hides, manipulates and chooses to tell us what she wants to
with her own unique voice and makes it her own,

5 Jerome Beaty, ‘Jane Eyre Cubed: The Three Dimensions of the Text’, Narrative

The Two Janes: Jane Eyre and the Narrative Problem in Chapter 23

Charlotte Fiehn

Addressing the Reader in Charlotte Bronte's Novels: Jane Eyre, Vilette, and The Professor Christan
M. Monin