Jane Eyre Task 3

Becoming a Governess

1.      The woman Question is the voice of the women in the nineteenth century, asking to be heard and answered. Like all that women, this novel ‘Jane Eyre’ asks us to think about a woman in the middle of Victiorian England, trying to make sense of her own destiny. It asks that we understand the voice of a feminist and that we listen to ‘What women want’.

Higher education became available to women in 1848 when the Queen’s college opened. This made it able for women to get a higher qualification and to get a decent job and earn their own money.

2.      “Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do;”

Jane worked at Mr Rochester’s house as a governess. When she first met him he recognised her as the governess because of the way she dressed.

-          “He stopped, ran his eye over my dress, which, as usual, was quite simple – a black merino cloak, a black beaver bonnet; neither of them half fine enough for a lady’s-maid. “ “Ah, the governess!” (Bronte, 135)

Governesses were seen as dumb and Mr Rochester could not believe that it was Jane who drew that beautiful pictures.

-          “Out of my head. That head I see on your shoulders?” (Bronte. 146)

A governess was expected to look after the children

-          “what are you about Miss Eyre, to let Adele sit up so long? Take her to bed” (Bronte, 149)

3.      A governess in the nineteenth century was known as a low class woman. She had to do domestic work in the house, nurture the children and do everything the man wants her to do; she was like a middle class mother. The governess was expected to preside over the contradictions written into the domestic ideal. For gentlemen a governess was a tabooed woman. They couldn’t marry her, because she was a governess and in their eyes a governess was a lunatic and fallen woman. The governess also never performed as a mother. She was only helping out in the family when the mother couldn’t do it or when a family’s mother died. Being a governess in the nineteenth century must have been very humiliating to the women. No one cared about their humanity and they didn’t have respect for them.

Jane Eyre Task 4

Dreams and Paintings

Jane describes the drawings as visions of her spiritual eye and these pictures reveal her great awareness for dreams.

The first picture Jane painted (Bronte, 147):

It represents someone sinking in the swollen sea, clouds rolling over the sea and there is no land in the picture. This picture can illustrate how Jane sees her own life. She feels useless and as if she has no meaning in this dark life, therefore she can be the person sinking in life - as rough and strong as the dark swollen sea.

The second picture (Bronte, 147):

This painting is not religious; it belongs to a Greek legend. It portrays the Evening Star, a hill with a woman’s shape rising into the sky. It represents Jane’s emotional commitment with Mr Rochester just like the goddess Selene fell in love with Endymion at Mt Latmos. Mr Rochester identifies this setting in the painting.

The third picture (Bronte, 147):

It is “a head, - a colossal head... Above the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds... gleamed a ring of white flame... This pale crescent was ‘The likeness of a kingly crown’ what it diademed was ‘the shape which shape had none’ (Bronte, 147-148).

This picture depicts the ice-bound landscape of Jane’s despair. Her dream art may thus reveal how she was suppressed, passionate and unconscious.

A dream in Jane Eyre can serve as a general symbol. Her dreams can also serve as complex representations for events in Jane’s life. Jane begins having dreams about children. Gilbert and Gubar argue that these dreams correspond to the increasing apprehension Jane feels towards a romance with Rochester. After Jane and Mr Rochester walked around Thornfield, she has a series of child dreams:

“...during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not brought with it a dream of an infant: which I sometimes hushed in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with daisies on a lawn; or again, dabbling its hands in running water. It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it nestled close to me, and now it ran from me.”

Jane had another series of child dreams after she and Mr Rochester became engaged. These dreams may reflect a fear that Jane muffles from herself and others. Homans suggest that the child of the dreams may represent Jane’s love for Mr Rochester. The dreams can also represent Jane’s orphan childhood, something she cannot free herself from. Al the memories and experiences come forward through her dreams.

Jane had another dream the night that she decided to leave Thornfield. In the dream she has returned to the red room of Gateshead. As she looks up at the ceiling, it turns into clouds. A human from reminiscent of the cosmic woman in Jane’s imaginative watercolour paintings appears. In this dream Jane’s emotions again reflected in her dream.

Dreams in Jane Eyre thus serve several complex functions. They forewarn Jane of trouble or good fortune, and reveal Jane’s inner self to the reader. They can serve as general symbols, interpretive representations, or direct reflections of Jane’s emotions.