Critics
Many critics have shed light on the conversation of Jane Eyre, so I thought it would be helpful to have a brief compilation of their ideas:
Chih-Ping Chen: writer of “Am I A Monster: Jane Eyre Among the Shadows of Freaks” who believes Jane Eyre is at conflict between her desire to be a moral Victorian woman, and her craving to think and act without consequence. Indeed, it appears as though Jane fears not being a proper female. Chen has asserted that Eyre gains power from the training of her imagination. “Her artistic imagination had provided a place of escape” (Chen 375). It appears as though Jane's dreams would be the result of her active imagination which is the place where Jane goes to escape from her problematic existence.
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar: professors who co-authored A Madwoman in the Attic. They believe that Jane’s incident in the red room exposes her to the “larger drama that occupies the book,” which may show the dreams and visions she experiences enhance her inner struggle and her connection to Bertha (341). In addition, they conclude Bertha is Jane's "own secret self” who asks out what Jane wishes to do (359). The professor believe that Jane is destined “ to confront the demon of rage who has haunted her since the red room” (Gilbert 347).
William Siebenschuh: author of "Image of the Child and the Plot of Jane Eyre,” who analyzed the dream of the infant hushed on [Jane’s] arms, […] dandled on [her] knee” (Bronte 188). William Siebenschuh, has noted that this child figure could represent fear of her responsibilities to Adele, or her feelings of a “new” love for Rochester. Indeed, Jane is progressing in a relationship with one of her authoritarians, or her responsibilies to Adele. In addition, this critic has also hypothesized that the dream explores the child as a sign of “subliminal knowledge of the existence of the mad woman in the attic” (Siebenschuh 307). This is due to the idea hiding Bertha was like "covering a child with a cloak" (Bronte).
Valerie Beattie: writer of "The Mystery at Thornfield: Representations of Madness in ‘Jane Eyre,’' does not agree with the idea that Bertha is “Jane’s truest and darkest double” because she thinks the idea is too figurative ( Gilbert 360). Beattie feels that this explanation detracts the importance Bertha has in the novel since she would merely be a “metaphor” (2,3). Jungian critics, however, would reason if Bertha and Jane are doubles, it would make sense that Bertha could figuratively be the shadow of our protagonist. In turn, this itself means that without Bertha, Jane would be “incomplete” (Singer 192). And so, this perspective, indeed, also heightens Bertha’s importance, while showing her as the more active of the characters.
Adlai Murdoch: author of "Ghosts in the Mirror: Colonialism and Creole Indeterminacy in Bronte and Sand," believes that believes that Bertha does not so much work with Jane, but against her, showing the opposites of the colonized Creole, and the British colonizer. Indeed, her perspective uses “Bertha Mason as a foil constructs a social identity for Jane Eyre” through marginalization. Although this is a valid argument, it does not account for the similarities the two share, and coincidences that occur between the two of them.
Read more:
Introduction to the Dreams of Jane Eyre
Jung's Principles
Mirrors on the Wall: Early Imaginative Unconscious
Awakening the Imagination
Making Meaning of Prophetic Dreaming
Shadows: Reflections of the Self
Afterthoughts
Critics
Further Reading
About the Author