“Charlotte Bronte electrified the world by showing that an infinitely older and more elemental truth could be conveyed by a novel in which no person, good or bad, had any manners at all. Her work represents the first great assertion that the humdrum life of modern civilisation is a disguise as tawdry and deceptive as the costume of a bal masque. She showed that abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte Bronte, following consciously or unconsciously the great trend of her genius, was the first to take away from the heroine not only the artificial gold and diamonds of wealth and fashion, but even the natural gold and diamonds of physical beauty and grace. Instinctively she felt that the whole of the exterior must be made ugly that the whole of the interior might be made sublime. She chose the ugliest of women in the ugliest of centuries, and revealed within them all the hells and heavens of Dante.”—G.K. Chesterton, Varied Types (1908)
This season, another screen adaptation of Jane Eyre is upon us—and undoubtedly it won’t be long before we see yet another TV or film adaptation of the literary classic by Charlotte Bronte, who was born on this date in 1816.
Charlotte appears on the right with younger sisters Anne and Emily in the image accompanying this post. The original portrait was painted by brother Branwell, who—in a portent of his creative and personal oblivion—painted himself out later.
When it came time to release to the wider world the stories they told to sustain themselves while tending to alcoholic, drug-addicted Branwell, Charlotte, Emily and Anne used pseudonyms keyed to their initials but not readily identifiable by gender: Currer Bell (Charlotte), Ellis Bell (Emily) and Acton Bell (Anne). A good thing, too: after it became rumored that the author of Jane Eyre was female, the initially rather favorable critical reaction turned more hostile. A woman wasn’t supposed to write about such disturbing aspects of life.
In the second edition of the book, Bronte—still writing under her pen name—addressed these critics:
“The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth -- to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose -- to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it -- to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.”
Modern feminists find in Jane Eyre a questioning of patriarchal norms, but it is that and so much more. It is precisely the “disturbing aspects of life”—or, as the great essayist G.K. Chesterton might have put it, the disturbing aspects of interior life—to which contemporary reviewers objected that we continue to find so compelling today.
This season, another screen adaptation of Jane Eyre is upon us—and undoubtedly it won’t be long before we see yet another TV or film adaptation of the literary classic by Charlotte Bronte, who was born on this date in 1816.
Charlotte appears on the right with younger sisters Anne and Emily in the image accompanying this post. The original portrait was painted by brother Branwell, who—in a portent of his creative and personal oblivion—painted himself out later.
When it came time to release to the wider world the stories they told to sustain themselves while tending to alcoholic, drug-addicted Branwell, Charlotte, Emily and Anne used pseudonyms keyed to their initials but not readily identifiable by gender: Currer Bell (Charlotte), Ellis Bell (Emily) and Acton Bell (Anne). A good thing, too: after it became rumored that the author of Jane Eyre was female, the initially rather favorable critical reaction turned more hostile. A woman wasn’t supposed to write about such disturbing aspects of life.
In the second edition of the book, Bronte—still writing under her pen name—addressed these critics:
“The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth -- to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose -- to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it -- to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.”
Modern feminists find in Jane Eyre a questioning of patriarchal norms, but it is that and so much more. It is precisely the “disturbing aspects of life”—or, as the great essayist G.K. Chesterton might have put it, the disturbing aspects of interior life—to which contemporary reviewers objected that we continue to find so compelling today.
Like Henry James’ Washington Square, another novel about a shy, plain woman, it is about the hard-won struggle for individual autonomy and dignity by someone facing unbelievably difficult odds, forced to rely on intelligence and the wisdom gained by misfortune.
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