How Does Bronte Present Bertha In Jane Eyre

By reading both Jane and Bertha together, it is clear that Bertha is a vehicle through which Jane’s inner conflicts and desire for freedom are brought to life. Brontë successfully portrays this through her use of language, mirror imagery and constant proximity between the two characters.

Firstly, both Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason are perceived by Victorian society similarly – they are both unwanted, unnoticed and unfitting to their surroundings, with Bertha being locked away as a result of her supposed craziness and Jane finding herself in a constant battle of unacceptance, something that becomes apparent Jane’s proclaim ‘I was a discord at Gateshead Hall; I was like nobody there.” (Brontë, 23) This highlights Jane’s unescapable oppression,
Jane’s use of degrading language when describing the noises made by Bertha and through her equation of Bertha’s laugh to that of a goblin, expressed her fear of her proximity to Bertha, and the anxiety this idea brings when dealing with her inner, repressed self. These fears and anxieties could be strongly representative of the society in which the novel was written. Brontë would have been living under the gender-proscribed rules by which women were both emotionally and intellectually repressed, issues of which are clearly reflected through Brontë’s characterisations of Jane and Bertha, where emotional and mental instability are largely feared and problematic for both
For example, Jane’s anxieties about her wedding and fears of her alien ‘robed and veiled’ bridal image became objectified by Bertha dressed in a ‘white and straight dress’. Another example is Jane’s desire to destroy Thornfield, something which is seemingly symbolic of Rochester’s mastery and superiority over her, was acted out by Bertha who burns it down at the end of the novel. Lastly, Jane’s claim that Rochester ‘shall, yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand’ (Brontë 335) is also acted out by Bertha, whose death and actions causes the blinding of Rochester. Thus, it is clear that Bertha is indeed her double, she is a ‘virile force’ who becomes Janes truest and darkest self, as if she is the angry aspect of the maltreated orphan, something Jane has tried to repress on her pilgrimage. This idea is reflected in critic Claire Rosenfeld’s claim in which she highlights that the juxtaposition of these two characters are ‘the one representing the socially acceptable or conventional personality, whilst the other externalizing the free, uninhibited, often criminal