Representation of the Other in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
Representation of the ‘Other’ in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
Abstract
This study aims at examining the representation of the’ other’ as portrayed in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847). It attempts to inspect how the ‘Other’ is viewed in Nineteenth century England and the cultural ideology behind such specific representation. It poses crucial questions as to why the ‘Other’ is always represented negatively in main-stream western narrative as in the case of Bertha Mason who is portrayed as a madwoman and a voiceless monster that deserves a ten-year- rigorous confinement in the Attic. I will attempt to focus on the cultural and historical context of ‘Jane Eyre’ and its impact on the representation of the’ Other’. I will also draw on Edward Said’s theorization related to race, representation, and resistance in my analysis.
I am going to examine and explore the meaning of representation and its enormous power of construction of social reality especially if it is allied with political and imperial conquests. For that reason, we have to put into our account the historical and theoretical relations between Western economic –political domination and Western intellectual production. A case which I am going to examine thoroughly in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and its tendency of representation of the 'Other' with special reference to Bertha Mason. My objective is to show how the' Other' is represented negatively and how such representation usually involves unequal power relations.
Representation and resistance are very broad arenas within which much of the drama of colonialist relations and post-colonial examination and subversion of those relations has taken place. Helen Tiffin argues that’ in conquest and colonization, texts and textuality played a major part. European texts-anthropologies, histories, fiction, captured the non-European subject within European frameworks which read his or her alterity as terror or lack’. (1995:83). It is
Abstract
This study aims at examining the representation of the’ other’ as portrayed in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847). It attempts to inspect how the ‘Other’ is viewed in Nineteenth century England and the cultural ideology behind such specific representation. It poses crucial questions as to why the ‘Other’ is always represented negatively in main-stream western narrative as in the case of Bertha Mason who is portrayed as a madwoman and a voiceless monster that deserves a ten-year- rigorous confinement in the Attic. I will attempt to focus on the cultural and historical context of ‘Jane Eyre’ and its impact on the representation of the’ Other’. I will also draw on Edward Said’s theorization related to race, representation, and resistance in my analysis.
I am going to examine and explore the meaning of representation and its enormous power of construction of social reality especially if it is allied with political and imperial conquests. For that reason, we have to put into our account the historical and theoretical relations between Western economic –political domination and Western intellectual production. A case which I am going to examine thoroughly in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and its tendency of representation of the 'Other' with special reference to Bertha Mason. My objective is to show how the' Other' is represented negatively and how such representation usually involves unequal power relations.
Representation and resistance are very broad arenas within which much of the drama of colonialist relations and post-colonial examination and subversion of those relations has taken place. Helen Tiffin argues that’ in conquest and colonization, texts and textuality played a major part. European texts-anthropologies, histories, fiction, captured the non-European subject within European frameworks which read his or her alterity as terror or lack’. (1995:83). It is
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