Jane-Bertha Link in Jane Eyre

"Jane Eyre" is one of the most brilliant and popular novel written by Charlotte Bronte and it has successfully dealt with a number of issues that have not assumed the same poignancy in her other works of fiction. The book has handled certain very important issues such as racial discrimination, gender discrimination and others with great adroitness. Being centrally located around a woman most of the issues too, have been dealt with in context to her.

To begin with, it is interesting to note that in the novel ‘Jane Eyre' the protagonist - Jane - has been depicted in three facets, which have been externalised as Bertha, Jane and Helen. In the text, Helen represents the ideal Christian ideology of sacrifice and endurance whereas Bertha is representative of many "dark" races, who were believed to have no faith, and of oppression, as a victim of it. In fact, it is taken to be the division of the female psyche - especially of the Victorian female psyche. Bertha and Helen are the extreme components of Jane's conscious - the evil and the good, respectively. They could and in fact, do represent the Victorian sexual ideologies - and in the narrative they function as implied connections to these beliefs. It is due to this polarity of the two characters that they have to be destroyed. Significantly, these characters are metaphorical representation of the different aspects of Jane's personalities and consciousness. It is following only this destruction of the ambiguities of Jane's character that she can develop fully. If the animalistic, violent and demonic Bertha has to be destroyed so does the little saint, the pious, intellectual Helen because they - both of them - restrict Jane's progress.

The resigned Helen - the closest friend and mentor of the child narrator - as we have already mentioned - is removed from the world of the novel by the process of death. Helen is in reality very similar to Jane though she appears far more pious and angelic. She fiercely craves