A Dialogue of Self and Soul
TBC02 8/7/2002 04:01 PM Page 46
CHAPTER TWO
A Dialogue of Self and Soul:
Plain Jane’s Progress
a
SANDRA M. GILBERT AND SUSAN GUBAR
The authors of The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination (1979) are both distinguished feminist critics: Sandra Gilbert is a Professor at the University of California, Davis; and
Susan D. Gubar a Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s Studies at
Indiana University. They have also collaborated on No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century, Sex Changes and Letters from the Front with the aim of using feminist criticism to understand the achievements of British and American women in modern times. More recently they have also co-authored a collection of poetry, Mother Songs (1995), for and about mothers.
The Madwoman in the Attic was a landmark in feminist criticism. It focuses almost exclusively on the issue of gender in relation to women, though it refers briefly to the ambiguous class position of governesses such as Jane Eyre. The authors analyse the intertwined processes of female rebellion and repression in the narrative and highlight in particular the reading of Bertha Mason, the mad wife, as the symbol of Jane’s repressed passion. This was later to become an accepted interpretation of Bertha. In relating the novel to Charlotte Brontë the writer, they see the text as ultimately half-optimistic for women’s future in the prospect of a marriage of equals. Others were to read the ending as a compromise with contemporary patriarchal ideals of marriage.
Reprinted from The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-century
Literary Imagination (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979), pp. 336 –71.
46
TBC02 8/7/2002 04:01 PM Page 47
A DIALOGUE OF SELF AND SOUL
[ . . . ] Unlike many Victorian novels, which begin with elaborate expository paragraphs, Jane Eyre begins with a casual, curiously
CHAPTER TWO
A Dialogue of Self and Soul:
Plain Jane’s Progress
a
SANDRA M. GILBERT AND SUSAN GUBAR
The authors of The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination (1979) are both distinguished feminist critics: Sandra Gilbert is a Professor at the University of California, Davis; and
Susan D. Gubar a Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s Studies at
Indiana University. They have also collaborated on No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century, Sex Changes and Letters from the Front with the aim of using feminist criticism to understand the achievements of British and American women in modern times. More recently they have also co-authored a collection of poetry, Mother Songs (1995), for and about mothers.
The Madwoman in the Attic was a landmark in feminist criticism. It focuses almost exclusively on the issue of gender in relation to women, though it refers briefly to the ambiguous class position of governesses such as Jane Eyre. The authors analyse the intertwined processes of female rebellion and repression in the narrative and highlight in particular the reading of Bertha Mason, the mad wife, as the symbol of Jane’s repressed passion. This was later to become an accepted interpretation of Bertha. In relating the novel to Charlotte Brontë the writer, they see the text as ultimately half-optimistic for women’s future in the prospect of a marriage of equals. Others were to read the ending as a compromise with contemporary patriarchal ideals of marriage.
Reprinted from The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-century
Literary Imagination (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979), pp. 336 –71.
46
TBC02 8/7/2002 04:01 PM Page 47
A DIALOGUE OF SELF AND SOUL
[ . . . ] Unlike many Victorian novels, which begin with elaborate expository paragraphs, Jane Eyre begins with a casual, curiously