Berghahn Books

'Reader, I Buried Him': Apocalypse and Empire in "Jane Eyre"

Author(s): THOMAS TRACY
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Critical Survey, Vol. 16, No. 2, Post-colonial Interdisciplinarity (2004), pp. 59-77
Published by: Berghahn Books
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41557272 .
Accessed: 12/02/2013 03:52
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Berghahn Books is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Critical Survey.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

'Reader, I Buried Him': Apocalypse

THOMAS

and Empire in Jane Eyre

TRACY

overevery
AndI saw a beastrisingoutofthesea ... Itwas givenauthority
of the
tribeand people and languageand nation,and all theinhabitants
fromthe
earthwillworshipit,everyonewhosenamehas notbeenwritten
foundationof the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb thatwas
slaughtered.
(Rev. 13: 1, 7-8)'
The centrality of the colonial motif in Jane Eyre has been well
established.2 The figureof Bertha Mason Rochester hauntingthe text
has made this centralityundeniable: her confinement at Thornfield
Hall drives the plot, her eventual fiery demise both enables and
conditions the conclusion, and the oppression of Bertha and other
peoples subjected to imperial domination metaphorises Jane's
subjection to the patriarchalauthorityof various males throughoutthe
narrative. Moreover, the wealth appropriated from the colonies
materially sustains the society with which the novel concerns itself.3
The conclusion of Jane Eyre reinforces the preponderance of the
colonial motif. The imperial project is foregrounded at the novel's
end in St John's mission to India, and the characters of the novel are
sustained by the wealth obtained from the colonies in the form of
Jane's inheritance. The novel's ending, however, has been read by
many recent critics as an affirmation of St John's evangelising
mission, leading some of them to conclude thatJane Eyre represents
Charlotte Bronte's own colonial appropriation. Susan Meyer's
assessment reflects the critical consensus: 'Bronte makes class and
gender oppression the overt [metaphorical] significance of these other
races, displacing the historical reasons why nonwhite people might
suggest the idea of oppression . . . What begins then as an implicit
critique of British domination and an identification with the
oppressed collapses into merely an appropriation of the image of
slavery.'4 However, a careful historicising of the circumstances in
which Jane Eyre was writtenreveals not 'merely an appropriation of
CS2004

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

60

2
Critical
Volume
16,Number
Survey,

the image of slavery' but ratherthe incorporationof this imagery into

a larger thematics which criticises the hierarchical organisation of
class, gender and racial categories in British society, as well as the
material values which motivate and encourage exploitation among
those hierarchies. In order to appreciate Bronte's critique, therefore,it
is necessary to adopt an interdisciplinaryapproach which modifies
earlier critical readings.
The novel's chief apparent concern is the reformation and
regeneration of British society and not the plight of the colonial
subject. However, Jane Eyre's repudiation of imperialism is complete
and unequivocal. Moreover, the novel's utilisation of what Meyer
terms 'nonwhite people' to suggest the idea of oppression is a bit
misleading; while some of the images in the novel (in addition to
those associated with Bertha) do indeed connect non-white peoples
and oppression, it is by virtue of those peoples' appearance in a text
which provides a significantcontext forJane Eyre's symbolic system
- the Christian Bible.
Implicit within the following argument is an
assumption thatCharlotte Bronte could not be expected to write from
a colonial subject position. Despite its undeniable Eurocentrism,
sometimes expressed in subtle ways (as when Jane assumes thatwhite
people who ventureinto India will be 'grilled alive'), the textdoes not
offer evidence of hostility towards colonised peoples, nor does it
appropriate the image of slavery merely to figure the oppression of
white women, as Gayatri Spivak, Meyer and others claim. On the
contrary,the novel offersa damning critique of both patriarchyand
imperialism, which is contained in its references invoking a cultural
code quite familiar to Bronte's contemporaryreaders but apparently
less so to modern critics - namely, biblical allusion. The
thoroughgoing critique of imperial metropolitan culture is
accomplished not only in the metaphorical content of Jane Eyre, but
by the novel's formalstructureand use of generic conventions as well.
Bronte structuresJane Eyre as a Bildungsroman in which her hero,
Jane, attains spiritual enlightenment in the Christian tradition
exemplified in John Bunyan's Pilgrim 's Progress (a work whose
influence on Jane Eyre is palpable, as many commentators have
noted).5 The links between St JohnRivers and the Book of Revelation
are also widely acknowledged. But seemingly unnoticed is the fact
that the novel's ending not only references but replicates the
Revelation, a work which is central to Jane Eyre's signifyingsystem.
Likewise, references linking Rochester to imperialist figures of the

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

inJaneEyre
andEmpire
Apocalypse

61

Old Testament are relativelyunacknowledged. When these two major

sections of the novel are examined togetheralong with the additional
consideration of traditional Biblical interpretation(to which Patrick
Bronte exposed his children from an early age), these references
stronglysuggest that,like the work upon which it was modelled, Jane
Eyre's critique of imperialism is much more radical and
thoroughgoingthan previously supposed.
The tradition in which Bronte located herself as an artist was
described by her fellow Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer Lyttonas
characterised by a type of 'moral signification': '[A] striking
characteristic of the art of our century [is its] duality of purpose ...
[combining] an interior symbolic signification with an obvious
popular interest in character and incident.'6 The 'interior symbolic
signification' which Jane Eyre utilises most extensively is the
Christian tradition and, more specifically, Evangelical Christian
biblical interpretations, with which a large segment of her
contemporary readership was familiar. Barry Quails has identified
the 'moral signification' associated with the Bronte sisters, Carlyle,
Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray, and others, as having 'its sources in the
religious tradition [of] ... the old emblem books and in Pilgrim 's
Progress , in the intense typological reading of Scripture, and in the
works of the spiritual biographers and autobiographers'.7 An
awareness of this tradition is crucial to a full appreciation of Jane
Eyre, because Jane's writingof her 'autobiography' replicates in both
its formand contentthe decidedly anti-imperialistBook of Revelation
of St Johnthe Divine, sometimes also called simply the Revelation or
the Apocalypse. Like the Bible in which Revelations appears, Jane
- in other
Eyre can be read both symbolically and typologically
words, events, characters and intertextualreferences in the novel are
not only allusive, but embedded within networks in which they both
prefigure and hark back to (often multiple) typological referents,
which for the Christian reveal the workings of divine Providence
throughouthistory.This interpretiveframeworkreveals illuminating
connections among characters and events in the novel.
Perhaps the most important of these connections is that of
imperialism, the central issue in Jane Eyre so often overlooked in
traditional literary criticism until the work of recent post-colonial
critics recalled it to our attention. If Jane Eyre is read typologically,
the West Indian colonial motif, which ends apocalyptically in
Bertha's death and the destruction of Thornfield Hall (the country

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

62

2
Volume
Critical
16,Number
Survey,

house which metonymically represents England itself), becomes a

prfiguration of the East Indian colonial project upon which the
suggestively named St John Rivers embarks. In this context, Jane's
cryptic text written from her 'exile' at Ferndean prophesies an
equally apocalyptic sequel. Jane Eyre becomes then a 'teaching text'
in the manner of Pilgrim s Progress or the Bible; indeed, Keith
Jenkinshas aptly labelled the novel 'Charlotte Bronte's new Bible'.
The final chapters of Jane Eyre mightjust as appropriately be called
'Charlotte Bronte's new Book of Revelation'.
To fully grasp the significance of Jane Eyre's commentary on
imperialism, an awareness of the Revelation's critique of imperialism
is necessary. It is also necessary to recognise thatJane Eyre's larger
structuretypologically links St John Rivers to Rochester and East
Indian to West Indian colonialism. Jane's position as writerin exile of
Britain in
the apocalyptic storyfurthermore
places nineteenth-century
a position parallel to that occupied by the imperial Rome of St John
the Divine. To develop this argumentit will be necessary to divide it
into three sections. The firstwill give a very briefhistorical overview
of the British Empire at the timeJane Eyre was produced. The second
will examine ways in which the characterological, narrative and
metaphorical strategiesof the novel are typologically interwoveninto
an anti-imperialistthematics. The final section will examine how the
novel incorporates these elements into Jane's 'teaching text'.
I: Historical Context
Jane Eyre was first published in 1847, a moment of historical
transition in which Britain was turning its attention away from its
West Indian colonies and towards the colony that would become the
'jewel' in Victoria's crown, India. The primary reason for declining
British involvement in the Antilles was the unprofitabilityof sugar
and tobacco plantation in the wake of the abolition of slavery in 1833.
There are several compelling reasons to suggest that the move into
India would meritconsiderable attentionin a novel published in 1847
and so palpably concerned with colonialism as is Jane Eyre. The
conquest of India was protractedand violent. Moreover, it was well
publicised, as Lawrence James details in The Rise and Fall of the
British Empire: 'The army in India fought campaigns in Burma . . .
[and in] Afghanistan (1838-42), conquered the Sind (1843) and the

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

andEmpire
inJaneEyre
Apocalypse

63

Punjab (1845-6) ... The British press gave extensive coverage to the
campaigns, usually reproducing stories from local papers, official
dispatches, and letters from men serving at the front' (190). The
securing of India's north-west frontier,a bloody and drawn-out
process which occupied much of this press attention in the years
leading up to the publication of Jane Eyre, was characterised by
catastrophes. One of the most notable examples was the killing of
almost the entire Kabul garrison of the British Army during a
harrowing winter retreat through the Khyber Pass in 1838. The
response to this 'massacre' was a number of barbarous raids of
reprisal in which entirevillages, along with theirlivestock and crops,
were destroyed,in addition to often costly (both in terms of life and
property)British militaryvictories.8
These events provide the immediate historical context in which
Jane Eyre was written,and render the direction of events towards
India at the end of the novel ominous. However, most commentators
have focused chiefly on the West Indian dimension of British
imperialism in Bronte's novel, and furthermore,following Gilbert and
Gubar, have regarded the colonial motifas primarilya vehicle used to
highlightthe concerns of middle-class Western feminism. Criticism
focusing on West Indian colonialism in the novel tends to regard
Bertha's death as a symbol of the ultimate repression of Jane's
uncontrolled passion.9 When Bertha as racially other (itself a
problematic construct) is reduced to the embodiment of Jane's
passion and the figurativedeploymentof colonialism is seen primarily
Bronte's commentaryis
as a vehicle to encode superiority/inferiority,
or
worse. Susan Meyer
regarded as 'provocatively unresolved'10
concludes that '[t]he figurativeuse of race relations reveals a conflict
between sympathy for oppressed and a hostile sense of racial
superiority'." The few studies to assign Indian imperialism anything
approaching a central importance in the text assume that it
recuperates British imperialism through St. John's 'positive'
characterisation (another problematic construct). Meyer concludes
that 'Bronte uses these referencesto relations between Europeans and
races subjected to the mightof European imperialism ... to represent
various configurations of power in British society: female
subordination in sexual relationships, female insurrection and rage
against male domination, and the oppressive class position of the
female without family ties and a middle-class income.12 Gayatri
Spivak similarly argues that the novel ultimately reinscribes the

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

64

2
Volume
Critical
16,Number
Survey,

supremacist and patriarchal paradigm. This claim is based upon her

conclusion that the novel 'assert[s] St. John's heroism'13 and merely
replaces the male individualist hero with a female individualist hero:
'It is the unquestioned ideology of imperialist axiomatics ... that
conditions Jane's move fromthe counter-familyset [i.e. the Reeds] to
the family-in-law [as Rochester's wife at the end of the novel].'14
However, conclusions such as Meyer's and Spivak's seem based upon
a misreading or misrecognition of the centrality of East Indian
colonialism in the novel, a centralitywhich becomes clear when the
novel is read typologically.
II: Figurative Strategies in Jane Eyre
As some critics have suggested, applying typological reading
strategies to Jane Eyre proves helpful in illuminating the novel's
characterological motifs. George R Landow, in Victorian Types,
VictorianShadows, argues thatBronte employs typology 'for creating
and defining character . . . First, it places . . . characters] and [their]
actions within a clearly defined scheme of values; and, second ... it
serves to dramatize [Jane's] new self-awareness.'15Landow and others
suggest that this interpretivestrategycan be productively applied to
the many biblical allusions in Jane Eyre for insights into the
characters who utterthem.
It seems very likely,however,thatBronte makes much broader use
of this device, and that not only characters but events and themes as
well are all typologically interrelated in her novel, as Christians
regard them to be in the Bible. Bronte 'nests' characters, events and
themes within intra- and intertextual webs that invoke multiple
cultural codes in her complex signifyingsystem.Thus, Rochester and
St John not only resemble each other in their patriarchal
authoritarianism, as many readers have noted. Each is carefully
situated within a metaphorical web in which his connection to
imperialism is overt: Rochester (and by extension Bertha and West
Indian colonialism) is aligned metaphorically with the heathen
empires of the Old Testament,and St Johnand India are associated in
the novel's scheme with the New Testament,and specifically with the
Book of Revelation. Imperialism is then placed within a specifically
Evangelical Christian value system. This typological linkage means
thatthe imperial theme is not merely echoed at the end of the novel in

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

inJaneEyre
andEmpire
Apocalypse

65

St John'smission to India. Rather,it is placed therein what forBronte

was its crucial context, with modern, imperial Britain occupying
exactly the place in which the Rome of St Johnthe Divine figuresin
the Revelation - that of an unholy, contaminating entitywhich will
bring about the destructionof the world, and which was prefiguredby
the unholy empires of the Old Testament. Jane and Rochester (who
has been saved fromdestructionby a cleansing fire),as all Christians
must, repudiate imperial metropolitan society and exile themselves.
Ferndean is Jane's Patmos, fromwhich she writes her teaching text.16

Ill: Charlotte Bronte's Teaching Text

Jane Eyre's direct and insistentinvocation of the Book of Revelation,
especially in association with St John'sproject, would have had nearly
inescapable significance for the initiated reader. Leonard L.
Thompson demonstrates in The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and
Empire that Revelations describes in symbolic language the
oppressive and unholy practices of the Roman Empire, under whose
domination the early Christians lived:
[0]ne of the major themesin the Apocalypse is unquestionablythe
conflictbetweenimperialRome withits divineclaims and the rule of
the ChristianGod ... Rome['s] economic and commercialpower,so
destructiveto the Church,is overcomein a series of eschatological
disasters ... [T]he major part of [Revelations] describes in
language the threatof Roman political and
mythological-symbolic
religiouspowers.17
When the centralityof imperialism to the Book of Revelation is
considered, it is no longer possible to regard colonialism as
'subsumed' or 'screened out' of the conclusion to Jane Eyre, as critics
have argued. Nor is St John's character, and by extension Indian
colonialism, given a positive valence, as others maintain. The
imperial theme is finallyand decisively displaced fromRochester and
the West Indies onto St John and India. Moreover, the apocalyptic
theme linked to imperialism is firmlyestablished at the beginning of
the novel, both through the alignment of John Reed with imperial
Rome and in an early,significant'revelation' of Jane's Bible reading.
In her first conversation with Mr Brocklehurst, who is trying to
intimidate her into submissiveness, Jane reveals that she likes

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

66

Critical
2
Volume
16,Number
Survey,

'Revelations . . . Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of

Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and
Jonah'.18Barry Quails has pointed out thatall of these texts in Jane's
list 'offer correspondences to her feelings of injustice ... As
apocalyptic works these Bible stories allow her to discern a patternto
experience as well as an end to injustice.' Quails also notes succinctly
that 'it is an apocalyptic pattern that the older Jane gives to the
narrativeof her life'.19 Bronte goes further:she constructs a critique
of the British Empire's past, present and future through the antiimperialist,apocalyptic theme which pervades Jane Eyre.
Many critics rightly place Bertha at the centre of the novel's
signifying systems, since social, cultural, imperial and religious
concerns are encoded in her relationship with Rochester, and these
themes ramifyboth forwards and backwards to other characters and
themes in the novel. Just as Bertha can be associated with both
colonial and patriarchal oppression, the trajectoryof British imperial
history can be mapped onto Rochester's career. Rochester himself
articulates these parallels in a long conversation with Jane in which
he claims a rightto command her: 'Do you agree with me that I have
a rightto be a littlemasterful ... on the grounds I stated: namely, that
I am old enough to be your father,and that I have battled througha
varied experience with many men of many nations, and roamed over
half the globe?' (140). Here Rochester's words encode imperial
Britain's claim to rule 'primitive' societies by dint of its long
standing as an advanced civilisation, with its wide military and
economic reach. When Jane asserts that any claim to superiority
must rest on the use one makes of time and experience, Rochester
acknowledges thathis own use of these has been less than honorable:
'I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to
contemplate . . . which might well call my sneers and censures from
my neighbours to myself. I started ... on to a wrong tack at the age
of one and twenty,and have never recovered the rightcourse since'
(141). The series of events to which Rochester refersis of course the
appropriation of Bertha's wealth, which furthermorehas been spent
in a series of dissolute adventures in the colonies and on the
Continent, perhaps figuring Britain's adventures and wars with its
colonial rivals. Parallels between Rochester's career and British
imperial history are again discernible in a scene which takes place
shortly before Jane learns of Bertha's existence, when he makes a
subsequent attemptto rationalise his behaviour:

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

andEmpire
inJaneEyre
Apocalypse

67

Well then,Jane. . . supposeyouwere ... a wild boy . . . imagineyourself

in a remoteforeignland;conceivethatyou therecommita capitalerror,
no matterof what nature or fromwhat motives, but one whose
consequencesmustfollowyou throughlifeand taintall yourexistence.
Mind I don't say a crime... mywordis error.The resultsof whatyou
havedonebecomeintimeto youutterly
youtakemeasures
insupportable;
to obtainrelief.(228)
Not only are the parallels to British colonial history- specifically the
slave trade - evident here, but Rochester's oblique mention of
'measures taken to obtain relief' might well be a reference to the
abolition movement, which he earlier had directly invoked when he
admonished Jane forbeing too restrainedwith 'a man and a brother'
(170) the slogan of the Britishanti-slaverymovement was 'Am I not
a man and a brother?'.20But the novel's signifyingsystemmakes clear
that all British attemptsat expiation have been insufficient.Bertha's
returnto England representsthe returnof the colonial repressed.
Bronte not only encodes British imperial history in Rochester's
career, she also situates that history in what for her is its larger,
ideological context. Throughout the text Rochester is aligned with
Biblical, and specifically Old Testament, imperial oppressors. Susan
Meyer has pointed out thatJane Eyre is rifewith allusions to Turkish
and Persian despots, but concludes that these references invoke 'not
British imperial domination but the despotic, oppressive customs of
non-whites'.21However, a particular scene to which Meyer refersin
this part of her discussion as containing an 'eastern allusion', Jane's
and Rochester's extended exchange in which they do indeed link
Rochester to various Turkishand Persian despots,22pointedly invokes
a very specific imperial figure who possesses a seraglio and many
slaves - King Ahasuerus. Keith Jenkins, in referringto the same
passage in his essay, points out thatQueen Esther had rebelled against
this Persian emperor in order to save her people (Israel, the Old
Testament nation with which modern Christians claim identityin the
typological scheme of Christian theology), risking death in the
process.23 The linking of Rochester to Ahasuerus is not casual, but
part of a complex network which extends throughout the novel in
which imperial oppressors are linked not with non-white oppressors
so much as oppressors of firstthe Israelites, then Christians. Another
and even more telling referenceto Old Testament imperialism occurs
shortlyafterthis one, in which Rochester refersto Thornfieldas 'this
accursed place - this tent of Achan' (316). He hereby invokes the

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

68

2
Volume
Critical
16,Number
Survey,

biblical story in which the Israelites sufferalienation from God and

military disaster as a result of Achan's expropriation of another
people's wealth, which he buries under his tent. Achan's crime and
particularlyhis punishmentclearly parallel Rochester's: 'And the one
who is taken as having the [spoils of conquered Jericho] shall be
burned with fire,togetherwith all he has' (Josh. 7: 15).
This equation of British imperialism with Old Testament
imperialism belies any imputationof British superiorityto non-white
imperial regimes in the colonial motif, as Meyer and others have
suggested. As Meyer points out, Britishimperialism is associated with
Roman imperialism as well, and the juxtaposition is equally
condemnatory of both:24 'The novel draws unflatteringparallels
between the British Empire, evoked in Lady Ingram's shawl, and the
Roman Empire [evoked in 'Lady Ingram's Roman features and
haughty sense of superiority'], whose emperors, the young Jane has
implied in comparing John Reed to them, are murderers and slave
drivers'.25Meyer goes on to identifywhat seems to be the true import
of the colonial theme in the novel - imperialism's threatto Britain's
future- but discounts Bronte's intentionalityin thisregardas tentative:
By associatingtheBritishEmpirewiththeRomanBrontehintsuneasily
withthesetainted,
aristocratic
at a possiblyparallelfuture:
representatives
and slaves of its own, the Britishempiremay be headed forits own
decline and fall. The despotismof the Britishupperclasses, Bronte's
to thenon-white
races imply,is one
mockinghintsabouttheirsimilarity
in Empire.26
effectof theBritishinvolvement
However, if we do not dismiss the novel's pervasive alignment of the
British with other imperial regimes as merely uneasy hints, and
moreover situate these references instead in a typological scheme, it
becomes apparent thatthe significance of these other imperial figures
lies not in their racial alterity,but in what Bronte regarded as their
biblical historicity. In other words, the figurative strategy which
repeatedly links Rochester with Old Testament imperialism is of
central importance not because Bronte displaces despotism onto nonwhites, but because it prefigures the metaphorical and narrative
devices which link St JohnRivers with New Testament imperialism.
The most obvious point of contact between the two male characters
is Jane. Both occupy positions of eithertemporal or spiritualauthority
over her fromwhich they tryto manipulate Jane into an exploitative
sexual relationship thatwould also place her in a position of financial

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

inJaneEyre
andEmpire
Apocalypse

69

dependency. Rochester's attempt to marry Jane while he is still

married to Bertha and his effortsto coerce Jane into becoming his
mistress upon the failure of this scheme have received extensive
critical comment. But St John's attempts to sexually, morally and
emotionally 'colonise' Jane have been overlooked, particularly by
commentators who argue that his Indian mission representsBronte's
attempt to recuperate British imperialism. However, there are
numerous, inescapable signals within the narrative which place St
John's colonialism in a negative light. A brief plot summary suffices
to debunk any claims thatSt John'scharacteris portrayed'positively'.
Before St Johnreveals his plan to go to India, he insists thatJane learn
'Hindoostani'. This disrupts a self-chosen course of studies that she
has been happily pursuing, but he dissembles when she asks for a
reason. He later reveals his plan and tries to coerce Jane into
accompanying him as his wife, a condition (and the only condition)
she refuses. He intentionallymisrepresents her conditional refusal,
saying she has agreed, and postpones a tripto see friendsin order to
browbeat her into submission (391-441); St John's emotional and
psychological warfare perhaps encodes British attempts to
incorporate India into an equally coercive colonial 'partnership'.
The similarities between these and Rochester's earlier attemptsto
firsttrickand later coerce Jane into a sexual relationship are obvious.
St John'srelationship with Jane is doubly oppressive because she not
only lives under his roof, but in his position as clergyman he is also
her spiritual guide (and in this his relationship to Jane parallels that
which England hoped to establish with India through evangelising
missions such as the one upon which he embarks). Their relationship
is thus marked by his outrightlies, misrepresentationsand bullying
attemptsto subjugate her. As Susan VanZanten Gallagher points out,
St John's 'emotional manipulation and loveless proposal are just as
much a perversion of the institution of marriage as Rochester's
previous domineering ways are'.27 But, more importantly(and in a
way which parallels Bertha's relationship to Rochester), both of these
personal, domestic and private relationships may be seen as encoding
public, political, religious and social themes.28
St John's intentionto impose Western religion throughoutIndia is
conceived as a philanthropisingmission, and this ominously recalls
Rochester's assertion, made in the course of his paralleling his own
career with British imperial history,that 'at this moment, I am paving
hell with energy' (144). Victorian British readers might have been

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

70

2
Volume
Critical
16,Number
Survey,

reminded thatthe project to colonise the West Indies was also justified
in large part by similar attemptsto make Christians of both natives
and slaves. Furthermore, St John's mission is predicated not on a
desire to alleviate any perceived suffering on the part of India's
people, who are rarely even mentioned by him, but rather on his
ambition to achieve personal glory for having 'elevated his race'.
When Jane suggests he relinquish his plan, St Johnreveals his actual,
and unquestionably selfish,motives:
My hopes [are]ofbeingnumberedin thebandwhohaveall ambitionsin
thegloriousone of bettering
theirrace ... I am simply... a cold, hard,
ambitiousman ... Reason, not feeling,is my guide: my ambitionis
unlimited,
mydesireto risehigher,to do morethanothers,insatiable.I
honourendurance,perseverance,
talent;because theseare the
industry,
thingsbywhichmenachievegreatthings,and mountto loftyeminence.
(394-95)
Here St John's naked ambition also recalls Rochester's attempt,as a
younger son who was thus unable to inherithis father'swealth under
the laws of primogeniture,to make his mark in the colonies.
Just as these two characters are linked in the narrative by their
oppressive relationships to Jane, the metaphorical patterns in which
they are enmeshed are linked typologically. In other words, just as
Rochester is figurativelyaligned with Old Testament imperialism, St
John is associated with New Testament imperialism. His name not
only recalls the author of Revelations, but that of the River of Life
which flows out of God's throneofjudgement in thataccount. Bronte
makes St John's connection to the Apocalypse most overt in two
memorable scenes in the last section of Jane Eyre. The firstis when
St John reads aloud to Jane from Revelation Chapter 21, which
significantlydescribes the judgement of the world and condemns to
the Lake of Fire any one 'unclean or who maketh an abomination'
(Rev. 21: 27). Also unmistakably aligning St John with the
Apocalypse's prophetic message are the last words of the novel,
spoken by him, and taken verbatim fromthe penultimate verse of the
Christian Bible: 'My master . . . has forewarnedme . . . "Surely I come
quickly," and hourly I more eagerly respond, "Amen, even so come,
Lord Jesus'" (477; see Rev. 22: 20).
While this concordance would have been obvious to most of
Bronte's original readers, even more important from a thematic
standpointis something else which also would have been apparent to

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

andEmpire
inJaneEyre
Apocalypse

71

Christian readers familiar with the Revelation: the anti-imperialism

metaphorically implicit in the ending of Jane Eyre. The message of
Revelation 21 is of such central importance to the metaphorical
scheme o Jane Eyre that Bronte incorporates the entire chapter into
her own text,when St Johnreads it aloud to Jane and his sisters. The
'uncleanness' and 'making of an abomination' referred to in this
passage does not representa vague or undefinedsinfulness,but rather,
and specifically,the participation of the early Christians (to whom the
Revelation was directed in the form of letters) in the religious,
economic, social and political order of the Roman Empire. Leonard
Thompson sums up what has been the traditional Christian
interpretationof the Book of Revelation since at least the fourth
century of the currentera, and it is worth quoting this summary at
length, since its relevance to the 'meaning' of the final chapters of
Jane Eyre has been overlooked:
[T]he authorof theBook of Revelation... is unequivocalin his attitude
towardsRomanurbansocietyand theChristians
or Jewswho in anyway
accommodateto it.In contrast
to mostChristians
in [theRomanprovince
he
views
urban
and
the
as
to Christian
of]Asia,
society
empire antithetical
existenceand in leaguewithSatan . . . The peace andprosperity
ofRoman
is
.
.
.
not
to
be
entered
into
faithful
Christians
.
.
.
The
society
by
political
orderof Rome is whollycorrupt,
belongingto theSatanicrealm... The
economicorderbelongsto thesame corruptrealm.29
The prominentjuxtaposition of Indian colonialism and the Book of
Revelation at the end of a novel in which the colonial theme is
acknowledged to be of centralimportance,make the implications quite
clear: the political, economic and social order of the BritishEmpire is
corrupt and must be repudiated. Moreover, this corrupt realm is
conscientiously repudiated by Jane, who exiles herself to Ferndean.
Following Gilbertand Gubar, many commentatorshave foundJaneand
Rochester's retirementto Ferndean an affirmationof what are patently
modern,Western,middle-class feministvalues. These values are then
eithercharacterisedas reinscribingtheWesternindividualist/imperialist
paradigm (see Spivak), or as reflectingBronte's final inabilityto face
the conclusions thather own novel suggests.30
Gilbert and Gubar's argumenthas convinced many readers not only
that the romance plot serves the function of removing Jane and
Rochester fromhistory,but also of creating an indeterminacywhich
'is finallyunable to rest easily in its figurativestrategy[which reduces

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

72

2
Volume
Critical
16,Number
Survey,

racially otherpeoples to a metaphor encoding gender inequalities]',31

and thus it is appropriate to quote at length fromit here:
WhatBrontecould notlogicallydefine... she could embodyin tenuous
but suggestive imagery and in her last, perhaps most significant
redefinitions
of Bunyan.Nature... seemsto now be on theside of Jane
and Rochester.Ferndean,as its name suggests,is withoutartifice...
ofBeulah[in
and fertilized
bysoftrains. . . [T]he country
greenand ferny
contract
between
bride
and
's
.
.
.
where
'the
bridegroom
Pilgrim Progress]
is renewed,'
has all alongbeen ... thegoal ofJane'spilgrimage. . . [T]his
marriageoftruemindsat Ferndean- thisis theway.'32
However, if we situate Jane's retirementto Ferndean withinthe larger
anti-imperialist thematics I have been describing, we might reach
somewhat differentconclusions. Firstly,Ferndean is anythingbut an
idyllic retreat; in fact, it is so 'insalubrious' that Rochester had not
dared to confine Bertha there lest he add murderto his other crimes:
I possessan old house,FerndeanManor. . . whereI couldhavelodgedher
of thesituation
safelyenough,had nota scrupleabouttheunhealthiness
. . . made my consciencerecoil fromthe arrangement.
Probablythose
me
of
her
but
walls
would
have
soon
eased
charge, to each villain
damp
to indirect
assassination.
hisownvice; andmineis nota tendency
(316-7)
Indeed, the 'pestilential fogs' which inhabit the 'dank and decaying'
house set in a 'desolate spot' recall no other setting in the novel so
much as Lowood. Surely such a location must pose more of a threatto
the small and weak Jane's health than it would to the robust Bertha's.
Why would Bronte choose to end her novel by parodying the
traditional marriage plot, with a maimed lover, and a heroine
consistently described as plain, 'burying' themselves in such an
'ineligible and insalubrious' (453) site? The answer is suggested by the
anti-imperial theme. The long-standing Christian tradition in which
believers seek enlightenmentand mortificationof the flesh- usually in
the desert- is relevanthere. St Jeromeand St Johnthe Baptist are two
figures who best exemplify this tradition,but there have been many
others, including St John the Divine. There are also strong signals
within the text that Rochester is now spirituallyready to join Jane.
When at the last momenthis marriage to Bertha is revealed,preventing
his marriage to Jane, Rochester calls upon himself 'the sternest
judgments of God even the quenchless fireand the deathless worm'
- and this
(305), again invoking the Old Testament (Isa. 66: 24

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

andEmpire
inJaneEyre
Apocalypse

73

formulationis typologicallyechoed in theNew Testamentas well). His

repentance is not sincere, however, and he is maimed in the
apocalyptic fire at Thornfield. But it should be remembered that he
sustained those injuries in that firebecause he returnedto tryto save
the one he had so badly wronged - Bertha. Rochester's willing
sacrifice of his body - his righthand and righteye, as we learn - in a
self-denyingattemptto rescue his colonised wife symbolically enact
an effort to obey the Gospel injunction for all sinners seeking
redemption: 'And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is
betterfor you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to
hell . . . And ifyour eye causes you to stumble,tear it out; it is betterfor
you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes
and be thrown into hell, where the worm never dies, and the fire is
never quenched' (Mark 9: 43, 47-48). Rochester's attempt to save
Bertha is furthermorecharacterised by the selflessness that Jesus
privileged above all othervalues: 'No one has greaterlove thanthis,to
lay down one's life forone's friends'(John 15:13). Significantly,when
Jane and Rochester are reunited at Ferndean, Rochester no longer
invokes the Old Testament, but now expresses an unselfish love for
Jane in the words which echo the New Testament,and specifically the
Revelation: 'I pleaded, and the alpha and the omega of my heart's
wishes broke frommy lips' (47 1; see Rev 1: 8 and 22: 13).
Furthermore,to suggest that Jane's progress to Ferndean merely
enables a happily-ever-aftermingling of two souls in a secluded wood
is to graft a secular sentimentality onto Bronte's urgent religiopolitical polemic.33 Jane has gone to Ferndean (significantly, a
pre-imperial English settingthathad been in the Rochester familyfor
many generations) fora very specific purpose to exile herself,along
with Rochester, fromthe corruptpolitical and economic realm of the
British Empire. Raymond Williams provides the classical description
of how the romance plot in 'social problem' novels not only resolves
social and political dislocations, but moreover often removes the
lovers to the colonies at the novel's end.34 Both of these are artificial
resolutions that Bronte avoids. If Bronte were to remove her English
characters to a 'real' desert for this purpose, it would amount to just
another colonial appropriation, and furthermoresuch a resolution
would directly undermine the project of Jane Eyre. Instead, Jane
exiles herself to Ferndean and begins to write her autobiography,
whose direct apostrophes to the reader at the end of the novel
resemble the letters of St John the Divine addressed to the early

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

74

2
Volume
Critical
16,Number
Survey,

Christians. Here Bronte aligns Jane with the Puritan tradition of

'bringing the Scripture up to date',35 but also, and more specifically,
replicates the writing of the Book of Revelation, the work
thematically central to the novel's ending.
The most obvious parallel between Jane and the author of
Revelations is in theirexile and subsequent monitorywriting.As the
first-personnarratorof her 'autobiography', Bronte situates Jane as
author as hero as well as protagonist of the narrative, and in this
invokes another tradition of English literature. Scott, and later
Dickens, became the prototypes authors who at the same time were
representativesof an idealised British national culture. It would be
more accurate to describe Jane as the antithesis of author as hero:
small, plain, female and thus culturallypowerless (a status reinforced
by her position as governess), since what Bronte was trying to
constructin Jane Eyre was the idealised cultural identityof a 'nation'
whose 'citizenship is in heaven' (Phil. 3: 20) and which defines itself
in opposition to the British Empire. The irony here is no doubt
intentional. Traditional Christianity has long been an imagined
communityof truebelievers considering themselves a small, despised
minorityoutside the cultural pale, opposing the might and power of
imperial metropolitanculturefroma position of spiritual,not temporal
or physical, superiority.Bronte's attemptto assign Jane this cultural
authorityis another way in which Jane's writingmirrorsSt John the
Divine's writingof the Revelation. The author of the Apocalypse also
claimed authority within the Church, and in so doing came into
conflict with other 'prophetic authorities' described symbolically in
Revelation 2-3. These figureshave theiranalogues in Brocklehurst,St
JohnRivers and others. Moreover, as Quails points out, the prophet's
frequentadmonitions to his readers are echoed by Bronte,who feltthat
'the traditionof "sacred romance" was embattled by mid-nineteenth
century'.36Jane Eyre focuses its attentionthroughoutthe narrativeon
the unhealthy institutionswhich regulate desire in British imperial
society which, like that of imperial Rome, is portrayedas a society
whose 'god is in the belly' (Phil. 3: 19). The institutionsthusportrayed
include the class system (embodied in the Reeds) and the corrupt
marriage market which sustains it (Blanche Ingram), educational
institutions whose primary motivation is profit (Lowood school),
religious hypocrisy(Mr Brocklehurst) and, at the centre of the novel's
thematic structure,Empire. Imperial British society is, in Jane Eyre,
the 'beast' which 'was given authorityover every tribeand people and

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

andEmpire
inJaneEyre
Apocalypse

75

language and nation, and [which] all the inhabitantsof the earth will
worship' (Rev. 13: 7).
Encoding public and social concerns within private and domestic
narratives is a long-standing tradition of the British novel. Recent
post-colonial criticism has uncovered Jane Eyre's central concerns,
and perhaps inadvertently brought to light the novel's attempt to
situate itselfwithin this literary-historicaltraditionforthe purpose of
invoking specific cultural codes. Ironically, however, as our
increasinglysecularised society's familiaritywith some of these codes
has decreased, Jane Eyre's anti-imperialistmessage has also remained
less than fullyappreciated.

Notes
1. AllBiblereferences
willappear
inthetext.
2. See Firdouz
Azim's TheColonialRiseoftheNovel(NewYork:Routledge,
1993),
172-213,Gayatri
'Three
Women's
Texts
anda Critique
ofImperialism',
Chakravorty
Spivak,
12(1985):243-61,andespecially
Critical
SusanMeyer,
atHome:Race
Inquiry
Imperialism
andVictorian
Women
s Fiction
Cornell
I challenge
Press,
(Ithaca:
University 1996).Although
someofMeyer's
herworkis perhaps
themostilluminating
andprovocative
conclusions,
ofJaneEyretodate.
post-colonial
study
3. Theclassicaccount
ofthesubmerged
ofEmpire
inthenineteenth-century
presence
British
novelis Edward
Said'sCulture
andImperialism
(London:
1994).
Vintage,
4. Meyer,
atHome
, 64.
Imperialism
5. Oneofthemostinfluential
studies
theimportance
ofBunyan's
influence
asserting
onBronte
is SandraGilbert
andSusanGubar's
Madwoman
intheAttic
(NewHaven:Yale
'JaneEyre'sNewBible,'inApproaches
to
Press,1979);alsoseeKeithJenkins,
University
JaneEyre.(NewYork:Modern
Association,
1993),69-76,andBarry
Teaching
Language
Fiction:
TheNovelas BookofLife(Cambridge:
Quails,TheSecularPilgrims
ofVictorian
Press,1982).
Cambridge
University
6. EdwardBulwer-Lytton.
ofArtin Worksof
Quotedin 'On CertainPrinciples
in
A
Caxtoniana:
Series
on
Manners
and
Literature,
Imagination,'
ofEssays Life,
(NewYork:
andBrothers,
1864),317-19.
Harper
7. Quails,SecularPilgrims
, ix.
8. Lawrence
TheRiseandFalloftheBritish
James,
(NewYork:StMartins,
Empire
1994),217-24.
9. SeeAzim,ColonialRise, 196,andGilbert
andGubar,
Madwoman
, 362.
10. John
Kucich.'JaneEyreandImperialism,'
inApproaches
toTeaching
JaneEyre
,
109.
11. Meyer,
atHome.
Imperialism
12. Ibid.,63.
'.
13. Spivak,
'ThreeWomen's
Texts

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

76

Critical
Volume
2
16,Number
Survey,

14. Ibid.
15. George
P.Landow,
Victorian
Victorian
Shadows
(London:
Types,
1980).
Routledge,
16. Patmos
wastheislandwhereStJohn
theDivinepenned
Revelation.
NineteenthChristians
readtheBookof Revelation
as a
(as do manymodern
century
Christians)
in
which
the
modern
nations
of
the
world
which
were
prophecy
occupy
positions
figuratively
nations.
thatJane's
Quailsmaintains
occupied
byancient
story
goesbeyond
beinga mere
taleandbecomes
because'herpasthistory,
becauseitdoes
cautionary
prophecy
precisely
tothetraditional
shows
herreaders
"God'svoicespeaking
instruction
and
model,
correspond
as Bunyan's
lifehad'(SecularPilgrims
doctrine,"
, 57).
17. Leonard
TheBookofRevelation:
andEmpire
L.Thompson,
Apocalypse
(NewYork:
Oxford
Press,1990).
University
18. Charlotte
JaneEyre(Oxford:
Oxford
Bronte,
Press,1993),34.Allfuture
University
references
willappear
inthetext.
19. Quails,SecularPilgrims
, 55.
20. Kathryn
Sutherland
hasdetailed
thetemporal
concordances
between
someofthe
in
events
Jane's
life
and
andBritish
colonial,European
significant
important
literary,
domestic
events
toargue
that
thetimescheme
ofJaneEyreself-consciously
enacts
a revision
4Jane
ofbothBritish
andthehistory
ofwomen:
The
imperial
history
Eyre's
Literary
History:
CaseforMansfield
Park'ELH 59.2(1992):409-40.
21. Meyer,
atHome
, 83.
Imperialism
22. JaneEyre
'ruler'is alsocalleda 'bashaw'inthecourse
of
, Chapter
24;theTurkish
thisconversation,
whichsimultaneously
linksRochester
to thecontemporary
Ottoman
as well.
Empire
23. Jenkins,
'JaneEyre's
NewBible',70;seeEsther
1: 12.
24. Meyer
doesnot,however,
notethat
Bronte's
stands
insharp
unflattering
comparison
contrast
tomostother
ofthetwoempires,
which
wereusually
made
contemporary
linkages
tocelebrate
theglory
ofGreatBritain.
Itwasnotuntil
muchlaterinthecentury
thatsuch
references
weremadetocriticise
British
ofRomeascultural
Studies
andsocioimperialism.
include
Norman
Vance's
The
Victorians
and
Ancient
Rome
politicalsignifier
(Oxford:
TheEternal
Blackwell,
1997)andPeterBondanella's
City:RomanImagesintheModern
World
ofNorth
Carolina
Press,1987- a moresweeping
(ChapelHill:University
study
withtheRenaissance,
andcovering
Continental
as wellas British
starting
appropriations).
25. Meyer,
atHome
, 80.
Imperialism
26. Ibid.
'Jane and
27. SusanVanZanten
inApproaches
toTeaching
Gallagher,
Eyre Christianity,'
JaneEyre.(NewYork:Modern
Association,
1993),62-68.
Language
28. Theseareaffinities
JaneEyreshares
withtheGothic
a genre
itresembles
in
novel,
other
as
well.
ways
29. Thompson,
BookofRevelation.
'Jane
30. Kucich,
104-20.
EyreandImperialism',
31. Meyer,
atHome
, 94.
Imperialism
32. Gilbert
andGubar,
Madwoman
, 370-71.
33. EvenQuails,SecularPilgrims
that'thequestisnot
, fallsintothistrap,
concluding
towards
theNewJerusalem
butintotheselfas a modeofescapefrom
theexperience
of
andalienation'
asserts
thatthenovelis 'Bronte's
ofthe
despair
(51). He further
synthesis

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

inJaneEyre
andEmpire
Apocalypse

77

tradition's
ofthisworld... andtheRomantic's
toward
some
religious
loathing
impulse
'
within"
(69).
paradise
34. Raymond
Cultureand Society:1780-1950(NewYork:Columbia
Williams,
87-109.
Press,
1958),
University
35. Quails,SecularPilgrims
, 2.
36. Ibid.,191.

This content downloaded on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:52:53 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions