Madness and psychic duplicity in Jane - Eyre and The Yellow Wallpaper - Wyższa Szkoła Języków Obcych w Poznaniu
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Wyższa Szkoła Języków Obcych w Poznaniu
Katedra Języka Angielskiego
Anna Gębala
Madness and psychic duplicity in Jane
Eyre and The Yellow Wallpaper
Praca licencjacka
napisana pod kierunkiem
dr Marty Mazurek
Poznań 2005
1OŚWIADCZENIE
Ja, niżej podpisana Anna Gębala studentka filologii angielskiej Wyższej Szkoły Języków
Obcych w Poznaniu oświadczam, iż przedkładana praca licencjacka pt. „Madness and
psychic duplicity in Jane Eyre and The Yellow Wallpaper.” jest samodzielnym
opracowaniem tematu.
Oznacza to, że przy pisaniu w/w pracy, poza niezbędnymi konsultacjami, nie korzystałam
z pomocy innych osób, ani nie przepisywałam jej fragmentów z innych pisemnych
opracowań tematu, poza dozwolonymi cytatami – w sposób i zakresie określonym
przepisami prawa autorskiego.
Jednocześnie przyjmuję do wiadomości, iż gdyby powyższe oświadczenie okazało się
niezgodne z prawdą, stanowić to będzie podstawę do wszczęcia postępowania w sprawie
uchylenia decyzji o nadaniu tytułu licencjata.
Poznań, dnia ............................ ............................................................
czytelny podpis
OŚWIADCZENIE
Nazwisko i imię autora pracy: Anna Gębala
Tytuł pracy: Madness and psychic duplicity in Jane Eyre and The Yellow Wallpaper.
Adres zamieszkania: Os Stare Żegrze 185/2
61-249 Poznań
na udostępnianie w/w pracy mojego autorstwa przez
Wyrażam zgodę/Nie wyrażam zgody
Bibliotekę WSJO w Poznaniu oraz w jej czytelni.
Poznań, dnia ………………….. …………………………………………
czytelny podpis
2TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 4
CHAPTER ONE 6
MADNESS AS SYMBOL IN LITERATURE
CHAPTER TWO 11
MADNESS AND PSYCHIC DUPLICITY IN JANE EYRE
CHAPTER THREE 19
MADNESS AND PSYCHIC DUPLICITY IN THE YELLOW
WALLPAPER
CONCLUSION 26
BIBLIOGRAPHY 30
3Introduction
The human psyche has always been a mystery for an average person, an artist as well as a
scientist. Even modern technology is unable to provide an explanation to all processes
which take place in the human mind. For centuries people have been interested and
inspired by the phenomena escaping human cognition since such facts leave space for
imagination. So it is not surprising that the theme connected with the human psyche and
especially with its darkest sides has been explored by a great number of writers in different
epochs. The subject of madness and mental disorders is touched by such remarkable artists
as Shakespeare, Melville or Virginia Woolf. As artists, however, they not only discuss this
problem but use it to transmit implicit, metaphorical messages. In their works the state of
insanity is used as a symbol of a superior cognition of the world or deeper sensitivity. The
motif of madness as a symbol is also often exploited by women writers in the nineteenth
century.
Quite often nineteenth-century female writers projected into their works mad
diabolical heroines to discuss problems that women from Victorian times encountered in
their everyday life. Those figures most frequently are the counterparts to the main
characters of the novels. They represent deeper nature of the main heroines, their desires
and needs. Moreover, the mad protagonists can be seen as the authors’ doubles reflecting
also their rebellion against and opposition towards the patriarchal system by which they
were surrounded. Such pattern is used by two nineteenth-century writers Charlotte Brontë
in Jane Eyre and Charlotte Perkins Gilman in The Yellow Wallpaper. Although the writers
come from different continents and write in different phases of victorianism, which
influences the endings of their works, they touch the same problems of women’s
oppression, fragmentation and confinement caused by nineteenth-century social relations.
The first chapter of this paper depicts what the motif of madness symbolises in
different works and how it has been used by different writers. Its special focus is literature
from the nineteenth century created by women who use the motif of madness to touch the
problems of their sex. The second chapter concentrates on the topic of madness and
psychic duplicity in Jane Eyre. It presents how Charlotte Brontë uses these themes to
portray women’s status within society, their fragmentation and rebellion against roles and
models imposed on them. Finally, the third chapter focuses on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s
4work The Yellow Wallpaper and the similarities between this novel and Jane Eyre. The
third chapter presents that both works are connected by the figures of the mad heroines
who represent social, economic as well as psychological problems of Victorian women.
What is extremely important, Bertha and the woman from The Yellow Wallpaper reveal
also the authors’ own thoughts, dilemmas and desires.
5Chapter One:
Madness as a symbol in literature
The motif of madness has often been exploited in literature to convey deeper, metaphorical
implications. Those implications differ depending on the author and the work. What
connects most works which deal with the subject of madness is that it never seems to be
what it is in the real life.
In the works of Shakespeare madness is often a synonym of wisdom and true
cognition of the world as well as one’s own self. Shakespeare in his works repeatedly
presents a specific type of character in the person of a fool. The fool usually speaks in a
mysterious, incoherent way which is reminiscent of the talk of an insane person. At first
sight, his utterances, not infrequently, sound chaotic and seem to have no meaning, as is in
the case of mad people’s speech. But, in fact, his words are very important either for the
main character or for the whole plot. The fool is the one who can see the truth and who can
speak about it openly. He is the one who brings good advice and is able to see meaning in
the tumult of reality.
King Lear is a tragedy in which the main hero misjudges and banishes his youngest
daughter Cordelia. He gives his kingdom to the two elder daughters, Goneril and Regan. In
this way he banishes his only loving daughter and gives power to the two who do not care
for him. Due to their cruelty, when they send him out of doors during a severe storm, he
falls into madness. In his madness King Lear becomes sensitive to the suffering of others
and sees that he cared too little for the poorest people in the country. Shakespeare in this
tragedy uses madness as a symbol of self-cognition, during which King Lear can see what
kind of man he has been. Only in his insanity does King Lear realize that many of his
decisions were improper because they were based upon his pride and arrogance. The state
of madness is presented by Shakespeare as equal to the state of awakening in which King
Lear’s eyes become open and through which he redefines himself. At the beginning King
Lear is blind but, as the play progresses, his madness is deepening and his horizons are
changing.
This tradition of showing madness as a state of full consciousness is continued by
Herman Melville. One of the characters of Moby Dick, Pip, who is a cabin boy and jester
6on the Pequod, resembles the Shakespearian fool. After being left to drift alone in the sea
for some time, he becomes insane. Similarly to the fools in Shakespeare’s plays, he is half
an idiot and half a prophet who often perceives things that others do not. In his idiot’s talk
the reader can find the key to the understanding of the message of the whole novel.
In Wuthering Heights madness is not a symbol of knowing or seeing more but of
being responsive and emotional. Emily Brontë presents a story of love between foundling
Heathcliff and his foster-sister Catherine. Both of them have almost identical personalities
and they think and feel in a similar way. They are full of energy, passion and love to wild
nature. All their feelings and sensations are boundless and extremely deep. Catherine’s
violent passions lead her almost to madness, which in this work means being carried away
with overwhelming emotions. The state of insanity is connected with the ability to feel
more intensely than others.
A very similar vision of insanity is presented by Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway.
The titular heroine leads a well-ordered life and is “the perfect hostess”.1 She is
preoccupied with social appearance and conventions. She is a wife of her husband, herself
having no ambitions. As for many women of that time, her main task is to win favours for
her husband, Richard, by caring for his home or organising parties for his acquaintances.
Her relations with Richard are passionless. Mrs. Dalloway could choose a different life and
become wife of Peter Walsh. However, their romance was too intense for her. Clarissa
decided to live without giving too much of herself, without too much commitment and
without passion. In this way she wants to have control over her emotions and life. Life with
Richard, although not passionate, is more secure as he cannot hurt her because she does not
feel anything to him.
Septimus Warren Smith is Clarissa’s counterpart. He participates in the war. The
trauma of the war becomes a part of his everyday experience. He cannot overcome the
death of his friend who died on his hands. He loses the sense of proportion and becomes
insane. Septimus cannot live in society having experienced the shock of the past war. He
goes to war with great ideas, but he feels disillusioned when he learns what real war
means. After the war he knows there is nothing ideal in it. He is deprived of his earlier
illusions and principles. No one can help him. As an insane person, he becomes a patient of
the renowned London psychiatrist Sir William Bradshaw. But, in fact, he feels constrained
by his help and finds the methods of treatment too oppressive.
1
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway. London: Penguin Books, 1996, p.69; hereafter in the text cited as Woolf.
7Septimus is stricken by the feeling of fear and guilt, he accuses himself of inability
to feel, which has resulted from his war experience. He stays unaware of the intensity of
emotions which he is experiencing. He is presented to suffer confusion, fear, pain, and
sadness. The one who taught herself not to feel is Mrs. Dalloway. In contrast to Septimus,
Clarissa does not think much about war. In fact, she is the one who loses the sense of
proportion. She is preoccupied with trifles during the whole day. When she accidentally
learns about the suicide of Septimus, she gives her thought to this fact only for several
minutes and then goes back to her party. Woolf shows that an insane person who is
tormented by strong emotions is sometimes more normal than an average, reserved one.
The feminist scholars Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar point to different
implications of madness which was a very frequent motif in works written by nineteenth-
century women writers. In their study titled The Madwoman in the Attic, the scholars
undertake a debate with Harold Bloom’s notion of “anxiety of influence”,2 according to
which male literary compositions are answers to the works of their male precursors. Those
responses are usually based on Freudian relationship of father and son in which the male
author tries do reject his precursors’ views in order to create his own. However, the matter
looks different in the case of nineteenth-century women writers. In their work, Sandra
Gilbert and Susan Gubar point out that the perspective of nineteenth-century women
writers is naturally dissimilar to that of their male predecessors. That is why their works do
not dispute with male visions of the world or male ideas about life.
However, nineteenth-century women writers do not reject views of their female
precursors, either. The literary tradition is decidedly dominated by men because for
centuries it was considered improper for a woman to indulge in the occupation of writing.
Therefore, nineteenth-century women writers do not have female precursors to whom they
could refer or whose views they could reject. What is more, they do not have any
representation of a woman created as a reflection of women’s opinion. What nineteenth-
century women writers have is a vision of a female character that stems from numerous
works written by men. It often happens that those images are very stereotypical, presenting
women either as angels or as monsters. An average woman does not identify herself with
those visions, as they are exaggerated and artificial, which causes that “her battle, however,
2
Sandra Gilbert – Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic. The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century
Literary Imagination. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984, p.48; hereafter in the text cited
as Gilbert – Gubar.
8is not against her (male) precursor’s reading of the world but against his reading of her”
(Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 49).
Nevertheless, nineteenth-century women writers not only dispute with the vision of
themselves presented by men but they are also influenced by numerous other factors that
prompt them to write. Very important is that women writers created in isolation, they
worked without the possibility to read books by other women and often had to hide their
own writing activity. The profession of a writer was reserved exclusively for men,
therefore women who tried to compose a literary work were frequently considered
“unsexed” (Gilbert - Gubar 1984: 51) and even mad. So they had to write in secret, which
made them feel different and alienated. Gilbert and Gubar describe this problem in the
following words: “Eighteen- and nineteen-century foremothers struggled in isolation that
felt like illness, alienation that felt like madness, obscurity that felt like paralysis to
overcome the anxiety of authorship that was endemic to their literary subculture” (Gilbert
– Gubar 1984: 51).
The scholars further indicate that in the seventeenth century, when writing was said
to be a masculine form of expression, women either had to apologize for their artistic
works as creations of inferior human beings whose only desire was to try, like Anne Finch
or Anne Bradstreet, or they had to accept that society considered them to be freak and
“unsexed” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 63), as did Behn and Cavendish. A good example of the
first case is Bradstreet’s poem “The Author to Her Book”, in which she ironically
confesses that she publishes her poems because she is poor and needs money. This
statement is cynical as it is a well know fact that she was quite wealthy. It is as if she
wanted to say that she was a woman and so she had to excuse herself for her works. On the
other hand, Cavendish, who was openly touching subjects reserved for men, was called
mad, conceited and ridiculous by many people of her times (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 62,63).
However, mostly at the beginning of the nineteenth century, women writers found
also other ways to express themselves freely. They started to create under male
pseudonyms such as George Sand or George Eliot. Some of the nineteenth-century women
writers used “male devised plots, genres, and conventions” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 70). Yet
in time, they reach more effective means to present their literary works without
apologizing, being considered freak or disguising themselves as men. They create plots
which are appropriate for a lady but also carry deeper meanings. Under socially accepted
stories they try to touch important themes and form the vision of a woman from their own
perspective and, in this way, different from the earlier images of the female sex created by
9men. As they could not openly criticize the patriarchal system which produced earlier
visions of women, they placed their rebellion into supporting female characters who are
very frequently insane and appalling. They stand for women of the nineteenth century who
felt constrained, and they frequently react to that situation by turning their rage against the
representatives of the patriarchal system. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar point out that
those diabolical heroines also demonstrate the authors’ fragmentation and dilemma
between the desire to remain themselves and the desire to fulfil social expectations. Their
approach can be seen in the following quotation:
Of course, by projecting their rebellious impulses not into their heroines
but into mad or monstrous women (who are suitably punished in the
course of the novel or poem), female authors dramatize their own self-
division, their desire both to accept the strictures of patriarchal society
and to reject them. What this means, however, is that the madwoman in
literature by women is not merely, as she might be in male literature, an
antagonist or foil to the heroine. Rather, she is usually in some sense the
author’s double, an image of her own anxiety and rage. Indeed, much of
the poetry and fiction written by women conjures up this mad creature so
that female authors can come to terms with their own uniquely female
feelings of fragmentation, their own keen sense of the discrepancies
between what they are and what they are supposed to be (Gilbert – Gubar
1984: 78).
Thus, according to Gilbert and Gubar, the mad heroine is not only the counterpart of the
main character but she is also the author’s double. This figure expresses anxiety, rage and
the dilemma of nineteenth-century women writers. Madness is used by them as a symbol
of women’s rebellion and anger. Madness can be described as a state in which there exists
no control over the mind, either from within or from without. Looking at madness from
Gilbert and Gubar’s point of view, it is easily understood why nineteenth-century female
writers utilized it as a symbol of their escape. They wanted to escape from the constrains
created by men through their mad doubles who were beyond control, able to express their
rage and to take action, which was almost impossible in the real life where women were
locked within male houses ruled by men’s laws.
10Chapter Two:
Madness and psychic duplicity in Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë is one of the nineteenth-century women writers who, in order to write
freely, used a male pseudonym. She published her novel Jane Eyre under the name of
Currer Bell. Her work is also quite similar in convention, plot and form to compositions
written by men, since she uses the convention of bildungsroman, which was often explored
by male writers. To a certain extent, her heroine resembles such characters created by men
as Pamela or Rebecca. Jane’s story ends with her reaching higher social standards and
leading a happy life together with Mr. Rochester.
However, in Jane Eyre it is also possible to see other means of writing used by
Charlotte Brontë to show the nineteenth-century reader her own point of view. Gilbert and
Gubar indicate that Charlotte Brontë uses a surface meaning of her novel to transmit the
reality with which all women of her times had to struggle. By the form of the
bildungsroman Brontë shows the stages of Jane’s development. At the beginning Jane is a
poor orphan child, not accepted by her family and living on the verge of society. Each
subsequent experience: the time of education in Lowood, the independent life as a
governess, the encounter with her real love and sufferings connected with this feeling,
contributes to a thorough change of her initial condition. At the end of the novel she
reaches full independence, financial freedom and her own place within society, and in this
way fulfils herself. Jane’s life symbolizes the dream of many nineteenth-century women
who wanted to have their own money and be self-sufficient; who dreamt to have the
privilege to decide about their lives. Jane Eyre marries a man whom she loves and with
whom she desires to be. She decides to live in his house because that is perfectly in
accordance with her whims. Most women in those days had no choice but to live in their
husbands’ houses. They possessed no money as they could not go to work and they were
fully dependent on their fathers, brothers and husbands. Jane Eyre gains more than the
majority of women in Victorian times could ever accomplish.
She is also different from Pamela from Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel
Virtue Rewarded because she achieves everything by herself. Jane does not choose the life
of Rochester’s mistress who would live at his expense but she chooses the life of a school
11teacher. The life which she chooses is modest, full of work and solitude but independent
and hers. Jane does not resemble Pamela because she reaches a higher social position not
by her virtue but by her anger, rebellion and rage. The story presents the obstacles that
each woman has to overcome in her life: “oppression (at Gateshead), starvation (at
Lowood), madness (at Thornfield), and coldness (at Marsh End)” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984:
339).
Charlotte Brontë creates under the male name, which was most typical for women
writers from the beginning of the nineteenth century but she also writes what is accepted
by Victorian society and what at the same time carries a deeper meaning. Indirectly, she
shows the state of mind of women who lived in her times. She presents their dilemma to
live according to models given them by the patriarchal system and their own willingness to
break the old conventions. Brontë tries to establish a new identity of women created by
what they think about themselves. She demonstrates rage and anger that dwells in every
woman who feels constrained and enslaved by the surrounding world. All this, according
to Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, is symbolized in the character of Bertha, who is Jane’s
counterpart and represents her nature but who is the author’s double as well.
In the first two chapters the reader can learn about the position in which Jane has
found herself at the beginning of her life. Jane lives at Gateshead in Mrs. Reed’s house
together with her three children – John, Eliza and Georgiana. However, Jane is not a part
of the family; at the very beginning the children sit around their mother in the drawing-
room, all “perfectly happy”,3 but Jane. She is excluded because she is not a child of Mrs.
Reed’s. Additionally, Jane is not humble or beautiful, which would help her gain sympathy
of the other members of the family. Mrs. Reed is cold towards her and keeps her at a
distance. Jane is constantly abused by Mrs. Reed’s son John, who addresses Jane after
having found her reading a book in the breakfast-room. This fully illustrates Jane’s
position in the house: “You are a dependant, mamma says; you have no money; your father
left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and
eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mamma expense” (Brontë 1994: 12).
Yet she is not a servant, either, she is not a member of any group in the house. In her
childhood she experiences rejection and belongs to no social stratum. Jane encounters such
conditions repeatedly in her adult life.
3
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre. London: Penguin Books, 1994, p.9; hereafter in the text cited as Brontë.
12As Gilbert and Gubar state, the situation in Gateshead is a parable for what will
come in the future (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 341). This place represents the patriarchal
system by which Jane is surrounded throughout the book. Although the house belongs to
Mrs. Reed when Jane begins her story, it earlier belonged to Mr. Reed, whose rules are still
valid in Gateshead despite his death. Jane’s presence in the house is not Mrs. Reed’s will.
Mrs. Reed acts as an agent for her husband who, before his death, forced her to promise
him that she would take care of Jane. This situation is repeated several times in the novel.
Miss Temple and Grace Poole also act on behalf of men. In the patriarchal system women
are often tools in the hands of men. On the one hand, it is the biggest constraint for them,
as they are unable to act for themselves. On the other hand, some of them can use their
power in a proper way to help others. Miss Temple agrees to act in the name of Mr.
Brocklehurst but she does not do it absent-mindedly. She looks after the children’s safety
and soothes the strict rules imposed by Mr. Brocklehurst, sometimes breaking his orders.
Jane lives in the patriarchal system where women not only act as agents for men but
where men are the sole possessors of goods and privileges. All property is bequeathed
from father to son. John knows that soon he will have the strongest position in the house
which will eventually become his property. He underlines his privileged position in the
following words: “All the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years” (Brontë 1994:
12).
The most important event that happened to Jane in Gateshead is being locked in the
Red Room. This situation is also a parable for future incidents (Gilbert – Gubar 1984:
341). Jane is locked in the Red Room because she reacted against John’s oppressive
behaviour with uncontrollable rage. The Red Room belonged to Mr. Reed before his death,
it is the room where he ended his life. The room is chill, silent, solemn and mysterious. As
Jane enters the Red Room, she sees herself in the mirror, she sees a “little figure…with a
white face and arms specking the gloom” (Brontë 1994: 16). The ward “figure” used by the
author suggests that Jane hardly recognizes herself in the mirror. A very similar scene
occurs before Jane’s wedding.
When Jane finds herself in the Red Room, she starts to think of the possible ways
of escape. She considers running away or refusing to eat, in this way either to gain people’s
attention or let herself die. Nevertheless, she does not escape through flight or starvation,
eventually she escapes through madness. Terrified by the fact that she is locked in the
mysterious room, Jane has “a species of fit” (Brontë 1994: 20) and becomes unconscious,
which is a way of cutting herself from the hopeless situation. Later on, at Lowood school,
13this violent uncontrollable part of Jane will be suppressed but, eventually, it will come
back to her in the person of Bertha. Bertha represents the hidden nature of Jane which
became visible in the Red Room incident. Gilbert and Gubar show the importance of the
episode in the Red Room in the following words: “For the little drama…which opens Jane
Eyre is in itself a paradigm of the larger drama that occupies the entire book: Jane’s
anomalous, orphaned position in society, her enclosure in stultifying roles and houses, and
her attempts to escape through flight, starvation and… madness” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984:
341).
In Lowood two women help Jane to curb her wild nature: Miss Temple and Helen
Burns. Both of them cause that she orders her thoughts and learns to control her temper.
However, both of them leave her. Helen dies from typhus that breaks out in Lowood
whereas Miss Temple leaves Jane some time later to get married. After that Jane decides to
go her own way and chooses a life of a governess in a private house, which is the first step
to change her fate. Jane is offered a job in Thornfield where the situation in which she
finds herself is very similar to what she experienced as a child. Again, her status is unclear
because she is not a servant or a member of the family, again she lives in a house run by a
woman, Mrs. Fairfax, who does it on behalf of a man, Mr. Rochester. Left alone by the
“guardians” of her temper, Jane again has to meet her “secret self” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984:
348). Her encounter with her wild nature in Thornfield, her hidden rage and madness are
the centre of the novel. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar point out that “[Jane’s]
confrontation…with Rochester’s mad wife Bertha, is the book central confrontation…with
her own imprisoned ‘hunger, rebellion and rage’” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 339). Bertha can
be seen as a symbol for Jane’s childhood as she sometimes behaves similarly to little Jane.
Locked in her room at the attic, Bertha “growled like some strange wild animal” and
walked “on all fours” (Brontë 1994: 291), which resembles Jane’s “species of fit” (Brontë
1994: 20) in the Red Room.
At the beginning of her stay in Thornfield Jane hears terrible laughter and murmurs
of mad Bertha, which makes her anxious and nervous. She feels that Thornfield hides a
mystery. As a child, Jane herself also evokes the feelings of fear and agitation in her
guardians. Mrs. Reed tries to keep a distance from Jane because she feels discomfort in her
presence, possibly, she is afraid of the girl. Mrs. Reed and some other servants have an
impression that Jane hides something from the world. After her uncontrollable burst of
anger, Abigail says that she suspects that “it was always in her” (Brontë 1994: 14).
14Before her wedding with Mr. Rochestr, Jane has dreams about a little child. It
would seem that one of her dreams, in which she carries the baby among the ruins of
Thornfield and then drops the child who rolls from her knee, predicts the future. The figure
of the baby can be connected with Jane’s childhood. At the same time, it can be concluded
that the baby from Jane’s dreams is a symbol of Bertha as in reality, when Thornfield turns
into ruin, Bertha is the one who rolls from the roof of the mansion. The person of Bertha
and this period of Jane’s childhood are connected by one symbol of the baby from Jane’s
dreams. It underlines the correspondence between Bertha and Jane’s childhood. As in her
dream Jane drops the baby, it appears that the orphan child and Jane’s wild, uncontrollable
nature have to disappear so that she could live as an adult placed within society.
However, it can also be noticed that Bertha appears at moments which are difficult
and important for Jane, as if revealing her fears and anxieties. She becomes the symbol of
Jane’s emotions and desires. After coming to Thornfield, Jane is quite happy and full of
hopes but, at the same time, she is not free from worries. On the way to Thornfield she
says: “All sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts” (Brontë 1994: 95). Those
emotions are expressed in low laughs and murmurs of Bertha, which indicates that the
content and calm on the surface, in her heart Jane is uneasy. Jane is satisfied with her new
life but she is also apprehensive about what the future will bring.
Subsequently, Bertha appears on the night when Jane realizes that she cares for Mr.
Rochester. Before Bertha’s violent act of burning Mr. Rochester’s bed, Jane thinks about
her master asking herself what her life in Thornfield would look like when he goes away.
She decides that her life would become “doleful” and “joyless” (Brontë 1994: 148). Her
confession of attachment to her master begins a new important stage of her life, in which
she starts her romance with Mr. Rochester that changes all her life. This crucial moment of
Jane’s life is marked by the emergence of Bertha. Then Bertha attacks her relative, Mr.
Mason. She does it after Jane’s “unexpressed resentment at Rochester’s manipulative
gypsy-masquerade” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 360). Bertha shows herself again when Jane
feels some unsettling emotions, this time connected with Mr. Rochester’s disguise.
Annoyed by this event, Jane has nobody who she could tell about her emotions. Finally
those feelings find their outlet in Bertha’s actions.
The connection between Jane’s emotions and Bertha’s conduct is most visible in
the night scene preceding Jane’s wedding. Jane is not confident if her decision to marry
Mr. Rochester is correct. She feels attracted by Mr. Rochester because he does not try to
condescend towards her on the account of his position of the master of Thornfield. He talks
15with her as with his companion. Jane can feel comfortable in his presence: he listens to her
willingly, is able to accept her help and, in this way, admit that sometimes he is weaker and
needs her support. He even does not hesitate to dress as a woman. But after Jane’s decision
to marry him he changes, which is stated by Gilbert and Gubar in the following words:
“Rochester, having secured Jane’s love, almost reflexively begins to treat her as an
inferior, a plaything, a virginal possession” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 355). He starts to buy
her expensive clothes and ignores her protests. He uses the fact of being her husband and
tells her what she should do, what she should wear, and who she should become. Jane can
no longer find herself in the image which was created by her husband-to-be, which is
reflected by her inability to recognize herself in the mirror shortly before the wedding. The
same event took place in the Red Room at the beginning of the novel. In both scenes with
the mirror, Jane hardly recognizes herself and she says: “I saw a robed and veiled figure, so
unlike my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger” (Brontë 1994: 285).
Independent, self-sufficient Jane withdraws, now becoming dominated by the person
reflected in the vision of Mr. Rochester in which she cannot find her true self. Again, Jane
hides all her feelings from the world and, again, it can be seen how her fears, and this time
also desires, are reflected in Bertha’s actions. Bertha comes to Jane’s room at night, puts
on Jane’s veil and tears it apart. In this way she acts out Jane’s desire to prevent the
ceremony. In fact, the wedding is stopped because of Bertha, as Jane learns about her
existence.
Finally, Bertha realizes Jane’s yearning for the destruction of Thornfield, which is a
symbol of Mr. Rochester’s patriarchal power. At Thornfield, he locks his mad wife, there
he wants to manipulate Jane, he establishes his rules and, therefore, it is impossible for
Jane and Rochester to begin their new life in this place.
Bertha is not only the counterpart for Jane but, as Gilbert and Gubar claim, she is
also the author’s double. The critics state that through the socially accepted plot of a
female bildungsroman Brontë expresses her protest against the situation of women in her
times. Bertha represents the author’s rebellion against the patriarchal system symbolized
by Mr. Rochester. Bertha’s attacks are aimed mostly at her husband. She is like a mirror in
which the majority of women from the nineteenth century can see themselves: an
imprisoned person, closed in the house of her husband. Shortly before Jane speaks about
Bertha’s “low, slow ha! ha!”(Brontë 1994: 111) for the second time, her mind is
preoccupied with the following thoughts:
16Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment
in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very
calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for
their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do;
they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely
as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged
fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making
puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and
embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them,
if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced
necessary for their sex (Brontë 1994: 111).
This passage reveals Brontë’s protest to the fact that men and women have unequal rights.
She indicates that only men have the right to education and professional career although
both sexes have the same need for knowledge and self-development. Jane’s statement
appears to be the author’s attempt to make people sensitive to the situation of women who
are deprived of the possibility to realize themselves. Bertha can be seen as a living example
of a woman who is a victim of the unequal status of men and women. Her husband has the
right to lock her in and, in this way, prevent her form any action. This behaviour of Mr.
Rochester can be justified by the fact that she is insane and can pose a threat to others.
However, Brontë seems to ask the question through Jane’s statement of how restricting
women who have a need of self-realization can be justified. In her attacks on Mr.
Rochester and Thornfield Bertha, being the symbol of women’s enslavement, expresses the
author’s protest against the situation, in which women are captivated by men.
Charlotte Brontë seems to convey also the other message that comes from her
personal views and presents it using the character of mad Bertha. As the author’s double,
Bertha rebels against the situation in which women become only the visions of men, when
they fulfil their expectations and act according to the standards established by the
patriarchal system. When Jane agrees to become Mr. Rochester’s wife, his behaviour
changes in that he treats Jane as if she were his possession that can be altered according to
his needs and dreams. When Jane looks at herself dressed in her bridal outfit, she no longer
sees her true self but the reflection of what Mr. Rochester wants her to be. It would be
justified to claim that this scene describes what a woman feels seeing herself in literary
works written by men, in their visions of women as angels or monsters.
Bertha tears Jane’s veil as if she wanted to warn her of being locked in the frame of
the male perception. In the person of Bertha, the author opposes the situation in which a
woman becomes a toy in the hands of men who decide who she must become. Brontë
rebels against expectations imposed on women by men. She reveals an alternative way in
17which Jane becomes Mr. Rochester’s wife only after he learns to accept her just as she is,
to respect her independence and to share the life with her as her equal not as her master.
18Chapter Three:
Madness and psychic duplicity in The Yellow Wallpaper
Literature written by the nineteenth-century women writers repeatedly uses the motif of
imprisonment. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar explain it, claiming that nineteenth-century
women experienced confinement in their everyday life, which is reflected in feminine
artistic works. Their confinement is both literal and figurative, as most of the nineteenth-
century women were imprisoned in men’s houses as well as in their texts. Men in their
artistic works frequently present women in a stereotypical way and impose upon them
male visions of their sex, which gives women an impression of being locked in men’s
works and perception.
The motif of imprisonment can be seen in women’s literature in the reappearing
“anxieties about space” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 83). Nineteenth-century women writers
often write about constraining spaces: “From Ann Radcliffe’s melodramatic dungeons to
Jane Austin’s mirrored parlors, from Charlotte Brontë’s haunted garrets to Emily Brontë’s
coffin-shaped beds, imagery of enclosure reflects the woman writer’s own discomfort, her
sense of powerlessness” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 83,84).They also express the fear of
entrapment by describing in their works the images of women who free themselves from
all restrictions. Women who escape the control of the patriarchal system are often
presented as mad diabolical heroines who can be seen as the authors’ doubles.
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar distinguish also a difference in the motif of
imprisonment used by male and female writers. In men’s works this motif is used to
transmit deeper and metaphorical meanings. For instance, they want to depict feelings of
being trapped in a political system or social relations. However, male authors do not
experience confinement in the literal meaning of this word in their everyday existence in
the same way as nineteenth-century women. Nineteenth-century women, by presenting
themselves imprisoned in their father’s or husband’s houses portray the actual conditions
19of their living. When they write about impossibility to make their own decisions or to live
in accordance with their own will, they reflect the factual status of their sex.
The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, fully demonstrates
literal and figurative confinement experienced by nineteenth-century women. To present it,
Gilman, as many feminine writers, uses the symbolism of space in which she places her
heroine. The imprisonment of the main protagonist, who suffers from a postpartum
psychosis, is visible at every turn. She lives, as most women in the nineteenth century, in
her husband’s house, which reveals that her living space is confined to the size of the
estate. However, she is entrapped also in a more abstract sense of this word, as she cannot
make her own decisions. She is unable even to choose the room in which she would like to
live, her husband John does it for her, using indirect persuasion, as it is written that “he
said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he
took another”4 in the room she chose.
John places his wife in the former nursery room which symbolises her status within
society. The scholar Loralee MacPike claims that by using the symbolism of the space in
which she places her heroine, Gilman illustrates that women in her times were treated like
children. The proper place of living for the nineteenth-century woman was a children’s
room, full of “rings and things” (Gilman 2003: 1661), since her position in the world was
actually the same. The main protagonist of the novel is prevented from performing any
useful tasks and her husband recommends even that she stop thinking intensely. She has no
responsibility, similarly to little children. She cannot earn her living and so she
economically depends upon her husband like a baby.
The windows of the nursery room are barred, which drives the reader to the
conclusion that the narrator lives in a prison and that she “is to be forever imprisoned in
childhood, forbidden to ‘escape’ into adulthood”.5 The nursery bed is nailed to the floor,
symbolising the narrator’s sexuality which is passive and submissive. There is no sexual
bond between the main protagonist and her husband. John speaks to her from the position
of knowledge, he addresses her as a physician who instructs her what she should do to
become healthy. Curing her, in the narrators’ eyes, would mean forbidding her to think,
taking from her a possibility to decide for herself.
4
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper in: Nina Baym (ed.), The Norton Anthology of American
Literature. New York: Horton & Company, 2003, p.1661; hereafter in the text cited as Gilman.
5
Loralee MacPike, “Environment as Psychopathological Symbolism in The Yellow Wallpaper” in: Catherine
Golden (ed.), A Captive Imagination. A Casebook on ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. New York: The Feminist
Press, 1992, p.138; hereafter in the text cited as MacPike.
20Nevertheless, the main character of The Yellow Wallpaper is also prevented from
taking more prominent actions. She cannot write freely, because John forbids her to do so
to prevent the development of her “nervous depression” (Gilman 2003: 1660). It shows an
attempt to dampen her creativity. As a result, she has to write in a secret. Although she
does not agree that this activity would worsen her condition, on the contrary, she feels it
could help her, her arguments are not taken into consideration. The prohibition imposed by
John is unquestionable because of his authoritative position.
The imprisonment of the main heroine is underlined by the thread of a mysterious
woman who dwells in the wallpaper. One of the reasons which cause the main protagonist
not to want to stay in the room chosen by her husband is a peculiar yellow wallpaper. At
the beginning she is repelled by the unattractive look of it but, as the story progresses, she
finds that it is the pattern of the wallpaper that causes her uneasiness. The main
protagonist, inspired by the wallpaper, discovers that the pattern presents bars behind
which there is a woman. It can be concluded that the woman imprisoned within the
“outside pattern” (Gilman 2003: 1665) reflects the imprisonment of the narrator, who is
entrapped behind the window-bars as well as the condition of an average woman who lives
in the patriarchal system. This claim can be supported by the following quotation: “Her
dilemma is not strictly personal, for the forces that shaped her, cutting off all possibility of
personal realization, movement, or sexuality, are the processes that shape many women’s
lives” (MacPike 1992: 138).
By the observation of the woman who is entrapped behind the wallpaper, it is
possible to see what happens in the mind of the main heroine as well as in the author’s.
Since the woman behind the wallpaper, a counterpart of Bertha in Jane Eyre, is an aviator
of the main protagonist and the author’s double. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar explain
this in the following words: “Eventually it becomes obvious to both reader and narrator
that the figure creeping though and behind the wallpaper is both the narrator and the
narrator’s double” (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 91).
It can be concluded that the woman from the wallpaper is a counterpart to the main
heroine. Both of them are imprisoned, and both of them try to violate the restrictions by
which they are surrounded. The narrator of the novel tries to do it by the act of writing. In
this way she opposes her husband’s rules and finds her own space, her own imaginative
world. It seems that “her work can transport her out of the world of childhood, so too can it
alone free her from her dependence upon her husband in particular and the male-created
world in general” (MacPike 1992: 138). In turn, the woman from the paper sometimes
21escapes from her incarceration and creeps around the summer estate. She also shakes the
pattern to destroy it and to be free forever. Finally, the two women jointly obliterate the
bars and it seems that they become one person, since the narrator starts to creep around the
room and says to her husband: “I’ve got out at last…I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so
you can put me back!” (Gilman 2003: 1671).
The woman imprisoned within the wallpaper is also the author’s double. She
represents Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s discontent about the situation of women in her times
and rebellion against the patriarchal system. The plot of the narrative reflects the author’s
own experiences. The story depicts oppression encountered by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in
exceptional conditions, that is during her treatment conducted by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. The
character of the woman locked within the wallpaper symbolises what she had to feel at the
time of her treatment. Namely, an irresistible will to free herself from the control of others
and from the stagnation in which she had to live, since the most important rule of the
treatment was to rest and make no mental effort. The woman from the yellow wallpaper
enacts the hidden desires of the author. The person of woman entrapped in the paper, the
same as Bertha in Jane Eyre, reflect the author’s anger and rage, desire to tear into pieces
the patriarchal procedures which are linked in the text with the yellow wallpaper or bridal
veil. The woman from the paper and Bertha are the representatives of the characters
projected into novels to reveal the longings of the authors by whom they are created. Both
diabolical heroines escape men’s mastery, both John and Mr. Rochester are unable to
control their behaviour or their actions. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar discuss the issue
in the following quotation:
Significantly, too, the explosive violence of these ‘moments of escape’
that women writers continually imagine for themselves returns us to the
phenomenon of the mad double so many of these women have projected
into their works. For it is, after all, through the violence of the double
that the female author enacts her own raging desire to escape male
houses and male texts, while at the same time it is through the double’s
violence that this anxious author articulates for herself the costly
destructiveness of anger repressed until it can no longer by contained
(Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 85).
The role of psychic duplicity in Jane Eyre and The Yellow Wallpaper is quite
similar in both works. Charlotte Brontë and Charlotte Perkins Gilman project into their
novels mad doubles to transmit similar messages. Bertha, as well as the woman from the
yellow wallpaper, represent the status of the female sex within society. The conditions of
22their living reflect the situation in which women of the nineteenth century had to live. Both
of them are imprisoned, which symbolises the confinement of women “in world created by
and for men” (MacPike 1992: 137). The attic of Thornfield mansion and the yellow
wallpaper represent the patriarchal system that surrounded nineteenth-century women.
Bertha lives in the attic, which is a place in every house which is rarely frequented,
mysterious and rather insignificant in comparison with other rooms in the house. This
place perfectly illustrates women’s conditions and the way men look upon them. Women
in the nineteenth century were considered to be mysterious, silent and fragile. They were
expected to keep away from politics, economics or business, their role was to stay aside
and create perfect background for their husbands, fathers or brothers. However, Charlotte
Brontë presents that there are also women such as Bertha, who are strong, energetic,
impulsive and healthy, who feel suffocated by limitations imposed on them.
The repelling yellow wallpaper also represents the patriarchal system surrounding
women. It wraps the woman who is locked within the wallpaper as well as the narrator
who lives in the room decorated with it. In both women the wallpaper wakens negative
feelings because it is old and impractical, the same as the rules to which women had to
submit. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar describe it in the following way:
Even more tormenting, however, is the room’s wallpaper: a sulphurous
yellow paper, torn off in spots, and patterned with ‘lame uncertain
curves’ that ‘plunge off at outrageous angles’ and ‘destroy themselves in
unheard of contradictions.’ Ancient, smoldering, ’unclean’ as the
oppressive structures of the society in which she finds herself, this paper
surrounds the narrator like an inexplicable text, as the ‘hereditary estate’
in which she is trying to survive (Gilbert – Gubar 1984: 90).
Another massage that both authors want to convey by creating the figures of the
mad doubles is the feeling of fragmentation experienced by many women. In Jane Eyre
and The Yellow Wallpaper women encounter specific requirements imposed on them by
men. On the one hand, they want to fulfil them but, on the other hand, it is contradictory to
their very nature. Jane Eyre lived in a world where women rarely ran independent lives
during which they would actually do something for themselves. Mostly they represented
men and acted on their behalf. Jane seems to accept it and, despite her many independent
acts, she eventually sees her fulfilment in the role of Mr. Rochester’s wife. The role of a
wife in those times was to represent the husband. However, Jane’s agreement is only
partial, as her stifled anger is reflected in the person of Bertha, who does not want to
23submit to Mr. Rochester and tries to kill him. This shows the fragmentation of Jane and of
many women through history.
The woman’s duty in The Yellow Wallpaper is very explicit. She is to care for the
house and babies and to stay as far as possible from intellectual activity, responsibility and
ambition. Such model of a woman is depicted by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the person of
John’s sister. She is “a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better
profession” (Gilman 2003: 1663). The narrator cannot accomplish these demands as she is
bored by the chores connected with housekeeping and she would like to be preoccupied
with more ambitious tasks such as writing. Yet, all the time, she tries to hide from John her
real nature in order not to make him disappointed. She writes in secret and tries to control
her behaviour before him. She also sees the world from the perspective of his expectations
and feels guilty that she is not a woman he wants her to be, as she says: “He takes all care
from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more” (Gilman 2003: 1661). The
main protagonist of the story does not oppose to her husband openly, the woman from the
wallpaper does it for her. First, the smell of the wallpaper drenches every room of the
house, then the woman herself creeps around the estate causing John’s uneasiness and
anxiousness. John also starts to observe the pattern of the wallpaper, and even his clothes
have smudges from the wallpaper on them. It seems that he sees her straggle to free herself
and becomes nervous because of this fact. Finally, the woman escapes from the wallpaper
and merges with the main heroine, in this way enabling her to creep over John’s
unconscious body. The main protagonist symbolises women’s willingness to meet men’s
expectations while the woman from the wallpaper represents their hidden desire to oppose
them.
What is most important, Bertha and the woman from the wallpaper represent
rebellion against living in accordance which male restrictions and rules. They escape
men’s control through madness. Mad Bertha in her furious attacks can hardly be stopped
by anyone. Fits of madness are her “moments of escape”, in which she manages to free
herself from the attic, that is, in fact, her prison. Eventually, she achieves her goal and
destroys her husband’s house. Playing the role of the author’s double, she enacts Charlotte
Brontë’s own desire to destroy the prevailing rules and remove her helplessness and anger
off her chest.
By analogy, the woman from the paper expresses Gilman’s discontent with
women’s oppression. Using her person, the author presents how she perceives women’s
situation within society. Namely, they are constantly moderated and repressed by invisible
24bars that stop them from moving forward. Furthermore, by the character of the woman
enslaved within the yellow wallpaper she shows the way all women should take to make a
change. She shows her persistent fight with the pattern. The woman from the wallpaper
never rests, she is “stooping down”, “creeping about” (Gilman 2003: 1665), shaking the
pattern, crawling around fast, “trying to climb through” (Gilman 2003: 1668), which
finally helps her to find the way of escape. She manages to cooperate with the narrator and
they together peel off most of the wallpaper, which enables her to be free.
It can be seen that “temporary nervous depression” (Gilman 2003: 1660) of the
main protagonist of The Yellow Wallpaper worsens as she gets to know the woman from
the wallpaper. She immerses entirely into madness after she becomes one with the woman
imprisoned behind the “outside pattern” (Gilman 2003: 1665). These facts and the creeping
strange movements of the woman from the wallpaper suggest a conclusion that she is also
insane. Only when she transfers her madness to the main heroine and joins with her into
one person, the narrator attains victory and starts to creep over the body of her unconscious
husband. The fact that the woman from the wallpaper has never surrounded and her
continuous fight with her confinement give the protagonist the boost to escape John’s
control. It can be concluded that the example of the woman from the wallpaper is
introduced by Gilman into the novel to inspire also other women to oppose the stagnation
and demeaning position in which they had to live. She also represents the author’s own
battle with the patriarchal system in which she uses her work to awaken women’s
awareness.
25Conclusion
The Yellow Wallpaper and Jane Eyre share many aspects. Both novels have the female
protagonists and their mad counterparts who, at the same time, are the authors’ doubles.
The roles of Bertha and that of the woman from the yellow wallpaper are extremely
similar. They portray the status of nineteenth-century women within society, their feelings
of fragmentation and rebellion against their confinement and submission to laws
established by and for men. However, the endings of both works differ to a great extent.
This difference can be justified when we look at the female tradition and stages of its
development as distinguished by Elaine Showalter. The scholar divides the female tradition
into three phases of development: Feminine, Feminist and Female.
According to Elaine Showalter, the Feminine tradition begins around 1840s and
ends with the death of George Eliot in 1880. What distinguishes Feminine writers is the
fact that they imitate their male colleagues: they use similar genres, forms and ways of
expression. The women writers during this time consider their vocation as standing “in
direct conflict with their status as women”,6 which is expressed by the use of male
pseudonyms. They want to be treated by publishers and critics in the same way as men,
they desire to reach the same excellence but, at the same time, they do not want their
behaviour to be considered unwomanly. For this reason they hide themselves under male
names. Also, they persistently try to prove that it is possible to combine knowledge and the
skill of writing with typical women’s occupations. So they attempt to be well-educated
and, at the same time, to be model housekeepers. The perfect example of such approach is
represented by George Eliot, who possessed impressive knowledge, was active
professionally and was caring for her widowed father (Showalter 1977: 43). A great
number of women writers, to underline their femininity, devote their time to the charity
and sacrifice themselves for the needy. The feminine writers do not discuss the subject of
sexuality in a direct way, resorting to symbols, as it was not proper for a lady to discuss
sexual matters.
The Feminist period, which according to Elaine Showalter lasts from 1880 till
1920, is marked by the rebellion, the challenge of earlier principles and the exploration of
6
Elaine Showalter, A Literature of Their Own. British women novelists from Brontë to Lessing. New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1977, p. 19; hereafter in the text cited as Showalter.
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