‘Jane Eyre’ is the kind of novel that needs no introduction. Its familiarity re-echoes throughout the subsequent history of the novel. Widely accredited with introducing the concept of the ‘soul mate’ into our minds, it perhaps changed forever the way that we relate to the concept of romance.
(Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester meet on the road near Thornfield. This famous illustration by F.H. Townsend is from a rare 1897 copy of the novel available in the shop.)
Not her first novel, which was the rejected and later posthumously published as ‘The Professor’, ‘Jane Eyre’ was a more mature story. Charlotte Brontë had by this time lived in Brussels for two years, where she fell in love and was rejected by a married teacher at her school in Belgium. She then returned to Yorkshire and attempted to set up a small boarding school, which failed due to its inaccessible location. Meanwhile her sisters, Emily and Anne, had both already become successful published authors.
Needless to say, it can’t have been easy for Charlotte at this point in her life, and her subsequent writing speaks to the optimistic mindset that she had to develop in the wake of her many disappointments.
‘Every joy that life gives must be earned ere it is secured; and how hardly earned, those only know who have wrestled for great prizes.’ – Charlotte Brontë, ‘Shirley’, 1849
During this period Charlotte was also caring for her elderly father who was in the process of growing blind. She would eventually take him to Birmingham, where he would undergo an extremely painful operation to remove his cataracts without anaesthetic (for more information about the operation and Charlotte’s life during this period, I would recommend the BBC documentary ‘Being the Brontës’) which is free on YouTube).
(The aftermath of the fire at Thornfield where Mr Rochester loses his sight, a second 1897 illustration by F.H. Townsend.)
She writes of her father’s deteriorating sight in a letter to her professor in Brussels:
‘My father is well but his sight has almost gone, he can no longer read or write; nevertheless, the doctor’s advice is to wait a few months longer before attempting the operation – for him the winter will be nothing bit a long night – he rarely complains, I admire his patience – if Providence ordains that the same calamity should be my own fate – may He at least grant me the patience to endure it! It seems to me, Monsieur, that what is most bitterly painful in great bodily afflictions is that we are compelled to make all those who surround us share our sufferings; we can hide the troubles of the soul, but those white attack the body and destroy its faculties cannot be written.’
(All quotes from Charlotte’s letters are taken from Helen MacEwan’s excellent book, ‘The Brontës in Brussels’).
(Mr Rochester asks Jane the colour of her dress, as he has gone blind. A third 1897 illustration by F.H. Townsend.)
Less is written and known about Charlotte’s own trouble with her sight, which was rapidly deteriorating and impacting her ability to both read and write. Charlotte’s letters record her trouble, although the references she makes to it are fleeting:
‘I fear nothing so much as idleness – lack of employment – inertia – lethargy of the faculties – when the body is idle, the spirit suffers cruelly. I would not experience this lethargy if I could write – once upon a time I used to spend whole days, weeks, complete months in writing […] but at present my sight is too week for writing – if I wrote a lot I would become blind. This weakness of sight is a terrible privation for me’
(Jane Eyre’s aunt’s cruelty and idleness are demonstrated by her inability to read a book. A fourth 1897 illustration by F.H. Townsend.)
It is in this context that Charlotte writes her conclusion to ‘Jane Eyre’, where Mr Rochester loses his sight as a result of a fire started by his first wife, Bertha. Jane, upon her return to Thornfield, becomes his carer. Mr Rochester would remain blind for two years, before regaining partial sight in one eye at the end of the novel. Jane describes her role as follows:
‘Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union; perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near—that knit us so very close: for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw nature—he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam—of the landscape before us; of the weather round us—and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of conducting him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished to be done.’
(A blind Mr Rochester greets Jane upon her return to Thornfield. A fifth 1897 illustration by F.H. Townsend.)
(An image of Mr Rochester’s first wife, named Antoinette in ‘The Wide Sargasso Sea’. This illustration is from the cover of a 1967 copy of ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ available in the shop. The illustration is by Eric Thomas.)
Of course, it is hard to talk about ‘Jane Eyre’ without also thinking about Jean Rhys’s award-winning response to the novel ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’. Needless to say, the book, which concerns Mr Rochester’s relationship with his first wife, frequently foreshadows his eventual blinding by her, and plays with the theme of sight in its own way. In the book, which is set in the Caribbean, Mr Rochester’s wife’s maid and carer, a Martinique obeah woman named Christine, seems to curse him, bringing about his lack of sight.
‘I said loudly and wildly, “Do you think that I wanted all this? I would give my life to undo it. I would give my eyes never to have seen this abominable place.”
She laughed. “And that’s the first damn word of truth you speak. You choose what you give, eh? Then you choose. You meddle in something and perhaps you don’t know what it is.’ She began to mutter to herself. Not in patois, I knew the sound of patois now.’
(Mr Rochester stands in the garden of his wife’s Dominican property in ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’. The illustration is also by Eric Thomas.)
Blindness is one of literature’s most historic preoccupations, from the blinding of Oedipus in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex to the blinding of Gloucester in King Lear. However, ‘Jane Eyre’ adds something new to it, not only by the very personal feeling of the writing, but also by suggesting that there may be a recovery, a future beyond the tragic ending. Once again, Charlotte’s undampened hope for her own future shines through, in a lesson to all of us.
(Being seen and being unseen is one of the underpinning themes of ‘Jane Eyre’. A sixth 1897 illustration by F.H. Townsend.)