Another Key Word for Jane Eyre Author(s): Charles Burkhart Source: Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 16, No.

2 (Sep., 1961), pp. 177-179 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2932482 . Accessed: 10/06/2011 08:36
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Notes and Reviews

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One cannot choose to ignorea universethat is real thoughunfeeling.Yet to explain one's predicament it is as meaningless to as offering sacrifices friendship it. Passion will not move it; or to reasonwill not convinceit; "commonusage and commonsense" are helplessbeforeit. While the narrator responsiblefor Baris Even in his detleby,Bartleby unconcerned is withthe narrator. the for cision to departfromBartleby, narrator frustrated, the is of absurdity his positionis thathe would cling to a situationthat he does not desire ("I toremyself from himwhomI had so longed to be rid of"). As Arvinsays,"If poor Bartlebyis a lunatic,it is not because othermen are somehowmerely sane; it is because he has accepted his forlornness a finalfact and forgotten fact of dependas the ence."' But whatArvinsomehowignoresis thatthe development of the character the narrator of demonstrates the function that of Bartleby himself a universeto whichthe narrator as responds has been as an object lessonwhichthe narrator learnedwhen he has "Ah Bartleby! humanity!" Ah comments, Long Island University
ANOTHER KEY WORD ROBERT DONALD SPECTOR

FOR Jane

Eyre

In a recentpaper in NCF, "CharlotteBronte,Reason, and the Moon," Robert B. Heilman has brilliantly surveyedthe "lunar inspiration" CharlotteBronteand the richness implication of of it adds to hernovels.Otherwriters have commented thenovels on as vehiclesof wish-fulfillment, elaborationsof the Cinderella as myth, studiesof the masochist-sadist as elementsin sexual love. Can one not generalize the natureof all theseaspectsof Charon lotte Bronte'sart to the extentof sayingthatit is largelyan unconsciousart?The distinction betweena consciousand an unconsciousart is hard to make,because thereare both in everynovel; but one can at least offhandedly symbolize by sayingthatFlauit bertand Hawthornewere Charlotte's contemporaries. Rocky,priggish, didactic,Charlotte's prosestylehas, it seemsto me, been overestimated recently. is easyto forget It Flaubertand Hawthornein the faceof the amateurand splendidforceof Jane Eyre.Yet so muchof thesurface JaneEyreis an addled mixture of
'Arvin, pp. 243-244.

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Fiction Nineteenth-Century

so of romanticspinsterand Victorianbluestocking, inchoate a disthatthe sharpand productive blend of Pindaricand sermon, tinction betweenwhat Charlottewilled to writeand what willed itself written, shouldbe attempted. It is still anotheraspect of the unwilled art that I wish very briefly examine. In addition to Heilman's "moon," there is to anotherkeywordto JaneEyre: "nature."The word "nature"ocas and curs at least as frequently as climactically "moon"; and it a guide to "the conflict betweenreasonseemsequally handyas which senseand feeling-imagination-intuition" judgment-common Heilman discusses. to There are dozensof pointedreferences the value of what is natural. What is natural comes fromnature, and is therefore "Nature meantme to be . . . a "right."Rochester saysof himself, good man" and "I am [not]naturally vicious,"and hopesthatJane "will learn to be naturalwith me." Jane believesthat Rochester a and was "naturally man of bettertendencies, higherprinciples, had purertastesthansuch as circumstances developed,education instilled, destiny or encouraged." BlancheIngramis not a suitable mateforRochester because her heartwas "barrenby nature."To love "seemed natural" to Jane. But to accept accept Rochester's St. John'sproposal of marriage, Jane "must disown half my nature"; such a union as St. John offered was, even in his sister Diana's eyes,"unnatural."St. Johnhas wantedJane "to turnthe the of bent of nature"; her inabilityto do so symbolizes victory miles was call to Jane throughthe midnight nature.Rochester's "the workofnature.She [nature]was roused,and did-no miracle -but her best." Historicallyspeaking,this Rousseauistic (and simple) beliefin natureplaces Charlotte's spiritwith the romanfor tics; her mind,when she used it, is responsible the Victorian whichdeforms and even priggish some pages. I would moralizing evengo so faras to saythatunconsciously Charlotte a romantic was a one and consciously Victorian-though is reluctant hide under to thosetwohuge definitions. One can add thatthetimeswhenCharlotte's styletakeson felicof ityand graceare oftendescriptions physical natureitself, such as in the greatscene in the "Edenlike" orchard.The naturalelementsin JaneEyreare like thosein ancientlegendsand tales: the to and manyreferences superstitions fairytales,and Rochester's references Janeas an elf,a sprite, changeling, fairy to a constant a

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of -these are also partof the richsubstratum the work.Thus on rich, rich with the levels Jane Eyre is disturbingly its primary of strength an earlierliterature. natural,and unconscious mythic,
CHARLES BURKHART

Temple University
KELVIN'S

A Troubled Eden

Norman Kelvin's book, A Troubled Eden: Nature and Society in the WJorks George Meredith (Stanford UniversityPress: $5.50), of is so good in places that one can only wish that it might have lived up to its highest level throughout. At his best, Kelvin writes with fresh intelligence, sound critical judgment, and lively style. But elsewhere he lapses into unnecessary obscurity and questionable interpretations.Perhaps the book's chief weakness is the almost total omission of reference to several of Meredith's novels. They may not be his best or most characteristicwork, and Kelvin is right in assuming that he is under no obligation to analyse all the author's output with equal thoroughness. But by completely ignoring Rhoda Fleming, and mentioning Sandra Belloni only twice, he induces a legitimate doubt as to the validity of the generalizations that he makes. And these doubts are strengthenedby his positive dismissal of Shagpat and Farina with the quite untenable assertion that "they do not anticipate the themes . . . that were to occupy Meredith throughout his subsequent career." This reveals one of Kelvin's serious weaknesses-a literal-mindednessthat is particularlyhampered in dealing with an author as addicted to implication and symbolism as Meredith was. The difficulty begins with Kelvin's title. He never makes clear exactly how his phrase "a troubled Eden" (taken from "Night of Frost in May") is to be applied to his central topic, stated in the subtitle as "Nature and Society." Certainly Meredith is addicted to allusions to the storyof Adam and Eve, in Richard Feverel and elsewhere; but he would scarcely have described the contemporary social scene as an Eden, even a troubled one. And the neat antithesis of "nature and society" appears only intermittently in the body of the book, and then by sometimes arbitrarygeneralizations. Indeed, the novel that most openly presents the conflicting claims of nature and society, Sandra Belloni, is one of those that Kelvin chooses not to discuss.