S Seeccrreett LLiieess C Co on ncceeaallm meen ntt & & tthhee Q Qu ueesstt ffo orr ttrru utthh iin n JJaan nee EEyyrree 1/ Litté
Source: Secret Lies Concealment & the Quest for truth in Jane Eyre, Jacqueline Fromonot, Ellipses. - Although her work became very popular immediately after publication, there was also widespread censure of the text, owing to its supposed coarseness (grossièreté) in the portrayal of emotions and its critical representation of religious sentiment through an attack on Evangelicalism. - Throughout her diegetic life, J is tirelessly made to denounce all kinds of lies, whether individual or social, thus putting fortfard an ethic of her own, based on sincerity or authenticity. ! A world of secret and lies: - Lying is such a central element in Je that it shapes its plot and becomes one of its main driving force. - Gateshead’s falsehoos prove to be dynamic elements in J’s destiny: they contribute to turn the penniless orphan into a strong, independent & resilient woman, in other words to allow her to achieve maturity as a ch & credibility as an authoress in this Bildungsroman or apprenticeship novel. - Blanche’s mercenary motives. - R’s transvestite impersonation of a gypsy. - Third story: polysemic meaning: top floor of the mansion, but also stories of J, R & Bertha. 3 pole has to be denied or eliminated. - Mere lying by omission, that is passively withholding the truth about Bertha’s existence, develops into intentionally false declarations. - There is also a more general reflection on lying, through the analysis of some 19 -century mores, namely the restraint sty expects from individuals. Women in particular are required to conceal their bodies and repress their feelings: they are taught to be what the patriarchal sty has decided for them, rd
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chaste, demure and subdued. That is why Bertha, with her insatiable sexual desire, can no longer make a presentable wife, and is therefore kept away from the public sphere. (+ Br and restraints on the deminine body). - Br can easily be suspected of being a Pharisee, a believer whose faith is not genuine. His class double standards lead him to think that humility needs to be taught to the poor, while the rich can enjoy all kinds of privileges. - One might think that this indictment of extreme Evangelical zeal through the treatment of Br may be counterbalanced by that of the other key religious figure in the novel, but the narrator describes St John with the same image of a “column”. - Both marriages are unacceptable for Jane, as they require the sacrifice of feelings and moral sense. ! The Quest for Truth and Truthfulness - J rejects the trappings of conventional femininity; insists on wearing her “old Lowood frocks” after the proposal. - Even as a narrator addressing the reader directly, she makes no compromise about her ideal of truthfulness at the risk of shocking idealistic readers: hence her remark when it comes to noting Poole’s drinking pb: “oh romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth.” - She refuses to live by common standards of sociability & she thinks little of courteous exchange. - After answering no to R’s q° as to whether she thinks him handsome, she puts together a new version, ending with a dismissive closure, “or something of that sort”, to distance herself ironically from the ready-made formulae often resorted to when a straight answer is impossible to give. - J’s remarkable departure from deceptive conventions had a felicitous outcome in true romance (as R like her for her sincerity). ! The Poetic Manipulation of Truth:
- Like any standard autobiography, JE is based on narration in retrospect, with a 1 -person, limited pt of view. It is a doublevoiced narrative too, which means that the referent of the pronoun I oscillates btw 2 different Janes, the mature woman and the younger self she used to be. - When she meets Br Jane says “What a great nose ! and what a mouth! And what large prominent teeth!” (26). - The voice of maturity will inevitably merge with that of whildhood, and this will result in unstable focalization. - The numerous references to the enigmas of Th are made in bad faith, because the narrator has solved them since then. Under the pretense of reporting events, she slips into her former self’s restricted understanding to keep the unfolding of the diegesis going. - The manipulation relies on the close bond created btw the narrator and the reader, who is often addressed directly through apostrophes so that a relation of plain, honest communication is established. - Narrative controlling process applying to the whole novel: conflict btw 2 opposite forces: a movement towards disclosing the outcome; another which tends to postpone the revelations by stalling action or setting up all sorts of obstacles, so as to build expectation. Eg Bertha’s laugh is at first wrongly attributed to Poole, a misleading clue given by the narrator herself. - Narrative truthfulness does not import so much, it is the reader’s pleasure that counts. - Extensive use of romantic imagination. Although the story reaches high degree of authenticity, it is hard not to call it a romance, on account of the part idealization plays in it, regarding in particular the providential nature of the world depicted. - It cannot be denied that JE unfolds through a combination of good luck and implausible, heavy-handed coincidences. - Authoress proves unable to free herself totally from the romantic code but one may say that it is thanks to this very st
mixture of romance and realism—2 literary traditions—that JE is a true literary master-piece.
