The Secret History of Jane Eyre

by John Pfordresher

  42 Her personal haven. JE 422, 400–1. Much later in the novel Rochester remembers secretly observing Jane lapsing into “a deep reverie” where she dreams a “day vision” that pleases her, only to be interrupted by Mrs. Fairfax “speaking to a servant in the hall . . .” JE 267. The pattern of this scene exactly replicates Charlotte’s experience.

  42 It is John Reed. JE 7, 8.

  43 Cutting her head. CB TP 56. AB AG 20, 23, 27.

  44 Threw a Bible at her. EG 136. JB 364.

  44 John Reed defiles. JB 11.

  44 During the ensuing scuffle. JE 9.

  45 Mrs. Reed arrives. JE 23, 9.

  45 As Jane’s rage dwindles. JE 13.

  46 From earlier gothic fiction. CB to EN, Letters I, 178. CB to MW, ­Letters I, 505.

  47 Horrifying as a nightmare. CA EW 272. HG 456–7.

  47 Threatened with supernatural visitations. EG 111.

  48 “All buried here.” Eighteen forty-two was a particularly devastating year. William Weightman, a handsome young curate whose dash and charm had endeared him to all, helped Patrick Brontë in the church. Charlotte had drawn an elegant portrait of him in 1840. On September 6, he was to die of cholera at age twenty-eight. Martha Taylor, sister to Charlotte’s friend Mary—living in Brussels where Charlotte and Emily were studying—died of the same terrible malady on October 2 at age twenty-three. Martha was in many ways similar to Charlotte. In reacting to this loss, Charlotte wrote a poem describing Martha as a flower; but now, “The rose is blasted withered blighted / Its root has felt a worm.” Finally the kindly Aunt Branwell, who had been a surrogate mother to the family for many years, died on October 29 at age sixty-six after suffering for days from a painful obstruction of the bowel. These three deaths were terrible blows to Charlotte and her siblings. Summing up the meaning of these losses in November she writes, “Aunt—Martha Taylor—Mr. Weightman are now all gone—how dreary & void everything seems.” CB to EN, Letters I, 302. EG 99. HG 459. CB to EN, Letters I, 385.

  48 Indeed the return of the vengeful dead. JE 10, 14.

  49 Darkness of Jane’s in the red-room. “Gilbert” in N CBP 401–4.

  50 And then come consolations. JE 15, 16–17.

  50 Indeed, Jane must leave. JE 35.

  51 Each is a test. Frequently Jane is described as on a pilgrimage, critics discerning the influence of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) on Brontë’s book. It is, however, illuminating to consider Jane Eyre as part of this larger and much older narrative tradition in which Bunyan’s tale plays a small but significant part. The most thought-provoking discussion of this topic is Joseph Campbell’s 1949 study, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, commemorative edition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

  CHAPTER THREE

  52 Thus in framing. JE 49, 30.

  53 Mrs. Reed wants. JE 27, 28, 29.

  54 Truth about her own past. JB 158.

  55 Triumph in her words. CB to Smith, Elder and Co., Letters I, 539–40. EG 51. CB to WSW, Letters II, 3–4.

  56 Rely on them here. EG 60, 475.

  56 Her sisters but also herself. EG 57.

  57 Indifferent strangers. CB to HN, Letters I, 255.

  58 What Brontë writes. JE 28.

  58 When Jane arrives at Lowood. JE 36, 37.

  60 Underlying the structure. JE 39.

  61 Although it evokes much. Gérin discusses in ample detail how Wilson’s Calvinism led to his conviction that eternal damnation punishes “the wicked, among whom must be classed the naughty child . . .” WG 12, 7.

  61 For individuals. JE 38, 45, 47.

  61 A punishment for all the girls. JE 38, 61.

  62 Accumulated during the week. EG 476–77. WG 8. EG 56.

  62 All is done. JE 41, 50.

  63 Little which they have. WG 9.

  63 Brontë depicts the inner spring. JE 54.

  64 Certainly half freethinking. EG 478, 476. Letters II, 280, n. 5.

  64 To show how close. JE 56–57.

  65 Steels herself for the worst. Brontë, Jane Eyre, eds. Jack and Smith, figure facing 621.

  65 When the span of time. JE 58.

  65 Brontë remembers another sister. JE 40–41.

  65 It is here Jane first meets. JE 41.

  66 Dead sister, Maria. CA EW I, 256-57.

  66 Lively and engaged fashion. Letters I, Appendix, 593. CB to WSW, Letters II, 279.

  67 “Had been subjected.” EG 41. CB to WSW, Letters I, 553. EG 57.

  67 Punished for being late. WG 11. EG 58.

  68 Her guilt because she is still alive. JB 162–63.

  69 Reincarnate Maria. JE 414.

  69 As Helen comforts Jane. JE 59.

  69 Maria Temple greeted Jane. JE 60 -62.

  70 Repress and cut off. JB 62. After the publication of Jane Eyre, her father “placed a packet of letters yellowed with age” into her hands one day saying, “These are your Mother’s letters . . .” She and Ellen Nussey read them, moved by “Her gentleness and lovingness, her purity and refinement, her goodness and modesty.” Letters I, Appendix, 608. Catalogue #36.

  71 “The fever.” EG 59.

  71 Nine years old. Chitham, 42–43, lays out the problem as to when Charlotte and Emily returned from Cowan Bridge, either in early June or in late August. While being at home as Elizabeth died would have had a powerful impact on these young children, even if they returned after her death the tragedy lingered in their minds and hearts.

  71 At eleven at night. JE 68, 69.

  71 Helen’s last words. JE 70.

  72 The next morning Miss Temple. JE 70.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  73 Time moves quickly. JE 70.

  74 This process of development. JE 32, 33.

  74 The novel’s readers already know. JE 8–9.

  76 “Very strange ones.” EG 69.

  77 No question. JB 182–83. See note for pg. 71 in EG 481. EG 70. CA SW 498.

  77 Sharing what they learned. JB 188, 193.

  77 “An Adventure in Ireland.” CA SW 15–17.

  79 Jane remains at Lowood. JE 71.

  79 After Helen’s death. JE 71.

  80 “A strong Irish accent.” Letters I, Appendix, 589, 590. JB 200.

  80 Her almost foreign accent. Letters I, Appendix, 591.

  81 “interesting to me.” WG 65.

  81 Charlotte’s artistic ambition. Catalogue 191 #62. Letters I, Appendix, 603.

  81 Jane Eyre, too, from her youthful days. JE 63.

  83 Chapter XXIII of Jane Eyre. JB 205. Letters I, Appendix, 596.

  83 Marginal position at Rochester’s house parties. JB 205–07.

  84 “Incorrigible ‘Booby .’” Ox Comp, 290. CB to EN, Letters I, 148.

  84 “Sensible pursuits their ennui.” CB to EN, Letters I, 511.

  85 Such an opportunity. CB to EN, Letters I, 127.

  85 The human heart. CB to EN, Letters I, 128.

  86 Own willed decision. CB to EN, Letters I, 130.

  86 1825 to 1835 were thus happy. JE 72.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  87 The reproach. JE 10.

  87 In seeking a new form. JE 75.

  87 At Thornfield Hall. Marielle Hampe in her recent MA thesis “To Grow Up Clean: Jane Eyre and Education” (Georgetown University, 2016) surveyed 150 such advertisements for work as governess published between 1790 and 1840 and has shown conclusively both that there was a commonly used format for these personal ads, which included specific set phrases such as “good English education,” and that Brontë has given Jane’s exactly that format. See page 20 and following for Hampe’s extensive and detailed account.

  88 Current mental state. RS to CB, Letters I, 166–67.

  88 Religiously sanctioned certitude. RS to CB, Letters I, 166–67. Robert Southey (1774–1843) was named Laureate in 1813, a reward in part for his earlier shift from radical to political conservative. He is most remembered now for his biography of Lord Nelson (1813) and for Byron’s savage attack on him as a turncoat and sycophant in “The Vision
of Judgment” (1822).

  89 Unhappiness of Charlotte Brontë’s daily life. “I scarce would let that restless eye.” N CBP 238–39.

  89 Jane Eyre presents. JE 71.

  90 “Too excited or too despondent.” JB 490.

  90 “I believe that I have Genius.” JB 490. In order not to seem excessively boastful, Charlotte put this affirmation into the words of a letter from a fictional “Poor Painter” addressed to “a Great Lord.” But to anyone knowing what Brontë was going through during the months when she wrote the piece it is impossible not to believe the poor painter stands in for herself. Lonoff 358, 360.

  91 Not so easy to achieve. HG 452, 455.

  92 Present in Mr. Rochester. N PCB 186–89.

  92 Charlotte gives Jane. JE 72.

  92 The liberty she desires. JB 490.

  93 She had to flee. CH 64, 67. JB 335. CB to EN, Letters I, 178.

  94 Before starting Jane Eyre. AB AG 12, 20, 28.

  94 Years later Charlotte Brontë. JE 11.

  95 That novel’s first chapters. EG 135–36. CB to WSW, Letters II, 65.

  96 “Love the governess , my dear!” JB 361. CB to EB, Letters I, 190–91. CB to EN, Letters I, 194. EG 136.

  96 Employment in July. WG 147–48.

  97 Curiously and significantly. JE 29.

  98 “Very thoughts of governess-ship.” EG 144.

  98 Gratitude on both sides. Chitham 118 notes the exact date when she began cannot be determined. EG 158. CB to EN, Letters I, 246–47, 253. EG 164.

  99 French to the end of the year. CB to EN, Letters I, 289.

  99 “[Were] mentally depraved.” CB TP 46–47, 81, 82.

  100 A similarly flawed. JE 88, 87, 124, 74.

  101 Before leaving for Thornfield. JE 75.

  102 Primly and, frequently, alludes. CB to EB, Letters I, 191. CB to EN, Letters I, 248.

  102 On this same first morning. JE 85.

  CHAPTER SIX

  103 Fairfax Rochester himself. JE 118.

  104 What Charlotte Brontë. JE 97, 96.

  105 Everything about the man. JE 98.

  106 Newfoundland dog Pilot. Clearly an echo of Mr. Sidgwick’s Newfoundland dog.

  106 In Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography. JE 123, 263.

  107 Patrick Brontë’s rage. EG 44, 471.

  108 Her views on an issue. Letters I, Appendix, 599, 608. EG 471. WG 575. Letters I, Appendix, 607.

  109 One aspect. JE 99.

  111 Their shared lives. WG 20.

  111 What began in play. JE 134.

  111 Glimpsing their fencing. JB 224.

  111 This kind of fun. Spelling and punctuation from original text. N WPBB I, 92.

  112 Passed around the table. CA EW 1, 180–81.

  113 Bright, red, curly hair. From “My Angria and the Angrians, By Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley October 13th 1834.” In CA EW 2, (2) 239, 245.

  113 And so on. CA EW 2, (2) 248–49, 250.

  115 Father did not read. In “‘The Life of . . . Alexander Percy . . . ’ by John Bud.” N WPBB II, 111–12.

  116 “Terrible” for her. N WPBB II, 616–17.

  116 Dramatically voiced. CB to EN, Letters I, 156.

  116 The correspondence of thinking. JE 265, 258–59.

  117 Now we see. JE 258.

  118 His debauched friends. JB 323, 337.

  118 “Habitual scowl.” HG 215.

  119 Name with “infamy.” HG 219, 226, 233, 247.

  120 Unbridgeable divide. HG 234, 242, 245, 258.

  120 On July 31, 1845. JE 274.

  121 Life of her brother. CB to EN, Letters I, 412.

  122 An early death. CB to MW, Letters I, 447–48.

  122 When Charlotte imagined. JE 121–22.

  124 Later in Mr. Rochester. CA EW 2 (2), 92–93.

  125 Adaptations of this figure. John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. Roy Flannigan (New York: Macmillan, 1993) Book I, 54–58, 600–4.

  126 Innocent young governess. George Gordon Lord Byron, Lord Byron: The Major Works, ed. Jerome J. McGann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). “The Giaour,” 180, lines 180–86; 229, lines 832–35, 837–41.

  127 Anticipates Rochester’s whip. JE 419–20.

  127 “Willing to die” for him. HG 383–84. CB to EN, Letters I, 187.

  128 Lording it over her. HG 394.

  128 A simple “Yes.” HG 431, 432–33, 433, 434.

  129 Release and fulfillment. HG 383–84.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  131 Ethical question in Jane Eyre. WG 574.

  131 The finest motives. EG 171.

  132 “Insular ideas about dress.” EG 174–75, 176–77.

  132 Mr. Rochester appearing. CB to EN, Letters I, 284–85.

  133 Something she found impressive. EG 505.

  135 Subsequent feelings for Heger. EG 512–13.

  136 Its aching growth. CB to EN, Letters I, 315.

  136 Village of Morton. CB to EN, Letters I, 341.

  137 Was amply justified. WG 264.

  137 Feelings that it impels. CB to CH, Letters I, 357–58.

  138 Her mode of life. JB 524.

  138 In the third surviving letter. JE 149, 154.

  138 Herself to hope for. CB to CH, Letters I, 379.

  139 Change that reality. CB to CH, Letters I, 436.

  141 More fulfilling. CB TP 102–3.

  141 Years at Roe Head. CB TP 109.

  141 Has never experienced. CB TP 110, 112, 114.

  141 We might call this. JE 215–16.

  142 Gives her a new life. CB TP 123.

  142 Men they desire. CB TP 125–26.

  142 “Mon maître!” CB TP 135, 141.

  143 Their final reconciliation. CB TP 187–89, 210.

  144 But in their first evening. JE 102, 106.

  145 Pages on “The Nest.” Here we will read the English translation of Charlotte’s essay and Heger’s comments found in Lonoff.

  145 “Unity, perspective, and effect .” Lonoff 40, 42.

  146 As Rochester sorts. JE 106–8.

  147 “Washed or torn.” In Paradise Lost IV, 196, Satan first enters Paradise “like a Cormorant” seeking his prey, Adam and Eve. It is important to note that Charlotte had copied Bewick’s illustration of this bird in January of 1829. Catalogue # 14, 160, which also discusses, page 161, the link to Jane Eyre’s watercolor.

  147 In the third. JE 107.

  147 While Jane names. JE 108.

  148 “Scarcely an interval.” Kingly Crown: another allusion to Paradise Lost II, 673, where “the shape which shape had none” (107) is the figure of Death. Letters I, Appendix, 603.

  148 Certainly Rochester. JE 108.

  149 The house party scenes. JE 149.

  150 Hiding in the “sanctum.” JE 149.

  151 Expected to fulfill. WG 147–48. Letters I, Appendix, 596. CB to EN, Letters I, 193, 191.

  151 Rochester, knowing. JE 145.

  151 Bases her judgments. CB High Life 6.

  151 Jane, from the corner. JE 146, 147.

  152 Brontë had been exploring. JE 153.

  153 Cannot even understand. HG 239, 238–39, 242. For a more complete discussion of this character see Chapter Five. Byron, Major Works 247.

  153 Taking Jane aside. JE 154.

  154 Made of sterner stuff. CB High Life, 15, 17, 18.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  156 Seek revenge. CB to HC, Letters I, 236–37. The central and indispensable discussion of the influence on Brontë of this extensive literature and the pictorial illustrations that often accompanied texts is Christine Alexander’s “That Kingdom of Gloom: Charlotte Brontë, the Annuals, and the Gothic,” Nineteenth Century Literature 47, no. 4 (1993): 409–36. The justly celebrated essay by Robert B. Heilman, “Charlotte Brontë’s ‘New’ Gothic” (in From Jane Austen to Joseph Conrad, ed. Robert C. Rathburn and Martin Steinmann, Jr. [Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1958], 118–32) is not so much about the tradition of gothic novels but rather an argument that Brontë creates a new kind of
gothic, which he describes as dominated by “an almost violent devotedness that has in it at once a fire of independence, a spiritual energy, a vivid sexual responsiveness, and, along with this, self-righteousness, a sense of power, sometimes self-pity and envious competitiveness. To an extent the heroines are ‘unheroined,’ unsweetened. Into them there has come a new sense of the dark side of feeling and personality,” 119.

  156 “Winning sweetness.” Finished December 18, 1830. CA EW I, 319, 320.

  157 Three weeks later. CA EW I, 321.

  157 The servants insult him. CA EW I, 321, 323.

  157 “Through the heart.” CA EW I, 322, 323.

  158 From the early tale. JE 146–47, 187, 260, 250.

  158 Charlotte Brontë was, by dramatic contrast. JE 251.

  159 Her tiny self with her adversaries. EG 76. CB TP 74.

  160 In Rochester’s telling. JE 249.

  161 His “distended nostrils.” JE 400–1. Much later in the novel Rochester remembers secretly observing Jane lapsing into “a deep reverie” where she dreams a “day vision” that pleases her, only to be interrupted by Mrs. Fairfax “speaking to a servant in the hall . . . ” JE 267. The pattern of this scene exactly replicates Charlotte’s experience.

  161 Brontë spurns the other. CB to BB, Letters I, 317. CB to EB, Letters I, 329.

  162 Soon to fall in love. CB TP 84, 85.

  162 Rochester’s bitter narrative. JE 120–21, 123, 124.

  163 Or are they? Clare Hartwell, Nikolaus Pevsner, and Elizabeth Williamson, The Buildings of England: Derbyshire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), 291. Ox Comp 347.

  163 “What a fury.” JE 9, 179, 91, 93.

  165 Locked third-floor door. Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny,” in On Creativity and the Unconscious, trans. Alix Strachey, ed. Benjamin Nelson (New York: Harper & Row, 1958) 123–24, 129, 148.

  165 Twice Jane Eyre tries. JE 11, 242, 244, 14, 242.

  165 While Jane is physically small. JE 22, 23, 30, 31, 197, 204, 250, 9.

  168 Think her insane. CB to EN, Letters I, 153, 509. CB to BB, Letters I, 317.

  169 Refusing to reply. HG 452. CB to EB, Letters I, 191. CB to EN, Letters I, 194, 193, 253.

  170 Jane’s similar outbursts. CB to EN, Letters I, 148, 399.

  170 Bertha’s silent intrusion. JE 245.

  171 And it doesn’t. JE 272.

  CHAPTER NINE

  172 Jane Eyre is a linear novel. JE 274.