Introduction and Methodology

In an era where women were restricted in their fundamental rights, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre gave a new lens to look upon women. Brontë, in other words, wanted to challenge the men of Victorian society on how they felt that women were inferior to them. Jane Eyre’s popularity has ensured that the book is not relegated to Victorian literature classes alone. It has enjoyed widespread success through adaptations as films, opera and drama, art, and countless novels, including prequels, sequels, and re-workings of the original storyline (Loh, 2015).

Charlotte Brontë was born on 21 April 1816 in Thornton, West Yorkshire, England, the third child among Patrick Brontë’s six children. Charlotte Brontë’s childhood was harsh as she lost her two sisters to severe ill-treatment at the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. Her novels Villette (1853) and The Professor (1857) were rejected by publishers. Later she published her first novel Jane Eyre (1847), and she gained immense popularity and fame.

Jane Eyre was first published in 1847, and the novel is set in Northern England in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The character Jane challenged these notions and became an advocate for her gender. It is said that Charlotte Brontë’s childhood influenced Jane Eyre. Brontë’s experience at the Clergy Daughters’ School resembles Jane’s treatment at the Lowood School. It was harsh, and Brontë’s main objective was to uncover how the girls’ schools functioned during that period.

Methodology

This paper will use a qualitative methodology with the theoretical lens of intersectionality, race, and feminist film theory. The thesis will use a few theories from Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic, which examined 19th-century authors like the Brontës, Jane Austen, and Mary Shelley. Gilbert and Guber, in fact, borrowed their book’s title from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, where Bertha Mason, the repressed self of Jane, represents the madwoman in the attic, and who becomes the voice and anger of all women.

Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality will be used to study Bertha’s race and the Caribbean background projected in Jane Eyre. Intersectionality is a metaphor for understanding the ways that multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage sometimes compound themselves and they create obstacles that often are not understood within the conventional ways of thinking. In other words, it is a prism for understanding certain kinds of problems. According to Crenshaw, “women of color are frequently the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism” (1991). Crenshaw describes that women of color are more prone to racism and sexism.

Additionally, Gayatri Spivak’s “soul-making” theory will be put forward to prove the othering of Bertha in Jane Eyre. Spivak’s reading of Jane Eyre was more of reading Bertha as a colonial subject. Bertha’s othering and her Jamaican identity projected in Jane Eyre will be studied using Spivak’s theory to make sense of the paper. In addition, how the marriage of Jane and Rochester brings in the views of othering of Bertha will also be noted in this paper.

Lastly, Laura Mulvey’s theories of “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” will be used to theorize how the feminist film theories are applied in film adaptations of Jane Eyre. Mulvey used Freud's theory of psychoanalysis and neo-Marxist theory to explain how “self-conscious and ironic Hollywood always restricted itself to a formal mise-en-scenè reflecting the dominant ideological concept of the cinema” (Mulvey 1997). In other words, Mulvey says that Hollywood, from the beginning, creates cinema in a particular pattern that follows a societal concept, which means keeping the male protagonist as the dominant role in cinema. Given that Jane Eyre is a feminist text, the research will scrutinize whether the male protagonist overshadowed Jane or not.

In chapter three, the research focuses on intersectionality of Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre. Bertha Antoinetta is fictional characater in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. She is the mad wife of the male protagonist of the novel who is locked in the Thornfield Hall, because of her madness. Edward Fairfax Rochester, the male protagonist in the novel, eventually marries Jane. Rochester describes Bertha, as “the most gross, impure, and depraved” (Brontë, 1992). Bertha was the daughter of a Jamaican, and her mother was also mad.

Chapter four of this research will study the dual discourse between screen adaptations and feminism and to what extent the adaptations have remained faithful to the solid feminist text. Therefore, this research will study how Jane Eyre has been portrayed in the film histories and how Brontë’s tacit feminism is portrayed in the adaptations.  It will study the mise-en-scène of the adaptations. Arguments will focus on the contrasting portrayals of Jane Eyre by the directors. The scenes, lighting, and the actors’ deliverance will be studied to see how the twenty-first-century directors portrayed the massively read text. While some called the 2006 mini BBC series a post-feminist text, others explored the adaptation merely as a romantic series only.

The research questions of this study are:

1. How is intersectionality portrayed in Jane Eyre?
2. How does the mise-en-scène affect the interpretation of the characters?
3. What are the impacts and significance of the 21st-century adaptations of a nineteenth-century literary text?

The study of the portrayal of women in Jane Eyre is a vast area of research. This study will limit its analysis to visual representations and intersectionality. The research’s arguments will be supported by the theories of Gilbert and Gubar, Laura Mulvey, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Gayatri Spivak. In the following chapter, the thesis will acknowledge the previous research done by different theorists, writers, and students, similar to this research.

Literature Review

Female writers like Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen emerged to break through the stigmas and created many powerful characters like Jane in Jane Eyre. However, modern researchers have taken a new lens to study Jane Eyre instead of merely calling it a feminist text. This paper incorporates two adaptations of Jane Eyre and intersectionality in Jane Eyre. The following papers helped the study further explore the main concept of the research.

Laurel Loh in her paper brought up how intersectionality works in Jane Eyre. In her paper, “Intersectionality in Jane Eyre and its Adaptations,” there is an overview of how the movie adaptations made in the twentieth century, however, could not properly depict the strong Jane Eyre. The movie in the process of giving visual pleasure to its audience moved away from Jane’s struggles of belonging to the Victorian era. The paper also talks about how adaptations have worked when it comes to retelling a Victorian text.

Sue Thomas, in “The Tropical Extravagance of Bertha Mason,” gives an overview of the intersectionality of Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre, the West-Indian wife of Rochester, a Creole woman. Brontë had highlighted the ambiguity of Bertha Mason’s race. In this paper, Sue Thomas explores how Bertha, being a Creole, was “othered” in the novel. Therefore, it can be used to support the principal idea of this research.

The Victorian period merely talked about white-middle class women and their journey to find their inner selves. Therefore, Lana L. Dalley in her paper, “Confronting “White Feminism” in the Victorian Literature Classroom,” gives an overview of how feminism is being presented over time, particularly in Victorian Literature classrooms. Dalley informs how the teachings can be changed and how the feminist and racial problem intersects in the era. The paper is an epistemology of how materials should be presented to students in a Victorian Literature classroom and how the social, political, racial, and gender issues intersect in one text but as seen as different ideologies by the authors. The paper also gives a detailed analysis of the intersectionalities in Jane Eyre.

Bahreldin Haroon Guma Abaker’s paper, “The Image of Victorian Women as Depicted in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë,” focuses mainly on the Victorian era and the position of women in 19th-century novels. The researcher also gives a depth description of the Victorian era itself, how the era was men-centric and how women had limited options.

Sarah. E. Fanning’s paper, “The Many Faces of Jane Eyre: Film Cultures and the Frontiers of Feminist Representation,” analyzes the three adaptations of Jane Eyre. The research studies to what extent has the adaptations remained faithful to the original text. The researcher argues that film and series adaptations are responsible for creating Jane Eyre's myth of being a romantic novel. Jane in this adaptation was strongly portrayed.

Similar arguments were made by Rocío Moyano Rejano in his paper, “The Evolution of Empowerment in Different Film Adaptations of Jane Eyre.” Here he talks about all the adaptations of Jane Eyre and to what extent they have been faithful to the original text. According to the author, the 2006 BBC series and the 2011 movie have remained most faithful to Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

On the other hand, Meghan Jordan proposed that the 2011 adaptation by Cary Fukunaga has turned the feminist text into a romantic movie. In her paper, “Dislocated Heroines: Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre, Romantic Love and Bertha’s Legacy” she gives an overview of how the movie adaptations were made in the 21^st century, however, could not properly depict the strong Jane Eyre. The movie in the process of giving visual pleasure to its audience moved away from Jane’s struggles of belonging to the Victorian era. The novel Jane Eyre, being a 19th-century novel outshines the movie and series adaptations. Hence, the paper can be used to find the loopholes in the adaptations of Jane Eyre.

Similar arguments were made by Rebecca White, in her paper, “‘Fresh Eyre?’ How Original is Sandy Welch’s Televised Jane Eyre?” Rebecca White criticized the mise-en-scène and also how Jane’s subjecthood was questionable in the series. She also adds that Welch’s Jane loses the nuances of Brontë’s Jane.

“Rethinking Women’s Cinema Aesthetics and Feminist Theory” by Teresa de Laures approach the factors of how women are shown on screen. Theories of Bovenschen and Mulvey were put forward in the paper. Bovenschen criticizes how the cinema’s development has come nowhere and in the name of “female aesthetics,” we see a “new language of desire” (52).

Additionally, Primorac in his paper, “Victorian Literature and Film Adaptation,” talks about how the screen adaptations of Victorian Literature are portrayed. The aesthetics of movies are discussed in this paper. In addition, how the contemporary trends are drawn in the adaptations and also notes that adaptations do not stay true to the original literature text.

Sylvia Crowhurst, in her paper, “The Victorian Man: Re-defining and Re-negotiating Masculinity in Brontë and Gaskell,” gives an in-depth study of Rochester being a Byronic hero and also a non-Byronic hero. His masculinity is discussed in this paper. Rochester in many conventions has been looked at as the villain of the text. This paper breaks down his characteristics with necessary references and background information.

On the other hand, the paper, “Toxic Masculinity and Queerness in Jane Eyre and Emma,” by Hannah Brooks talks about negative notions of Rochester and St Johns Rivers. She further analyzes that Rochester’s feelings towards Jane were never pure. He was, in other words, a manipulator, a liar, and a deceitful character. Brooks claims that both Rochester and St Johns had no intentions of loving Jane.

When it comes to the 2006 BBC series adaptation, the audience loved the Rochester created by Susanna White. Sarah E. Fanning in her paper, “‘A Soul Worth Saving’: Post-Feminist Masculinities in Twenty-First-Century Televised Adaptations of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights,” talks about the male characters of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.

After reviewing the above papers and books, it can be concluded that the character Bertha Mason’s identity intersects with her madness, and through these intersections, she is treated as the “other.” Her ambiguous ethnicity and her color make her madder than she actually is. Additionally, the mise-en-scène of the adaptations of Jane Eyre moves away from the original text. The bildungsroman journey of Jane and her inner turmoil are rarely subjected in the adaptations. Hence, these articles will provide vital support to the main focus of this research.

Intersectionality: How does Intersectionality work in Jane Eyre?

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is read mainly as a feminist text, which is about the bildungsroman journey of the protagonist. However, gender, sexuality, class, disability, and race are also incorporated in the text. All the themes and elements make Jane Eyre more than a feminist text.

Intersectionality: Race of Bertha Mason

Bertha’s ethnicity has been kept ambiguous by Brontë. Many readings of her character suggest that Bertha is a white Creole woman. Her genteel femininity has been continuously blurred out in the novel. She is considered the “clothed hyena,” (Brontë, 1992). Sir Walter Raleigh describes hyenas as bloodsucking animals as “beasts of mixed natures.” Raleigh’s description of the hyena explains that Bertha’s Creole identity made her the beast who is not welcome in English society. Raleigh also explained how these hyenas were not allowed in the Ark (similar to Bertha’s place in Thornfield). The howling and the screams of Bertha only came during the night. The careful placement of the gothic elements is done beautifully by Brontë because she wanted to bring forth the Othering of a non-English woman. Bewell, in his paper, writes that the hyena is “a creature of the night haunting desolate solitudes, this nocturnal scavenger, a notorious grave-robber, was criminal, degenerate, and corrupt the most fallen of the fallen” (2014). Bertha is the “hyena-villain” in the novel whose embodiment is undesirable and criminal-like. The hyena-villain also foreshadows the oppressed groups, suggesting the intersectional victimization of humans and non-humans.

Furthermore, Rochester’s psychosocial and sociosexual anxieties towards Bertha resulted in her being socially distanced and “othered.” Jane, too, takes no notice of Bertha’s oppression. She continues her love affair with Rochester.

In the marriage of Bertha and Rochester, Brontë maps notions of colonial relations. When Rochester compares Bertha to a slave, he says, “Hiring a mistress is the next worst thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading. (Brontë, 1992). In Rochester’s narration of Bertha, she is the Jamaican slave with whom he shares the relation of marriage. The Jamaican slave (Bertha) is the monster with no voice. Her madness makes her incapable of being educated. The Jamaicans were considered drunkards, and very few received education and were yet to be civilized. Bertha’s ethnicity coincided with her madness and made her animalistic. Shihada writes in her paper, “This animalistic portrayal of Bertha deprived her of identity or self-hood” (2004). The only voice of Bertha is her “demonic bursts of laughter and unintelligible murmurs throughout the night” (Shihada, 2004). Therefore, Rochester confines Bertha for she is a Jamaican and he feels contaminated by her “tropical degeneracy” (Thomas, 1999). Rochester feels ashamed to be related to her hence keeps the marriage privatized. The discrimination of the racial patterns is further subjected in the novel when Rochester says:

Being unable to sleep in bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like Sulphur-streams-I couldn‘t find no refreshment any where. Mosquitoes came buzzing and hummed sullenly round the room…I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were filled with the curses the maniac(Bertha) still shrieked out (Brontë, 1992).

In the above passage, the image of Jamaica is presented in a distasteful manner. The depiction is somewhat hellish and satanic. The phrases like “Sulphur-streams,” foreshadow, that the air smelled of rotten eggs. When water is exposed to hydrogen sulphate, it gets contaminated and the atmosphere gets polluted and gives off an extreme pungent smell. Additionally, it foreshadows that Jamaica is a country where the air and water are heavily polluted. Jamaica was therefore projected a place not living worthy. Lastly, the way he calls Bertha “the maniac” shows what little respect he holds for Bertha. Almost as if she is no person but a violent creature.

According to Susan Meyer’s reading of Jane Eyre, Bertha’s wealth brought Rochester the lavish and affluent life at Thornfield. Additionally, Meyer's reading suggested that the money that Jane inherited from her uncle was also from a colonial source. She states in her book:

It comes from her uncle in Madeira, who is an agent for a Jamaican wine manufacturer, Bertha’s brother. The location of Jane’s uncle John (Eyre) in Madeira, off Morocco, on the West African coast, where Richard Mason used to stop on his way home from England, also indirectly suggests, through Mason‘s itinerary, that John Eyre‘s wealth is implicated in the slave trade (1993).

Therefore, Brontë’s projection of a Caribbean island and half-Caribbean woman (Bertha Mason) reckons the colonial roots and that English society had gained wealth from the “savages.” Rochester could not have lived the lavish lifestyle if not for Bertha. Jane would have continued to work as a governess. Judie Newman, in her book, writes that “Jane and Rochester settle down to a happy married life on the proceeds of Empire” (Newman, 1995). Through Rochester and Bertha's relationship, Brontë was trying to depict the British colonial oppression and the racial oppression. The degeneration of the white Creole was shown in Brontë’s representation of Rochester. Brontë wanted to bring forth the racial decline of Bertha being Creole and not belonging to the English white society.

According to Lana L. Dalley, “Jane Eyre calls for the improvement/development of the individual woman” (2021) Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar theorize Bertha’s character as Jane’s anger and inner turmoil. In other words, Bertha is a character designed by Brontë who resides in every woman. However, that part of the woman needs to be kept in the attic.

Nevertheless, Bertha’s character and her ethnicity are not given much importance. Her character is overgeneralized and overshadowed by Jane. Her madness and race intersect to give the readers a new view of studying Bertha. She was kept in exclusion and was not allowed to exit the attic. Therefore, the attic was a way of not involving Bertha in English society. A Creole woman was not allowed to explore the beautiful fields of Thornfield, and the death of Bertha was the only way of uniting Rochester and Jane. In other words, the death of an oppressed, Creole woman “who is subordinate to Jane” (Spivak, 1985) results in marriage for Jane and Rochester. This also proves that the blood of women of color gives “happy endings” or “success” to white society. The English society is like the blood-sucking leeches who tend to become bigger and richer by sucking the blood of the subordinates. Dalley’s paper references Spivak’s take on Jane Eyre:

“As Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has so powerfully demonstrated, Jane’s happiness is also dependent upon the oppression and death of a racialized woman who is subordinate to Jane, a paradigm that continues to resonate as the labor of poor women and women of color is often prerequisite for the career success of professional white women.” (Spivak, 1985)

Therefore, Brontë’s representation of Bertha not only implicates the racial and colonial criticisms but also holds a lot of “slippages and transgressions” (Loh, 2015), which have been overlooked while studying the text. Spivak and Susan Meyer were critical in reading Jane Eyre and has raised several notions of “othering” because of her skin color. Spivak also talks about the condition of “colored” women of that era. The colonial stereotypes did not give many rights to Creole or Black women. They were the untouchables, who were not allowed in the elite society of England.

Results

Jane Eyre, in the mid-19th century, was read as a controversial text, in the recent readings, the text is analyzed and read outside of its being an individual and isolated text. The intersectional reading of the text gives many lenses to Jane Eyre. The racial, and feminist patterns are all presented and very carefully placed in the text by Brontë. Bertha’s characater. The degrading of the Jamaican identity and the superiority of the white, English society all intersects to finally surmise, that the intersectional reading of the book give in an in-depth reading and analysis.

In the next chapter, the research will analyze the twenty-first-century film and series adaptations of Jane Eyre. The paper will identify to what extent the adaptations touched intersectionality in Bertha’s character.

Visual Representation: Jane Eyre visits the the 21^st Century!

Apart from textual and theatrical adaptations, Jane Eyre was successful in the film industry. This chapter will study how the twenty-first-century adaptations differed from the original text. The study will focus on Cary Joji Fukunaga's 2011 adaptation and Susanna White's 2006 mini BBC series. The directors fashioned the classic in various ways; however, few could touch what Brontë foreshadowed in her novel.

Jane Eyre (BBC 2006) by Susanna White

Susanna White the director and Sandy Welch the screenwriter of the series wanted to bring about a new Jane and Rochester. In their attempts of doing so, they added several invented scenes to project the series as more of a post-feminist text. In the first scene of the series the camera placement of White’s series pivots her viewers' attention towards Jane. In the opening scene of episode one, the camera focuses on Jane at Gateshead Hall, reading a book. It later focuses on the book’s pictures which is an isolated landscape. White’s main focus was to bring about Jane’s imprisonment and isolation in the red room. And it also refers to Jane’s anticipation for liberty, symbolized by the picture in Bewick's History of British Birds.

In order to stay in line with Hollywood's course, White added “invented” scenes here and there. Adèle is Jane's pupil in the novel. She is a ten-year-old French girl. There is no evidence in the novel whether Adèle was Rochester’s daughter or not. Adèle’s mother Célinec was also Rochester’s mistress, however, Célinec was having an affair with another man when Adèle was conceived. In an invented scene, Adèle asks Rochester if he would make her his partner in his travels, she would wear his favorite dress and everyone would think that she is pretty. To her response, Rochester replies, ‘Yes’, ‘but if they see you for the shallow little creature that you are […] they will find you disgusting.’ Jane thenceforth gives a disapproving look to Rochester, and it was as if she wanted Rochester to be gentle and apologetic to Adèle. Rochester returns to Adèle and sits with her, comforting her with kinder words. The scene depicts a warm representation of a caregiving father. It represents a post-feminist father who is a role-sharer, loving and gentle. Therefore Jane’s look and Rochester’s response add elements of feminism and equality. It also gives notions of “post-feminist politics of fatherhood” (Fanning, 2018). This scene “not only strengthens Jane’s political voice but also contemporizes the novel’s gender politics by crystalizing women’s liberation into the classic story” (Fanning, 2018).

Rochester’s representation in the series was attractive and kind. His remorse and guilt for his dark past also make him sensible and susceptible. At the same time his entrance into the series, calling Jane “witch” and his one or two rough behaviors toward Adèle gives the viewers notions of toxic masculinity. Additionally, Rochester's words for and to Jane, like “thinking, intelligent woman,” “teach me,” “see, I’m learning” also represent equality. Rochester’s appreciation of Jane’s paintings is also subjected in the series. He sees the paintings as “interesting” creations. White went against Brontë’s creation of Rochester, as in the novel Jane’s paintings were trivialized.  Throughout the series, White “reconstructs the scene to show Rochester’s sincere interest in Jane’s mind and respect for her creative intellect” (Fanning, 2018). In another invented scene, White displays Rochester and Jane's relationship, where they are intellectuality is registered. The mise-en-scène comprises “notebooks, globes, and a striking assortment of exotic insects, fungi, and stuffed birds,” (Fanning, 2018). The exotic library gives the viewers a vision of a mysterious Rochester and his tangible experience, who traveled several places. His collection also gives off a sense of solitude and, at the same time, intelligence. His collection and experience connect with Jane’s interest in the exotic destination (which was previously shown in another episode where Jane was reading a book with the images of tropical flora). With the music, setting, and the deliverance of the actors, the scene registers how both Jane and Rochester are intellectually connected and harmonized.

Although White’s series was an excellent post-feminist series, there were several loopholes that shift from Brontë’s text and brings forth “not so” feminist portrayals. For example, Bertha's ethnicity changed from being Jamaican to Latin which was played by an Argentinian actress named Claudia Coulter. Her jealousy is shown as a form of stereotypical Latin jealousy and she is portrayed as one who has no control over her desires. Additionally, White’s switching of Bertha’s ethnicity also gives the concept that interchanging the South American or Creole nationality is no big deal.

Additionally, in Rochester’s flashback, Bertha was seen having sex with a man and laughing at him, which also implies the characteristics of Latin women as “inherently sexualized” (Jordan 2014). White’s attempt to sympathize with her viewers with Rochester presented Bertha’s role as unreasonable and aroused. Rebecca White in her paper also notes, “She is instead depicted as proactively engaged in the pursuit of sexual pleasure which is, significantly, branded as excessive and condemnatory by the patriarchal framework within which such scenes are placed” (2014).

Few scenes from the series also depict Jane as needy, and desperate for Rochester’s love. Blanche Ingram (Rochester’s love interest, who tried to woo Rochester to marry her) was played by Christina Cole. In the third episode when Ingram enters, Jane is repulsed. She runs back to her room and draws two portraits, one of her and the other of Ingram. Ingram’s portrait is colorful and lively and her sketch is black and white. This contradicts Brontë’s Jane, as Jane in Jane Eyre was never concerned about how she looked. As Jordan denotes, “Significantly, however, not Jane sees herself this way; rather, she imagines Rochester seeing the two women in this way” (2014). In another scene, when Jane realizes that Rochester may love her, she runs back to her room and looks at herself in the mirror; she smiles because she got validation from Rochester. She may not be as beautiful. However, she is somewhat beautiful. She finds herself through the eyes of Rochester. This subjectivity of Jane contradicts Brontë’s creation of Jane. Antonija Primorac, in her article, reviews Brosh’s book, where she states:

In the second part of the book, Brosh shows how the adaptations made in the 1990s introduce a problematic equation between heroines’ liberation and sexual liberation. By and large they are shown to offer a refuge from the increasingly sexualized media by promoting images of romantic and personal fulfillment through marriage in a utopian past populated by anachronistically liberated, passionate yet respectful, heroes. (2017)

Primorac’s review of Brosh’s books also comprises the end scene of the series, where Jane’s family poses for the picture for a family portrait. This framing again contradicts Jane’s subjecthood. White’s Jane was in search of a family and not herself. Her happiness is contingent on this family that she has created and on Rochester’s love. Additionally, in the last episode, after Jane finds out about Reed being her cousin and having a family of her own she becomes elated and feels accomplished. Therefore, “White seems to equate subjectivity with an acknowledged familial relationship” (Jordan 2014).

White and Welch’s Jane got lost under the “mediating presence of the camera” (Rebecca White 138). Her strong femininity was undermined by Rochester’s presence. Even though she was the main character, and Brontë projected her as vociferous, her struggle and journey made her find herself and be a strong, independent woman. White’s representation of Jane was dependent and needy in search of Rochester’s love. “The subtlety of Jane’s language is lost on-screen” (Rebecca White, 2008).

Jane Eyre (2011): Adaptation by Cary Joji Fukunaga

The adaptations of the twenty-first century seem to digest its viewers with a modern and accessible version of Jane. The Victorian era is re-visioned in a contemporary manner. The characters, places, and scenes are retold in an accessible way. Fukunaga started the film by showing Jane (played by Mia Wasikowska) alone in the isolated moors. The viewers see Jane weeping and then finally collapsing at the doors of the Rivers family. Instead of showing Jane as young, he shows Jane as an “already-ready subject” (Jordan, 2014). Fukunaga from the very beginning of the movie shifts away from the original text. Brontë’s main objective of showing young Jane was to bring her about as child striving towards emancipation and social recognition. Although the directors have the liberty to twist or invent in their adaptation, however, the character’s real self gets simplified and illuminates the depth of their characteristics.

In the first scenes, we see Jane as somewhat numb who is sort of deprived of selflessness. As Rochester (played by Michael Fassbender), enters, the viewers see a shift in Jane. As the scenes progress, Jane’s shift of emotions becomes more apparent, which eventually employs that Jane’s journey was to find love and completeness through Rochester. Jordan in her essay noted, “Fukunaga figures her as a unique individual searching for the ideal partner to recognize and respond to a self-conception that already exists” (2014) In Mulvey’s essay, she adds, how the narrative of a film changes after the male protagonist participates in the film, the female character’s gets involved with him. She notes in her paper, “By means of identification with him, through participation in his power, the spectator can possess him too” (Mulvey, 1999).

In one of the scenes in the movie, before Rochester enters, Jane is seated in front of the window as she shares her feelings with Mrs. Fairfax;

I wish a woman could have action in her life, like a man. It agitates me to pain that the skyline over there is ever our limit. I long sometimes for a power of vision that would overpass it. If I could behold all I imagine... I've never seen a city, never spoken with men and I fear my whole life will pass... (Fukunaga 31:50-32:00).

Firstly, the windows in the movie symbolize prison, as if Jane was seeking freedom, the bars like designed windows has locked her and she wishes to escape. Rejano writes, “The cause of such frustration is due to her feeling of being limited in terms of expressing her sexuality and the barriers faced by women’s action in society” (2020). Additionally, Jane’s dialogues fuse with Brontë’s one of the strongest monologues of the text:

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties…. 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, 1992)

Both the dialogues and monologues express the situation of women, Jane advocates for all the women out there. Jane voices her feelings of confinement in the society and desires freedom and equality as she is imprisoned by the society. Fukunaga’s dialogue and scene representation were tremendous in this scene, the dialogues and Jane’s emancipation stays in line with Brontë’s Jane. Jane in the movie appears in front of the window more than eight times. But she shares her feelings with Fairfax before Rochester enters Thornfield. Thus, Rochester gives her the freedom and fulfillment that she has been seeking. Jordan further denotes, “Without love, she remains rooted in her extraordinary subjecthood but unable to experience human connection, and unable to share her individuality with others” (2014).

Fukunaga, in an interview, demonstrates his study of Brontë’s Jane Eyre and also what projected him to create his version of Jane. He tells his interviewer:

That there are these young women who are looking for companionship or looking for family, and … there’s something, I think, universal about that search, of trying to find people who understand who you are. You’re no longer isolated, sort of, in this lonely world. And, um, I think that’s what Jane is. (Fukunaga 1:57-2:13)

Fukunaga’s study of Jane itself is somewhat questionable. The Victorian era was a dislocated era where women were “restricted” or “repressed,” and in this dislocated era the 19th-century heroine Jane “rose above the nineteenth-century strictures that bind her” (Jordan, 2014). Therefore, Fukunaga in his adaptation proposed a Jane who is in search of love and companionship and, minimizing her struggles as a poor, Christian woman who fought several barriers to find herself. Nonetheless, Mia Wasikowska’s performance in the movie showed more self-actualization than that of Ruth Wilson.

Bertha’s appearance in the movie was minimized, and when she did appear she was shown as a beast, who was tamed for the moment, wearing a white nightgown who had seemed to have lost her hairbrush. The deleted scenes, however, recapture Bertha and her appearance and give many notions of Brontë’s Bertha. The scene begins with Bertha creeping out of the attic and hiding away from Grace Poole (the caretaker appointed by Rochester to keep Bertha in the attic), she then comes to Jane’s room and on a hanger, her own wedding dress was hung, and the dress hides Bertha’s face. She was seated on the floor wearing Jane’s veil, it gave the impression that she was dressed for her own wedding. Bertha wearing her own wedding dress and Jane’s veil juxtaposed Bertha and Jane as one. In addition, Bertha kept veiling and unveiling herself, while Jane was on the bed watching her. This scene symbolizes Bertha indicating to Jane that this marriage would result in Jane becoming like her. Bertha is shown as fearless and then she rips off the veil and her face is fully shown, she gives a sigh of relief as if the veil had been suffocating her. Bertha then comes close to Jane and sings a lullaby “which suggests associations with Jane’s innocence and naiveté” (Jordan, 2014). The scene also provokes Brontë’s Bertha who was “birthed” from Jane's repression and desire. The lullaby also acts as a protection and a warning to Jane from Bertha who is her own other self. Bertha is protecting Jane from what is yet to come if she marries Rochester.

Results

In conclusion, both White and Fukunaga attempted to showcase a new Jane, however, the cinema world works in ways where the literary aspects are many times overlooked, and the romance between male and female protagonists are prioritized. According to Stetz’s review of Brosh’s book, she notes: “Brosh contends that is it no coincidence, for the nineteenth-century domestic narratives focus on visions of femininity and present a range of conflicting ones. Both conservative and progressive” (2008). The adaptations work in various ways to foreshadow what Brontë projected in her novel. To some extent, both of them failed and to some extent, the portrayal was excellently viewed in the cinema. Additional analysis also concludes that even though Fukunaga’s deleted part did give Bertha her designated role, however, the racial notions were ignored, the intersectionality of racism and sexism were not subjected in the adaptations. In fact, the visual representation of Bertha was inaccurate and misleading.

Conclusion

This thesis aimed to provide insight into the intersectional patterns in Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre has been studied worldwide, and different writers and researchers have studied it in various ways. Brontë’s text is considered one of the most versatile English literature texts. The fact that it has so many themes to focus on proves to what extent the text has touched the hearts and minds of thinkers and readers. Many discourse studies are done based on the adaptations of Jane Eyre. This paper also aimed to provide some insights into the visual adaptations by male and female directors – Susanna White and Cary Fukunaga.

Other researchers can utilize this thesis to further their research by connecting the intersectional patterns with the adaptations. The researchers can use this paper to further study Bertha’s parents’ race and the history of Creole women of the nineteenth century. Bertha’s mental health can also be studied as this is also one of the core intersectional elements in the text. Her madness (mental health) and her race can be intertwined and studied using Freud, Lacan, and Spivak.

Researchers may also bring in the theory of “anxiety of authorship,” which was developed by Gilbert and Gubar in The Madwoman in the Attic. This theory is a revision of Harold Bloom, where Gilbert and Gubar said that the nineteenth-century female authors have struggled to find a place in the literary community. Instead of authors, they can study female directors and how they are struggling to find a place in a male-dominated Hollywood industry. Therefore, female authors are subjected to produce films that epitomize women's empowerment. The industry has created this limitation merely for female directors only.

One of the major limitations of the paper was the lack of experience and knowledge of the researcher on adaptation studies and visual representation. Victorian literature and its adaptations have now become a significant area of research in English literature. All the adaptation studies gathered in this paper are self-studied and the theories are taken from authentic online libraries. For this reason, the scope for disagreement with my arguments is very large.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my supervisor Arifa Ghani Rahman, the Head and Associate Professor of the Department of English and Humanities. I am grateful to her for enlightening me with her expertise and wisdom. I am grateful to University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh for granting my thesis research work. My gratitude further contends to Professor Shamsad Mortuza, Professor Kaiser Haq, Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam and all my faculty members under whose expertise and knowledge I attained exemplary education and skills. Which led me to be a better version of myself and think out of the box.

Conflict of Interest

No conflict of interest, because this is my personal research without any institutional constraints,financial or other wise.

Funding Sources

There is no funding source for this research

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