Episode 322: "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë, Ch. 20-26

Summary

The Literary Life Podcast

Episode 322: "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë, Chapters 20–26
Hosts: Angelina Stanford & Thomas Banks
Date: March 31, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode continues the podcast's "slow read" of Jane Eyre, focusing on chapters 20–26—crucial for both plot and character development, especially as the Thornfield arc comes to its dramatic climax. Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks guide listeners through a deep literary exploration of symbolism, doubling, themes of passion and restraint, and the radical position Brontë stakes out on women's autonomy. Expect rich references to fairy tale, gothic, and feminist traditions, as the hosts help uncover layers in one of the novel’s most famous sections.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Symbolism and the Power of Doubling

• Bertha Mason as Jane's Double

  • Bertha is not a "character" in a psychologically realistic sense, but a literary device, specifically Jane’s “dark double” and the embodiment of her repressed anger and passions.
  • Quote:

    "Bertha is Jane's truest and darkest double. She is the angry aspect of the orphan child, the ferocious secret self Jane has been trying to repress ever since her days at Gateshead."
    —Angelina [14:39]

  • Each time Jane represses her passions, Bertha’s violence erupts in the narrative (fire, biting Mason, the shriek in the night, etc.).

• Physical and Thematic Echoes

  • Bertha manifests Jane’s anxieties about her own fiery nature and what unrestrained passion could do to her.
  • Symbolic events (the splitting of the chestnut tree, omens, the supernatural weather) externalize Jane's internal crises.

Gothic Structure & Literary Devices

• Thornfield Hall as a Gothic Character:

  • Houses in Gothic literature are often characters; Thornfield resonates with images of isolation, secrecy, and danger, invoking fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty and Bluebeard.
  • Quote:

    "In Gothic literature, the house is almost a character...Think about Rebecca or the Usher House..."
    —Angelina [20:45]

• Parallels with Fairy Tales and Myths:

  • Rochester’s relationship with Jane echoes Beauty and the Beast; the risk he harbors, of course, is that he is Bluebeard, hiding a terrible secret.
  • The "Sleeping Beauty" motif underlies Jane's experience at Thornfield—she half-exists in a dream/otherworld, isolated from everyday reality.

Passion, Fire, and the Angel in the House

• Fire as a Motif:

  • Fire comes to represent both passion’s constructive and destructive forces: the danger in Bertha, the necessity for warmth in Jane’s spirit.
  • Jane’s Struggle:
    • Jane seeks to balance her own passion—she is “passionate but not vindictive,” refusing to become either Bertha (all fire) or Helen Burns (all ice).

• Victorian Gender Norms and Subversion:

  • Jane Eyre was scandalous not for Rochester’s past, but for Jane’s strength and autonomy—her assertion of equality and selfhood before God.
  • Quote:

    "Do you think because I'm poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong. I have as much soul as you—and full as much heart... I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you."
    —Jane Eyre (read by Angelina), [62:13] & [64:07]

  • Jane’s refusal to be an “angel in the house” or a passive house ornament/“harem girl” upends both Victorian and Rousseauian models of women.

The Radical Imagination and Feminist Tradition

• Roots in Wollstonecraft and Rejection of Rousseau:

  • The podcast places Brontë firmly in a conversation with early feminism: Jane refuses to be Rochester’s “doll” or harem member, echoing Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
  • Rousseau’s image of women as overgrown children to be dressed up and displayed is rejected; Jane insists on being recognized as an equal mind and soul.
  • Quote:

    "If we are a Christian nation and we believe that women are supposed to be a helpmeet to their husband, then maybe they should be educated enough that they can do that..."
    —Angelina [89:16]

• Discussion of the Harem and Angel in the House:

  • The language of “harem,” “angel,” and “house ornament”—all referenced by Brontë—are shown to be objects of satire and resistance within the text.
  • Jane refuses both angelic sainthood and sexual objectification.

Thematic Summaries of Selected Chapters

Chapter 20 (The Attack and Bertha’s Violence)

• Jane is awakened by a scream; Mason is found bitten and slashed.
• Repeated references to vampire and animal imagery reinforce Bertha as a figure of unrestrained, bestial passion.
• Symbolic weather and the “rending” motif (night split in twain; later, the chestnut tree) signal crises within and without. [26:14–30:52]

Reeds' Interlude & Jane's Moral Growth

• Jane returns to the Reeds, showing her growth and capacity for forgiveness.
• The two Reed sisters serve as two “half” women—one all vanity, the other all cold asceticism.
• Jane stands in contrast, master of herself, passionate but not vindictive. [39:09–45:52]
• Mrs. Reed’s deathbed confession reveals again the dangers of destructive passion and resentment.

The Proposal and Omens (Chapters 23–24)

• Thornfield’s garden is likened explicitly to Eden; Jane and Rochester’s engagement unfolds amidst passionate, storm-laden weather and Gothic motifs.
• Jane’s declaration of equality scandalizes Victorians and delights moderns: she will not be his “angel,” his “harem girl,” or his “doll.”
• The supernatural is foregrounded: Jane has ominous dreams, and Bertha rips Jane’s wedding veil in a nightmarish nocturne.
• The chestnut tree is split by lightning the day of the engagement, clearly foreboding doom. [54:22–66:58, 98:04–99:09]

The Wedding and Bertha Revealed (Chapter 26)

• The infamous wedding scene: Mason and the solicitor interrupt, revealing Rochester’s secret marriage.
• Bertha is revealed as a caged, bestial presence—again parallel to Jane’s internal fears.
• Angelina and Thomas emphasize: Bertha is not a psychiatric case study or social critique but a personification of Jane’s repressed passion and the inherent dangers of unconstrained emotion. [106:59–108:27]
• Rochester’s backstory is discussed in the context of Byronic heroes’ legacies and the way mitigating factors are used to explain male “transgressions.” [108:36–112:46]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Angelina (on symbolic reading):

  "Sometimes I find it really hard to answer questions like—people are like, 'Well, what’s a book where you learn something?'... It’s not like I read this book and agreed with everything in it. In fact, I disagree with a whole lot of stuff in it. The reason it was significant to me is because I am reading in a very different way than all of my colleagues... I’m reading everything symbolic, and my colleagues are most definitely not." [13:44]

• Thomas (on Jane’s character):

  “One thing I have learned to appreciate on this new reading of this book is that Charlotte Brontë succeeds in...creating Jane Eyre as a character who can be simultaneously very intelligent and observant, but also naive in worldly terms, which is hard to do...That doesn’t happen with Jane.” [35:57]

• Angelina (on subverting Victorian norms):

  “For these passion scenes to build up to the Bertha Mason reveal is going to be very, very important for us to see that Bertha is the threat of what Jane could in fact become should she marry Rochester in this state of bigamy.” [61:35]

• Jane Eyre (from the text, read by Angelina):

  “Do you think because I’m poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless...I have as much soul as you and full as much heart...I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.” [62:13]

• Angelina (on Rousseau):

  “Rousseau’s idea of women as overgrown children...this had huge negative influence on women’s educations...Mary Wollstonecraft comes in, guns a blazing…'Women are made in the image of God just like men, and need to be treated in a way befitting to our status'...what you want women to be is more befitting of being in a harem than a Christian country.” [88:46–90:54]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Bertha Mason as Double—Symbolic Reading: [14:39], [16:28]
• Gothic Motifs / Significance of House & Setting: [20:45], [20:54]
• Reeds Interlude & Jane’s Moral Journey: [39:09–45:52]
• The Passionate Proposal & Reversal of Roles: [62:03–66:56]
• Sleeping Beauty / Fairy Tale Motifs: [52:05–53:49]
• Jane’s Radical Declaration of Equality: [62:13], [64:07]
• Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, and Harem Imagery: [88:46–93:16]
• The Wedding Scene & Bertha’s Revelation: [106:59–108:27]
• Byronic Excuses and Rochester’s Backstory: [108:36–112:46]

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Flow and Tone

The episode is sprightly, witty, and passionate—reflecting its subject. Angelina and Thomas bring a scholar’s rigor but never lose sight of narrative delight, often punctuating insights with quips and laughter. Their tone is friendly but deeply engaged with the material, treating even the most radical elements of Jane Eyre with the seriousness and nuance they deserve, but always inviting the listener along for the ride.

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For Listeners New to the Episode

This summary covers:

• The symbolic and literary significance of Bertha Mason and Thornfield Hall
• The intersection of Gothic, fairy tale, and feminist tropes in Jane Eyre
• How Brontë subverted Victorian gender roles, and why these chapters were considered “dangerous”
• The complex balance of passion, self-mastery, and love in Jane’s soul’s journey
• How the proposal and wedding scenes crystallize the book’s themes in unforgettable, archetypal imagery

No previous listen required—this breakdown gives you the scaffolding for both plot and deep literary interpretation.

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Next Up:
Chapters 27–33—Jane leaves Thornfield, the aftermath of the wedding, and the next stage of her spiritual journey.

Notable Sign-Off:

“Until next time, keep crafting your literary life, because stories will save the world!”
—Angelina

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For further resources and readings mentioned, visit HouseOfHumaneLetters.com and check the show notes linked in the episode.

Transcript

[A]

This is not just another book chat podcast. Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks for an ongoing conversation about the science, skill and art of reading. Well, explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover how to fully enter into the great works of literature. Learn what books mean while delighting in the sheer joy of imagination. Each week we will rescue story from the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen and your commute. The Literary life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. Join us for an ever unfolding discussion of how stories will save the world. This is the Literary Life Podcast. Hello and welcome back. Welcome back to the Literary Life Podcast. I'm Angelina Stanford and here with me is the mysterious man in the attic.

[B]

No, no, let's not go there. No, there.

[A]

No, you'll get this joke in just like two minutes. When I read my commonplace quotes, guy, I forgot. I'm not making a joke in front of a room of literary scholars. They'd be roaring at that.

[B]

They would, they would.

[A]

Thank you. Thank you.

[B]

They're roaring in spirit.

[A]

They're roaring in spirit. I don't know. Modern scholars don't really laugh. They don't really have to see of humor anymore. So maybe, maybe I'm just imagining myself back in grad school making that joke and everybody would laugh. Nonetheless, you'll get that joke in a couple minutes. Welcome back to our podcast series on Jane Eyre. It's getting good, guys. Today we're going to talk about chapters 20 to 26. So it's one more chapter to the end of volume two. But, and I guess we could have covered that today, but I, I, I've tried to keep the reading kind of equal from, for each week, you know, so we could all keep on track. Not just for you guys, for us too. This has been a lot of reading.

[B]

We have a life on top of this as well.

[A]

Indeed we do. Indeed we do. In classes to teach. It's been a lot of work to put this series together, but it's been really good. And again, shout out to the Patreon. You guys are just amazing. And it actually takes a lot of the pressure off of me because I'm always tempted to approach the podcast with this feeling of overwhelm, like, ah, I can't talk about every image, I can't follow every thread. There's so much, and of course, you know, that's what makes it a classic. There, there's so much, right? There's so many layers. But seeing you guys follow so many of the layers yourself has been really exciting and encouraging to me. So we're going to keep plotting through the book. Plotting. Do I plot at anything? We're going to keep tearing at a breakneck piece through this book with excitement and passion and fire. Following just a few of the main threads, the fire and the ice, we've been talking about passion. We're going to add some of that,

[B]

pointing out some of the thematic landmarks, both the tender and the horrifying.

[A]

There you go. Well said, dear. Well said. I'm not Bertha. I'm not the mad woman in the attic in our life.

[B]

I don't think so.

[A]

No. And you're not Rochester.

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

No.

[A]

All right. Good. Phew. All right. Thank you for coming to our marriage therapy session today. All right, before we get started and give our commonplace quotes, I teased you last week about Jen Rogers upcoming webinar. And I've got the full description for you here today. This is going to be on April 27, and just like everything we do, it's available live or later. And so here is her description. This. This is going to be really good. Tell me that story again, how the Pilgrim's regress wrote C.S. lewis. You like that?

[B]

I like it. Yeah, I do.

[A]

No, that's good. As cold waters to a thirsty soul. So is good news from a far country. This quotation from Proverbs 25:25 follows the title of C. S. Lewis's the Pilgrim's Regress. And it evokes. Evokes the by now very Louisian idea of. See, here's that German word. I can't say.

[B]

Sensor, I believe.

[A]

Thank you. Thank you for being my.

[B]

If only we had someone here who actually knew German.

[A]

I know. I imagine that Leah. Shout out to Leah, our German listener cringes every time she hears me butchering her native language. I apologize. I butcher my own native language, if that makes you feel better. That sweet painful longing for some unnamable thing just out of reach. Lewis, in his preface to the third edition of the Pilgrim's Regress, confirms that this sweet desire is what his allegory was all about. He there asks, what does the desire which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of a bonfire? The sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of the well at the World's End, the opening lines of Kubla Khan, the morning cobwebs in late summer or the noise of falling waves have to do with each other. The story that follows is his answer to his attempt to answer that question. But so is his Space Trilogy, his Narnia Chronicles, and most certainly Till we have Faces, not to mention the Allegory of Love and possibly all of his scholarly essays. In fact, if one would like to understand Lewis's writings, a compendium that sprawls across decades and genres, one would do very well to start with the Pilgrim's Regress. Neglected by many scholars as problematic, the story in fact shows in clean, crisp lines the imaginative world of C.S. lewis and carries within it the seeds of every other story he ever wrote. In this webinar, Jen Rogers will help tease out the connections of this story to the rest of C.S. lewis's writings, while providing imaginative context for the allegorical apology. This is the subtitle of the Regress, the allegorical apology from Romanticism, Reason and Christianity that Lewis subtitled Herald. Hopefully after this webinar, you'll be encouraged to join Lewis on the great Pilgrim's Regress.

[B]

That's really good. And I think I agree with all of that also. Oh no, it promises much too. That's a blurb that it's hard to live up to. But I. I believe that Jen will.

[A]

I believe she absolutely will. She's been working.

[B]

She's very well equipped for this.

[A]

I will tease you guys that we already have some further projects based on films. Regress. So when she said, you know, this really is kind of the key to understanding and unlocking all of Lewis's work, she. We've got a few more.

[B]

It is one of those. I mean, it's not an autobiography, but it is. I think it gives kind of a key to his. A key to the. I almost said a key to the landscape. That would be a mixed metaphor though. No, it gives something of a map to the landscape of his imaginative mind. Perhaps almost more completely than his actual autobiography. Surprised by Joy. I mean, I came to Pilgrim's Regress much later. That was one of the last Lewis books that I read. But yeah, that's a book that more people should find time for one for sure.

[A]

And I think Jim's going to get us very, very fired about this. So again, that's April 27, and you can go to HouseOfHumaneLetters.com to register for that. You know, this is gonna. This is gonna sound like the most like cheesy self promoting. Not self. Well, I guess self promoting. Cause I own the publishing house. But it's gonna sound like shameless self promotion. But it really wasn't.

[B]

Go for it. This is really what I thought shameless away.

[A]

Shameless away. When I was reading the part that she was quoting from Lewis, I thought this sounds so much like Jason Baxter. And then I thought I gotta stop the podcast and text Jason that I was reading C.S. lewis and thought it sounded like him cause that would make his not just his day but his life.

[B]

Could be, could be.

[A]

But yes, Jason has that kind of writing style. And here's the segue to promotion, self and otherwise. Jason Baxter has a new book out guys, and it is shipping in just a few days. So if you pre ordered it, it's coming so soon. If you didn't, if you don't know what we're talking about, go over to cassiodoruspress.com and read the description right now. We actually had Dr. Baxter on the podcast back in January to talk about this book. We talked about it at length. We read the whole table of contents. We got everybody fired up about it. We will link that episode in the show Notes to this episode so you can find it if you missed that one. But we're very, very excited over here at Casiodorus Press, which is, if you're new here, is the publishing arm of House of Humane Letters. And we're just thrilled to be able to bring this to you. This is Falling Inward Humanities in the Age of Technology. So again, Jason, Jason's favorite topic and a topic he's extremely able to speak about. And this is the second edition of this book. This was actually the first book he ever published for a small publishing house. Didn't quite work out the way he had hoped, so he brought it to us and it's been revised, it's been expanded, it's got a new chapter, actually a couple new things in it, and beautifully edited with a gorgeous new cover. And here's the description for you. In this second and expanded edition of Falling Inward Humanities in the Age of Technology, Jason Baxter provides a forgotten yet compelling answer to the question, why study the humanities? While many invitations to the humanities center on calls for self improvement, Baxter beckons readers away from a utilitarian view of the humanities and of life in general, towards a vision of enjoying the arts as an explorer would. Traversing a rich and variegated landscape of beauty that resonates with the depths within us and beyond us, Baxter draws together a dialogue with the humanities that ranges from Plato to Christopher Nolan, from the symphony of a Gothic cathedral to the solitude of a Wyoming sky, weaving in conversations with the sciences along the way, a new introduction and epilogue broaden the context of this conversation Ever reminding readers that a love of the humanities can awaken a love for the sublime structure of this world. And that is on sale now. So get your copy of. Of that book.

[B]

That also is a description that writes a very large check right there, I would say.

[A]

I'd say so.

[B]

It promises much.

[A]

I say so. And Dr. Ann Phillips, our esteemed Latin and Greek teacher here at House of Humane Letters, she wrote a review of Jason's first book, why Literature Still Matters, and said that again, published by Cassiodorus Press. Pick up a copy of that when you order Falling Inward. But she said that that book is the abolition of man for our time, which is incredibly high praise. And she said about this book, it's the lost tools of learning for our time. So some updated conversation on topics that were all near and dear to our hearts here. And speaking of Dr. Baxter, of course, while you're over at House of Humane Letters registering for Jen's webinar, pop over and see Jason's new class, which we've been mentioning here the last few weeks, and his sort of companion class, if read and loved, why Literature Still Matters. And kind of go thinking like, where do we go from here? He's got a class designed to answer that question. All right, enough of our A word from. Enough of the word from our sponsors, which of course is us, because this is a completely member supported podcast. And the Patreon, as well as the classes at House of Humane Letters, allow us to keep providing this podcast to you for free. And if you'd like to support us via webinar, sign up for the Patreon. Join the conversation there. All right, Mr. Banks, give me your commonplace quote.

[B]

All right, I think you're going to sympathize with this one. Okay, this almost sounds like something you would say. Oh, you would have said it more violently, though. So this is from the French philosopher and man of letters, Joseph Joubert. In his pulses, he writes, the reader learns with Rousseau to be discontented with everything apart from himself. He was his own Pygmalion.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Shots fired.

[A]

Shots fired.

[B]

No. And he. There are several other anti Rousseau burns and that same collection of thoughts that Joubert wrote.

[A]

So, you know, I'm always down for a good anti Rousseau burn, but that's actually gonna fit in with some of the things we're gonna talk about today.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because Rousseau's view of women is something that Charlotte Bronte is pushing back against with. With her story here. As we will, as we shall see,

[B]

he did have views of women, Very strong opinions on the subject of breastfeeding,

[A]

amongst others, since he's done that so many times.

[B]

Right, of course, yeah.

[A]

All right, I've got to stop laughing so I can read this. All right, so now for. For understanding the. The joke about the. The mad, mysterious madman in the Attic, here I am going to be pulling a commonplace quote from a very significant work published in the Mad Woman in the Attic, which is about. That's a reference to Bertha, which we can now say because we've met her. And the subtitle is the Woman writer and the 19th century literary imagination. And this book is important to me for maybe not the reasons you would think they are. Sometimes. Sometimes I find it really hard to answer questions like, people are like, well, you know, what's a book where you learn something? And I think, oh, you know, if your mind doesn't work like mine, the book's not going to mean to you what it. What it meant to me. And what that means is it's not like I read this book and agreed with everything in it. In fact, I disagree with a whole lot of stuff in it. The reason it was significant to me is because I'm in grad school. I am reading in a very different way than all of my colleagues. I mean, my professors love it, I'm doing very well, but I'm aware that I'm reading everything symbolic, and my colleagues are most definitely not. And so what excited me about the essay in here on Jane Eyre was that they were very deliberately reading Birth and Mason as a symbol. Again, I don't agree with all the ways that they interpreted that symbol, but just the fact that a couple of scholars were tracing the images and the symbolism in Jane Eyre was very exciting to me and made me feel like, okay, I'm not just off my rocker. I'm on the right track, and it's okay to read symbolically. So it was important to me for that reason. But I'm going to read a quote from the section of that essay that was the most important to me, and that was reading Bertha Mason not just as a symbol, but as Jane Eyre's double, which I've been trying to drop little hints about that as we've gone.

[B]

You've scattered a few breadcrumbs, I dare say.

[A]

Breadcrumbs, yeah. Nice fairy tale reference, my dear. Okay, so.

[B]

So got my moments.

[A]

I am going to be careful and I'm going to just read parts of this because the whole thing would have spoilers for the rest of the book because it traces how Bertha and Jane are parallels to the very end of the novel. So I'm not gonna read that part, but you'll get the idea of the way that they're reading her in the. In the selection I give you.

[B]

Shoot.

[A]

Bertha is Jane's truest and darkest double. She is the angry aspect of the orphan child, the ferocious secret self Jane has been trying to repress ever since her days at Gateshead. Specifically, every one of Bertha's appearances, or more accurately, her manifestations, has been associated with an experience or repression of anger on Jane's part. Jane's feelings of hunger, rebellion, and rage on the battlements, for instance, were accompanied by Bertha's low, slow, ha ha and eccentric murmurs. These are all quotes from the novel. Jane's apparently secure response to Rochester's apparently egalitarian sexual confidences was followed by Bertha's attempt to incinerate the master in his bed. Jane's unexpressed resentment at Rochester's manipulative gypsy masquerade found expression in Bertha's terrible shriek and her even more terrible attack on Richard Mason. Jane's anxieties about her marriage and in particular her fears of her own alien robed and veiled bridal image were objectified by the image of Bertha in a white and straight dress. Whether gown, sheet or shroud, she could not tell. All right, I'll stop there, since the rest is spoilers. So the name of that essay is A Dialogue of Self and Soul. Plane Drains Progress. And it is a chapter in the book the Mad Woman and the Addict.

[B]

Intriguing. That book has had an interesting. I think, a longer shelf life. And also I think it's entered more deeply into the popular imagination than almost. Almost any. Than. Yeah, certainly than most works of academic literary criticism from the last 50 odd years. Is that book really 50 years old? Almost 50 years old.

[A]

I don't want to think about that. But you're right.

[B]

Probably 40 some years old anyway. Gosh, late 70s.

[A]

I think it's 1979, so.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah. 47 years.

[A]

Seven years. Wow. Yes. It ended up, I think, becoming such a splash because it's like an early feminist reading. And again, I mean, some of the things they say are very spot on, I think, for what is actually going on in the book. But for me, it was because they were trying to read things symbolically. And that was. That was just. That was an important part of my own journey. It's much later than this, much later after this, that I. I encounter medieval symbolic and realize, okay, there's a tradition I'm working in. But, you know, it's. It's the early. Early to mid-90s, and my colleagues are all doing kind of mostly psychological readings. If they're doing that, they're very enamored with language deconstruction. So there's a whole lot of talk about that.

[B]

Like Lacan and Derrida.

[A]

Yes. And, you know, so the other people in my class, they want to talk about feminist things or they want to talk about women's ways of knowing and some other nonsense like that, which always made me angry because I'm a woman and I never. I didn't know things the way they said. Anyway, that. That's a whole other thing. That. That's kind of passe now, but no one's reading symbolically. And so I was very excited to. To when my mentor gave me this book and said, you know, you better check that out. In fact, it's such a. Like, huge. It lives rent free in my head, as they say. It's. It encompasses such a big part of my imaginative landscape that I was surprised rereading the book. The Birth of Mason's not actually in the attic.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

I mean, the whole time making all these notes about the symbolism in the attic, I was like, wait, she's not in the attic?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Squirreled away in a background room, sort of.

[A]

Well, since that door behind a tapestry that's so interesting is up, it's just not technically the attic.

[B]

Sure. One of those things that you think you remember, but that isn't actually there. This is a really weird comparison, but the one I always bring to mind that comes to mind is when St. Paul has his conversion on the road to Damascus. He falls off his horse and is struck. Struck blind. And there's no horse actually mentioned in the, what, ninth chapter of Acts? I guess it is, but because we've seen the Caravaggio painting and, you know, the others so many times, we think that there's a horse mentioned. That's a really weird comparison. I know, but.

[A]

Yeah, well, it just shows.

[B]

Well, sometimes, again, like, sometimes you read a thing a thousand times or you think. Or you think you know it better than you do. And, yeah, that happens to all of us, I think, as readers. You know, Important to note.

[A]

I mean, I feel like I should say symbolically, she's still in the upper stories, so it's the same symbol. But it was just funny to me that when I was rereading, I stopped myself and thought, wait, she's not actually in the ethic.

[B]

But yeah, I Mean, and as I've said, I mean, it's been 20 years since I've read this book. And I also, like, she's a very different character in several ways than I had remembered or misremembering. Bertha is.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. No, same. We were talking about that this morning.

[B]

Yeah, we'll get to that. But, yeah.

[A]

Yeah. All right. So this is very exciting. We'll pick up with chapter 20 and go through this section. These are. These are important chapters, I think. In the first episode, I had that quote from Adrian Rich where she talked about how a lot of people think the Thornfield episodes is the whole book, but it's not. It's. It's a moment in Jane's life, in her. In her journey. And it really comprises kind of three important components. One is Thornfield hall itself, the house, which is very important. And in Gothic literature, the house is almost a character. Like, you know, think about Rebecca.

[B]

Yes. Also, we were talking about Manderley. Yeah. I mean, it begins, I dreamt I went to Manderley again tonight.

[A]

Right. So, you know, the place itself becomes a character. And so we see that here, and we'll.

[B]

The house and the. The Usher House and the fall of the House of Usher.

[A]

Sure. The Castle of Entranto. Yeah. So, you know, and we've been tracking all the times that Thornfield hall is being referenced in terms of Sleeping Beauty. There's so many references to that. Even Rochester saying, you're like in a briar patch. And.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know, the hedges around the castle.

[B]

Thornfield briar patch. Yes, there might be some.

[A]

Right. So we'll see if we can't figure out what's going on there. The second important thing being Rochester herself, himself and her. Her relationship with him and the ups and downs of that and what he represents to her. And. And then finally in. In Bertha herself, those would be the three main things that. That we look at. And, you know, again, sometimes I feel like I belabor these points, but I know that we've been so trained as modern readers to think about things like psychological realism and, you know, what's the motivation, and. And to think that social commentary, when they're not necessarily doing that, we can really get caught up in things that are going to make it more difficult for us to understand what it is that Charlotte Bronte is actually showing us. And so, for example, if we spent the next 90 minutes talking about mental health in the Victorian period, that is completely irrelevant to this story, because as. As one person said, I really appreciated this Bertha Mason is not a person. She is a literary device. And I think that is completely true. She's a literary device. She is a symbol of Jane's own unrestrained passion. It's, it's, it's that part of Jane that has been threatening to pop out and destroy her and consume her. And it comes very close to doing that in these sections, as we'll see. And that's her function. And so getting caught up in, in questions like, is this actually a legitimate man?

[B]

Is this actually how they would keep a potentially dangerous person contained? Or something.

[A]

And then we could all feel good about ourselves, right, by saying we would never. We know more about mental health. We're so much better than they are yet. Which we're totally not. But anyway, I digress.

[B]

In our world, she would be a homeless person.

[A]

Unhoused, dear.

[B]

I'm sorry. Yes, of course.

[A]

Unhoused. See, this is why we can't. We can't be good people like that. Or even getting caught up in questions like, okay, again, like, if this was like, let's say this is like a standard high school class and the teacher comes in and they think their job is to like, let's talk about, you know, issues or whatever, they would probably come in and say, is this a legitimate marriage between Rochester and Bertha? Okay, should he be able to get a divorce? Is this actually a breach of con. Conscience? Is, is it, you know, should Jane be horrified by this, etc. Etc. Again, none of that is the point of what Charlotte Bronte is trying to do, however interesting those questions might be. And I'm not saying they're not worthwhile questions. They just don't have anything to do with the novel she's showing us. It's again, it's like if we're looking at a painting and we're having conversations about whether the. The paint was ethically sourced, that's not a bad question to ask. It's just not the point of the art that you're supposed to be looking at. So we'll try to see what it is that she really wants us to see. So let's pick up with chapter 20. Curse these Roman numerals. My students know how much I hate Roman numerals. And I, and I always didn't just say that did. And I always. And I always preface it by saying Mr. Banks will be horrified. Okay, But I'm going to tell you why. It's because I have dysgraphia. And so everything moves around and so X's and I's and V's Moving around. It's very confusing for me. I know. I know. I'm so sorry, dear. I know. I love the Romans. It's just. Thank God for Arabic numerals. Okay, that's my hot take for today. I love the Romans, but thank God for our first. Our first quarrel in our marital life. Right here, you're hearing it. So in the previous scene, Rochester is. I was going to say exposed. He reveals himself to be the gypsy. He and Jane start talking. She tells him Mr. Mason is there. He acts really, really weird. Now we know why, and starts saying her. Would you still. Would you reject me if everybody else rejected me? Okay.

[B]

So we sense from the beginning that Mason and Rochester have some kind of shared knowledge of something potentially damag.

[A]

But he says to Jane, Rochester does in the end of that, chapter 19, you know, if. If the world censure was against me, would you lead me? And she says, I wouldn't leave you if my own conscience dictated that there was nothing you were doing wrong. And we can see now that there was a subtext to this conversation, namely, would you marry me if I was already married that she doesn't know about? So in chapter 20, chapter 20 starts with her waking up and hearing a scream. But once again, okay, to go back to this doubling image. So you'll recall in the last episode, I talked about how Jane thinks she hears the cry of what we now know as Bertha in her own room on her pillow. Okay. So they're the doubling. And now she's saying it's coming from right above her. She's hearing that. She's also kind of saying, like, the moon woke me up. Okay.

[B]

So, yeah, the moon has an odd and eerie sort of influence in this book, which is not. Which is. I think we could say it's preternatural.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. Yes. Okay. And we'll get into that a little bit later because the moon is going to be almost a character as we go on. But what I think is interesting here is the night was rent in twain by the savage sharp sound. Okay, that.

[B]

Like a curtain or a veil or something.

[A]

Exactly. But then that same image of being ripped in twain is going to happen with the chestnut tree and the lightning. And then again, when the marriage between Rochester and Jane happens, and is Bertha each time. Right. That's separating them. So again, we talked about how the weather in a Gothic novel, any Gothic novel, but especially in a Bronte novel, is. Is an external presentation of the internal state of things. Right. So Bertha is this passionate storm threatening to tear everything apart. And so we keep. We keep seeing that. And when we get to the tree, we can chuckle about the fact that Jane kind of stops the narrative and says, I think sometimes nature gives you signs. Like, it's just. There's so many moments like that where everybody's talking about symbols. This is symbol. And then we read it and we. And we just skip over the fact that she's saying, hey, I'm about to tell you a symbol. So it's right above her head that this is happening. And everybody runs out and Rochester says, oh, we're just rehearsing Much Ado About Nothing.

[B]

Yeah. And it's. My Ignatius critical edition helpfully points out in the footnote that the Much Ado About Nothing has lies, feminine honor and love as its principal themes. Okay, we're going to have a marriage interrupted here.

[A]

Yes. Okay. That's where my mind.

[B]

It's a small point, but yeah.

[A]

To be mentioned intentionally. And that's where mine went. The whole.

[B]

That's a lame excuse. I mean, just as an excuse, but.

[A]

But Harrow is going to be shamed on her wedding day and Much Ado About Nothing and go through a symbolic death. And. Yeah, I was picking up on that too. So she goes upstairs, Rochester has her go through the hidden door, and we find Mr. Mason in really bad shape, badly wounded. Badly. But not just cut.

[B]

Bitten.

[A]

As if from a vampire.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. And of course, Bertha's gonna be called a vampire again in the scene where Jane sees her in the mirror. And again when she sees her in

[B]

person, Mason even says she sucked the blood. She said she drained my heart.

[A]

Yes, yes. And I mean, Jane's even gonna say to Rochester, I feel weird saying this out loud, but I thought it was that German specter, the vampire.

[B]

Yeah. And this is. Oh, the first vampire fiction probably starts appearing about 20 some years before this. Likely John Paul, John Polidori, because she spells it with a Y. She spells it that Polidori way.

[A]

There's also Varney the Vampire. I should have looked that up. I don't remember quite off that that was a serial. But yeah, John Paul the Adori the Vampire is going to be early.

[B]

Some of you will probably know this already, but John Paulidori, who's a kind of minor figure in the romantic movement, is. If you read any biography or book about Lord Byron, you'll find his name periodically because he was the traveling physician who attended on Byron during his years in, what, Switzerland and Italy.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was actually part of that whole house party where they had a contest to who could write the scariest story. And so Byron and Shelley both started and didn't finish, but John Polidori wrote his short story the Vampire and then Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein.

[B]

And Polidori, if I remember rightly, was related to the Rossetti family.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

I want to say he was an uncle or something.

[A]

That's right, yeah, yeah.

[B]

So yeah, it's all connected.

[A]

And again, Charlotte Bronte being a huge Byron fan. What? You know, so he's bringing that in. Well, we can go ahead and talk about this now. We talked about this a lot in Dracula. So if you, if you're like, oh, I want more gothic novel goodness, glisten our series on Dracula. But the vampire has always been an image of unrestrained passion. The whole vampire kiss quote unquote thing, that's really a bite, the sucking of the blood, especially the female vampire. Yeah, I guess that's all we need to know. So Bertha is a symbol of unrestrained passion that turns you into a self destructive monster. Right. And she's made. She could not make that clear. And yet we still somehow miss the point and. Yeah, so that anyway, that's what they're all talking about. And they're all.

[B]

And at this point, of course, I mean those who have read. Right. So Jane still suspects Grace Poole is to blame for this somehow.

[A]

Right. But what was interesting to me is Jane comes in and she sees a painting of the twelve apostles. She sees a crucifix, a dying Christ. We have all this religious imagery here. She's looking at Luke and St. John and then she's looking at the face of Judas and then the face of Judas that grew out of the panel and seemed gathering life and threatening. A revelation of the arch traitor of Satan himself in his subordinate form. So again, that's all leading into, into to Bertha. Right. So why would she be a satanic figure? Well, because Satan rages and parrot, I mean Paradise Lost, honestly could be seeing the rage of Satan, right? Like, yeah, so he's, he's prowling around, he's raging, he's, he's ready to pounce on you like a lion and Davari. And so she's listening in there while Rochester leaves her. She, she, she hears sounds of a wild beast, a fiend again.

[B]

So the comparison to a tigress was made.

[A]

Oh, that's right. Again, we've been talking about this idea of the well ordered person. So someone who's ruled by their belly, by their passions is in literature going to be associated with animals. Because what Separates humans from animals is being made in the image of God, which was historically understood to be that spark of reason in us. Again, reason not being just the rational mind, but your whole ability to have wisdom, to perceive the mind of Christ, to participate in the mind of Christ, to have divine wisdom that separates you from an animal which is ruled by its. By its. By its passions. Right. If an animal is hungry, it's going to take and eat. Even if we might say, hey, you know, Rex stole Fido's bone. Well, no, they're just dogs being dogs, right? And we don't say that lions murder. They just. Lions are acting like a lion. So for Bertha to be described as an animal and a vampire means she is 100 given over to her passions. And there's no. Nothing to suggest she has a rational mind in any of these, you know, encounters. So she's fully a belly. But I really appreciate, I mean, again, a voice of a demon, a carrion seeking bird of prey, all of that. But she's also described as a fury. Yeah, the sound of the fury here.

[B]

The. The Furies, in case anyone is not familiar, are the avenging deities in Greek mythology who are, well, personifications of. Personifications of wrathful vengeance falling upon some notable evildoer.

[A]

Now, later, of course, we're going to find out that this is Bertha's brother. And, you know, all of this makes sense when you get a few. Few chapters further on. Why does she attack him? But just to point out that, you know, in case you were thinking, well, why is Angelina connecting the shriek which rent the night in two with the chestnut tree that is rent in two by a lightning bolt? Because surely Bertha didn't do that. Right? Here, Jane thinks to herself, why had the mere name of this unresisting individual, whom his word now sufficed to control like a child, fallen on him a few hours since as a thunderbolt might fall on an oak? Right. So why is it that Rochester acted like the name of Mason was a thunderbolt? Because of Bertha Mason. Right. Yeah. So the doctor examines Mason and says, hey, this isn't just a knife wound. There's teeth here. So, again, animal passions. She's a tigress. They talk about a vampire, and. And Jane's a better person than me, just sitting there quietly because I would like. Excuse me, I have a lot of questions right now. But Rochester is telling Mason things like, just consider her dead and buried, which, of course, is what he's to do, but can't, because Mason will come back. And then after Things kind of settle down. He's talking to Jane again, and he says, come where there is some freshman for a few moments. That house is a mere dungeon. Don't you feel it?

[B]

So, yeah. And she says, it seems to me a splendid mansion, sir, he responds, the glamour of inexperience is over your eyes, he answered. And you see it through a charmed medium. You cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs, that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now, here he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered. All is real, sweet and pure. And one thing I have learned to appreciate on this new reading of this book is that Charlotte Bronte succeeds in. I mean, in creating Jane Eyre as a character who can be simultaneously very intelligent and observant, but also naive in worldly terms, which is hard to do because it's difficult to describe a naive character who doesn't sound also kind of stupid and lacking in common sense. But that doesn't happen with Jane.

[A]

But the truth is, she is unknowledgeable about.

[B]

Yeah, she hasn't been exposed to how the world. And she's still only. Oh, she's 19, 18 at this point.

[A]

But the thing that struck me too, about him saying the house is a dungeon is this connects back to the earlier scene of Charades when his hands are in chains.

[B]

Ah. Ah, yes.

[A]

So.

[B]

Oh, very good. I hadn't thought of that.

[A]

So the whole Bridewell thing, the bride and bridewell being a prison, and that was the charade. I mean, his marriage is literally chained him to this woman. And this house, which she is kept, is the dungeon, is the chain.

[B]

That's very good.

[A]

Honestly, you could just spend a lifetime going through the. The symbols here. The next thing that happens is that he hands her. In the same scene, he hands her a rose. Beauty and the Beast. This is. This is Beauty and the Beast. And we'll see in another chapter or so. She's gonna leave to go be with her family. And he's panicking, saying, promise me you'll come back. Promise you again, this is all Beauty and the Beast. So to pick up what we talked about last time is this Beauty and the Beast. And he's just rough on the outside, but he's really okay on the inside. Or is he Bluebeard? So then when Jane finds out that he's already married, then the answer seems to be he's Bluebeard.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I was gonna. I was gonna I was gonna be the next Mrs. Rochester. And of course. Let me just control myself. I'll wait till we get there because Charlotte Mason. Charlotte Mason. Wow. Charlotte Bronte. Charlotte Mason probably too. Charlotte Bronte. That's my Cindy impersonation for today. Charlotte Bronte makes it very clear that Jane and Bertha. Jane is going to become Bertha. Anyway. We'll see. We'll get there in a second. Okay, let's see. Lots of language again about fire and cold. And Jane, your. Your hands are cold. All of that. And I think we've been seeing, not incorrectly, that Jane is very reserved in this section. Right. She seems to be a lot more

[B]

in control whenever he's talking about another woman. She's remarkably stoic when he talks about Blanche Ingram as being. Oh, yeah. So attractive. Like the ancient women of Carthage and all that kind of thing.

[A]

Yeah. But at the same time, I think we're gonna see she actually has still a lot of passion. It's just not exactly like it was when she was younger. And hints that there's still a lot of dangerous passion in her. But we'll get to that in just a moment. I thought the Carthage thing was very interesting because that's Dido.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And Dido dies in a funeral pile.

[B]

Dies by her own hand. Yes.

[A]

Yes. Okay. And so again, we. I had hinted at this last time when I said, notice that Blanche's name means white, but she's actually dark. Okay. So when we meet Bertha, I hope you guys picked up that she is physically just like Blanche Ingram. They. They're physically described the same way.

[B]

I think Rochester even suggests a physical comparison between the two of them.

[A]

Right. Jane looks different. Right. So it's this. They represent the same kind of woman and the same kind of threat. Because it was going to be a marriage of property and money, not a marriage of love. Had he gone. All right. Chapter 21 starts with her talking about signs. Signs and sympathies.

[B]

Presentiments are strange things. And so are sympathies, and so are signs. And the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist, for instance, between far distant, long absent, wholly estranged relatives. Asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin, whose workings baffle mortal comprehension. And signs for aught we know may be but the sympathies of nature with man.

[A]

Exactly. So she's having dreams of ill omens

[B]

which is going to sound kind of Wordsworthian, that. Those. That chain of thoughts there.

[A]

See that? Certainly Coleridgeian.

[B]

Sure, sure.

[A]

All right, so she's having dreams that something bad's about to happen. And then she get word that John Reed is dead. So I hope y' all didn't think she was done with the Reese. She's got to go back and have a scene with them. Now, the fact.

[B]

And his mother is heartbroken.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Nobody else, probably.

[A]

Right, Exactly. And she has a stroke. But what we need to see is that he's living a dissipate life. So he's obviously ruled by his belly and his passions just exactly like he was as a kid. But it has now.

[B]

But with opium and hard drinking and gambling.

[A]

That's right. But symbolically, it's just, you know, one step up, same song, just one octave higher. And the fact that it's suicide is. I mean, this is the whole thing. This is the fire that consumes you. Right. That ultimately these things will destroy you. And so he kills.

[B]

Yeah. There is a surprising number of characters in this who are either actually or potentially self destructive.

[A]

Yes. Right. Okay. So again, just like Beauty and the Beast, she says, I need to go back to my people. He says, no, I don't want you to. And they have a cool farewell. So then she goes and she's revisiting her past, and this is an opportunity for her to see whether or not she's changed as she goes back. And Charlotte Bronte keeps making the point. This is where I stood nine years ago. This is where Brocklehurst stood. This is this, like. So she's right back there in that same moment, and yet it's different.

[B]

It does. Yeah. I think these chapters serve to illustrate just how much she's grown as a character, as a spirit, as an intellect.

[A]

And she has forgiven Mrs. Reed.

[B]

Yeah. And it.

[A]

It's not like, what's her dear angel.

[B]

I don't get the impression that she even has to struggle within herself to do so, really. She isn't tempted to, like, smother her under the bed clothes or something like that, though one might be in the same situation.

[A]

So, you know, she's got Eliza and Georgiana, who are. Who are not great.

[B]

Each of them seems like half a woman. We were talking about this. One of them is. I mean, one of them also is kind of an overgrown child. Georgiana's still taken up with very shallow, sort of girlish, you know, who is throwing the next ball in London sort of things. And the other, Eliza, is spiritual In a spiritual. Yeah. In a maybe exaggeratedly ascetic way.

[A]

Yes. They're both.

[B]

She would like to escape, you know, the prison of her body, almost.

[A]

No, exactly. So and so. Okay, two things about this. First of all, we're right back in Cinderella. We've got the evil stepmother aunt, and we've got the two. The two sisters. Right. But she's able to go back and not just be abused by them. And she's even thinking, you know, if I was going to stay here for a while, things would be different.

[B]

And I would be telling.

[A]

And I would be telling this girl off, and I would.

[B]

Georgiana. To. Pushing me around, do her own work,

[A]

but because I'm never going to see them again. Their mom is dying. Like, I'm going to be kind.

[B]

She's able to be civil. She's able to be civil even if they are not.

[A]

And then Georgiana again. Yeah. Just like you said. Georgiana. Elijah. They're. They're two extremes, and we're gonna see this doubled later on. But Georgiana is all selfish vanity, but Eliza is like a selfish spiritualness, if that makes sense. I mean, the fact that he's over there, like, don't look at me. I'm gonna be about my prayers.

[B]

I'm too invested in my holiness to

[A]

go see my dying mother.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

See my dying mother. Like, that contrast. It's two different forms of selfishness, because neither girl wants to go take care of their dying mother, and they're leaving it to Jane, who they don't really have any use for. Although Eliza does say, you seem to have some sense, which is, like, the nicest thing she got.

[B]

You seem to have some sense out of her need.

[A]

Yeah. So not only do we see that she's changed, but we see that she has mastered herself. There's so many moments where she thinks, no, this is what I would have done. But I don't do it now. And I. I think she genuinely has pity for her aunt here. I don't think it's hard for her. And she's. I mean, she has that moment where. Let me just. I'll look both of these. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion than a sort of Ruth for her great sufferings and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries, to be reconciled and clasp hands in amity. And then she kisses her aunt and she says, is this Jane Eyre? She says, yes, Aunt Reid. How are you, dear Aunt? I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again. I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow. Now my fingers had fastened on her hand, which lay outside the sheet. Had she pressed mine kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor unnatural antipathy so readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away and regarded me icily. Yeah, so. And then. Then she says, jane says, I felt pain. I felt ire going on. My tears had risen just in childhood. I ordered them back to their source. So we see that she's master. She's master of herself in this situation because she could. Maybe we want her to. Maybe I. Maybe I want her to just tell this woman off on her deathbed. But. But she's not.

[B]

Yeah. And I mean, for all of her disadvantages, you know, the lousy schooling at, you know, second or third rate girls school and all of these, you know, all of these sufferings that have fallen her way, the education of her heart has proceeded kind of compellingly and it's made some real advances. And that's. It's. I guess I was thinking that. I mean, this is. We've talked about this as an example of a Bildungsromann, and we tend to think of bildungsromans as mainly intellectual educations, but this is mainly an education of the affections, in a lot of respect. Well said, wouldn't you say?

[A]

Absolutely. Well said, I think.

[B]

And we see that she has grown, whereas all these other characters are morally or somehow stunted in different ways.

[A]

I think that all Bildun's Romans are displaced journeys of the soul, to use Northrop Fry's term of displacement. It's the same old medieval romance journey of the soul story, just placed in a more ordinary setting. But this one, because of its high symbolism, I think it's a lot easier to see she's on a spiritual journey. So this moment of I can forgive my aunt, I can be kind to her.

[B]

I thought these are some of the best chapters in the book so far.

[A]

Just really, really strange.

[B]

I'd forgotten how good these are. And, yeah, they're also some of the ones we tend to forget.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I mean, everyone remembers, you know, raving Bertha and the attic and all that kind of thing, but, like, these quieter moments in the book are easy to overlook, but I don't think they're less important.

[A]

Agreed. And so she gives her kind of deathbed of kind confession here to Jane. You have an uncle and I told her. Told him you were dead and, and I. And wish you were dead.

[B]

And yeah, you might have some kind of inheritance coming your way, but I didn't want you to get it.

[A]

Yeah. Because I hate you so much. So. But. But because she's on her deathbed being consumed by her own bitterness and resentment toward Jane, again, we have another image of this kind of self destructive passion. And again, this is very Cinderella, though, when she tells the backstory, right. That the reason I hate you is because my husband liked you.

[B]

Oh, that's true. No, that's. That's perfectly true. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. My husband liked you more than he liked his own two daughters. And so I hate you. It's. It's very Cinderella. But like Cinderella, she is ascending past her. Her sisters, at least spiritually.

[B]

Spiritually, yeah. Here overlooks, you know, years of slights and insults and, you know, having. Having life kicked in her face.

[A]

All right, so after that. Yeah, I already said that about a while. This is.

[B]

Can I say this is a. I think it's hard to write a good deathbed scene. This was a good deathbed scene. And it's not. Again, it's not sentimental or overly emotional at all. She doesn't indulge in any cheap handkerchief ringing here. I mean, the chapter ends with. And then a spasm constricted her mouth for an instant as it passed away. She turned and left the room. And so did I. Neither of us had dropped a tear.

[A]

And I like this scene here at the very end when Mrs. Reed is dying, when Jane asks her to forgive her behavior as a child. That was amazing.

[B]

Yeah, that was impressive.

[A]

Very impressive.

[B]

Very impressive.

[A]

Right. But there's an important line here, lest we think that she has turned into Helen Burns.

[B]

She does mention Helen Burns for, I think, the first time since Helen's death.

[A]

Yep. So she says, forgive me. And then Dan says, I tell you I could not forget it. And I took my revenge for you to be adopted by your uncle and place in a state of ease and comfort was what I could not endure. And then we go down and then. Okay, so Mrs. Reed is still talking and she says, I just don't understand how nine years you were patient and kind to me in the 10th year. But look at this, look at this language in the 10th. Break out all fire and violence. There we are again, right? The passion is fire. This is fire. Mrs. Reed doesn't understand it. And Jane says this, this my disposition is not so Bad as you think I am passionate, but not vindictive. So I like here. I want. What I want us to notice is she doesn't say she's not Helen Burns. She doesn't say, I am not passionate. She doesn't say I have. I've destroyed my past. She says, no, no, I am still a passionate person, but I'm not vindictive. I'm not. I'm not being consumed by that. And I. I want to punish you at the end of your life. It's going to be important for us to see in these scenes that she's not Helen. This isn't just ice and fire. Because it might be confusing to us if we think that she's not going

[B]

to cast her chrysalis off and emerge as Helen Burns in an adult form.

[A]

No, exactly. And we have to understand that so that we understand Bertha Mason is the ever present danger of what Jane could become if she gives into that part of herself. But how does she master it without turning into a block of ice? We'll just have to keep reading to see. And then the next chapter starts with. I just love that she has learned to choose her battles. I'm not going to fight with these girls right now, even though they're mistreating me, because what's the point? I'm never going to see them again. And. And that's a lot of wisdom and growth right there. And Eliza's going to become a nun, which of course symbolically would mean a passionless life. And Jane objects to that. She says, Eliza says, you have some sense. And Jane returns. You are not without since Cousin Eliza, but what you have, I suppose in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it's not my business, you know, but the idea of being walled up in a French. I just want you to see that that is the reverse extreme image of Bertha Mason locked up in a room.

[B]

Correct. You know, I was.

[A]

So neither one of those are commentary

[B]

online that this is. These chapters are expressive of a deep anti Catholicism and that this novel is an example of anti Victorian, anti Catholic literature. I didn't either. Really. I mean, yeah, you have an unsympathetic character who is becoming a nun and is dedicating much of her inheritance to the nunnery of which she's going to become a postulate. But if you compare this to. I actually have read some about this books like, oh, I think it was called Maria Monk, which were sort of sensationalistic revelations of scandal and spiritual sadism that supposedly goes on in the nunneries of the time, I thought it was fairly relaxed. Anyway, that's me. I mean, yeah, you could. You could go into Charlotte Bronte's particular views of the Catholic Church, but I didn't think there was anything that wasn't organically related to the story as a whole.

[A]

She needs an easy image for the reader to be able to see that this person is choosing a passionless life and becoming a nun would. That's the easiest thing.

[B]

And you kind of get the impression she's also trying to buy her way in. Kind of like I'm going to dedicate my fortune to.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. It's. I don't think we're supposed to believe anything sincere. There's going to be sincere faith later in the book.

[B]

And so I don't hear here and there, but, yeah, I think this is.

[A]

This is sincere faith. But look at even this line. I thought of Eliza and Georgiana. I beheld one the sinister of a ballroom, the other the inmate of a convent cell. So, again, imprisoned, an inmate. Right. So she's locking this passion up. Then she goes back and she thinks to herself, my, how full the hedges are of roses. I mean, hello, Sleeping Beauty. I passed a tall briar. And then I see Mr. Rochester. Okay, it's. I thought a lot about this. What's the deal with the Sleeping Beauty? And I. I can't say everything until we get to the end of the book. But I think part of what is going on here is how much this is a place of dreams. And she keeps saying, am I dreaming? Is this really happening? Am I dreaming? So I think there's a sense in which Thornfield hall is asleep and being brought into there has made her kind of go to sleep.

[B]

Thornfield hall and the setting of Wuthering Heights have in common. They both feel that they are almost inaccessible to the world without. I mean, we know that they're not. Yes, you can. Physically, they're in England. Sure. But it's kind of a world to itself. And you don't feel that many people live around here.

[A]

Well, the fact that nobody in town knows to. How he's got a wife in there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's very fairy tale.

[B]

Very.

[A]

Because you might be thinking, okay, come on. How would you not know the servants. Servants always talk. Not in a Gothic novel, they don't. They're all getting.

[B]

And he comes and goes. Yeah, kind of. And you notice also in Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff randomly comes and goes and has this. Almost. Again, almost kind of this preternatural ability to show up when the plot demands. And when he is well, look what

[A]

happens when Rochester sees her. He says, ah, she comes from the other world.

[B]

From the other world, yeah.

[A]

Right. So like you've entered the fairy tale world of Thornfield Hall.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

So again, Beauty and the Beast. He says, I'm sure you've forgotten all about me. You've been gone for a month. And she says, no. And then if we weren't sure if this was a lot of Beauty and the Beast language, he says to her, tell me now, fairy as you are, can't you give me a charm or a filter or something of that sort to make me a handsome man? And she says, it would be past the power of magic, sir. And in thought I added, a loving eye is all the charm needed to such. You are handsome enough. Or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty. Right. So Beauty and the beast I love will make you beautiful.

[B]

We'll see. Qualities which are invisible to the rest of the world.

[A]

Exactly. Exactly. All right, chapter 23, we have the the garden scene slash proposal sling. Okay, if we weren't sure it's the Garden of Eden and they're Adam and Eve. I mean, like it's explicitly said. And she's even talking about. She feels like she's on the cliffs of Albion. So it's just another fairy world. And the cigar is coming in. Of course, that's fire. That's smoke.

[B]

The Adam and Eve you say. He says, I love you as my own flesh.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. And she even says, this is an Eden like place.

[B]

But even here it seems like he's kind of. Does it seem like he's kind of playing with her a bit?

[A]

He's totally playing with her. He's totally playing with her.

[B]

Like he talks about. What does he talk about? Sending her off to Ireland or something and giving her some.

[A]

Okay, again, obviously he's teasing her. Yeah, he doesn't know it because he says, I'm going to take you to Mrs. O', Gall's, to Bitternut Lodge.

[B]

I love the name. Mrs. Dionysius O' Gall of Bitternut Lodge, Connacht. And oh, by the way, I believe that Connacht had a reputation for being kind of the hard bitten part of Ireland, where you wouldn't necessarily choose. It was, I don't know, it was like the Badlands, Montana. So for instance, during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, many of the native people were driven into Connacht to make room for the English settlers who were taken over. And Cromwell's policy has been Described. Cromwell's policy towards the Irish has been described as the choice between Hel and Connacht. And I think I'm saying that word right.

[A]

Yeah, that's pretty tough.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We apologize to Ireland. We didn't say it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If we're trying to read this as some kind of love story, obviously Rochester is not acting very well to her. Why doesn't he just come out and say I love you, I want to marry you instead he keeps testing her. But if we understand that this is all fairy tale stuff, then the kind of arbitrary. Yes, the. That's so out of a fairy tale.

[B]

I mean there's also kind of a. Isn't there an element of patient Grisel in her. Oh, in this as well?

[A]

Very much so. Well, well said. Petrarch's tale of, you know, the tale of patient Griselda, which is also retold in the Clark's tale.

[B]

And the husband also there named.

[A]

It's not Edward, but it's something like that.

[B]

Whatever it is.

[A]

Walter. Walter.

[B]

Good memory. The husband also doesn't like. Isn't the final test. He. He tells her, I'm going to marry another woman and I would like you to stay on as a servant. This is. This has a lot of suggestions of Grizel. Is she going to be turned into Grizel here?

[A]

So. So just in case anybody's horrified, the tale of patient Griselda was often used as a sermon illustration. And it was not, it was not supposed to be a guide to how actual married people are supposed to act, but it was.

[B]

If your husband is a bigamist, that's okay and you should be stay on as a servant.

[A]

Right. No, what it is is a. It's an allegory of the book of Job that all these sufferings and trials come to you, but your soul is patient and you accept it. And you know, you want your, your mind and God's mind and will to all be the same thing. And it, it's very obviously Job. And if you understand it as an allegory of Job in this, in the soul, then then it's fine if you, if you don't, then you're just horrified and you think God people just like really abusing women back then. But you're right. So if this is the story of Jane's journey of the soul, then she's gonna. She's learning to be patient in arbitrary afflictions. But it's also very, very fairy tale. I mean like the, the crazy stuff he's doing to. To test her to see if she loves him, is she. He might as well throw out some. Some lentils and peas and say, separate it. Right. Like, it's just completely arbitrary. But I don't want to miss the fact that while this is very much fairy tale and gothic, it's also still Victorian. And, like, it's been like 30 years since I read this. And I was shocked at her behavior here because this is not at all how a Victorian girl is supposed to act. Okay. And so let me just back up a little bit.

[B]

Oh, I just realized something. This book appears in 1847.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That's in the middle of the potato famine.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

So Ireland probably sounds even worse as a. As an employment prospect then than it does now. But continue. You were about to make a point.

[A]

Well, so Adrienne Rich points out that. Or maybe it's Sandra Gilbert. But anyway, one of those feminist critics points out that the Victorian readers were not actually scandalized by the Mr. Rochester sections because they're pretty accustomed to the idea that there's going to be a Byronic hero with a sexual past. So that didn't. But. But her standing up for herself in this scene really shocked them. And so that might require just a little bit of background. You guys have heard me talk about the angel in the house before that there's a lot of rules for the behavior of women. And in short, a man can have a past and be a passionate creature, but a woman may not. Not even if she's married. Watch me be so family friendly in the way that I'm going to talk about this. A woman had to be essentially, well, ice and not fire, even as married. So the fact that. We'll see this with Bertha in a second. But the fact that he marries a woman of fire is a big. That's a big problem. Big. No, no. And there are so many rules and social customs for a woman to be able to indicate to potential spouses or even to the world at large that I am a good woman. Jane is flouting most of them. So, for example, a woman would never tell the man that she's interested in him first. So think Jane Bennett of Pride and Prejudice. Right. That's completely inappropriate. And the girls know that in Pride and Prejudice. That's why there's. There. That's why Charlotte Lucas is like, well, maybe we can find a creative way to let him know we're interested. Because, you know, guys can be kind of dense. But you certainly. I mean, when Rochester says, you know, by the way, you proposed to me, and they have a little Chuckle about it. Scandalous. Okay, a woman, A woman does not do that. She doesn't, doesn't call the guy by his first name. She doesn't say, I love you first. Like she, the woman is supposed to be passive in every kind of way and just receptive. So the man is he again, a woman's going to be educated to have a lot of charms and enticements and hopefully get a man's attention that way. But then they're essentially going to be passive other than just being kind of flirtatious and charming. And then, you know, he's gonna, he's gonna, you know, make his move. You know, I want to marry you. And then you accept her or you

[B]

don't accept finishing school will pay off.

[A]

That's exactly right. And that's, that's, that's the Blanche Ingram move here. Right. Okay, that's what she's doing. But he's trying to provoke a declaration of love out of her, which is already wildly inappropriate. But she puts him in her. His place and says she won't be treated like this. Right. So this would have been just scandalous. And I don't want us to miss this because the Victorian readers are going to read this and be like, like, this girl is extremely passionate. That is very inappropriate. And so for these passion scenes to build up to the birth of Mason revealed, or is going to be very, very important for us to see that Bertha is the threat of what Jane could in fact become should she marry Rochester in this state of bigamy. So he's, he's pretending like he's going to marry Blanche Ingram to get her to make some kind of declaration of love. And, you know, he's saying, I don't understand why you have to go. And she says, I tell you I must go. I retorted, roused to something like passion. Okay, here we go. This is the Morgan, the Morgan Freeman voiceover. And she was indeed full of passion. Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I'm an automaton, a machine without feelings? Okay, this would have it.

[B]

Did you imagine Helen Burns saying this?

[A]

No.

[B]

This had she been in the same situation.

[A]

It's these scenes where she stands up for herself and says, you might outrank me, but we are equals before God and I'm not gonna let you treat me like this.

[B]

She acts on. She acts according to what she thinks moral principle demands, even at the expense of decorum.

[A]

That's right. She says, I don't care about custom. I mean, I'm Gonna live according to the dictates of my own custom. Yes. Okay. And so she says, I can't bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips and my drop of living water dashed from my cup. Do you think because I'm poor, obscure, plain and little, I am solely and heartless? You think wrong. I have as much soul as you and full as much heart. And if God had gifted me with some beauty and some wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me as it is now for me to leave you. I'm not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities or even immortal flesh. It is my spirit that addresses your spirit just as if both had passed through the grave and we stood at God's feet, equal as we are. Okay. This would have been so crazy, scandalous. Very inappropriate for her to talk like.

[B]

You do see why some of the early reviewers said that this was an iconoclastic and. And a dangerous, chaotic and. Yeah, anarchic.

[A]

Yep. It was called dangerous and immoral.

[B]

Because all of the spirit of Chartism is my favorite.

[A]

Oh, nice. Another one. I saw that she. I just read this this morning. She has the sin of pride. How? That. That. This pride that she stood up and said to him, we are equals before God.

[B]

He did not know her station.

[A]

There you go. So as moderns, we're just like, yeah, girl, you know, tell them like it is. But what we need to see is this is a picture of passion. And it's not wrong. In the world of this book, Charlotte Bronte is. Doesn't think it's wrong for her to stand up for herself. So this. So she's. She's fighting the conventions. So again, going back to that early image, there's a fire and a passion that consumes you. Okay. Sets the room on fire. But then there's one in the hearth. It's good. It warms you. It brings light and life. And so Jane is having to figure out how to navigate that. But this is definitely not Helen Burns. Helen Burns would never give this speech.

[B]

Or the next part where she says, I am no bird and no net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.

[A]

And he earlier said she was a caged bird.

[B]

Yeah, he did. Just one or two lines before.

[A]

But no, in chapters earlier. Chapters earlier.

[B]

You're right.

[A]

Chapters earlier. Okay. So he says, as we are. And he gathered her and closed him to his breath and pressed his lips on my lips. Okay. All of this is wildly inappropriate. And she says, yes, so, sir, and yet not so. For you are a married man, or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you, to one with whom you have no sympathy. Okay, we're gonna find out in two chapters. This is all true. He gets married to someone that she

[B]

speaks more truly than she knows.

[A]

Okay? And so then, yeah, we see the thing about the bird. All right? So this entire conversation is happening on the chestnut tree, the one that's going to get, you know, split in twain. So there they are. They're having this conversation with some love declarations. They're going to plan to get married. But in a few chapters, you realize this is. This is the temptation scene in the Garden of Eden because she is being, in fact, ensnared as a bird. And she doesn't know that she is because he doesn't say to her, I'm already married. He. He's. He's going to try to pull the wool over her eyes. And so he says, jane, come to me. And she says, your bride stands between us. Okay, that is truer than she knows, right? He says, no, my bride is here because you are my equal. Jane, will you marry me? Okay. And then, you know I love you as my own flesh. So that very Adam and Eve. And then they look up at the moonlight because, of course, this is all an upside down, crazy proposal. And Rochester even says, you proposed to me, which would. I mean, you know, as moderns, I have to, like, what? Would it be equally scandalous? Like, nothing is scandalous to us anymore. But this was outrageous. This is why people said, this is a dangerous book. Girls cannot act like this. Girls cannot go around telling men we are equal and your station doesn't matter. In fact, you and I were talking about how the. The difference in their stat. The status is not a thing in this book.

[B]

Yeah, it's there, but she doesn't. She doesn't harp on it. I suppose it's. I mean. And you say, you know, Mrs. Fairfax gives her the warning that men like him don't marry governesses. But I. Yeah, this is not really a novel of class dynamics very much.

[A]

It's not. And I. And I think that that line is about something. But anyway, okay, so they go back and forth, and they're literally in the shadow of the chestnut trees. She. She says, the moon was not yet set. We were sitting in a shadow. I can't see my master's face. And what is ailing the chestnut tree? It's writhing and groaning. I mean, come on, y'. All, this. This union is not going to work.

[B]

Because, in fact, nature seems eagerly alive.

[A]

Yes. And again, that's very Shakespeare. Right? Like, you know, the king abdicates and a tempest breaks out. You kill the king, and there's an earthquake and an eclipse.

[B]

The moon disappears on the night of Duncan's murder.

[A]

Exactly, Exactly. So, right. So all of this. But Rochester's having this weird conversation. He's saying, it will atone. It will atone. I will expiate at God's tribunal. I know my maker sanctions what I do for the world's judgment, I wash my hands thereof. For man's opinion. I defy it. This is where. If I was Jane, I'd be like, wait, back up a second. Yeah, you have to defy the world's judgment.

[B]

Precisely. Needs expiation.

[A]

Can we maybe talk about this a little bit? But no, Jane is thinking, we're sitting in the shadow. The tree is moaning and writhing. Right? And then there's a crackle, a crash appeal. It starts raining. She runs into the house as the clock strikes 12. Hello, Cinderella. Right. And Miss Fairfax sees them. Now, Miss Fairfax thinks this is a seduction.

[B]

Yeah. She thinks that he's up to no good with the governess.

[A]

Because that's the thing that happened in these books.

[B]

It does, sure.

[A]

And in life. Right. And it was a big thing in Pamela.

[B]

I think. I mean, again, this must be. This must be. Do you think that George Eliot. And we've talked about George Eliot's reaction to this book. George Eliot read this book in the way, sort of. That Ms. Fairfax read this situation.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I mean, she sees her from the point of view of a cool, kind of naturally stoic and skeptical woman for what probably seemed to her like a silly governess's romance.

[A]

Well, I mean, I don't know if we want to get into this or not, but, I mean, you know, I adore George Eliot, as do you, but she and Charlotte Bronte are very, very different. And while her. Basically, her husband, George Henry Lewes, as we'll explain. Just a minute. But he liked the book very much and had an ongoing correspondence with Charlotte

[B]

Bronte, except for a set of Jane Austen novels.

[A]

Yeah, but he liked it a lot. He. I can't think off the top of my head what some of the quotes were, but he. He. I think he read it. Well, he was a literary critic, so he wrote reviews of this. This was his job. This is how he met George Eliot. But. So when I was doing my. My thesis, I was going through George Elliott's letters. And I found a letter where she was expressing how angry she was at Jane Eyre. And this is an example of George Eliot just. She read the book wrong. But I also understand why she did, because it hit a little, as I will explain. And I think all of us have those moments where we're trying to read with what Northrop Fry calls detachment. We're trying to see all the images and see the story that the author is giving us and kind of taking. Putting our own baggage aside while we read it. And George Eliot was not able to put her baggage aside. And it is because the scene where Rochester has a wife as an impediment to the marriage, and he's like, we should just be together anyway. It doesn't matter, you know, she's hardly a wife to me. That literally happened to George Elliot and George Henry Lewis. George Henry Lewis's wife left him, was

[B]

living abroad in France with another man, and he couldn't, for a variety of legal complications, do the most ridiculous reasons,

[A]

like, basically, they didn't have an address to serve the papers kind of thing, but, like, they were not together. She had left him. She was with other men. She had a whole other life. But he could not get the divorce for a technical reason. And so he and George Eliot decided. Decided that they were not going to let that stand in the way that as far as George Elliott was concerned, this is not a real marriage. It was a very brave thing to do at the time. And so this. This whole thing just hit a little too close to home. And so she's. She's upset. You know, she doesn't. George Eliot would be reading this, going, this is not a valid marriage. This is not illegal. This should not be an impediment, you know, but again, all of us are capable of allowing our baggage to get in the way.

[B]

Oh, yeah, I think I can. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

So as that chapter ends, lightning strikes the chestnut tree and breaks it in half.

[B]

See, that was an example to me of a scene I thought that worked in a book. I thought that it was atmospherically appropriate and symbolically integrated with the whole. Because we've seen this happening from the beginning. If you were to film this, and there have been so many film versions of Jane Eyrendwill maybe talk about some of them. I don't think you could get away with that. I can't imagine a director who could film that without it looking just too obvious and corny.

[A]

It's very.

[B]

Maybe, again, it shows, like, the difference between media that's It.

[A]

I think it's difficult to film anything that's highly symbolic.

[B]

Yeah, it's kind of like. I think it's very hard. And we've talked about this. It's very hard to film a profoundly religious experience without it being a little bit schmaltzy. A character praying out loud or something. I don't know why, but that's that. There are times I can think of in film where it works, but it's. It's. It's always a hard thing to get away with.

[A]

Well, it's. It's easier to pull off in, like a fantasy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where you accept the conventions that things are going to be very, you know, symbolic and otherworldly when you have a displaced romance like Jane Eyre when you're filming it, they just look like regular Victorians going around. So, again, very, very. Not impossible, but really hard, I think, to pull it off. But I think it works here. I think it works here. So the. The next chapter, she wakes up the next day and thinks, was this all a dream? So that goes back to that whole Sleeping Beauty thing, right? She keeps saying, is this a dream? Is this real? And then, of course, her dreams are going to turn into nightmares. Like, you know, there you go. Let's see, what was I saying? Oh, yes. So she feels like she's more beautiful now because she's in love. And so that's again, very Beauty and the Beast least. And then, let's see. All right, so as soon as they get engaged, he starts talking to her differently and treating her differently. And this causes a lot of anxiety for her. So it looked like the answer the night before was, he's not Bluebeard, he's Beauty and the Beast. But now he starts acting in a way that makes her feel very uncomfortable. So again, going back to Bluebeard, we do find out that actually he does have a locked room with his ex wife in it. And that is very Bluebeard. And this is what is going to become of me. But there already was that hint when he was talking about his other paramours, and especially with Ms. Fairfax saying men don't usually marry their governesses. That the idea that you're just going to be the next Celine, you're not really going to be his wife. This isn't going to work out. He's trying to. To. She's trying to do something. You know, again, I'm trying to speak euphemistically here because I know we have little ears and cars listening to this, but

[B]

that she might just be the Other Woman. The next in the series of other women.

[A]

Yes. Thank you. And so, you know the theme of the fallen woman in Victorian literature, this is. This is huge. It happens. I mean, Tessa, the Durables and Pamela and on and on, these stories where some innocent serving girls is going to get played. She thinks there's a legitimate romance happening and it turns out it's just a seduction and you're going to be cast aside. So there's the idea of these devouring men. Right. They're not actually having to murder you, but they're essentially murdering you. Right. And so this is why it's very uncomfortable for her that the first thing he wants to do is dress her up like a little doll, dress her up with jewels, turn her into the next.

[B]

Talk about all these places that they're going to. You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome and Naples, at Florence, Venice and Vienna. All the ground I have wandered over shall be retroden by you. Whenever I stamped my hoof. Your sylph's foot shall step also.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And a sylph, if you've never heard that word before, S, Y, L, P, H. That's a spirit of the air that appears in mythology and. And in later literature as well.

[A]

He also keeps telling her things like My little elf, My mustard. Mustard seed, which is also a Midsummer Night's Dream reference. And then she's saying, I just. Is this happening? This feels like a fairy tale. It feels like I'm in a daydream.

[B]

But also, I mean, apart from any other threat, it's not. We know that she's not going to become the romantic novel heroine in the standard to order sense of that term. But he's kind of treating her that way.

[A]

She is. And she says.

[B]

And we know that there's something that's untrue to their. The real nature of their relationship. When he talks about.

[A]

That's right. Because she put the footing of their relationship as we are two souls equal before God. And now he's trying to dress her up and she doesn't like it. And she. And. And she says, do not address me as if I were a beauty. She doesn't want to be glamorized quakerous governess. And he says, you are a beauty in my eyes. A beauty just has to desire of my heart. Delicate and aerial. Right. And then he says, I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty too. He went on, while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted because I felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. And she says, well, then you won't know me, because I'll be your Jane Eyre. I won't be your Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket. So the night before, she thinks, no, he's Beauty and the Beast, and I've seen the really, the good man he is. And this is how that story is going to work out immediately. The next day, it's back to, is he Bluebeard? Is he dangerous? Is he trying to turn me into the next Celine Varin? The fact that he wants to take her to Europe, he wants to take her to the scene of his crimes. Because he tells her, you know, in chapter 26, this is where I been

[B]

up to potentially disreputable sorts of behavior. Gambling houses and lost my mind.

[A]

And he says, you're going to be my angel. Okay, so now we're back to the angel in the house, right? This Victorian idea that the ideal woman is this passionless, holy, spiritual creature. And the. The. The husband. The husband is all passions and appetites. And so we need women as the angel in the house to temper that, to elevate them. And so he is playing, right? Well, he's playing into both of them at the same time because he's kind of dressing her up a little bit like a strumpet, but then also saying, you're my angel. And so she's rejecting both of those. I'm not going to be Celine, but I'm not your angel. She says, I'm not an angel. I'm Jane Eyre. I am myself and nothing else. Okay, Again, the Victorian collectively gasped at that. What do you mean? This is what women do. We are the angel in the house.

[B]

Yeah. And she doesn't like any suggestion that there's anything even remotely coquettish about her.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That she. That she and Blanche Ingram could be cut from anything. Like the same cloth.

[A]

Right?

[B]

So when he says, I never met your likeness, Jane, you please me and you master me, you seem to submit. And I like the sense of pliancy you impart. And while I am twining the soft silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up my arm, to my heart. I am influenced, conquered, and the influence is sweeter than I can express. And the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile, Jane? What does that. Inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance. Mean. And she responds. I was thinking sir. And notice how she keeps calling him sir? Yeah. Like she. She doesn't want to violate any sort of verbal propriety. She says, I was thinking, sir, you will excuse the idea. It was involuntary. I was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charmers.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so both of these heroes, you're very strong men who are brought low by their dealings with a certain, you know, with women.

[A]

She's saying, I'm not Delilah and I'm not an angel. I am myself. That is revolutionary at this time. Okay, so there's a lot of passion and fire here, but there's something else that happens that. As he starts to talk to her like the typical suitor and lover of Victorian times. Now, okay, you're going to be the angel. You're going to heal all my spiritual wounds, and I'm going to confess all my past sins to you, and you're going to redeem me. But, like, okay, this is. This is the reformed rake trope of a million novels of this time. And she is flat out refusing to play that role. She also doesn't trust any of this. This. As soon as he starts talking like the typical suitor, she says, yeah, I think this will probably last six months. And then. And then. And then it's going to wear off. And that's when I think our real marriage will start. And that kind of shocks him, that she's not going to play that game. She's not going to flatter him and flirt. She's like, I know this kind of, you know, honeymoon affection doesn't last forever. He admits that he's capricious to her. Then we have the scene about, yeah, Delilah that you just said. Also the idea that the suitor is one kind of man and the husband is another kind of man. That's Bluebeard.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because he's a very intense suitor. But then, you know, as soon as he gets her in the house, he kills her. So just her recognizing there's two different sides to this is all.

[B]

And she seems, even though he's the older, by a fair bit, I mean, he's. But how much older is he than her?

[A]

20 years.

[B]

20 years. Yeah. Okay. She seems much more concerned with practical considerations than he is. She hasn't forgotten the fact that he's a father already. And, like, he doesn't.

[A]

She's really in love with him and wants to be with him, but she does not want to get caught up in this romance daydream.

[B]

Sure. Like, you also have a daughter that you have to care for and what's going to happen with Adele and. Yeah, all that.

[A]

And when she's talking to him like that. He says, don't turn out a downright Eve on my hands. Right. So he's. He's. Yeah.

[B]

Well, why compare to Eve right there? I mean, is he saying, don't eat the apple and tempt me or something? Or am I. Am I missing.

[A]

That's how I'm taking it. Or she's. She's bringing him low in some way.

[B]

Maybe that's it. Sure. That was my only. But, yeah, I didn't understand why. Because, like, she's. That's the last thing in the world she would ever do, but never mind.

[A]

Yeah, I didn't really get that either. Maybe some of you have some ideas about that. But to me, the important thing is he keeps saying, you'll be my angel. You'll be my angel. And she says, I would rather be a thing than an angel. That's huge. Huge. And this is when he says, janet, by the by, it was you who made me the offer. And she says, of course I did. Did. Again, it's not just, oh, this is a little unconventional. This is outrageous. This is scandalous. This is. This is saying, I'm not going to be the angel in the house. Which, in the Victorian mindset, if you're not the angel in the house, then you're a harem girl. You're a harem girl. Thank you.

[B]

Thank you. And harem imagery is.

[A]

Yep. That's about introduced.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay, well, let me get there. He says, I wish to render you as madly in love with me as I was with you. I knew that jealousy would be my best ally. So he's telling her, this is why I. You told. Tormented you. Because I was trying to stir up a passion in you. Right. But he stirred up a different passion than he was expecting. And then he says, it was a burning shame. No, she says, it was a burning shame and a scandalous disgrace to act in that way. So she rebukes him for that, says, did you think of nothing of Ms. Ingram's feelings? And he was like, oh, she just wanted me for my money. But still, that's, you know, that wasn't good to treat her like that. But still, right? And then, yeah, Ms. Fairfax is giving Jane the eye because she thinks this is a seduction. And she's like, Mr. Rochester, could you please do me one favor? What? That. Darling, I'll give you the moon. Please go tell Ms. Fairfax that this is legit engagement because she thinks I have just become a fallen woman. So Mr. Rochester tells her, and then Ms. Fairfax goes up to James and says, do you actually believe this? Which makes sense if you've read the other books of this time period, because Pamela does get sucked into a fake marriage, remember? So Mr. B says, that's right.

[B]

He hires a fake clergyman or something like that.

[A]

So he. For, you know, it's been a thousand pages. He's trying to, you know, have his way with her. She's holding out. Then finally he says to her, okay, okay, you win. You win. I'm gonna marry you tomorrow. We're gonna get married. And so they get. He gives her a wedding dress. They get in the carriage, they go, he's got a fake priest set up for a fake marriage. And then I forget what happens, but she figures it out, and she escapes again.

[B]

Is Pamela kind of the original dumb blonde? Honestly.

[A]

But it's so much like what happens

[B]

to Jane here, who hated that book and thought it was utterly frivolous, was Samuel Johnson.

[A]

Oh, good for him.

[B]

Yeah. And some. Some young woman once told him that. Dr. Johnson, I truly believe that Pamela is one of the greatest works of. Of fiction that our age has seen the appearance of. And he simply responded to her. That, young lady, is because you are a dunce. Samuel Johnson telling it like it is.

[A]

So Ms. Fairfax saying, you know, you guys aren't the same age. You're not the same status. Gentlemen don't usually marry their governesses, which is totally code for. This is a seduction. This is a seduction. I'm so sorry to grieve you. Pursuit, of course. Jane is like, what, I'm not good enough to be his wife? What are you saying? She says, but you're so young and so little acquainted with men. I wish to put you on your guard. It's an old saying that all is not gold that glitters, which, of course, is correct. Now, you and I were talking this morning about Whether or not Ms. Fairfax knows about Bertha. On this reread, I noticed how much the servants are whispering about some secret in front of Jane. I think we are to understand that

[B]

Ms. Fairfax does know.

[A]

They all know.

[B]

Okay, so it's not just Grace Poole who's in on the secret. It. All right.

[A]

And in this case, I do fear there will be something found to be different to what either you or I expect. So she's. She's, you know, warning her there's something else you hear you don't know. And she says, why am I a monster? Okay, no. Bera is.

[B]

There are monsters in the near vicinity.

[A]

Right. Okay. So Ms. Fairfax keeps saying she's suspicious, and then gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry their governor. Stubbornness is. She grows truly irritated. And then Adele runs in. Okay, like, that is such a perfect, like, Shakespeare moment. Shakespeare likes to have somebody say something very significant. And that character walks in. But Ms. Fairfax is saying, as Victorian, bluntly as you can. I think he just wants to seduce you and toss you aside. In walks love child. Okay. Like, this is your future. You're gonna be the next carrier of a love child. This is not going to work out like you think. But this does kind of plant a little bit of suspicion in her mind. And she gets uncomfortable with the way he's talking. And so she and Adele then have this very bizarre, shall we say, conversation where Mr. Rochester's telling a fairy tale how he's going to take Jane to the moon. But here's the symbolism of that. Right? The moon. And this goes back to her painting earlier is Celine. Right.

[B]

That's what. Yep. And we should have said that last. I had been to. And I forgot. So, yes, Selene is the goddess of the moon.

[A]

S E L E, S E L

[B]

E, N E. Okay.

[A]

But it's the same name as the mistress Celine. Vera. So he's sitting here saying, I'm gonna take Jane to the moon. I'm gonna turn Jane into Celine. And Jane understands that that's what she's saying, which is why in a few pages, she tells him, I will not be your English Celine veteran. That Right. So they're. They're. They're having a struggle here about what are the terms of this relationship. She wants. She wants that same companionship they had where they just talked as equals to one another. She doesn't. She's not comfortable with the.

[B]

She wants a meeting of. Meeting of souls and meeting of the minds and not just a marriage of. Marriage of what calculation?

[A]

And he keeps calling her a fairy. And. And he wants to buy her clothes and jewels. And she says, I never can bear being dressed up like a doll.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And then there's that whole long talk about the harem. Okay. I'm not part of your heron. Okay. So this would have been very well known to anybody at the time. In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft writes a Vindication of the Rights of Women, which is a fantastic book. And what she is fighting is Rousseau's idea of what a woman is. And sometimes I think we really misunderstand feminist history. And we think that there's this narrative that, you know, Christianity came in and was bad for women, and feminism came and, you know, attacked Christianity. Now, whether or not. You think Christianity was bad for women or good for women? Most everybody, I think, sees feminism as especially like the early stages of feminism, as attacking some kind of. Of Christian idea that's historically inaccurate. What happened was in the Enlightenment, Rousseau's idea of what a woman is catches on and it really sets. It sets women back in a bazillion ways. And basically Rousseau's ideas are dominant for the next couple hundred years. I'll explain what they are in just a moment. But feminism was really a response to those Rousseauian ideas of what a woman is, is. And when you read the early feminist tracts, like a vindication of the rights of women, you see, these are such conservative arguments.

[B]

I actually did have a question. Charlotte Bronte would have known who Wollstonecraft was. Do you know if she. If there's any evidence that she read the book in particular?

[A]

I don't. I did not research this and I don't know and I don't remember. I didn't know either days. But if it. But Everybody knew it. 1792. Everybody knew it. Everybody knew it.

[B]

It was a kind of notorious book.

[A]

Yeah, but everybody knew it. And I just. I feel like this scene is a direct reference and here's why. So Jean Jacques Rousseau argued that women are overgrown children. So you dress him up like a doll, ideally.

[B]

So you should keep going.

[A]

Ideally so. Yes, ideally. So.

[B]

He famously was. I mean, his not wife, but the woman he lived with for many years. One of the reasons he was attracted to her, I believe, was because Therese Leveseur was her name, was illiterate.

[A]

Yes. Right. So we're just overgrown children. We can't have our brains taxed. So this had huge negative influence on women's educations. Right. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Don't tire out their little infant braids. Right. Dress them up like a doll, make them a house ornament. That was a big thing in the Victorian era.

[B]

Supply of smelling salts, I might add.

[A]

Yes. That. That women were house ornaments. Not even trophy wives. Just another beautiful possession for you to have in your home. And she's going to be this sweet little doll angel. The angel in the house actually was a one of the weird, not great responses to Rousseau in that trying to, like, elevate the dignity of a woman saying, she's not just a house ornament, she's not just a doll. She actually can be this wonderful spiritual influence in the house. So the angel in the house is complicated. It wasn't really an idea there to kind of oppress women. It was actually an attempt to elevate the status of women. It was just a very messed up time in a lot of ways. So let's go back to the idea of the doll, right? So you know, you just need to sit in the corner and look pretty. You're going to hurt her brain, you're going to make her emotional, don't educate her, don't talk to her about it, anything. So Mary Wollstonecraft comes in, guns a blazing against this, and just says, look, if women. She says, women are made in the image of God just like men, and then we need to be treated in a way that is befitting to our status as being made in the image of God. And she says, if we're a Christian nation and we believe that women are supposed to be a help me to their husband, then maybe they should be educated enough that they can do that, they can have a conversation, that they can be part of the team of this family. And not just that she's a pretty little thing in the corner. But here's, and here's why. You're going to see why I think this is a direct reference to that in, in Jane Eyre. She goes on to say, what you guys want women to be is more befitting of being in a Muslim harem than in a Christian country. So don't you think this is a direct reference to this?

[B]

May well be, yeah.

[A]

With Jane saying, you, you just want to dress me up like a doll. Make me your plaything as part of a.

[B]

He chuckled. He rubbed his hands. Oh, is it rich to see and hear her? He exclaimed. Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk's whole seraglio Gazelle eyes, houry forms and all. And houry, if I'm. I think I'm saying that name correctly. Those are the 70 virgins of the Mohammedan paradise.

[A]

She's the Eastern illusion. Bit me again. I'll not stand you in an inch in the stead of a seraglio. So don't consider me an equivalent for one. I mean, she says, if you fancy that, go get somebody else. She's really standing up for her.

[B]

She referred a few pages earlier also to King Ahasuerus. And readers of the King James Bible will know that Ahasuerus is the Hebrew form of the name Xerxes in the book of Esther, which also is harems and all that kind of Eastern. Eastern crafting.

[A]

Exactly. So she's saying, I'm not going to be your doll. I'm not going to be a member of your harem. Like we are equals before God. This is. Is very influenced. Again, I can look it up, because I didn't. Because it was just so clear to me that this is what it was. But if we need a direct thing, I can find it. But to me, this is clearly the influence of a vindication of the rights of women.

[B]

It's plausible

[A]

and it's. No, there's no question that. Again, I'm just going to keep repeating myself. But my favorite review of this book is the one from the Victorian era. They said, this is a dangerous book.

[B]

Indeed.

[A]

It's dangerous in the best way. And this is where she tells him, I will not be your English Celine Varan. Right. I'm gonna be a person. I'm not gonna be your doll. I'm not your plaything. I'm not your mistress. I am going to be independent. I'm going to be a person. I'm gonna continue to teach this girl. Now, again, for a modern person, we might not realize how revolutionary this is, but an angel in the house doesn't do anything. She doesn't cook her own food. She's got to cook for that. She doesn't clean her own house. She has a housekeeper. She doesn't take care of her own children. She's got a nurse and a governess. Like, literally nothing. Anything was too taxing. Okay, this is, this is not.

[B]

And that, that poem, by the way. And the poem is by Coventry Patmore. That is. And sorry, this, that's later than this, by a few years, I think. So I want to say that poems 1850s or 18, I think it's. In any case, the concept is still in the area. Absolutely.

[A]

It's in the air. Right? And yeah, I just want you guys to see that in the, in terms of the Victorian era, this is very revolutionary. What's happening in terms of, like, our understanding, it's not revolutionary at all, but we need to see that the categories that Charlotte Bronte is presenting us as, passion or no passion, it's. It's a little bit different than we would understand them because we, we would just be like. Like, she wants to raise her own child. What's the big deal? Right? But it's a huge deal to them that she's saying, I'm not going to be your house ornament. I'm going to continue to teach this girl. I'm. I'm going to be independent. This is, this is radical stuff. She wants to be A human being and not a plaything. And then he says to her, very flirty, listen, whisper. It's your time now, little tyrant, but it'll be mine presently. And once I have fairly seized you to have and to hold, I'll just, figuratively speaking, attach you to a chain like this. That is Bluebeard. That is Bluebeard.

[B]

And she also, in spite of her protest to this, she's. She's almost alarmingly attracted to him.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

She even says so at the end of the chapter. She says, yet after all, my task was not an easy one. Often I would rather have pleased him than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me my whole world and more than the world, almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not in those days see God for his creature of whom I had made an idol.

[A]

Okay, so clearly this is disordered love.

[B]

Yet neither of them have learned to appreciate each other, to love each other in. In a. In a. I guess you could say, proportionately appropriate way. That's a lame way of putting it, but you know what I mean.

[A]

Right, Right. But I want. There's another very important moment in that chapter before we get to the end, which is where.

[B]

Is it about the sati?

[A]

Yes. So she says, who are you going to marry now? Because clearly you're not talking about me. Whoever you wrote this poem for, it's not me. Who are you going to marry now? And he says, that's a strange question to be put by his darling Jane. Indeed, I considered it a very natural and necessary one. He had talked of his future wife dying with him. What did he mean by such a pagan idea? I had no intention of dying with him. He might depend upon it. And then they talked about the sati. Okay, so a sati is a Hindu

[B]

funeral custom where the. Where the widow is burned with the husband.

[A]

That's right. Okay, so considering that Bertha's in there, his wife, and she tried to burn him up and. But symbolically, he's about to become a bigamist, okay? Which means he's going to totally give in his passions, and he's not going to give her a chance to have even a say in the matter. And she's just saying, I'm. Who did you write this poem about? My wife is going to die with you. Because it's not me. I'm not going to die with you. I'm not going to be burned up with you. This is so Significant. So significant for things that are going to happen, like later. I'm not going to be burned up with you. All right, now, chapter 15. So this is the language again. I don't understand why anybody's like, this is such a romantic book. It's not. And it's not supposed to be.

[B]

I would kind of worry about someone who felt.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like their. Their affections tickled by all this and their heart warmed. The cockles of their heart, you know, rising in temperature.

[A]

What struck me 30 something years ago and still strikes me now is the day before the wedding. She describes it in nothing but death language. It's all death. The moth of courtship had wasted its very last hours were being numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced.

[B]

Yeah, there's this. This is ominous.

[A]

This is ominous. Not so. I didn't feel that way leading up to our almost.

[B]

You almost need to hear like Chopin's Death March playing in the background or something.

[A]

Exactly. The dreaded. She even says, the dreaded day is here. Okay. Like, this is not. This is not good. She's. This is. She's going to her doom and doesn't know it. But she's also having a lot of identity conversations here. Like looking to see that the name says Jane Rochester. And she says, who is that? Who is that? She keeps saying, I don't know who this Mrs. Rochester is. Of course she's gonna meet the actual Mrs. Rochester in these chapters, so it makes sense. But she says, I don't know who Jane Rochester is. She did not exist. She would not be born till Tomorrow, sometime after 8 o'. Clock. Talk. And I would wait to be assured. She had come into the world alive before I assigned to her all that property. And of course she's not going to come out to her alive. She's talking. She's looking at her wedding clothes and calling it wraith like apparel and ghostly shimmer. This is. This is.

[B]

Yeah, she's going to a wedding or a funeral.

[A]

This is Bluebeard, right? She. She. This is Scheherazade. You get married and you get killed on your wedding night. This is all of that. And also, there's a wind blowing. A storm is brewing. I mean, could we get much more simple? Alert, There's a storm brewing. Is a storm gonna break? And she looks at the tree. This is important. I faced the wreck of the chestnut tree. It stood up black and riven. The trunk split down the center, gassed. Ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken from each other for the firm base and strong roots kept them up unsundered below. The community of vitality was destroyed. The SAP could flow no more. Their great boughs on each side were dead. And next winter's tempest would be sure to fill one or both to earth. As yet, however, they might be said to form one tree. A ruin, but an entire ruin. So this is what her marriage. This is what she's facing. If she marries him, right, they're going to be a ruin. Dead already, still look alive. But they're dead. What are you grinning at? That?

[B]

No, no. I just like you. And I just like you in action.

[A]

Oh, okay, okay. So this is the image of them if they get married. And then of course, she's having all kind of omens. She's having dreams, she's freaking out about it. And Rasha is like, what happened? You're feverish. You're burning hot. Oh yeah, I bet she is, right? I'll laugh at you heartily when tomorrow is past. So then I dare not. My prize is not certain. This is you who have been as slippery as an eel this last month. And as thorny as a briar rose. I mean, hello, Sleeping Beauty. Right then they're all saying, this is going to be the last time you ever eat at Thornville Hall. Okay, she. She tells him, I. I don't even know what to think. Everything in my life seems unreal right now. And he says, yeah, you're like a phantom. Like you're a dream, right? So again, the Sleeping Beauty stuff. This is a dream. This, this whole Thornfield hall, it's all a dream because it's not going to come true. She doesn't marry him, the wedding gets broken up. He says, I wish this present hour would never end. Who knows what fate the next may come Charged. No, she says that. She says that. Okay, so the clock is ticking. She says, I don't want you to caress me. The wind is blowing more and more. It's eerie. And then she tells him she has a dream that Thornfill Hall.

[B]

Shall I read this part here? I dreamt another dream, sir. That Thornfield hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of bats and owls. I thought that of all the stately front, nothing remained but a shell like wall, very high and very fragile looking. I wandered on a moonlit night through the grass grown enclosure within here I stumbled over a marble hearth. And there over a fallen fragment of cornice wrapped up in a shawl, I still carried the unknown little trail. Child, I might not lay it down anywhere, however tired were My arms. However much its weight impeded my progress, I must retain it. I heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on the road. I was sure it was you, and you were departing. For many years and for a distant country. I climbed the thin wall with frantic, perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top. The stones rolled from under my feet. The ivy branches I grasped gave way. The child clung around my neck in terror and almost strangled me. At last I gained the summit. I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening every moment. The blast blew so strong I could not stand. I sat down on the narrow ledge. I hushed the scared infant in my lap. You turned an angle of the road. I bent forward to take a last look. The wall crumbled. I was shaken. The child rolled from my knees. I lost my balance, fell and woke.

[A]

How do you interpret the child?

[B]

I mean, I thought of Adele, but she doesn't say it was specifically.

[A]

Yeah. The only thing I can think of is when she says Jane Rochester has not yet been born. That. That. That this is the child that's lost in the dream. Jane Rochester is not going to get born. The wedding's going to be broken up. Up.

[B]

That. I like that. I guess that. That seems.

[A]

I mean, I'm not.

[B]

That seems to make sense of the. Of the language that she presents here. But, yes, there. That. There's something. Something stillborn or something that's in any case going to keep them apart and separate them.

[A]

And so Racha is like, oh, you silly little thing. It's just a dream. And she says, I'm not finished. Something else happened. Okay. This is so good. This is so good. Do you want to read just that whole section? Then I'll do the analysis of it.

[B]

Sure. It seems, sir, a woman. Tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on. It was white and straight. But whether gown, sheet or shroud, I cannot tell. And he asks, did you see her face? Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place face. She held it up, gazed at it long. And then she threw it over her own head and turned to the mirror. At that moment, I saw the reflection of the visage and features quite distinctly in the dark, oblong glass. And how were they? Fearful and ghastly to me. Oh, sir, I never saw a face like it. It was a disfigured face. It was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful Blackened inflation of the lineaments. Ghosts are usually pale, Jane. This, sir, was purple. The lips were swelled and dark, the brow furrowed, the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes. Shall I tell you of what it reminded me? You may of the foul German spectre. The vampire.

[A]

Ah. What did it do, sir? It removed my veil from its gaunt head, ripped it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them. Afterwards, it drew aside the window curtain and looked out. Perhaps it saw dawn approaching for taking the candle, it retreated to the door just at my bedside. The figure stopped. The fiery eye glared upon me. She thrust up her candle close to my face and extinguished it under my eyes. I was aware. Her lurid visage flamed over mine and I lost consciousness for the second time in my life. Only the second time I became insensible from terror. Okay,

[B]

so

[A]

first of all, this is obviously a repeat, explicit repeat of the red room incident, right? So when faced with all this consuming passion, I passed out. Bertha is the bride, okay? And she's dressed in white. And she puts on the veil, but she looks in the mirror. And Jane looks into the mirror because he says, do you see your face? Yes, I look. Sister Jane's behind her, looking in the mirror. So this is what you need to see. Jane looks in the mirror and sees Bertha Mason's reflection. Okay? It could not be clear. Bertha is Jane. Jane is Bertha. The fear, the dread is that I am gonna become Mrs. Rochester. And that's. And that is Mrs. Rochester. This is what happens, right? We. This. This will mean being consumed by passions. And then she. She rips the veil in two. So this. This whole violent thing, and. And she scared, like, is this what I'm about to become? This is Mrs. Rochester. And then he. He gets kind of shaken and he says, all right, look, I'll tell you everything in a year and a day. Now that's very fairy tale. Yeah, that's very, very.

[B]

Again, the. The Ignatius Press edition even points that out. That. Which fairy tale is it? That I know. There's one specifically where a husband promises his wife to reveal some secret after that exact amount of time.

[A]

Time.

[B]

I thought you might.

[A]

I'm drawing a blank. Life of Bath's tale is a year in.

[B]

It's something like that.

[A]

Something like that. Yeah, you're right. It's a definitive reference. Mine just says it's a fairy tale reference, but it doesn't say which one. No, you're right. You're right. Then as the chapter ends, she's holding Adele in her Arms. She seemed the emblem of my past life. And he I was now to array myself to meet the dread but adored type of my unknown future day. Okay, that's pretty ominous. Okay, so. So Bertha's appearance here is a manifestation. I like that. Sandra Gilbert says it's a manifestation more than appearance. This is all of Jane's anxiety. This is everything she's been saying for the last three chapters. You're trying to turn me into Celine Varens. Becoming Mrs. Rochester means I'm gonna become some creature that I don't recognize. Some monstrous version of myself. And then she looks in the mirror and sees Bertha.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is what happens to Mrs. Rochester.

[B]

Very good. Okay, so the next chapter also. I was thinking this is another one of those portions of the book which I think would be very difficult to translate to film without violating it somehow. Without.

[A]

Agreed.

[B]

Without lapsing into.

[A]

Because it can be kind of.

[B]

Yeah, kind of. Kind of overacting it into histrionics, I suppose.

[A]

Before we start talking about what happened at the wedding, though, the very, very beginning of that chapter, she puts the wedding dress on, and she looks at herself in the mirror and says, that's a stranger.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. So the image she recognizes is not.

[B]

I think you're right. Yeah.

[A]

Not herself. All right. So then she goes. The dreaded day has approached.

[B]

Also, I was thinking, do you think that every soap opera screenwriter who has ever lived has aspired to rewrite this particular scene? We just need to work an evil twin in somehow.

[A]

When Charlotte Bronte says that, the priest just says, oh, you know, does anyone know just. Cause why these two should not be united? And this is not even looking up. Like, this is just a box to check. And this starts saying, do you take this woman? And then we hear. Actually, we object.

[B]

And Mr. Mason has reappeared.

[A]

Yes. And Rochester tries to talk his way out of it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Do you have evidence of this? Show me a. Show me a wedding certificate. Well, I should have proved I was married, not that she's still alive. Has anybody ever heard of a wife? And takes Mason coming forward and saying, she was alive three months ago. She tried to kill me.

[B]

Yeah, that little detail.

[A]

That little detail. And then they take Jane to see Bertha.

[B]

Yes, they do.

[A]

And she gets.

[B]

And she's truly frightening.

[A]

She's truly frightening. But there are more parallels because she's described as like an animal. Growling on.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Scarcely recognizable as human, but she's pacing back and forth. And earlier, Jane, when she was on the battlement, which meant she would have been in the room directly above that was also pacing back and forth.

[B]

That's the kind of thing that you see that I don't.

[A]

So.

[B]

Gosh, that's good.

[A]

Yeah. And then they're. They're dressed like. Anyway, there's just. There's all these parallel. All these parallel things.

[B]

We should explain a little bit here how exactly so that.

[A]

Go for it.

[B]

So we find out that Mr. Rochester, his marriage to Bertha was an arranged marriage that his own family had pushed him into. And this, again, this is something. A pattern you see with Byronic heroes, that they have some horribly scandalous past, but sometimes there's a kind of alleviating factor that causes us to, if not excuse them entirely, at least perhaps take a step towards pardoning them. So he allowed himself to be pushed into this marriage with a woman whose family was. Whose family had congenital madness in it.

[A]

And they hide it from him.

[B]

And. Yeah. And she then given to excesses of whatever kind, degenerates after the marriage into the state we find her in.

[A]

But he makes it clear that he's not thinking she's very beautiful. He's. It's. He has lust for her. So in the Victorian framework, that would mean this marriage is already getting set off on the wrong foot.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And so she. She continues to be an object of lust and passion after their marriage and which kind of turns into. Matt. Madness. And it's a family secret. And I. I don't think that we should read too much into the fact that they're in an island in Jamaica. I mean, Jane's alpha lives in Madeira.

[B]

This is something I. I should clear up. I remembered that Bertha. I thought we were meant to understand that she was black the first time I read this, but I don't think we are necessarily. And in fact, it doesn't. I mean, she's darker than the average European. It says she's Creole. But you had said that the word Creole.

[A]

Creole can mean so many different things.

[B]

It could just mean a European born in.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Barbados or Jamaica.

[A]

College class on Creoles, because I'm from Louisiana. And that was one of the first things that we learned was the word Creole does not have a clear definition. And it can mean a person who was born somewhere, but they're not native. So someone who's English but they're born in Jamaica would be a Creole. Someone who's West Indies but born in Louisiana would be a Creole. So it doesn't necessarily mean mixed race.

[B]

This is not Charlotte Bronte. This is not Charlotte Bronte saying that.

[A]

Ah.

[B]

Because of her racial background, of course. She was image insane because these people are. You know.

[A]

But I do think there is something about the whole island thing and, you know, that being kind of romantic and. And passionate.

[B]

I mean, it was. This is something that you. If you read the social history of this period, this is the. The great age of imperialism. It was widely believed. And I don't know how much this is true and how much this was just popular supposition, but it was widely believed that Europeans who went to live in the hotter climates often, often suffered temptation to indulge in dissipations of various kinds. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. And so. So whatever the. You know, the details are, she. She clearly is a. A literary device, a symbol of unrestrained passion, which is madness. And there are people who get very obsessed with trying to figure out what is her deal. Does she have. Have syphilis and all this stuff. But the text is very clear that this is generational madness. This is a family secret that has been kept from him. He's. He's been. He's been conned. And as you say, that tends to be the sort of thing that a Byronic hero will have that allows the

[B]

heroine to overlook that he's behaved badly, but he also might be himself victimized in some respect.

[A]

And that is the spin that he.

[B]

Even though he's been. He's been. Been culpable in his own.

[A]

As we said earlier, you know, I don't think it's appropriate. I don't think we're supposed to sit here and talk about our. You know, technically, she.

[B]

Are the actual social disease is she suffering from.

[A]

Exactly. Is this a valid marriage? And why can't he get a divorce? We're just supposed to understand that the symbolic situation Jane is faced in all this anxiety, like none of those. None of those questions matter because before she knows about the existence of Bertha Mason, she's already freaking out that he's changed. This feels dangerous. I'm in love with him. But also I'm not really sure if I should be. Are you safe? She's got all this dread about the wedding day and this anxiety and. And Bertha Mason is just the manifestation of. This is what you could be. This is what Mrs. Rochester is. This could be you. You could be Bertha.

[B]

I think that sums it up pretty

[A]

well, you know, so ruled by your passions and belly that you are a beast. And you have lost my irrational mind. All right, so we. We left it right there. We'll have to see what. What our heroine and hero do next in response to this. Thanks for hanging in there. With me. Guys, I had a terrible headache in this episode and I was afraid I wasn't going to make any sense. But hopefully, hopefully we got through it together. Next week you can join us back for the next set of chapters and we'll cover chapters 27 through 33 and see if we continue to figure out what's going on Jane Eyre's Journey of the Soul. Again. Go to Cassiodorus Preston.com to get Jason Baxter's new book Falling Inward and also pick up his other book too. And go to House of Humane Letters to sign up for Jason's class. To sign up for Jen's webinar to peruse any of our previous webinars, sign up for a year long class. Come on now, we gotta, we gotta keep the lights on here at House of Humane Letters. And again, a special thanks to our Patreon for your continued support of this podcast both financially and in the amazing community that you guys have established on our forum. It's just such a delight, delight to see you all there and the reading groups and all the fun. If you're interested in checking that out, go to patreon.com the literary life stick around to the end. Mr. Banks has got a special poem for you. And yes, until next time, avoid all the mad women in the attic.

[B]

Hear, hear.

[A]

Until next time, keep crafting your literary life because stories will save the world. Thank you for listening to the Literary Life podcast brought to you by our loyal patreon sponsors. Visit HouseOfHumaneLetters.com to find Angelina and Thomas and to sign up for our newsletter with podcast schedules and more. And keep up with [e-mail]. join the Conversation at our member only Patreon forum or our Facebook discussion group. Visit patreon.com theliterarylife to find out how you can sponsor this podcast and get great bonus content. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review and check out our sister podcasts, the New Mason Jar and the well Read Poem. And now for a poem read by poet Thomas Banks

[B]

from the palace of Art by Alfred Lord Tennyson. As in strange lands, a traveler walking slow in doubt and great perplexity, a little before moonrise hears the low moan of an unknown sea, and knows not if it be thunder, or the sound of stones thrown down, or one deep cry of great wild beasts, Then think it I have found a new land, but I die, she howled aloud. I am on fire within. There comes no murmur of reply. What is it that will take away my sin. Dying the death. I die. So when four years were wholly finished, she threw her royal robes away. Make me a cottage in the vale, she said, where I may mourn and pray. Yet pull not down my palace towers that are so lightly beautifully built. Perchance I may return with others there when I have purged my guilt.