Bertha Mason

After refusing to marry Mr. Rochester she leaves Thornfield with no destination. She turns up at the Moor House, the residents there are St. John Rivers and his sisters Diana and Mary. These residents Jane learns are her cousins. After having stayed there for quite some time, St. John starts to have feelings for Jane. In an attempt to hide his true feelings, he asks Jane to marry him for the sole purpose to be his missionary wife in Africa.

Trapped, alone, unloved, and rejected; nobody talks about the girl in the attic. In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, ‘Madness’ as a condition of the sexist view of women in the Victorian Era relates to how Mr. Rochester describes Bertha’s ‘insanity’, Bertha and the wedding veil, and Bertha committing suicide. The way Mr. Rochester describes Bertha makes her look insane. Bertha wishes for a normal life, which is seen when she is dwelling on the past trying on Jane’s wedding veil. Bertha felt trapped and alone in the world due to the isolation of Mr. Rochester and that is truly seen when she takes her own life. With this in mind, it is first important to examine Mr. Rochester’s description of Bertha Mason, because it is the first impression he gives

Bertha Mason is a personification of Jane’s internal conflict with passion and is portrayed with animal imagery as “a clothed hyena,” a “Vampyre,” and ‘hideous.’ These Gothic descriptions create an eerie mood and, as a result, make the reader fearful of Bertha’s character. Though she and Bertha are foils, Bronte manifests Jane’s repressed passion in Bertha; both women are alienated by society. Unlike Rochester, Jane is sympathetic to Bertha, and Bertha’s imprisonment reflects the constraints forced upon female sexuality by overpowering male figures, which Jane fears Rochester will inflict on her (Atherton, “The Figure of Bertha Mason”).

Bertha Mason is indirectly meant to be view as a combination of both innocent and villain. Without knowing her existence until the very end of the novel, one has a tendency to pity her character. I mean, we have an individual who is married to Edward Rochester but finds herself imprisoned on the third-story of Thornfield, without any company to love her the way any human should be. Although it’s understandable that Rochester is upset that he got trick to marry her, yet he should’ve gotten a divorce and taken her to get the treatment she needed. Consequently, for these reasons, it’s undeniably to speculate that Bertha provides that innocent individual who didn’t necessarily have control for the actions she made. This is because when one suffers

She impedes Jane’s delight, but she also speeds the growth of Jane’s self-understanding. The secrecy surrounding Bertha establishes tension and terror to the plot and the ambiance. Further, Bertha serves as a relic and reminder

In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë illustrates character doubling with Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason. Jane, orphaned during early childhood, constantly felt neglected, mistreated, and isolated. Her aunt and cousins treated her as if she was a penniless outcast, thus causing her to become angry and rebellious. Her feelings mirrored that of Mr. Rochester’s wife, Bertha Mason, whom he decided to lock away in the attic at Thornfield Hall. He had become disgusted by her violent outbursts and inappropriate behavior, as she had been diagnosed with insanity. Throughout the novel, it becomes apparent that Jane and Bertha were extremely different from one another, yet they often encountered similar situations. Bertha’s character represents what would have happened to Jane if she remained rebellious and became violent. The purpose of the character doubling with Jane and Bertha is to depict Bertha as an impediment to Jane becoming Mr. Rochester’s mistress and to illustrate how they parallel one another in temperament and emotions, signifying that Bertha is a representation of Jane’s real desires and her potential to wind up with Bertha’s same fate.

Rochester and Bertha invites readers “to speculate on human development and civilization but also helped feed the viewer's sense of secured social/cultural status by inviting the audience to confirm their “normality” and the “superiority” of British nationality.” (Chen 2) By painting Bertha into a freakshow of immoral qualities and traits, the humanity behind her is lost, and an exaggerated caricature is formed. “Racial otherness and deformity became related phenomena and [are] treated as such” when Bertha’s features become equated with those of a vampyre, and the denigration of foreign traits only grows stronger. (Chen 2) While Charlotte Bronte does not seem to be doing this intentionally -- she clearly condemns racist acts such slaveholding and oppression through the countless analogies of Jane feeling like a “slave” -- Bertha is a taint on Jane’s and Mr. Rochester’s world, and she is ultimately needed be removed to make way for Jane and Mr. Rochester’s happiness to flourish. (12) Bronte’s “metaphorical use of race involves erasing the humanity of those of other races...Bertha institutes the great act of cleaning in the novel, which burns away Rochester’s oppressive colonial wealth and diminishes the power of his gender, but then she herself is cleaned away, burned and as it were purified from the novel.” (Meyer 8) In the end, Bertha is still just a plot device, not a fully developed character, her foreign “otherness” unfairly emphasized on to highlight her flaws and even justify Mr. Rochester’s previous

Rochester is humbled and becomes and dignified character from his suffering in his time away from Jane. Without Jane Rochester is left desolate and walks the Hall grounds without purpose. He torments himself within the walls of the home he both loved and hated, and lived a wraithlike existence with his wife. The passions manifesting at Thornfield have reached their apex as Bertha sets fire to Thornfield, killing herself. While saving all his servant and attempting to save his wife, Rochester loses his sight and becomes crippled. He moves to Ferndean, a house he owns on a farm. In his crippled state Rochester refuses all people and Jane observers that he has the “‘faux air’ of Nebuchadnezzar (427)” Like Nebuchadnezzar, he suffers the consequence

Initially, Jane runs away from Thornfield to Moorhouse in order to stop Jane’s further transformation into a corrupted, depraved identity reflected as Bertha in the mirror at Thornfield. When Jane returns to Thornfield restored into a whole identity, she encounters upon Bertha’s death amongst the ruins of Thornfield, physically signifying Jane’s freedom to marry Rochester while withholding to her own values of equality in power and identity: “Death of Bertha frees her from the furies that torment her and makes possible a marriage of equality — makes possible, that is, wholeness within herself” (Gilbert and Guber 362). Bronte includes Bertha’s death in the novel to portray Jane’s separation from the shadows of Bertha through Jane’s establishment of independence and wholeness in Moorhouse. The destruction of Thornfield and Bertha also symbolizes the shattering of the mirrors that once reflected the corrupted versions of Jane as a phantom and a madwoman. Finally, Jane completes her pilgrimage of freedom in Ferndean by confronting her original fear of losing her identity with the marriage of Rochester.

Then, she shows a sign of maturity when she goes back to Gateshead once she hears of her aunt’s situation. She puts aside everything that once happened, and overlooks the indifference of her cousins, and becomes very forgiving, where she forgives her aunt for her ill-treatment of her as a child, and for depriving her of her uncle’s care. Jane’s strength is once more put to the test on her wedding day, when the existence of Bertha Rochester is revealed. In the face of temptation, Jane flees and leaves Mr. Rochester behind despite his begging her to go away with him to France and his making it hard for her to refuse

The life of Bertha Mason Rochester consisted of cruelty, inhumane captivity, and suffering. Her husband, Edward Rochester, thought her to be mentally unstable, and decided to lock her away in his castle. In Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason Rochester was locked away by her husband, because he thought of her to be insane and violent. He found mental asylums to be far too “cruel” and “punishing”, therefore he kept his wife locked away upon secrecy, and told everyone that she was dead. Whether he did this for love, this involuntarily imprisoned Bertha for the rest of her life.

In line with the claim of the study at hand, it becomes important to examine the effect that Bertha which some critics may argue that it overpowers that of Rochester. Bertha is imprisoned in the black room of the attic in the third story of Thornfield. Jane offers a brief description of the third floor as she explores the place: “All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of home of the past: a shrine of memory” (Bronte 166). Jane continues to point out the gloominess that hovers over the place and then admits that she does not wish to sleep in them as they stir the feeling of being haunted by ghosts (Bronte

Jane later learns about Mr. Rochester’s wife Bertha(which he was planning never to tell her about) and it is clear she must leave him. This decision was painful to make for Jane, but she realizes that it is the best option for herself. It is necessary for her to leave Thornfield so she can find her sense of self and identity. At Thornfield her happiness came primarily from Mr. Rochester’s attention to her. By leaving she can find happiness on her own and not rely on others for happiness.

The powerful male roles, such as Edward Rochester, seen throughout the novel represent Great Britain, while the weaker female roles, such as Bertha Mason, represent the imperialized countries. In chapter 14 of Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester demonstrates his assertive dominance to Jane when he asks, “Do you agree with me that I have a right to be a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on the grounds I stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and that I have battled through a varied experience with many men of many nations, and roamed over half the globe” (Brontë 152). Rochester demonstrates the power of Great Britain here by claiming that he has the given right to take control and be the ruling figure just like Great Britain did to weaker countries. Bertha Mason parallels the countries being colonized because she is depicted as weak and someone who needs to be isolated and controlled. In "'Reader, I Buried Him': Apocalypse and Empire in Jane Eyre.", Tracy agrees that “many critics rightly place Bertha at the centre of the novel’s signifying systems, since social, cultural, imperial, and religious concerns are encoded in her relationship with Rochester”. This becomes evident in chapter 26 of Jane Eyre when Rochester is explaining Bertha’s character to Jane. Rochester states that “Bertha Mason is mad; she came of a mad family; - idiots and maniacs through three

The protagonist, Jane Eyre, portrays a strong woman, who has gone through a lot in her life. Jane’s personality comes off as shy, but will fight for what is right. She cares for others, but is a stubborn woman. Some people may underestimate Jane, but do not be fooled, she is wise beyond her years.