Jane Eyre: Rewriter of Fairy Tales

I had written way back in 2010 about how I had found authors alluding to fairy tale references in Jane Eyre, but I had yet to find a full explanation. I've picked up some more references over the years, including Maria Tatar's comparing Jane Eyre's use of fairy tales with Dickens, but in Tatar's book Secrets Beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and His Wives I've found the most thorough discussion yet.

For this post I will assume my readers are familiar with the plot of Jane Eyre, so there will be plot spoilers. If you've never read it or need a refresher, you can brush up on wikipedia (or go read it right now!)

Tatar sees Jane as embodying three fairy tale characters primarily throughout her life: Cinderella, Beauty from Beauty and the Beast, and Bluebeard's wife. Jane grew up hearing stories and tales from her nurse Bessie, and alludes to fairy tales throughout the rest of the story.

Hilary Knight

In childhood, Jane is a Cinderella figure-persecuted by her aunt, who fulfills the stepmother figure, and her two female cousins (as well as a male cousin). Her adoptive family mistreats her, excluding her from activities and pleasures, taunting her and not keeping their dislike of her a secret. Yet "Jane, though initially compliant and self-pitying, takes a defiant stance and refuses to be framed and contained by the role of Cinderella." Jane stands up to her aunt, and with all the passion of a 10-year-old looking for parental love, accuses her of being a terrible guardian and tells her she hates her (Jane will be going away to school soon so this isn't quite as risky as it may seem).

After Jane's schooling, she hires herself out as a governess, where she will be teaching the ward of a Mr. Rochester. At their first meeting, both characters are reminded of fairies and fairy tales.

"When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountable of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse; I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?"

"I have none."

"Nore ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?"

"No."

"I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?"

"For whom, sir?"

"For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did I break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on the causeway?"
I shook my head. "The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago," said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. "And not even in Hay Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them. I don't think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more."

By strongstuff on deviantart

Next Jane enters into the Beauty and the Beast phase of her life. Although Rochester isn't especially ugly at this point, he is described at various points as "shaggy," "metamorphed into a lion," and "some wronged and fettered wild beast, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe." Although human, he is symbolically the wild and untamed man that society dictated must be tamed by a woman. At the end of the story Rochester asks Jane "Am I hideous?" to which she replies, "Very, sir, you always were, you know." Jane's bluntness is reminiscent of this conversation between Beaumont's Beauty and Beast:

"Tell me, do you find me very ugly?"

"Yes, I do," said Beauty. "I don't know how to lie. But I believe that you're very good."

At the end of the story, after Rochester is blinded and disfigured by the fire, he really does embody the Beast, and only then can Jane marry him. But first, she must go through her last fairy tale; Bluebeard.

Even Jane recognizes the connection between Rochester and Blubeard, and refers to the halls of Thornfield Hall as "Bluebeard's corridors." It doesn't take long for her to realize that Rochester and the other servants are hiding something from her, but unlike Bluebeard's wife, Jane shows little to no curiosity. Rochester calls her Eve, who often is symbolically linked to Bluebeard's wife, when she does ask a question, and afterwards she chooses to stay ignorant, which "reveals just how powerfully invested she is in suppressing her real curiosity and avoiding the fate of Bluebeard's wife."

Edmund Dulac

Yet of course, the secret of his first wife is eventually revealed. Rochester pleads with her to marry him anyway, but she will not be his fairy tale fantasy if it means contradicting her own moral code. She herself is skeptical of conventional fairy tale endings; she has contempt for tales that "promise to end in the same catastrophe: marriage" , and later reflects, "Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world...I was not born for a different destiny than the rest of my species; to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy tale-a daydream."

Yet, Jane's story does end happily, as Bertha kills herself, leaving Rochester available. Tatar concludes, "Jane remodels the fairy tales told to her in her youth and revises conventional notions of romance by producing a radically new cultural script...Making productive use of fairy tales by reacting to them, resisting them, and rewriting them rather than passively consuming them and internalizing their values, Bronte's Jane Eyre offers a map for reading our cultural stories and using them to reflect on individual identity, courtship and romance, and marriage."

Wood engravings: Fritz Eichenberg

In this fairy land of light

Nils Blommer

"In this fairy land of light
No mortal ere has been
And the dreadful grandeur of this sight
By them hath not been seen.

T'would strike them shuddering to the earth
Like th eflash from a thunder cloud
It would quench their light and joyous mirth
And fit them for the shroud.

The rising of our palaces
Like visions of the deep
And the glory of their structure
No mortal voice can speak.

The music of our songs
And our mighty trumpets' swell
And the sounding of our silver harps
No mortal tongue can tell."

Brian Froud

These words were penned by a 13-year-old Charlotte Bronte in 1829. Makes me want to give up trying to write anything ever again...or at least, it appears in a story she wrote, "The Search After Happiness," she may have been quoting from a well-known poem. Anyway, I love that the fairy world is painted as awesome and even dangerous, rather than cute and saccharine.

Beaumont on Arranged Marriages

I've tried to find more infomation on the lives of the women who made the story of Beauty and the Beast so famous, Madame de Villeneuve and Madame LePrince de Beaumont, but it seems very little is known of them. In The Meanings of Beauty and the Beast, Jerry Griswold extracts two main facts of Beaumont's life that played into her version of the story.

Madame LePrince de Beaumont

First, arranged marriages. The topic of whether or not marriages should be practical and economical, as they had been before, or a result of mutual affections, was a big issue of the early 18th century. Beaumont herself had been married to a "dissolute libertine" (haven't been able to find anything more specific than that) and the marriage was unhappy and annulled two years later. Some critics have interpreted the tale of Beauty and the Beast as a comfort for girls who were being given in marriage to older men who might seem to be beastly, giving them hope that their spouses were really gentle and princely. Yet why would Beaumont present this view, if her own arranged marriage had been so unhappy?

According to Griswold, when you look at the facts of the story, Beaumont isn't really affirming arranged marriages-yet neither is she promoting being carried away by romantic passions. Griswold says, "at first the story seems to present something like an arranged marriage. When Beauty comes to the Beast's castle, her situation resembles that of a maiden whose hand is being given to the seigneur by her father."
Yet I beg to differ. Precisely the opposite was true at this point in the story-Beauty's father would not hear of her going initially, but Beauty herself insisted and would not be persuaded otherwise. Other animal bridegroom tales have a more forceful father (or mother), with the maiden reluctant, but here we already see Beauty using her own free will, determined to save her father's life despite his admonitions.

From then on the story makes it more clear that this is not a typical arranged marriage-the Beast asks for Beauty's hand, giving her the power of choice. Not to mention that he makes her mistress of the castle and grants her every little desire instantly.

Yet in the end, Griswold points out that Beauty was never actually in love with the Beast. When Beauty feels convicted of betraying the Beast by staying away from the castle longer than the promised time, she muses, "it is true that I don't feel infatuated with him, but I do feel gratitude, respect, and friendship." This is kind of disappointing for those of us who like to think of it as a beautiful love story, although later Beauty tells the Beast "I thought I only wanted to be your friend, but the grief I now feel convinces me that I cannot live without you." So this is still more than an obligation to return a favor.

I really think this is forward thinking of Beaumont. When a cultural idea is shifting, we tend to go from one extreme to another, which is why the response against arranged marriages usually resulted in an unrealistic and really quite unhealthy idea of shallow love at first sight. Yet Beaumont takes a more balanced middle ground. And though at first Beauty's logic appears too unfeeling, it's not so easy a question. Though I'd like to think you can have that "spark" in a relationship as well as practical factors, my friends and I are asking each other questions much along these lines as we navigate the dating world. What is realistic to look for in a relationship? You don't want to expect too much and never be satisfied, but neither do you want to settle.

The other facet of Beaumont's life Griswold discusses is the fact that she was a governess, and therefore the tale is very didactic-over and over Beauty's work ethic and selflessness are applauded, and the negative qualities of her sisters condemned. It can come across as too preachy to the modern reader, but Griswold also makes the comparison to Jane Eyre and the Story of a Governess-like Cinderella, Jane Eyre overcomes the barrier of social class between herself and her master and ends up united with him. Beauty also rises from poverty to become a queen. This is significant because in Villeneuve's story, we learn that Beauty was really originally not only royal, but born of a fairy, yet Beaumont left this part out-so her Beauty is not being restored to her rightful status, but earns her rise in status because of her character.

*And don't forget, the giveaway ends Monday, the 28th!
Illustrations by Eleanor Vere Boyle

Fairy tales in English literature

In her introduction to "The Classic Fairy Tales," Maria Tatar highlights authors that have been influenced by fairy tales, which then affects their work. Yet there are two different approaches to doing this, as illustrated by Dickens, verses Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre.

Dickens was enamored with fairy tales, and embraced all the traditional thought values of his time about them. "Like the Grimms, Dickens hailed the 'simplicity,' 'purity,' and 'innocent extravagance' of fairy tales, yet also praised the tales as powerful instruments of constructive socialization: 'It would be hard to estimate the amount of gentleness and mercy that has made its way among us through these slight channels. Forebearance, courtesy, consideration for the poor and the aged, kind treatment of animals, the love of nature, abhorrance of tyranny and brute force-many such good things have been first nourished in the child's heart by this powerful aid.'"

All of the above are wonderful qualities and I'm pretty sure I've been inspired to demonstrate the characteristics listed above because of reading fairy tales-however, fairy tales may also encourage other negative stereotypes Dickens didn't mention but that were prevalent in the Victorian age.

But this is no reason to throw out fairy tales altogether, or let the negative parts in their history take away from the positive. Charlotte Bronte took fairy tale themes, yet altered the outcomes-her character Jane did not react to her situations as the most passive versions of her fairy tale predecessors did.

In the opening of Jane Eyre, she is mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, mocked and made to do menail tasks-much like Cinderella. Though Jane does go through a stage of self pity, which is only natural, she finds the courage to eventually confront her aunt. Rather than accepting her fate, she "rebels against the social reflexes of her world and writes herself out of the script."

In Rochester's house, Jane finds herself in another fairy tale world-the book references Bluebeard's castle, and the house does contain a secret room with a dark secret (SPOILER ALERT: though not a collection of corpses, it does contain a wife). Though Jane loves Rochester, she cannot marry a man who is already married, even if his first wife is mentally insane. Jane's life is not defined by sitting and waiting for a man to come and save her with his love-she leaves him and starts a new life, unlike fairy tale princesses who marry the first prince who comes their way. As I've pointed out before, Jane Eyre also has some allusions to Beauty and the Beast.

Heart's Blood

Juliet Marillier's Heart's Blood is listed as one of the modern interpretations of Beauty and the Beast on Surlalune. At first, from the summary, it seems like hardly a version of Beauty and the Beast and more of a young adult fantasy novel whose hero happens to have partial paralysis that makes him look slightly asymmetrical.

However, I applaud Marillier for creating a truly unique and original story that has clear parallels to Batb. For example, Caitrin-not her father-meets Anluan in the garden, while looking at a rare flower-not a rose, but heart's blood. He responds angrily, like the Beast. Unusual circumstances compel her to stay with him-not bargaining for her father's life, but working as a scribe to translate documents of his ancestors (which is a lot like Mercedes Lacke's Fire Rose). There is a period of growing to love him, and then one of separation, where she returns because she sees a vision of his dying body in a magic mirror she had brought with her.

The plot also reminded me a lot of Jane Eyre (which gets a lot of tags for a fairy tale blog...) the employment in Anluan's house, the similarities between Anluan and Mr. Rochester, Caitrin's independence, and the scene in which she sees him in the mirror and speaks to him and imagines that he hears her is like when Mr. Rochester calls to Jane from miles away and she hears and replies. At times the action and character of Caitrin also reminded me of Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword, an all-time favorite of mine.

In general I tend to be very critical of modern writers. It seems that we have mastered the exciting, page-turning plots, but lost some of the mastery of language and depth of realistic characters of older novels. They tend to be more like vicarious wish fulfillment than powerful, moving stories. So, with that said, I wasn't thrilled with the writing style and characterization, although I've read much worse. But there were good messages, and the plot was a clever nod to the fairy tale while being fresh, dark and interesting-I literally couldn't put the book down.

Heart's blood, the flower in the book, is fictitious, but there is a flower called Dicentra, which is also called Bleeding heart. The reason is pretty obvious:

EDIT: Marillier contributed to Seven Miles of Steel Thistles and talked of her love of Beauty and the Beast, the tale's history, and her process in transforming the traditional tale into this novel

Jane Eyre the fairy (...and the action figure)

"When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountable of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse; I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?"

"I have none."

"Nore ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?"

"No."

"I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?"

"For whom, sir?"

"For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did I break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on the causeway?"
I shook my head. "The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago," said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. "And not even in Hay Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them. I don't think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more."

-Conversation between Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre. From Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Edward Hughes

Fairy tale references in Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte has been a favorite novel of mine since I was young. I think it was the first real "adult" book I read, and though a lot of it went over my head at the time I loved it then, and have loved each time I revisited it.

So I was fascinated to learn that Jane Eyre is full of fairy tale references. Not only is there a running theme that Mr. Rochester suspects Jane to be from the faerie world and not the human world, but Karen E. Rowe has written on the patterns seen from Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Bluebeard, and Beauty and the Beast.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to read what Karen E. Rowe has actually written--I can't find the whole text online, if anyone knows of a link I'd love to have it. I can see some of the themes on my own (don't read on if you don't want spoilers)-Jane Eyre goes from being orphaned and then to a place as governess, which was a form of servitude, and ends up well-off and happily married. But this general rags-to-riches theme is pretty universal-usually stories end up with the characters better off than when they started. I wouldn't have necessarily thought of Cinderella.

I don't really see how Sleeping Beauty fits in, other than...she only lived with females till she was 18? Or, maybe when she runs away and stays with her cousins, that's a form of enchanted sleep since she's hidden from the normal world for a while? I'd welcome other guesses on that one.

Charlotte Bronte

Bluebeard is more obvious. Mr. Rochester isn't murderous like the infamous husband himself, but a secret wife in a secret room isn't standard romance fare. The tables are turned as Bertha ends up being the crazy one and not the husband (although, hard as it is to imagine, some people apparently don't see Bluebeard as being out of line *cough Perrault cough*).

And I had already made the connection to Beauty and the Beast myself, but I tend to have a one-track mind. In fact anything I find romantic I realize ends up being (at least) indirectly a BatB theme. In Jane Eyre the characters switch places, with Rochester starting off being the Prince Charming and Jane being almost like an understated female beast. Called "plain" over and over again, and also being a servant, any prospects of being loved by her Master were pretty bleak. By the end, though, he's an old hermit who is blind and deformed, and she has a respectable place in society, compared to him. Some versions of Beauty and the Beast have this flipping of roles as well, notably Robin McKinley's Beauty. Beauty has the advantage at first, but she, like Jane, is also supposedly "very plain." After the Beast transforms, Beauty assumes he would no longer want to marry a poor, plain country girl such as herself. Yet, like Jane and Rochester, their love for each other supersedes all obstacles.