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Hunger, Resistance and Feminism in Jane Eyre(Written by Cassie Wallace for Professor Rebecca May's class, 19th Century Literature: The Brontes during Fall 2009.) In her 1988 preface to the Bantam Classic publication of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Joyce Carol Oates remarks that the novel "is remarkable for its forthright declaration of its heroine's passions and appetites." Depictions of Jane's appetite symbolize Jane's level of satisfaction. When Jane is confined, she is hungry; when she is free, she is satiated. Importantly, Jane's freedom is always a result of self-assertion or resistance. At Gateshead, Jane experiences hunger, asserts herself, and is able to "escape" to Lowood. When she is underfed both literally and metaphorically at Lowood School, descriptions of food and hunger are pervasive. Jane asserts herself by advertising for a governess position. This gets her to Thornfield, where mentions of her physical hunger disappear as Jane enjoys the pleasure of her work with Adele and interactions with Rochester. Upon leaving the fulfillment of Thornfield, Jane nearly starves to death. St. John Rivers and his two sisters feed her hunger both literally and metaphorically. Ultimately, mentions of hunger disappear when Jane reunites with Rochester. The feminist message of Jane Eyre lies in Bronte's portrayal of Jane's inward desire through literal hunger, and satiation of that hunger as a result of her acts of self-assertion and resistance. Mrs. Reed confines Jane in the red-room, Jane resists by throwing a fit, and is rewarded in the narrative by her "escape" from both the red-room and Gateshead. "'I resisted all the way," Jane Eyre states at the beginning of Chapter 2, and this attitude, this declaration of a unique and iconoclastic female rebelliousness, strikes the perfect note for the entire novel...She speaks with an apparent artlessness that strikes the ear as disturbingly forthright" (Oates). Jane resists harsh treatment by fighting with her cousins, an act she is punished for by confinement without dinner in the red-room. While confined to the red-room, Jane imagines "some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression--as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die" (22). Jane's desire to starve herself symbolizes her desire to resist her enclosure; if she were to die, she would literally escape the Reed's confinement by leaving the Earth. Instead, she resists by throwing a fit that does allow her to escape the red-room, and ultimately Gateshead. "Jane's pilgrimage consists of a series of experiences which are, in one way or another, variations on the central, red-room motif of enclosure and escape" (Gilbert 341). Every time this image is repeated, Jane is able to escape her enclosure as a result of her resistance. Jane escapes Gateshead as a result of her self-assertion; Mrs. Reed decides to send her to school. Throughout the novel, Jane asserts herself when confined and hungry, and is then rewarded for her self-assertion with escape and satiation. This portrayal of successful female resistance is an example of Charlotte's rebellious feminism. Throughout her stay at the rigid, suppressive Lowood School, the emptiness of Jane's soul is portrayed through her hunger. When Helen Burns is absent from her life, she laments that "nothing sustained [her]" (Bronte 80). She only forgets this hunger when focused on something that fulfills her, like her art: "That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper, of hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings. I feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark - all the work of my own hands"' (87). In addition, Miss Temple, who Jane admires and sees as a symbol of success and fulfillment, offers Jane a "refreshing meal" of bread and cheese, during which they have an intellectual discussion (85). However, Mr. Brocklehurst runs the school along the lines of Victorian mores and reprimands Miss Temple when he finds out: "You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying...Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls" (74-75). Because of his creation of an atmosphere in which Jane is spiritually enclosed by Brocklehurst's Victorian ideals and literally underfed as a physical enactment of that enclosure, she is fixated on food; Bronte describes it vividly, frequently, and almost fanatically: the scanty supply of food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger. (Bronte) Jane asserts herself against the spiritual hunger that she feels at Lowood, materialized in intense physical hunger, by advertising to be a governess, which leads her to satisfaction at Thornfield Hall. When Jane reaches Thornfield, mentions of her physical hunger disappear as Jane enjoys the saturated with the pleasure of fulfilling work and the interaction with Rochester. Within minutes of entering Thornfield Hall, Mrs. Fairfax has Leah make a drink and sandwiches for Jane to warm her from the "cold" - this action is symbolic of the fulfillment that Jane will get at Thornfield. In "Food and Famine in Victorian Literature," Theresa Lii discusses how during the Victorian time period, indulgence in food, especially by females, indicated deviation from society's principles. Throughout Jane's decidedly unacceptable interactions with Rochester, there is no mention of her hunger. Jane is resisting societal principles. She is happy and fulfilled, telling Rochester that is sad to leave Thornfield:I love Thornfield...because I have lived in it a full and delightful life...I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence, with what I delight in, - with an original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death. (Bronte 283) In this passage, Jane foreshadows her brush with death; when she leaves the satisfaction of Thornfield and Rochester's presence she nearly starves. According to Lucasta Miller, her "escape from Thornfield is presented not just as tragic self-denial but as an act of empowering self-assertion" (Miller 178). Jane asks Rochester before leaving if he thinks she "can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup?" (Bronte 284). In this statement of literal hunger, Jane shows that if she stays at Thornfield after Rochester and Blanche marry, she will spiritually starve. Instead, she commits an act of feminist self-assertion by leaving of her own will. During Jane's stay with St. John, Diana and Mary Rivers, the imagery of food is mediocre, much like her level of fulfillment. While she enjoys the company and nourishment of Moor House, it leaves something to be desired - the missing Rochester. The Rivers subdue her "sharp" hunger literally with a "gruel and dry toast" and cake, and metaphorically with companionship and stimulation (Bronte 380; 386). While sustaining, both the "gruel and dry toast" and the companionship of the Rivers is inferior to Rochester's. While Jane is content at Moor House, she is not satiated. She asserts her right to satisfaction by returning to Rochester, ending her mediocre fulfillment and replacing it with satiation. Jane had asked herself, "Which is better? - to have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort - no struggle; but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, among the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my time" (Bronte 402). Bronte resolves this internal debate Jane assertively returns to Rochester. After this critical juncture, Jane ceases to mention physical hunger because she has finally quelled her metaphorical hunger. Bronte's portrayal of Jane's literal hunger and self-asserted satiation parlays the message that women were hungry and eager to live beyond the bounds of Victorian society. When Jane Eyre was published, some readers were uneasy with Jane's straightforward account of her passions (Miller 169). "Jane projects such rebellious undercurrents that some critics, including sympathetic readers, found the novel 'coarse'" (Oates). However, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar note that it appears that the novel's coarseness and sexuality were less shocking to Victorian reviewers than its "refusal to accept the forms, customs, and standards of society - in short, its rebellious feminism" (Gilbert 338). In particular, "what horrified Victorians was Jane's anger," the depiction of which was far more dangerous to society's current order than depictions of sexuality (338). Charlotte Bronte's portrayal of hunger satisfied constitutes this feminism. Throughout the novel, Jane repeatedly depicts her hunger during times of confinement and dissatisfaction. Then, she repeatedly asserts herself in these situations, an act that was not accepted in Victorian society at the time. The result of her self-assertion is always satiation of her hunger, symbolic of her escape and satisfaction. Within this process of confinement, assertion, and escape, symbolized in the novel by hunger and satiation is the feminist message of the novel. Charlotte Bronte does not let her heroine starve within the constraints of Victorian society in which women expected to lack wants and desires, and to act within the confines of what is acceptable (which does not include sexual desire for a married man). Rather, Bronte allows Jane to commit acts of rebellion, including her final act of rebellious feminism in which Jane returns to Rochester, who is still married as far as she knows, in a socially unacceptable attempt to fulfill her desires. "Jane Eyre is a story...of hunger satisfied...If the Romantic/Gothic novel be, in one sense, sheer wish, Jane's triumph...represents a wish fulfillment of extraordinary dimensions" (Oates). In the last chapter of the novel, Jane declares "Reader, I married him" (Bronte 498). The implicit message is that Jane married Rochester, not that Rochester married Jane, a great triumph "for the orphan, the governess, the small, plain, and "Quaker-like" virgin" (Oates). Jane's triumph satisfies her spiritual hunger, and ends references to unfulfilled physical appetite. In Margot Peters' biography of Charlotte, Unquiet Soul, she strove "to portray Charlotte's life and art as both an eloquent protest of the cruel and frustrating limitations imposed upon women and a triumph over them" (Miller 176). Peters defines feminists as "all women who have broken the mold to fulfill their creative, intellectual impetus" (176). Charlotte boldly breaks the mold with Jane Eyre by depicting a heroine who starves when deprived, and who is rewarded for asserting her right to escape deprivation with satisfaction of that hunger, both literally and metaphorically. Because of this, Jane Eyre is a feminist protest and poignant example of Bronte's feminism. Works Cited Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Ninteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Print. Lii, Theresa. "Food and Famine in Victorian Literature." The Victorian Web. The Victorian Web, 8 May 2009. Web. 14 Oct 2009 . Miller, Lucasta. The Bronte Myth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Print. Oates, Joyce Carol. "Jane Eyre: An Introduction." Celestial Timepiece. Celestial Timepiece, 11 July 2007. Web. 14 Oct 2009
