Faculté des Lettres et sciences humaines

Aurélie Dell'

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Niveau: Supérieur, Master
1 USTV Faculté des Lettres et sciences humaines Master Recherche Année 2009/2010 “I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you: do you think so? Come – tell me” présenté par Aurélie DELL'OLIO sous la direction de M. John ENGLE du m as -0 05 18 02 0, v er sio n 1 - 1 6 Se p 20 10

• jane's quest


• now entertain


• faculté de lettres


• sciences humaines


• been very


• who has


• oedipal dynamics

Sujets

• Sciences humaines et sociales

Informations

• Publié par: dumas_ccsd
• Nombre de lectures: 23
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

USTV
Faculté des Lettres et sciences humaines
Master Recherche
Année 2009/2010







“I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings
for you: do you think so? Come – tell me”


présenté par Aurélie DELL’OLIO

sous la direction de M. John ENGLE
1
dumas-00518020, version 1 - 16 Sep 2010

dumas-00518020, version 1 - 16 Sep 2010USTV
Faculté des Lettres et sciences humaines
Master Recherche
Année 2009/2010











“I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings
for you: do you think so? Come – tell me”


présenté par Aurélie DELL’OLIO

sous la direction de M. John ENGLE

dumas-00518020, version 1 - 16 Sep 2010



I would like to thank Dairine O’Kelly for the support and the advice she gave me
during my research and, of course, John Engle who has been very helpful in the
elaboration of this memoire, offering suggestions and extremely pertinent food for
thought.

dumas-00518020, version 1 - 16 Sep 2010Contents

Introduction...................................................................................................................... 6

I. Relationship between the individual and the group: Jane Eyre as scapegoat........... 9
1. Jane’s family................................................................................................................. 10
2. The stare of others........................................................................................................ 15
3. The red room: the beginning of Oedipal dynamics................................................... 21

II. The development of the Oedipal complex ................................................................ 27
1. Progressing towards integration................................................................................. 27
2. Seeking a substitute mother. ....................................................................................... 33
3. Absence of a father figure. .......................................................................................... 40
4. Jane’s quest................................................................................................................... 42
5. Identity crisis ................................................................................................................ 45
6. Finding the father figure, the patriarchal power. ..................................................... 49

III. Fulfilment of the Oedipal dream? .......................................................................... 60
1. Loving the father figure............................................................................................... 60
2. Some intriguing likenesses........................................................................................... 67
3. An alternative to the Oedipal end............................................................................... 70
4. The final fusion with Rochester .................................................................................. 85

Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 90

Bibliography................................................................................................................... 92

Appendix

Index

dumas-00518020, version 1 - 16 Sep 2010
Introduction

Jane Eyre is a cornerstone of literature; it tells the story of little Jane who
struggles into life to reach a sense of her own identity. It is a novel of rebellion, of self
and society, and of changing gender expectations. But it also contributes to troubling
investigations of the psyche and interpretations of dreams.
According to Freud, anxieties and inhibited desires are inherent feelings to
human beings. Such wishes are intensely repressed in everyday life, but they are acted
out in dreams. The childhood aspiration to force out the parent of one’s own sex and
take his or her place in the affections of the parent of the opposite sex is part of the most
commonly repressed unconscious desires. Freud so called “Oedipal complex” refers to
this behaviour, naming it as an allusion to Oedipus, the Greek tragic hero known for
having killed his father and married his mother.
In Jane Eyre, the father figure is embodied by Mr. Rochester, a substitute for the
missing father in Jane’s family structure who will, in a certain way, re-enact with her
the basic pattern of Oedipal dynamics. Rochester’s patriarchal power is extensively
expressed throughout the novel, contributing to the Oedipal dynamic in Jane Eyre.
This aspect of the novel is not particularly evident as we first read it. But, as we
look into it in more details, as we concentrate on the narrator’s character and her quest
for identity, some elements and particularities, characteristic to the Oedipal complex,
come to light. Charlotte Brontë’s life also seems to be of paramount importance in the
understanding and corroboration of Oedipal dynamics in the novel.
Jane Eyre shares many similarities with the Oedipus myth; and if we turn to
psychoanalytic descriptions and representations of the Oedipal complex and its
accomplishment, it is striking how Jane’s behaviour recalls Oedipal manifestations.
In such a reading of the novel, one of the most important questions concerns
Jane’s quest: the eventful moment being the red-room episode, why does she need to go
on a quest from then? What is she yearning for?
6
dumas-00518020, version 1 - 16 Sep 2010
This memoire will concentrate on the similarities that Jane Eyre shares with the
Oedipus myth, but the latter will only be studied in relation to the novel, as what is
relevant for our analysis is mainly their different common points. Besides, we will
draw on psychoanalytic studies to try to better understand Jane’s behaviour; however,
we will not go into further complex psychoanalytic details, as it is not the point of this
essay.
The major aim of this work is to analyze Jane’s quest for identity and try to
understand her motivations and actions. Examining that quest through the lands of
Oedipal dynamics will help bring the central themes of the novel in the focus. Her
encounter with Rochester, the patriarchal power, will be considered as a capital event in
the consideration of Oedipal dynamics.
Does Jane’s final union with Rochester represent the fulfillment of an Oedipal
desire? Why does the happy couple choose to live remote from society if Jane and
Rochester’s marriage fits in with the conventional social order? And finally, has Jane
reached a sense of her own identity and mental health at the end of the novel?
We will try to answer these questions by considering the Oedipal dynamic in
Jane Eyre, detailing the narrator/protagonist’s progression towards autonomy and
maturation: from her initial condition of exclusion and loneliness, when she
experienced the formative stage of the red-room, to the subsequent necessary quest
towards a sense of her own identity.
In Jane Eyre, as in the Oedipus myth, the protagonist is singled out as the cause
1
of all the troubles and calamities, thus becoming the scapegoat . Jane is held
responsible for a multitude of problems throughout the novel. But it is through and
thanks to these obstacles that Jane moves on from childhood to adulthood. Her
transformative experience is best exemplified through the episode of the red-room, in
which Jane experiences a symbolic “mirror stage”, which is quickly succeeded by the
Oedipal stage.

1 On this point, see René GIRARD, Le Bouc émissaire, 1962.

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dumas-00518020, version 1 - 16 Sep 2010
Indeed, Jacques Lacan explains that in the pre-Oedipal stage, the child
2
experiences the mirror stage . Thanks to the mirror experience, the child is able to
consider itself, his mother and later others as independent selves. The child begins to
fear the hostility of another, to desire what is unmistakably beyond the self, and to want
to fight with another for the same, craved object. Only after that mirror stage, what
Lacan calls the imaginary stage, can the Oedipal stage prevail. Now considering himself
as self and the parents as separate selves, the self can distinguish genders.
The relationship that Jane entertains with her environment, her position of
scapegoat, are of paramount importance in the understanding of her behaviour, her
actions and her subsequent quest for identity. In the light of her progression towards
integration, we will study the development of the Oedipal complex. Finally we will ask
if, at the end of the novel, the Oedipal dream is fully achieved.

2
On this point, see Les Complexes familiaux (in Encyclopédie française, available on the Internet), and
also Le Stade du miroir comme formateur de la fonction du je, telle qu’elle nous est révélée, dans
th
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