A Postcolonial Approach to the Novel

hardly Janes position is to a greater extent conflicted than Rochesters: As a muliebrity she is in addition a ph onlyus of a settled group, simply as a specifically British muliebrity, she is a colonizer. When she claims Rochester gives her a put one over a face such as a sultan would bestow on a knuckle down his gold and gems had enriched, she emphasizes the colonised status of all wo manpower. Insisting that he prefers his one piddling English little girl to the Grand Turks full-page seraglio, Rochester points to Janes powerlessness, her reduction to finish up slave. Rather than decent slave, Jane insists she will conk out a missionary, talk liberty to women enslaved in harems. Her comments show the forked position of European women: both(prenominal) colonized and colonizers. While Rochester reduces her to a colonized raspberry or do ape, her comments show her Eurocentric understanding of eastern culture: She implies that shell be the enlightened Englishwoman approach path to the rescue of poor, ill-treat Turkish women. on the whole women are enslaved by male despotism, but the British woman claims a righteous and spiritual high quality over her easterly sisters. \nThis difference becomes hot in Janes theatrical performance of Bertha Mason. Berthas vampiric appearance nominates she is suction the lifeblood away from the unobjectionable Rochester, who tells Jane he was as simple as she is until he turned twenty-one and was unify to Bertha: His goodness was interpreted by this ferine woman. An insane Creole woman, Bertha represents British fears of both foreigners and women. The blood-red moon, a symbol of womens menstrual cycles, is reflected in her eyes, suggesting her feminine, familiar potency. Unlike Jane, Bertha refuses to be controlled; a woman whose stature nearly equals her husbands, she fights with him, displaying a masculine force that to the highest degree masters Rochester. Post-colonial critics contend th at Bertha, the foreign woman, is sacrificed so that British Jane loafer achieve self-identity. Their arguments suggest Rochester isnt as innocent as he claims; as a colonialist, he was in the West Indies to make money and to catch colonized men and women. Notice how both Jane and Rochester emphasize his mightiness to control Berthas brother, Richard. a good deal of Rochesters critique of Bertha hinges on her sexuality and exotic excess. When he scratch line met her, Rochesters senses were aroused by her dazzle, splendor, and lusciousness. But he later engraft her debauchery to be his Indian Messalinas attribute. Thus, the characteristics that primary attract her to him, her sottish excesses, soon fight down him.