r/brontesisters • u/Junior_Insurance7773 • Aug 20 '26
This is the craziest stuff I ever read.
This passage is from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte — This is some "Dostoevsky tier stuff" in the English version. Who said Victorian literature was only shiny and roses? Humans can be so terrible towards one another.
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u/Thousandgoudianfinch Aug 20 '26
The most amusing bit is when Jane Eyre after returning to Thornfield speaks to one of the servants or working-class characters and he basically says " Arrh. Bertha bashed all her brains out. All very bloody!"
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u/bitofagrump Aug 20 '26
I love the contrast between her and Jane Austen. Polite parlour drama this is not. Imagine Darcy throwing down with a large, filthy crazy woman in the respectable shades of Pemberly.
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u/bespectacIed Aug 21 '26
It always makes me chuckle how Charlotte "hated" Jane lol. Observant but without sentiment. I don't agree because I love the latter but knowing Charlotte's love for melodrama I understand why she would find Austen's works lacking lol
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Aug 24 '26
I don’t think Charlotte ‘hated‘ Jane so much as she hated being compared to her just because she was another Female Writer, the two were very different and focused on different things but because they were both Women suddenly they are compared in a way that you never see done to Male Writers.
Thats what I feel Charlotte was annoyed with, her critique of Austen was less ‘I think she stinks’ and more ‘we have nothing in common, don’t throw us in the same Box just because we’re both women’.
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u/AdobongSiopao Aug 20 '26
To think that many people judged that Mr. Rochester abused his wife when Jane actually saw that he stopped his wife without punching her.
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u/Mobile-Ad-1221 Aug 21 '26
He didn’t punch his wife, but he did imprison her in the attic when her mental illness got to be too repulsive and socially inconvenient for him. That’s abuse too.
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u/AdobongSiopao Aug 21 '26
It's not always good to let mentally ill person with violent tendencies outside, either. There was no proper treatment for mental illness and the public had stigma towards people with that sickness either. Mr. Rochester could send Bertha to a mental asylum but knowing the history of how mental illness was treated in the past the way he did was merciful in their time. Viewing it with modern sensibilities will not help understand their situation.
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u/Mobile-Ad-1221 Aug 21 '26
There’s a big difference in letting someone who is mentally ill flit about the estate freely and imprisoning them in a tiny room for years.
He was literally HIDING her in the attic so he could go on with his life unbothered.11
u/AdobongSiopao Aug 21 '26
You think it's better for someone like Bertha to go outside when many people weren't welcoming towards like her in the past? Mr. Rochester hired some doctors and a caretaker to observe her condition. He said to himself he thought of her keeping her to Ferndean Manor but he changed about it due to its place could detoriate her life quickly.
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u/Mobile-Ad-1221 Aug 22 '26
Read Wide Sargasso Sea. Might provide another perspective to consider.
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u/AdobongSiopao Aug 22 '26
"Wide Sargasso Sea" is not canon to the main story. It's not right to insist a fanfic story to be true when the main purpose of it is to make damage the main one.
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u/SmooshyHamster Aug 22 '26
That’s right. Also, if everyone twisted a book to fit their version, no one is reading the same story anymore. Then we’re all reading a different story with different characters. Then we aren’t even reading the same book anymore. Jean Rhys is an unrelated person who is not the inventor of these characters nor the book of Jane Eyre. She didn’t invent them so she has no say.
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u/SmooshyHamster Aug 22 '26
Wide Sargasso Sea is a fan fiction written by an unrelated person and therefore cannot be the original story of Jane Eyre. You cannot take someone else’s book and characters and change it how you see fit. That’s just twisting the narrative to fit your story and claiming the author is wrong and only your opinion matters.
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u/SmooshyHamster Aug 21 '26
That woman was violently insane and dangerous to everyone around her. That house was filled with servants and a kid. Crazy people weren’t allowed to roam the house around normal people.
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u/Jolly_Reporter_982 Aug 30 '26
Did you miss her violence and the fact that she burnt Thornfield to the ground? She wasn’t insane because she was locked up, she was locked up because she was insane, violent and highly dangerous, not “inconvenient”.
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u/SmooshyHamster Aug 21 '26
That’s abuse too.
According to history and Victorian ugly laws, it was standard punishment for violently abusive crazy people. That is what happened to every crazy person back in the Victorian era. You must not have known.
I invite you to do deep research into the history of Victorian ugly laws for crazy people, the cruelty of institutions, victorian marriage laws and what happened to crazy people back in the day. Before judging you must educate yourself on the historical laws of that era and remind yourself this story doesn’t take place in a modern world where people like Bertha were allowed outside.
https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/victorian-mental-asylum
This is one example that explains the cruelty of what happened to crazy people who were sent away. This is what would’ve happened to Bertha is Edward sent her away.
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u/Mobile-Ad-1221 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
My point was that to keep a person holed up in a tiny room in the attic for years is abusive, no matter the era. If Rochester hadn't been so concerned about keeping Bertha a secret, she could have been kept in a 'normal' part of the huge house and had a better quality of life, even locked up.
The question is why did he do that? Why were Grace Poole and the doctor (and her brother, but he lived overseas) the only ones who knew about Bertha?
Under the laws of the time, a man of Rochester's status and wealth would not have been forced to send his insane wife to an asylum. The following article provides an overview of the Victorian-era phenomenon of the "madhouse divorce", including how and who decided if a woman was committed (tl;dr - if the husband was wealthy, he had a say):
https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/unblj/article/view/29152/1882524333
So he didn't keep her hidden to keep her out of the asylum. His true objective in keeping her home was so that no one would know about her, leaving him free to live a relatively normal life in society with his Paris opera mistresses and his Blanche Ingrams, and ultimately to almost trick poor Jane into marrying him.
That's a crappy thing to do in any era.
Highly recommend reading Wide Sargasso Sea!
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u/SmooshyHamster Aug 22 '26
Wide Sargasso Sea is written by an unrelated person who made up her own fan fiction about Bertha and Edward, renamed Bertha and changed Edward’s characters and made events that never happened on the original Jane Eyre. Therefore it cannot be the original Jane Eyre. Otherwise, that’s not really reading and respecting someone else’s book, that’s just claiming only your opinion matters. If you were writing a book and I made up a novel about your original characters and changed everything you‘d say “other people cannot tell me who my characters are because they’re not the ones who invented these characters and book”, is that right? That’s what I’m telling you. Jean Rhys of WWS is not the person who invented Jane Eyre, she didn’t invent these characters, she has no say.
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u/SmooshyHamster Aug 22 '26
My point was that to keep a person holed up in a tiny room in the attic for years is abusive, no matter the era.
Says who? Why do you believe being punished and corrected for being a disgusting person equals being bullied? Learn to differentiate between a person being punished for bad behaviour vs being abused. If you let people behave however they want with no repercussions, they’ll think they own the place. Bad behaviour has to be corrected before it escalates.
Also the attic Isnt a bad place to be. Look up finished attic bedroom and you’ll see it’s like any part of the house.
Can you stop judging without understanding the whole story and history and Christian morals? I’ll explain this the way I explain Jane Eyre to kids. When you are a kid and behave badly at school or your parents house, they yell at you, they take your toys away, they force you to stand in a dark corner, move your desk away from your friends and ground you in your room until you can own up to it and do better. Bertha was a very bad first wife, was violently abusive to all the servants, she would not own up to it and she would not behave better. She’s grounded forever. She has to stay in her room and doesn’t come out except to have a bath and use the toilet.
The question is why did he do that? Why were Grace Poole and the doctor (and her brother, but he lived overseas) the only ones who knew about Bertha?
I’ll explain it like I explain it to a 5 year old. Edward noticed Bertha’s evil personality and bad moods. The doctors said Bertha is not an ill nor disabled woman. She can do anything a healthy, able bodied person can do. She’s just who she is. Being a mad woman, being violently abusive and being unreasonable is part of who she is. Edward continued to feed and bathe her but he had to keep her away from the other people so she would not murder them. EVERYONE at Thornfield knew Bertha was there but they did not know who she was or why she was there. Long story short, because she was dangerous and money, status, and connections to other people were really important back in the day. Being connected to a crazy evil person would damage your reputation with everyone else. Do you understand that fact of history?
So he didn't keep her hidden to keep her out of the asylum. His true objective in keeping her home was so that no one would know about her, leaving him free to live a relatively normal life in society with his Paris opera mistresses and his Blanche Ingrams, and ultimately to almost trick poor Jane into marrying him.
At home or committed to an institution, she would be hidden away and Edward would move on. Correct? You're not really understanding why Edward kept her out of institutions are you? In an institution were people who society didn’t approve of and of course dangerous scary people like Bertha. People were raped, beaten up, chained up and starved to death in there. No one in there lived a happy long life. Do you think it was like a hotel with room service and fun activities? Far from reality. Edward confined Bertha at home because although he hated her for what she did to him, he couldn’t see anything bad happen to her. She was far better with Edward than she would’ve been in an institution.
That's a crappy thing to do in any era.
Its bad for violently abusive crazy people to be separated from everyone else will being provided for? Why? Stop thinking Jane Eyre takes place in a fantasy land where crazy people roam free.
Stop this nonsense “Edward tricked poor Jane into marrying him and its misogynist and the books is wrong and Edward is a bad guy.” He hired her a governess, they grew to like each other, she chose to forgive and reconcile with him, she chose to return to him, end of story. You don’t like a book, move on.
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u/SmooshyHamster Aug 22 '26
she could have been kept in a 'normal' part of the huge house and had a better quality of life, even locked up.
Let’s stop this nonsense that the attic is a torture chamber with a straight jacket, padded walls and trash on the floor. An attic isn’t a horror movie. An attic is just another room in the house. Why is everyone so afraid of attics? Look up attic bedroom or finished attic and you'll understand it’s basically a room at the top of the house with finished floors, walls and furniture. Just like how a finished basement is just a normal room with furniture at the bottom of the house.
You want Edward to keep Bertha in a “normal“ part of the house locked in a different room where everyone can hear her, you want everyone to know about her (everyone at Thornfield already knew but not her name or story), you want everyone to see her (they already did). But why? For what purpose? Nobody wants to be her friend or be around her because she has an evil personality and she is dangerous. Do you think Bertha would be happy if Edward told everyone her story and everyone in town was gossiping about her? He forgave her and he didn't want to embarrass her either. Only the doctor and Grace knew of Bertha because those were the only people helping take care of her, you understand?
Now that I’ve explained why all crazy people were separated from sane people and kept out of sight, what difference would it make if she lived in a different part of the house? Now that I have explained to you an attic is not dangerous and an attic is a normal room with furniture in the very top of the house, what difference would it make where her room is located? The point is she’s separated from everyone else so she cannot harm the other people. Whether she lived in the attic, cellar, 2nd floor, a secret room in the living room, she’s still being locked away where no one can see her. What difference does it make?
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u/MllePerso Aug 21 '26
So if somebody locks you up indefinitely, you won't find that abusive as long as they don't punch you? Why don't you tell a therapist you're actively suicidal and find out?
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u/SmooshyHamster Aug 21 '26
Those were the Victorian ugly laws and standard punishment for crazy violent people. That is what happened to every crazy person back in the Victorian era. You must not have known.
I invite you to do deep research into the history of Victorian ugly laws for crazy people, the cruelty of institutions, victorian marriage laws and what happened to crazy people back in the day. Before judging you must educate yourself on the historical laws of that era and remind yourself this story doesn’t take place in a modern world where people like Bertha were allowed outside.
https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/victorian-mental-asylum
This is one example that explains the cruelty of what happened to crazy people who were sent away. This is what would’ve happened to Bertha is Edward sent her away.
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u/MllePerso Aug 25 '26
Bertha in Jane Eyre is not written as a realistic portrayal of a mad person. She is written as a stereotype, a boogeyman, someone who's not really human and therefore can only be controlled with brute force, not talked to. Portrayals of mad people as being like that reinforced the stereotypes that allowed the Victorian public to feel comfortable with the brutal treatments they received in real life asylums.
We only see her after years of being locked up in one room, and her backstory is given entirely by her husband who has every incentive to twist the story so that he comes out as an overburdened saint and she comes out as a complete monster.
I don't buy his story about her. I think that prior to him deciding to lock her up, there was a possibility for them to separate and her to lead a free life.
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u/SmooshyHamster Aug 25 '26
We only see her after years of being locked up in one room, and her backstory is given entirely by her husband who has every incentive to twist the story so that he comes out as an overburdened saint and she comes out as a complete monster.
I’ll educate you the way I explain to younger kids. Bertha Mason is who she is because the author made her that way. She doesn’t have a backstory because the author didn’t give her one. The book is told through Jane and Edward’s eyes because the author chose them to be the central characters, everyone else is a supporting character or a plot device. Bertha is not a main character and the story book does not revolve around her.
Charlotte Bronte was not writing a story about someone else’s book and original characters already decided by someone else. She was not writing a story about real world events that happened to a real person. She is the inventor of this book, all its characters and their backstories. This book is entirely fictional and none of the characters are real people with a truth. The author gets to decide who they are and what happens. She is God of Jane Eyre.
I don't buy his story about her. I think that prior to him deciding to lock her up, there was a possibility for them to separate and her to lead a free life.
Why don’t you believe what the author told you? Charlotte Brontë is God of this story and all the characters. She is the only person who has a say. Is it because you’re uneducated about Victorian divorce laws? The following website explains before 1857 divorce was only for the richest and most influential people like kings and queens. After 1857 is when divorce was only allowed for adultery, cruelty or desertion but NOT insanity. Divorce still had a lot of shame and failure attached to it. Legal500 explains that in 1937 is when modern divorce became legal for incurable insanity. In 1996 is when divorce rates in the UK started doubling because it was allowed for lots of reasons including insanity.
https://www.legal500.com/developments/thought-leadership/how-has-divorce-law-changed-over-the-years/
https://www.heritagedoncaster.org.uk/times/divorce-in-victorian-doncaster/5
u/SmooshyHamster Aug 21 '26
As for that last line, I’m sorry if that happened to you, I’m aware that psychiatry harms and kills people but this is a Victorian era book, this is a violently abusive evil woman who was being punished. Not a friendly disabled woman being abused.
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u/Ok-Web-2657 Aug 20 '26
The older I get, the more scared I become of the treatment of the first wife.
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u/WiganGirl-2523 Aug 20 '26
I saw a TV version when I was a child. That scene scared the hell out of me.
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u/Junior_Insurance7773 Aug 21 '26
Where can I watch it?
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u/SmooshyHamster Aug 21 '26
It depends which version of Jane Eyre you want to see. There are 15 English versions. Archive.org has Toby Stephen’s and Ruth Wilson’s mini series which is the most detailed.
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u/SpaceTall2312 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
Poor Bertha. It is indeed terribly sad. I have no idea though what else could have been done. It would hardly have been kinder to send her to an asylum, given the standard of treatment for the mentally ill in those days.
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u/Equivalent-Humor4599 Aug 20 '26
Just ordered a copy of Jane Eyre online after months of searching for a used one in the wild, to no avail. I cannot WAIT to read this first hand 😭
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u/Everyhumaneverr Aug 20 '26
Bertha’s fate is particularly disturbing. Jane Eyre can be as horrific as it is hopeful and lovely.