"Am I a Monster?": Jane Eyre among the Shadows of Freaks
2002; University of North Texas Press; Volume: 34; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1934-1512
Autores Tópico(s)Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies
ResumoIs it an Animal? Is it Human? Is it an Extraordinary Freak of Nature? Or is it legitimate member of Nature's Work? --The Illustrated London News, 29 August, 1846 In deep shade, at farther end of room, figure ran backwards and forwards. it was, whether beast or being, one could not, at first sight tell [...]. --Jane Eyre For Charlotte Bronte's readers, generation indulging their appetite for monstrous marvels, attic scene on third floor of Thornfield in Jane Eyre might have been surprising, but not unfamiliar. When Rochester reveals existence of his mad wife Mason, Jane Eyre and her wedding party are led into a wild beast's den (336), their eyes drawn toward dark figure: In deep shade, at farther end of room, figure ran backwards and forwards. it was, whether beast or being, one could not, at first sight tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as mane, hid its head and face. (321-22) Rochester's audience is witnessing scene that, in image, rhetoric, and form, echoes many nineteenth-century displays of anomalous bodies-giants, dwarfs, Siamese twins, hermaphrodites, fat ladies, living skeletons, wild men, and noble savages--in taverns, on street corners, in upper-class houses or courts, or in metropolitan exhibition places Leicester Square and Egyptian Hall in London. Bertha's entrance recalls that of Hottentot Venus, one of most notorious figures in London freak shows, who would emerge like wild beast, and [was] ordered to move backwards and forwards, and come out and go into her cage, more bear in chain than (qtd. in Altick 269). The suspense surrounding Bertha's appearance echoes provocation in advertisements such as that of the Wild Man of Prairies in The Illustrated London News cited above. Though show, first of What Is It? exhibitions staged by famous showman Phineas Taylor Barnum, was promoted particularly with appeal of missing link; Barnum's advertisement, many nineteenth-century freak show advertisements or handbills, established attraction by emphasizing how freak body borders on boundaries of and animal. Yet astounding power of this scene relies on more than images from nineteenth-century freak shows. Significantly, scene achieves much of its dramatic effect and intensity by evoking entwined narrative forms that produce freak shows, including, as Rosemarie Garland Thomson notes, advertisement account of freak's extraordinary life and identity, showman's pitch that introduces exhibited body by emphasizing its deformity or anomaly, staging that involves performances monitored by showman, and display that functions to establish distance between civilized spectator and freak (Introduction 7). With rhetoric of freak show host, Rochester introduces Bertha, highlighting her exotic background and hybrid inheritance as anomalous: Bertha Mason [...] came from mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, Creole, was both madwoman and drunkard! Describing himself as both civilized host and victim of deception, Rochester invites his audience to see her as monstrous: You shall see what sort of being I was cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not I had right to break compact, and seek sympathy with something at least human (320). In Bertha's goblin cell (336), Rochester enacts performance of man and hyena, making supporting player: [T]he clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet. …
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