An Eyre of Disapproval: The Contemporary Reception of Jane Eyre
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Via Helen Allingham on Unsplash
Published in 1848, the year after Jane Eyre was first printed, it is exhaustive, scathing, and highly entertaining. It was written by “Lady Eastlake”, the alias of author and critic Elizabeth Rigby, who, evidently, truly hated this book. I don’t know if you find nineteenth century literary criticism to be the height of drama, but, to me, that’s what this was. I hope I can impress upon you how much I disagree with this woman, and yet how much we can learn about the context of Jane Eyre from reading her review. There is an overarching question I want to answer here: How does understanding the reception of the book at the time inform our understanding of Jane Eyre?
Rigby starts her review with broad condemnations of Jane Eyre, stating that, while it has “genuine power,” that power is overshadowed by “horrid taste” (Shuttleworth). There’s not a lot I can do with this critique, other than to say that I disagree with it. Of course, reading the book about 170 years after Rigby, I am more likely to find it written in a formal style than she was because my sensibilities are very different. The meat of Rigby’s complaints really comes later, where she explains that she finds flaw in the characterization of Jane and Mr. Rochester, and in the portrayal of religion.
In other words, Rigby feels that Brontë writes Jane as if everybody around her finds her wonderful, and yet any reasonable reader would find Jane’s manners, words, and actions to be reproachable, and she takes this as a flaw. I think this shows that Rigby fundamentally missed the point of what Brontë was trying to do with this book — she was making a point with Jane’s lack of conformity to the contemporary social norms, not simply ignoring the fact that her main character would be perceived as unusual.
For example, take this passage from chapter 24, when Jane and Mr. Rochester have just become engaged. They are discussing what the new form of their relationship will be, and Jane says this about how she should treat him:
“‘Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you like to be conquered, and how pleasant overpersuasion is to you. Don’t you think I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and coax, and entreat — even cry and be sulky if necessary — for the sake of a mere essay of my power?’” (Brontë 292).
Now, I read this as Brontë consciously accomplishing a couple of things. First, Jane is making fun of the stereotype that women are prone to pouting to get what they want — Jane realizes that this is a mischaracterization and is teasing Mr. Rochester on purpose. Moreover, she is defying the expectation of women being in subservient roles by saying these things out loud. No “proper” woman would try to tease and rile up her fiancé in such a way. Brontë’s point is that Jane manages to be more of an equal in their relationship because she ignores these norms; however, Rigby is sure to have read this as another example of Jane’s “pedantry, stupidity, [and] gross vulgarity.” (For the record, at no time in the 508 pages of this book did I think Jane was at all pedantic, stupid, or vulgar). This is because Rigby is fundamentally an example of the society that Brontë was criticizing in this book: overly rigid and dismissive of women. Of course Rigby disliked these parts of the book; she was supposed to. I think understanding Rigby as the personification of the society Brontë was criticizing helps us understand, as modern readers, why she might have felt the need to make such a criticism.
However, let’s look at another example where I think Rigby was just plain wrong. She says, “Even in that chef-d’oeuvre of brilliant retrospective sketching, the description of her early childhood, it is the childhood and not the child that interests you. The little Jane, with her sharp eyes and dogmatic speeches, is a being you neither could fondle nor love. There is a hardness in her infinite earnestness, and a spiteful precocity in her reasoning, which repulses all our sympathy” (Shuttleworth). I guess what I’m learning here is that I may be a more compassionate person than Rigby, because I was extremely sympathetic to Jane’s plight as I was reading this book. How could you not be, when she is so mistreated by the Reeds and so obviously intelligent, but constantly ignored? This is another example of the different frame of mind with which I came at Jane Eyre, though; I was raised on stories like Harry Potter of poor orphan children, mistreated by their cruel relatives. I’ve been trained to be sympathetic to such stories; Elizabeth Rigby, evidently, was not. That makes sense in the context of the time period, when there was less recognition of the suffering of poor or marginalized people, but I still think it’s a mistake on her part.
To her credit, Rigby does also take issue with the imbalanced dynamic between Jane and Mr. Rochester, criticizing the way that Jane constantly refers to him as her “master.” Rigby draws a comparison in this aspect to the 1740 novel Pamela by Samuel Richardson, in which a much older man attempts to seduce his fifteen-year-old employee, who, despite rebuffing his advances (and attempted assaults), eventually falls in love with and agrees to marry him. However, it isn’t clear to me what part of this similarity Rigby finds objectionable. Here’s what she says:
“For Jane Eyre is merely another Pamela, who, by the force of her character and the strength of her principles, is carried victoriously through great trials and temptations from the man she loves. Nor is she even a Pamela adapted and refined to modern notions; for though the story is conducted without those derelictions of decorum which we are to believe had their excuse in the manners of Richardson’s time, yet it is stamped with a coarseness of language and laxity of tone which have certainly no excuse in ours.” (Shuttleworth)
It seems like Rigby’s criticism is that Jane is not an original character, and that Jane Eyre is no less vulgar than Pamela, even though it was written some 100 years later. I would argue that the more relevant criticism of Mr. Rochester in comparison to Pamela is that he believes a romantic relationship with his 18-year-old governess is appropriate, but Rigby doesn’t really discuss this. Also unlike Rigby, I think Mr. Rochester is quite different from the abhorrent male character in Pamela: Jane is at least what we now consider a legal adult; he does not threaten or commit violence against her; he treats her mostly as an equal. These are the factors that I find most important in this situation, so, again, you can see the vast difference in perspective between me in 2021 and Elizabeth Rigby in 1848.
One final critique from Rigby about Mr. Rochester: that he “is a man who deliberately and secretly seeks to violate the laws both of God and man, and yet we will be bound half our lady readers are enchanted with him for a model of generosity and honor,” and that “The popularity of Jane Eyre is a proof how deeply the love for illegitimate romance is implanted in our nature” (Shuttleworth). Here, I have to say that Rigby is correct. Yes, Mr. Rochester hides an entire wife from the world, and, yes, people still read the book and think that he’s dreamy. What can I say — people like reading romances where they are attracted to the characters, and I don’t fault Charlotte Brontë for making Mr. Rochester at least somewhat appealing. Contrary to Rigby’s belief, one author is not responsible for the entire moral fabric of society, especially when the point of the book is to criticize that society.
“It is true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength, but it is the strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself. No Christian grace is perceptible upon her. She has inherited in fullest measure the worst sin of our fallen nature — the sin of pride. Jane Eyre is proud, and therefore she is ungrateful too. It pleased God to make her an orphan, friendless and penniless — yet she thanks nobody, and least of all Him, for the food and raiment.” (Shuttleworth).
This quote kind of perplexes me to read because I think Rigby either misunderstands that Brontë is being critical of society, or gets it and just really hates it. Jane isn’t supposed to be super Christian, and Brontë doesn’t necessarily believe that people should thank God for their misfortune; that’s her point. The issue Rigby takes with this choice shows us clearly both how relevant Brontë’s criticism was, and how ahead of her time; society really wasn’t ready to hear it.
I also think this quote is interesting because, as I discussed at length in my last blog post, Jane isn’t not Christian. In fact, at the end of the book, she turns to God and has a personal discovery of spirituality. She is prepared to travel to India as a missionary, saying “I will give my heart to God,” before hearing Mr. Rochester’s voice call out to her (Brontë 455). However, Jane evidently isn’t Christian enough for Rigby, who writes that Jane Eyre is “preëminently an anti-Christian composition” and that it has a tone of “ungodly discontent” (Shuttleworth).
Interestingly, in the same paragraph she says that the book contains “a proud and perpetual assertion of the rights of man, for which we find no authority either in God’s word or in God’s providence” (Shuttleworth). I think that this statement is actually very accurate. Brontë is very focused on independence and freedom as important rights for all people (women, really, instead of men), and she thinks that religion isn’t necessarily the way to achieve them. I happen to agree with these ideas and think that they make Jane Eyre a compelling early feminist novel, while Rigby thinks that they make the book ungodly. To each their own.
“No woman — a lady friend, whom we are always happy to consult, assures us — makes mistakes in her own métier — no woman trusses game and garnishes dessert-dishes with the same hands, or talks of doing so in the same breath. Above all, no woman attires another in such fancy dresses as Jane’s ladies assume… This evidence seems incontrovertible” (Shuttleworth).
Let me translate this into modern English for you: No woman would write a book in which she made mistakes about food or clothing, because those are the things that women know about! We know because we asked a woman!
Is that not delightful?! Rigby does go on to concede that the book could have been written by a woman who purposely made it seem like it was written by a man, but that, in that case, such a woman must have “long forfeited the society of her own sex,” so she’s not really a woman in the traditional sense anyway (Shuttleworth). It makes me happy to know that Brontë was, in reality, a woman who had a variety of sisters and female friends in her life. Take that, Elizabeth Rigby.
In all, I think Elizabeth Rigby’s review is the perfect example of the society that Charlotte Brontë was criticizing in Jane Eyre. She is stuffy, she believes in strict, traditional gender roles, she is horrified by a woman who would talk to a man as an equal, and she believes any novel whose characters do not display perfect Christian virtues is blasphemous. Reading this review helped me to understand the motivation for writing Jane Eyre in this critical way; Brontë must have known lots of people like Rigby who wanted to keep her from doing certain things because of her gender or religion. On the one hand, the review suggests that England was not ready for Brontë’s forward-thinking ideas; on the other, the popularity of the book, admitted by Rigby herself, suggests otherwise. I think history has come out in Brontë’s favor on this one: Jane Eyre is regarded today as a classic work of literature and social criticism.
Thank you to everybody who stuck with my blog this whole time, especially Cate and Ms. LaClair. I hope you all enjoyed reading half as much as I enjoyed reading Jane Eyre and writing these posts.
Allingham, Helen. Old Cottages at Pinner. 1885-1895. Unsplash,
Via Helen Allingham on Unsplash
Published in 1848, the year after Jane Eyre was first printed, it is exhaustive, scathing, and highly entertaining. It was written by “Lady Eastlake”, the alias of author and critic Elizabeth Rigby, who, evidently, truly hated this book. I don’t know if you find nineteenth century literary criticism to be the height of drama, but, to me, that’s what this was. I hope I can impress upon you how much I disagree with this woman, and yet how much we can learn about the context of Jane Eyre from reading her review. There is an overarching question I want to answer here: How does understanding the reception of the book at the time inform our understanding of Jane Eyre?
Rigby starts her review with broad condemnations of Jane Eyre, stating that, while it has “genuine power,” that power is overshadowed by “horrid taste” (Shuttleworth). There’s not a lot I can do with this critique, other than to say that I disagree with it. Of course, reading the book about 170 years after Rigby, I am more likely to find it written in a formal style than she was because my sensibilities are very different. The meat of Rigby’s complaints really comes later, where she explains that she finds flaw in the characterization of Jane and Mr. Rochester, and in the portrayal of religion.
Jane’s Character
Rigby writes, “The inconsistencies of Jane’s character lie mainly not in her own imperfections… but in the author’s… The error in Jane Eyre is… that she is made one thing in the eyes of her imaginary companions, and another in that of the actual reader. There is a perpetual disparity between the account she herself gives of the effect she produces, and the means shown us by which she brings that effect about. We hear nothing but self-eulogiums on the perfect tact and wondrous penetration with which she is gifted, and yet almost every word she utters offends us, not only with the absence of these qualities, but with the positive contrasts of them, in either her pedantry, stupidity, or gross vulgarity.”In other words, Rigby feels that Brontë writes Jane as if everybody around her finds her wonderful, and yet any reasonable reader would find Jane’s manners, words, and actions to be reproachable, and she takes this as a flaw. I think this shows that Rigby fundamentally missed the point of what Brontë was trying to do with this book — she was making a point with Jane’s lack of conformity to the contemporary social norms, not simply ignoring the fact that her main character would be perceived as unusual.
For example, take this passage from chapter 24, when Jane and Mr. Rochester have just become engaged. They are discussing what the new form of their relationship will be, and Jane says this about how she should treat him:
“‘Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you like to be conquered, and how pleasant overpersuasion is to you. Don’t you think I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and coax, and entreat — even cry and be sulky if necessary — for the sake of a mere essay of my power?’” (Brontë 292).
Now, I read this as Brontë consciously accomplishing a couple of things. First, Jane is making fun of the stereotype that women are prone to pouting to get what they want — Jane realizes that this is a mischaracterization and is teasing Mr. Rochester on purpose. Moreover, she is defying the expectation of women being in subservient roles by saying these things out loud. No “proper” woman would try to tease and rile up her fiancé in such a way. Brontë’s point is that Jane manages to be more of an equal in their relationship because she ignores these norms; however, Rigby is sure to have read this as another example of Jane’s “pedantry, stupidity, [and] gross vulgarity.” (For the record, at no time in the 508 pages of this book did I think Jane was at all pedantic, stupid, or vulgar). This is because Rigby is fundamentally an example of the society that Brontë was criticizing in this book: overly rigid and dismissive of women. Of course Rigby disliked these parts of the book; she was supposed to. I think understanding Rigby as the personification of the society Brontë was criticizing helps us understand, as modern readers, why she might have felt the need to make such a criticism.
However, let’s look at another example where I think Rigby was just plain wrong. She says, “Even in that chef-d’oeuvre of brilliant retrospective sketching, the description of her early childhood, it is the childhood and not the child that interests you. The little Jane, with her sharp eyes and dogmatic speeches, is a being you neither could fondle nor love. There is a hardness in her infinite earnestness, and a spiteful precocity in her reasoning, which repulses all our sympathy” (Shuttleworth). I guess what I’m learning here is that I may be a more compassionate person than Rigby, because I was extremely sympathetic to Jane’s plight as I was reading this book. How could you not be, when she is so mistreated by the Reeds and so obviously intelligent, but constantly ignored? This is another example of the different frame of mind with which I came at Jane Eyre, though; I was raised on stories like Harry Potter of poor orphan children, mistreated by their cruel relatives. I’ve been trained to be sympathetic to such stories; Elizabeth Rigby, evidently, was not. That makes sense in the context of the time period, when there was less recognition of the suffering of poor or marginalized people, but I still think it’s a mistake on her part.
Mr. Rochester
Rigby’s criticism of Mr. Rochester as a character is interesting to me, because I think she has more of a valid point here. Of course, some of the same gripes exist as they did with Jane: she writes that Mr. Rochester tells Jane “disgraceful tales of his past life… which any man with common respect for a woman, and that a mere girl of eighteen, would have spared her” (Shuttleworth). The criticism here is that Mr. Rochester tells Jane things that offend her delicate sensibilities as a woman, namely a story about his past dating life. I, personally, did not find my sensibilities as an almost-eighteen-year-old girl particularly offended, but, then again, I’m sure Rigby would have found a lot to say about me as well. Additionally, I think the fact that Mr. Rochester speaks to Jane so plainly is absolutely crucial to their relationship being at all acceptable in my eyes; given their large gap in age, wealth, and power, which was always a little disturbing to me, the only way a romantic relationship could seem reasonable would be for their equality of mind to be quite evident — which it is, and which Rigby takes great issue with.To her credit, Rigby does also take issue with the imbalanced dynamic between Jane and Mr. Rochester, criticizing the way that Jane constantly refers to him as her “master.” Rigby draws a comparison in this aspect to the 1740 novel Pamela by Samuel Richardson, in which a much older man attempts to seduce his fifteen-year-old employee, who, despite rebuffing his advances (and attempted assaults), eventually falls in love with and agrees to marry him. However, it isn’t clear to me what part of this similarity Rigby finds objectionable. Here’s what she says:
“For Jane Eyre is merely another Pamela, who, by the force of her character and the strength of her principles, is carried victoriously through great trials and temptations from the man she loves. Nor is she even a Pamela adapted and refined to modern notions; for though the story is conducted without those derelictions of decorum which we are to believe had their excuse in the manners of Richardson’s time, yet it is stamped with a coarseness of language and laxity of tone which have certainly no excuse in ours.” (Shuttleworth)
It seems like Rigby’s criticism is that Jane is not an original character, and that Jane Eyre is no less vulgar than Pamela, even though it was written some 100 years later. I would argue that the more relevant criticism of Mr. Rochester in comparison to Pamela is that he believes a romantic relationship with his 18-year-old governess is appropriate, but Rigby doesn’t really discuss this. Also unlike Rigby, I think Mr. Rochester is quite different from the abhorrent male character in Pamela: Jane is at least what we now consider a legal adult; he does not threaten or commit violence against her; he treats her mostly as an equal. These are the factors that I find most important in this situation, so, again, you can see the vast difference in perspective between me in 2021 and Elizabeth Rigby in 1848.
One final critique from Rigby about Mr. Rochester: that he “is a man who deliberately and secretly seeks to violate the laws both of God and man, and yet we will be bound half our lady readers are enchanted with him for a model of generosity and honor,” and that “The popularity of Jane Eyre is a proof how deeply the love for illegitimate romance is implanted in our nature” (Shuttleworth). Here, I have to say that Rigby is correct. Yes, Mr. Rochester hides an entire wife from the world, and, yes, people still read the book and think that he’s dreamy. What can I say — people like reading romances where they are attracted to the characters, and I don’t fault Charlotte Brontë for making Mr. Rochester at least somewhat appealing. Contrary to Rigby’s belief, one author is not responsible for the entire moral fabric of society, especially when the point of the book is to criticize that society.
Religion
Oh boy, does Elizabeth Rigby have a lot to say about the godlessness of Jane Eyre. Take this quote about Jane’s character defects:“It is true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength, but it is the strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself. No Christian grace is perceptible upon her. She has inherited in fullest measure the worst sin of our fallen nature — the sin of pride. Jane Eyre is proud, and therefore she is ungrateful too. It pleased God to make her an orphan, friendless and penniless — yet she thanks nobody, and least of all Him, for the food and raiment.” (Shuttleworth).
This quote kind of perplexes me to read because I think Rigby either misunderstands that Brontë is being critical of society, or gets it and just really hates it. Jane isn’t supposed to be super Christian, and Brontë doesn’t necessarily believe that people should thank God for their misfortune; that’s her point. The issue Rigby takes with this choice shows us clearly both how relevant Brontë’s criticism was, and how ahead of her time; society really wasn’t ready to hear it.
I also think this quote is interesting because, as I discussed at length in my last blog post, Jane isn’t not Christian. In fact, at the end of the book, she turns to God and has a personal discovery of spirituality. She is prepared to travel to India as a missionary, saying “I will give my heart to God,” before hearing Mr. Rochester’s voice call out to her (Brontë 455). However, Jane evidently isn’t Christian enough for Rigby, who writes that Jane Eyre is “preëminently an anti-Christian composition” and that it has a tone of “ungodly discontent” (Shuttleworth).
Interestingly, in the same paragraph she says that the book contains “a proud and perpetual assertion of the rights of man, for which we find no authority either in God’s word or in God’s providence” (Shuttleworth). I think that this statement is actually very accurate. Brontë is very focused on independence and freedom as important rights for all people (women, really, instead of men), and she thinks that religion isn’t necessarily the way to achieve them. I happen to agree with these ideas and think that they make Jane Eyre a compelling early feminist novel, while Rigby thinks that they make the book ungodly. To each their own.
Good Old Irony
To wrap this up, I have to tell you about my favorite part of Rigby’s review. She devotes some time to a discussion of the author of Jane Eyre, as Brontë published under the (male) pseudonym “Currer Bell.” She acknowledges that some people have been speculating that the book may have been written by a woman, and, in response, writes:“No woman — a lady friend, whom we are always happy to consult, assures us — makes mistakes in her own métier — no woman trusses game and garnishes dessert-dishes with the same hands, or talks of doing so in the same breath. Above all, no woman attires another in such fancy dresses as Jane’s ladies assume… This evidence seems incontrovertible” (Shuttleworth).
Let me translate this into modern English for you: No woman would write a book in which she made mistakes about food or clothing, because those are the things that women know about! We know because we asked a woman!
Is that not delightful?! Rigby does go on to concede that the book could have been written by a woman who purposely made it seem like it was written by a man, but that, in that case, such a woman must have “long forfeited the society of her own sex,” so she’s not really a woman in the traditional sense anyway (Shuttleworth). It makes me happy to know that Brontë was, in reality, a woman who had a variety of sisters and female friends in her life. Take that, Elizabeth Rigby.
In all, I think Elizabeth Rigby’s review is the perfect example of the society that Charlotte Brontë was criticizing in Jane Eyre. She is stuffy, she believes in strict, traditional gender roles, she is horrified by a woman who would talk to a man as an equal, and she believes any novel whose characters do not display perfect Christian virtues is blasphemous. Reading this review helped me to understand the motivation for writing Jane Eyre in this critical way; Brontë must have known lots of people like Rigby who wanted to keep her from doing certain things because of her gender or religion. On the one hand, the review suggests that England was not ready for Brontë’s forward-thinking ideas; on the other, the popularity of the book, admitted by Rigby herself, suggests otherwise. I think history has come out in Brontë’s favor on this one: Jane Eyre is regarded today as a classic work of literature and social criticism.
Thank you to everybody who stuck with my blog this whole time, especially Cate and Ms. LaClair. I hope you all enjoyed reading half as much as I enjoyed reading Jane Eyre and writing these posts.
Works Cited
Allingham, Helen. Old Cottages at Pinner. 1885-1895. Unsplash,
unsplash.com/photos/4lDX-xTLl3Q. Accessed 16 Mar. 2021.
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. Woodstock, Beekman Publishers, 1980.
Shuttleworth, Sally. "Jane Eyre and the 19th-Century Woman." The British Library,
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. Woodstock, Beekman Publishers, 1980.
Shuttleworth, Sally. "Jane Eyre and the 19th-Century Woman." The British Library,
15 May 2014, www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/jane-eyre-and-the-19th-century-woman.
Accessed 22 Mar. 2021.
This is an entertaining post, Mia. Looking at criticisms from the time period a book is published is interesting, as so often books we consider classics today were not classics in their time period, and sometimes didn't even sell well at all. Do you think Bronte knew her book might be received in such a way?
ReplyDeleteThank you- I enjoyed reading the review, even though I disagreed with the reviewer on most of her critiques. I think to the extent Brontë was consciously criticizing society -- which was a lot -- she must have known that said society would not take her book well. However, I did read something that said Brontë was distressed by Rigby's brutal review of her book, so perhaps she didn't mean for it to be quite so controversial.
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