지배질서 비판과 포섭 사이: 제인 에어의 양가성 연구

Abstract

This paper aims to reassess Charlotte Bront’s Jane Eyre (1847) from a post-colonial approach, arguing that Jane Eyre is a preeminent governess of the British Empire and Jane Eyre is an imperialist narrative. The novel has been acclaimed as an exemplary female Bildungsroman and even as a cult text of feminism. However, Jane is someone who condones rather than condemns the practices of British imperialism, discriminating the Other and justifying the ‘civilizing’ mission. British imperialism rooted in ethnocentrism needs to be scrutinized. Arguably, Jane Eyre under discussion is far from being a work of universal, world literature, but rather an imperial narrative. She remains critical of the inequality in class and gender but condones British imperialism. In order to detect Jane’s jingoistic tone of voice permeating in the text, both Edward Said’s ‘reading contrapuntally’ and Gayatri Spivak’s ‘transgressive reading’ strategies are employed, both quite valid in the sense that they are designed to question and challenge the hegemony upheld by the Victorians including Charlotte Bront herself. This discussion focuses on a colonial encounter between the metropolis and its colonies such as Jamaica and India, and reviews it within historical events such as British slavery and a civilizing mission. Then, a comparison between Charlotte Bront and Virginia Woolf in terms of their views of nationalism is drawn, including the role of women at home. Jane’s relationship with Bertha Mason, a Creole mad woman, is a very complex one that needs to be more closely examined. I would argue that Jane falls short of forming a cosmopolitan sisterhood partly because she is unable to identify herself with Bertha Mason. Jane emerges as an imperial figure rehabilitating the corrupt Rochester and endorsing Saint John Rivers’s devotion to a civilizing British mission in India. For Jane, empire matters most. She is content with the status quo, being the carer of her husband, Rochester and a governess of the Empire. Within this approach, Jane Eyre is a deeply problematic text. The reader, therefore, needs to be on full alert when (s)he comes to read English classics such as Jane Eyre that panders to British imperialism.