1. CAPES: 2009-11-04
Always a governess…always in love…………..The Common Reader…
The problem with JE according to VW is that she was “ Always a
governess, always in love” a class conscious remark if ever there were
one, but then V. Woolf, especially in her diaries , if not in real life, was
prone to a bit of social snobbery. (Monks House remark)
Preliminary remarks :
Governess : Role of teaching children ; not a nurse or a nanny ; fits in with
parents’ preference to educate their children at home ; usually in charge
of girls and younger boys, the latter going on to a tutor or to boarding
school. 3 ‘R’s + «accomplishments » i.e. music, painting, drawing, French or
Italian.
(Also a euphemism for a madam running a brothel or a dominatrix figure
in sado-masochistic fantasies…)
CB had in life the experience of the governess as a Domestic Drudge : see
the article ‘Governess Grinders’ from the magazine Punch in 1850 and the
preceding letters in which (433-438) she airs the dilemma in your Norton
edition.
In limbo, a hybrid position, not quite a servant or a family member but a
legitimate way of support for unmarried middle class women. A marginal
option available to a woman without class or wealth. JE: An individual
experience but also a historically specific novel. A piece of social history
in the Dickensian tradition. Only escape was marriage…to the employer??
1851 census gives 25 000 governesses : a comfortable home and victuals
were a large part of her salary. In the 1840’s a governess’ salary might be
25-50 to be mostly in close contact with the children. She had to be well
brought pounds a year: the discussion around this stereotype led to the
founding of proper secondary education. The other alternatives were
sewing and washing: not an attractive prospect! Unless one fell into the
great social evil….like “the Cornish Governess.
The first requirement was that she should be a lady in manners and in
education as she was up and the daughter of a gentleman. Jane fulfils
both qualities, as did CB. She might see herself as equal in breeding and
manners to the fine peacocks in the drawing room, but the peacocks (and
mostly the peahens see her as a kind of upper servant…a dangerous
threat to the eligible bachelors in a middle class household. She (the

2. governess) is prone to commit the sin of falling in love with a member of
the family…”an immoral tendency”?? A socially inferior predator! But the
truth was far less romantic: governesses, due to their romantic
inexperience were far more likely to fall prey to the advances of their
master of the eldest son. Seduction was statistically more probable than
marriage.
Inferior: M.F “Gentlemen in his (Rochester’s) position are not accustomed
to marry their governesses” pp.226 ch 24
Disconnected : JE: “Portrait of a Governess: disconnected, poor and plain”
as a miniature on ivory cf. Blanche Ingram
Subordinate : JE: “I was thinking that very few masters would trouble
themselves to enquire whether their paid subordinates were piqued and
hurt by their orders” p. 115 ch 14 Norton
Encumbrance : B.I” I suppose you have a governess….I saw a person with
her…expensive to keep both…….Mary and I had a dozen…half of them
detestable and the rest ridiculous and all incubi”…Lady I: “My dearest
don’t mention governesses, the word makes me nervous. I have suffered a
martyrdom from their incompetency and caprice; I thank heaven I have
now done with them.” pp150-151 ch17 Norton.
CB’s Letters i.191
I see now more clearly than I have ever done before that a private
governess has no existence, is not considered as a living and rational
being except as connected with the wearisome duties she has to fulfil.
Jane at Lowood prays” Grant me at least a new servitude” p.72 ch 10
(italics mine)
Beauty and its social value : to be beautiful is to be happy ; to be plain is
to be obscure ! When Jane imagines that Rochester is going to marry
Blanche Ingram, she makes a link between the fact of being beautiful and
rich : « Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am
soulless and heartless ? ?..and if God had gifted me with some beauty and
much wealth I should have made it as hard for you to leave me as it si for
me now to leave you. » p216 ch23 Governesses have feelings too !

3. Rochester is financially richer than Jane at present but perhaps as plain
as she thinks herself to be. She does not consider him handsome ; he calls
her « strange and unearthly » After the betrothal ch 24 p219 she looks
in the mirror and looking at her face « felt it was no longer plain ».
« Jane, you look smiling and blooming and pretty » p.220 and relieves her
of her status : you will up your governessing slavery at once p.230 ch 24
She refuses ! « Indeed, begging your pardon, sir, I shall not . I shall just
go on with it as usual.. » she cannot relinquish what she feels to be her
natural position ? or is it a matter of time? Too far too soon ? Mrs
Fairfax’s rejoinder to her happy news is disbelieving, disappointing and
accurate :
“Gentlemen in his (Rochester’s) position are not accustomed to marry
their governesses” pp.226 ch 24
The Brontë sisters considered themselves as middle class even if their
employers treated them as social inferiors. In their lifetimes, women
could not vote, could hold no property, their function was to keep house
and raise children; inferior to men in terms of intellect, rationality and
social competence. Could not litigate, hold custody of the children after
separation, no control over money, and divorce required an expensive act
of Parliament. Charlotte’s earnings after her death (before her marriage
to Arthur Nicholls) passed to her father. Only as wives and mothers could
they fulfil their natural ability in terms of domesticity, emotional
capacity in a nurturing sense and maternal instinct. Note that CB was the
only Brontë sister to marry (she survived little more than a year of
marriage??) and become a non person: the legal existence of a wife
incorporated and consolidated into that of her husband; and none of the
sisters became a mother. John Stuart Mill recognised that franchising
women was a crucial step but his enlightened approach was to anticipate
the turn of the century and the suffragette movement before any radical
change was to occur.
All the Brontë novels deal with the social issues of class because it was a
contemporary issue, notably the grey area of ‘the inbetween’ and the
conflict between classes both upper and lower, also the question of social
mobility. When Jane meets Mrs. Fairfax at Thornfield she takes her first
for the owner and then realises that she is ‘a dependent like myself’. She
realises that Mrs F’s friendliness comes from the recognition that she is
an equal but Jane also retains her status as a lady, ch 11. When welcomed
as a fainting vagabond into the Rivers’ household, the most pressing
concern is: is this a lady? Or a person? This does not prevent them as

4. true Christians from coming to Jane’s aid, but the question has to be
resolved. Only fater it is ascertained that she is in fact a lady does the
maidservant show her any respect. Jane reacts to this by choosing to sit
in the kitchen rather than in the dining room! But she is happy to accept a
position as teacher (a little above governess, but still…) whereas she will
not acquiesce to a loveless marriage with St John to go abroad as a
missionary helper; rather as a companion on an equal basis than a
subjugated wife. She may have to put up with an inferior position to earn
her living and her independence, but she will not accept it in a romantic
attachment.
JE explores the feelings of a governess as she endures the humiliating
discrepancy between her own and her employer’s perception of her social
standing, but at Thornfield she is not subjected to degrading treatment
by any member of the household (except possibly the guests!!) either by
Mrs F; or by the master of the house. Jane adopts a subordinate view :
JE: “I was thinking that very few masters would trouble themselves to
enquire whether their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their
orders” p. 115 ch 14 Norton when Rochester apologises for the fact that
his brusque manner might hurt Jane’s feelings.
The language of slavery is omnipresent in the novel: her cousin is a slave-
driver, refuses to be a member of Rochester’s harem, and the presence
of the Creole Bertha (the Jamaicas were a well documented scene of
slavery) and also the references to Madeira (another slave megapole) hint
that Jane’s final fortune might have dubious origins.
The statement “Reader, I married him” is therefore not only the cry of a
sexual predator looking to climb the social ladder by marriage but,
instead, the justification of a ‘lady’ who has finally regained her seemingly
lost position of former grace, and the news that she is an heiress puts
Rochester somewhat in the shade. The accession to money gives Jane the
choice: Rochester or St John?? She is no longer a beggar who cannot
choose; rather a lady who will make her choice count.
If Jane begins as « a slave in revolt », first at Gateshead, then at
Thornfield, she becomes a rebel and a revolutionary : she doesn’t accept
her ‘place’ in this world, and ends up as a part of the system she chooses
to oppose. She may start out as the poor relation, a governess, useful
rather than wanted, obscure and plain rather than well connected and
beautiful, but her final declaration is a triumph of no longer unrequited

5. romantic love. Jane Eyre follows an orthodox structure of attraction,
obstacle, and marital resolution.
To signal this « happy » ? ? ending, which some find disquieting and even
out of keeping to Jane’s the one-time true governessy character, isolation
and obscurity are her reward if it can be said that she keeps her agency
and individuality, it is through the handicap of her husband. If Jane
Rochester is no longer a governess, she will still be a ‘teacher’ and
spiritual guide. And if Jane Eyre has been impervious to love in 2/3 of the
novel, her love and her beloved assure both her social ascension and the
rejection of passivity and the recognition of a woman’s need for an active
sphere. And the last words are that of the beginning of the end.
Bibliography :
 Charlotte Brontë : Jane Eyre, Norton Critical Edition, 2001
 The Cambridge Companion to the Brontës, ed. Heather Glen, CUP,
2007
 Patricia Ingham: Authors in Concept: The Brontës, Oxford World
Classics 2006