Becoming a Stranger to Oneself: Estrangement and Narrative Voice in Jane Eyre

Abstract

This essay argues that the development of Jane’s story and the Bildungsroman form of the novel depend on something more than just Jane’s increasing narrative control; they actually depend on the disruption of Jane’s voice. The essay looks at key scenes, including Jane’s encounter with St John and the innkeeper, where these characters take up the role of narrator in telling Jane’s story. I refer to these moments in the novel as estrangement scenes to underscore the important distance that opens up between Jane and the reader. Because of the distance created from the estranging effect of hearing contrary versions of Jane’s story, the reader now chooses from among different perspectives in order to continue sympathizing with Jane, and that choice reflects the intellectual component of the sympathetic act. Not only do readers feel with Jane, they think along with her. Though other voices remain silenced in the text, most notably Bertha Mason’s, Charlotte Brontë does not let her novel succumb wholly to the deafening voice of a single storyteller. The novel is in fact quite self-conscious about the relationship among narrative voice, perspective and identification.