Bricolage, Brontë Style: Atypical Typology in Jane Eyre

Abstract

Biblical types were deeply ingrained in the Victorian mind, and their traditional interpretations often reinforced the subordination of women. Charlotte Brontë creates a new kind of typology that allows her to retain the power of biblical imagery and language, while channelling it in new directions. The Garden of Eden story and biblical images of a heavenly afterlife are among her favourite sources in Jane Eyre. By transferring the locus of blessedness from an otherworldly paradise to the everyday world of work and leisure, of sexual fulfilment and romantic disappointments, Charlotte Brontë rejects the narrow, male-dominated Christianity of her day and offers in its place an alternative vision in which paradise is a present possibility and male and female are truly equal. Neither her inability to articulate this ideal consistently nor her reluctance to embrace all of its implications can finally invalidate her glorious vision.