De Jane Eyre à Shirley : une représentation des éléments transformée par les bouleversements sociaux ?

Abstract

When she wrote Shirley, Charlotte Bronte was inspired by the Luddite riots which took place in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1812. Contrary to her preceding novel Jane Eyre (1847) in which Thornfield is a few miles away from the large manufacturing town Millcote, Shirley (1849) insists on the social changes linked to the Industrial Revolution. The representation of the four elements in Shirley is thus quite different from the one David Lodge analysed in Jane Eyre (« Fire and Eyre : Charlotte Bronte’s War of Earthly Elements »). The passionate and purifying fire which characterizes Jane Eyre becomes endowed with a social dimension : it reduces to ashes many factories, such as the one Sykes owns for instance (« his dressing-shop was set on fire and burnt to the ground ») ; fire is associated to revolt, hatred but also death since gunshots can be heard several times. Besides the industrial background has consequences on the water and above all on the air which is polluted by the factories and their chimneys (« Stilbro’ smoke atmosphere ») ; Robert Moore easily puts up with this tainted atmosphere, however it is quite revealing that Caroline finds it hard to breathe (« complained of want of air »). In spite of the major changes, the representation of the four elements in Shirley bears a likeness to that in Jane Eyre as can be observed with the description of some characters and of their emotions although the stress on the opposition between fire and ice is less striking. One can even wonder whether Shirley does not express some nostalgia for the preindustrial nature that is depicted in Jane Eyre, as the description of Fieldhead Hollow fifty years ago seems to imply in the last chapter of the novel.