\nBertha Mason is Edward Rochester\u2019s first wife from Spanish Town, Jamaica. Jane describes her as \u201cpurple\u2026the lips swelled and dark\u201d, \u201csavage\u201d with \u201cthick and dark hair\u201d and altogether reminiscent of a vampire (270). She is likewise compared to a beast, specifically a hyena, emphasizing again \u201cdark, grizzled hair\u201d (278). Rochester married her at the suggestion of his money-hungry father and brother and realized too late that she was apparently \u201cbad, mad, and embruted\u201d (278) with \u201ca nature the most gross, impure, depraved\u201d (291). Rochester has not a single kind word for her, save for the impression he first had of her: \u201ctall dark and majestic\u201d, so that Rochester was \u201cdazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited\u201d (290). Rochester depicts Mason as an exotic, dangerous temptress, incapable of modesty, intelligent conversation, or the domesticity 19th century England so cherished. He repeatedly emphasizes her failure to conform to his values: \u201c…her nature wholly alien to [his], her tastes obnoxious to [his]…[he] should never have a quiet and settled household…\u201d (291). Mason provides a perfect and hated Other juxtaposed against the pale, small, reserved Jane Eyre\u2014educated, modest, and sexually chaste. She is \u201ca quiet little figure\u201d, \u201cchildish and slender\u201d, and compared to a tiny English bird, the linnet (297). Bertha Mason serves to emphasize Jane\u2019s value as an English woman, with \u201cgarb and manner restricted by rule\u201d, a \u201cflower\u201d, an \u201celf\u201d, a \u201cgood angel\u201d, where his first wife had been a \u201chideous demon\u201d (298-300). Rochester sees each woman in terms of extremes\u2014neither are simply human, but an angel or a little spirit and a beast or a demon. Mason helps to define and accentuate Jane\u2019s value, and by extension, England\u2019s\u2014for when Rochester compares the West Indies to Hell, he also is desperate to \u201cgo home to God\u201d (293), so that England, or civilized Europe, is also the heaven to foreign \u201chell\u201d. After all, it is \u201ca fresh wind from Europe\u201d (293) that prevents Rochester from committing suicide and renews him with hope and a sense of guidance\u2014in a sense, it restores his sanity, especially where suicide would have been an act of insanity. In leaving, however, he brings a piece of this foreign \u201cmadness\u201d with him, i.e. Bertha Mason.<\/p>\n
Mason is also essential to moving the plot forward. She provides the mystery and terror associated with the Gothic, the climactic revelation that Rochester is a bigamist and essentially a kidnapper, and serves to warn Jane of the fate of Rochester\u2019s wives. She also burns down the problematic Thornfield, now known to be a sort of madhouse or prison, blinding Rochester (which in turn aids Jane in forgiving him, and provides both her and readers with a sense of justice for Rochester\u2019s crimes). She is a sacrificial animal, an interruption to surface-level appearances, which hold a madness of their own, and somewhat ironically, a guardian angel to Jane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Character: Berthda Mason Source Text: \u00a0 Charlotte Br\u00f6nte, Jane Eyre (1847) Entry Author: Turner Bertha Mason is Edward Rochester\u2019s first wife from Spanish Town, Jamaica. Jane describes her as \u201cpurple\u2026the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":395,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20617],"tags":[20619,20594,20580],"class_list":{"0":"post-543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-jane-eyre","7":"tag-bi-racial","8":"tag-female","9":"tag-light-skinned","10":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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