Hagar and the Symbols of Slavery: Reading Fredrika Bremer’s the Neighbours through Carhlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) as a backdrop, this article examines the symbol of slavery in Fredrika Bremer’s novel The Neighbours (1837). In particular, the character Hagar (mirrored in Jane Eyre by Bertha Mason) is analysed. The Neighbours depict slavery both on a literal and a symbolic level; firstly, in the representation of colonial plantations and transatlantic slave trade and secondly as a symbol of white women’s submission. The slave trade is described as fundamentally un-Swedish, and Swedes complicit in slave trade as corrupted by foreigners. The wrongs of oppression are doubled with the wrongs of being oppressed, and both owning and being slave are constructed as non-Swedish positions marked by race. Building on the slave as a symbol, submission appears as a counter image of white femininity. Being a proper woman equals not allowing oneself to be treated as a slave.