{"title":"牙买加人中的犹太人,阁楼上的汞合金:夏洛蒂-勃朗特《简-爱》中贝莎-梅森的新形象","authors":"Shanee Stepakoff","doi":"10.1093/jvcult/vcae001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n In this essay, I extend the existing scholarship on the character of Bertha Mason Rochester by providing historical and textual evidence that Brontë represents Bertha’s ethnocultural background as an amalgam of Jamaican, Jewish, and Creole. In support of this thesis, I examine passages focusing on Bertha’s father and brother, and I describe the cultural meanings of Spanish Town (Jamaica) and Madeira (Portugal) with regard to Caribbean Jewish creole communities in the nineteenth century and their complex ties to England and the Continent. In contrast to previous claims (e.g. Heidi Kaufman’s), I argue that Brontë imbues Bertha with a literal (vs merely symbolic) Jewish lineage. Also, I consider Brontë’s portrayal of Bertha in relation to gender-specific tropes about Jews, which were familiar to Brontë and her Victorian readers. Furthermore, I discuss the sociopolitical zeitgeist during Brontë’s formative years and in the period in which she wrote Jane Eyre, with an emphasis on the pervasive attempts to evangelize England’s Jews and the vigorous debates about whether to grant Jews political rights in England. Additionally, I examine the phrase ‘stiff-necked’ as it is used in the novel and in the King James Bible, positing that it signifies an unwillingness to change. On the basis of these various forms of evidence, I argue that Brontë’s construction of Bertha as having hybridized Jewish origins helps make her an embodiment of radical otherness and stagnation. In this conceptual framework, the polarity between the ability versus inability to grow emerges as a core theme within the novel.","PeriodicalId":43921,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Victorian Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"The Jew in the Jamaican, the Amalgam in the Attic: A New View of Bertha Mason in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre\",\"authors\":\"Shanee Stepakoff\",\"doi\":\"10.1093/jvcult/vcae001\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"\\n In this essay, I extend the existing scholarship on the character of Bertha Mason Rochester by providing historical and textual evidence that Brontë represents Bertha’s ethnocultural background as an amalgam of Jamaican, Jewish, and Creole. In support of this thesis, I examine passages focusing on Bertha’s father and brother, and I describe the cultural meanings of Spanish Town (Jamaica) and Madeira (Portugal) with regard to Caribbean Jewish creole communities in the nineteenth century and their complex ties to England and the Continent. In contrast to previous claims (e.g. Heidi Kaufman’s), I argue that Brontë imbues Bertha with a literal (vs merely symbolic) Jewish lineage. Also, I consider Brontë’s portrayal of Bertha in relation to gender-specific tropes about Jews, which were familiar to Brontë and her Victorian readers. Furthermore, I discuss the sociopolitical zeitgeist during Brontë’s formative years and in the period in which she wrote Jane Eyre, with an emphasis on the pervasive attempts to evangelize England’s Jews and the vigorous debates about whether to grant Jews political rights in England. Additionally, I examine the phrase ‘stiff-necked’ as it is used in the novel and in the King James Bible, positing that it signifies an unwillingness to change. On the basis of these various forms of evidence, I argue that Brontë’s construction of Bertha as having hybridized Jewish origins helps make her an embodiment of radical otherness and stagnation. In this conceptual framework, the polarity between the ability versus inability to grow emerges as a core theme within the novel.\",\"PeriodicalId\":43921,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal of Victorian Culture\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.2000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-01-30\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal of Victorian Culture\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"98\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcae001\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"历史学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"HISTORY\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Victorian Culture","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcae001","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
The Jew in the Jamaican, the Amalgam in the Attic: A New View of Bertha Mason in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
In this essay, I extend the existing scholarship on the character of Bertha Mason Rochester by providing historical and textual evidence that Brontë represents Bertha’s ethnocultural background as an amalgam of Jamaican, Jewish, and Creole. In support of this thesis, I examine passages focusing on Bertha’s father and brother, and I describe the cultural meanings of Spanish Town (Jamaica) and Madeira (Portugal) with regard to Caribbean Jewish creole communities in the nineteenth century and their complex ties to England and the Continent. In contrast to previous claims (e.g. Heidi Kaufman’s), I argue that Brontë imbues Bertha with a literal (vs merely symbolic) Jewish lineage. Also, I consider Brontë’s portrayal of Bertha in relation to gender-specific tropes about Jews, which were familiar to Brontë and her Victorian readers. Furthermore, I discuss the sociopolitical zeitgeist during Brontë’s formative years and in the period in which she wrote Jane Eyre, with an emphasis on the pervasive attempts to evangelize England’s Jews and the vigorous debates about whether to grant Jews political rights in England. Additionally, I examine the phrase ‘stiff-necked’ as it is used in the novel and in the King James Bible, positing that it signifies an unwillingness to change. On the basis of these various forms of evidence, I argue that Brontë’s construction of Bertha as having hybridized Jewish origins helps make her an embodiment of radical otherness and stagnation. In this conceptual framework, the polarity between the ability versus inability to grow emerges as a core theme within the novel.