Jane Eyre and the
Creation of the Female Gothic Artist
Kathleen A. Miller
My paper argues a significant
reason for Jane Eyre’s lasting
popularity rests in the heroine’s development as a female artist—while scholars
such as Lisa Sternlieb note the power of Jane’s
storytelling, few acknowledge her talents as painter and how her artistic skill
and temperament ultimately lead to her development as an empowered domestic artist. Although references to female artistry
appear to reside in the margins of the text, they actually serve an integral purpose
in Jane’s individual, psychic identity development and in her courtship with
Edward Rochester. By examining Jane’s development as a female artist, the paper
works to refute claims such as those posited by Diane Long Hoeveler
who suggests “Jane Eyre presents in a
dramatic and powerful manner the melodrama of gender and ideology that has
animated the female gothic project. An orphan, friendless, misunderstood, and
underappreciated by all her peers, wins her vindication and bests the
patriarchy at its own game. And best of all, she gives every indication of
having done nothing much at all. The passive-aggressive
behavior that lies at the heart of the gothic feminist is in this text writ
most plainly for all to see” (222). Jane’s artistry is not a passive
aggressive act; instead, her art serves as an act of assertion, even as an act
of aggression. Female artistry functions to promote a feminist agenda of gender
equality in Bronte’s text. Perhaps the most pivotal relationship Jane has
centered on art is in her relationship with Edward Rochester—