Patmore’s Ideal Woman and Jane Eyre, Essay Example

Introduction

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre preceded Coventry Patmore’s “The Angel in the House by less than a decade, and in many ways Bronte’s work both was a precursor to and a contrast to Patmore’s image of a woman’s role in marriage and society. Within the space of a single decade, these two wildly popular works featuring central women characters debuted in English literature. First came Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, a romance about a poor orphan girl struggling to make her way as a governess in a cold, cruel world. Some eight years later, Coventry Patmore released “The Angel in the House.” This was not exactly a novel, but rather an extended poem. It extolled the virtues of the “ideal woman” as Patmore conceived of her.

These two works were virtually concurrent with each other. Jane Eyre, the first to be published, can be considered both a precursor to Patmore’s poem, and an opposition to it. How do these two contemporaneous works compare in their depiction of women in Victorian England?  This paper first presents Patmore’s idealized woman, then analyzes Bronte’s Jane Eyre to see how it compares and contrasts with that image.

Patmore’s “Angel”

If Patmore’s “Angel” is to be the standard by which Jane Eyre will be measured, it is important first to determine exactly how Patmore conceived of women and their place in home and society. Patmore’s idealized woman—a depiction of his own courtship and marriage to his wife, apparently—is gentle, perfect, and kind. Her first appearance is the epitome of sweet femininity: “She enter’d, like a morning rose/Ruffled with rain, and made me blush;/…/…she gave her hand,/But not her eyes, then sate apart,/As if she’d have me understand/The honour of her vanquish’d heart:” (Patmore, I, “Beulah” 3, 1-2; 5-8).

This is a woman who keeps her eyes modestly cast down, and who dares not sit too close to a man. She waits for him to declare his love before shyly admitting her own feelings in her heart—keeping that love secret even from herself until receiving “permission” from his avowal of his feelings for her.  Furthermore, this perfect woman is carefully shielded from knowledge of virtually everything except “women’s business.” Patmore says, “ ‘How wise in all she ought to know!/How ignorant of all beside!” (Ibid, II, “Aunt Agatha,” 2, 51-52). Her longing is to be lovely for him—in fact “…all the sum of her desires/To be devotion unto his.” (Ibid, 71-72).

This also is a submissive, loving, woman. “Her will’s indomitably bent/On mere submission unto him;/To him she’ll cleave, for him forsake/Father and mother’s fond command:/He is her lord, for he can take/Hold of her faint heart with his hand.” (Ibid., 96-101)

Patmore’s Angel is the treacle-sweet image of Victorian femininity, completely submissive to her parents’ and then her husband’s wills, looking only to adore and be adored by her husband. He clarifies his concept of sweet womanhood thus: “But let my gentle Mistress be/In every look, word, deed, and thought,/Nothing but sweet and womanly!/…/That seems in her supremest grace/Which, virtue or not, apprises me/That my familiar arms embrace/Unfathomable mystery.” (Ibid, XI, “The Departure”,I,2-4 and 13-16). Sugar-sweetness, ignorance about anything outside the household, beauty, submissiveness, all wrapped in a charming mystery. That sums up Patmore’s concept women.

Jane Eyre as a Precursor to the Ideal Woman

Given Patmore’s assessment of the perfect woman, how well does Jane Eyre, both as a character and a book, compare. That Victorian sensibility of woman as sweet submissiveness is given lip service in the views of Jane’s guardians. First, Jane’s stay in the Reed family is marked by Mrs. Reeds constant complaints that Jane lacks precisely the sweet submissiveness Patmore so admired. Jane has been taught to be submissive to the bullying John Reed, four years her elder.  Despite his physical abuse of her, she is indeed obedient and submissive to the best of her abilities. When she finally protests, she is cast out of the family and sent off to school…a school equally determined to turn her into a submissive female who will tolerate any amount of abuse from her menfolk. Her first introduction to her school, in fact, comes from  a tall woman who “hoped I should be a good child.” By “good” is meant that same set of virtues Patmore espoused. (Bronte, Ch.5). The other children seem to have an easier time of following the strictures of Longwood school, but Jane constantly rebels inside, despite an outward compliance. Her one friend at school, Helen Burns, exemplifies the sweet submissive nature of Patmore’s “Angel.” The difference between  them is exemplified by a brief interaction  between Jane and Helen after Helen had been caned by a teacher:

“But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?” [Jane said]

“Cruel? Not at all! She is severe: she dislikes my faults.”

“And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should get it from her hand; I should break it under her nose.” (Bronte,  Ch. 6).

Here the difference between  Helen, as the ideal Victorian woman-child, and Jane, the antithesis of womanly perfection, is very clear. What is striking about this, however, is that of the two girls, Helen is literally killed in part by her submissiveness. That Victorian “ideal woman” may be “perfect,” Bronte says, but such perfection cannot survive in the real world.

Yet by the time Jane is eighteen, and ready to leave Longwood, she had grown and changed. Jane describes herself thusly: “I had given inallegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the eyes of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued character” (Bronte, Ch. 10).  Outwardly, Jane Eyre learned to disguise her true nature with the cloak of womanly perfection.

Jane Eyre as Opposed to the Ideal Woman

Yet, underneath the mantle of Victorian respectability, Jane is not the ideal Victorian woman of Patmore’s ideal.  By almost every measure, Jane appears to be the exact antithesis of Patmore’s “Angel.”  She is strong, instead of weak.  She is intelligent and craves learning, instead of ignorant.  She is passionate, not submissively accepting. While she craves Rochester’s love, she is not willing to let him convince her to participate into a bigamous union when she realizes that he’s still married to the woman locked in the attic.  Most of all, she is courageous instead of frail. She stands up to Rochester, in all his ferocity. She even lectures him.

“It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure.” (Bronte, Ch. 14).

This is no milk-and-honey child-woman of Patmore’s ideal. This is a strong, independent woman, willing and able t o stand up for herself. One who walks away from a great love rather than accept it on terms she finds unacceptable. More than that, though, this is a woman who does not submit to her husband’s will. After leaving Rochester, St. John invites her to go to India with him as his bride, and he comments, “…though you have a man’s vigorous brain, you have a woman’s heart…” (Bronte, Ch. 34). She turns down St. John’s proposal confidently. She is a woman who has fully made her own place in the world. She does not need a husband to act for her. She is fully capable of making her own path in society.

Thus, when she finally returns to Thornfield Hall to find the blinded, near-destroyed Rochester, she is even more powerful. She has come back a success, both in a worldly sense, for she now has a career she knows will support her, but also a success as a fully competent adult. She has inherited a fortune from her uncle, and is now Rochester’s equal. As she explains, “I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own mistress.” (Bronte, Ch. 37).

In some sense, she seems to have reversed the relationship Patmore will later idealize. Upon her return, she is the strong one, the powerful one in the relationship. She is no longer dependent on Rochester, even for a salary. Instead, he is dependent on her. As she describes: “Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder: being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide.” (Ibid.)  She has tamed her powerful hero, and made him accept her as she truly is—a powerful, capable woman.  Such a marriage of equals, Bronte claims, is the source of true happiness. “No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.” (Bronte, Ch. 38).

Conclusions

Bronte’s Jane Eyre presents two images of proper Victorian womanhood. One of them, epitomized both by Jane’s school friend Helen and the meekness Jane herself aspires to, agrees nicely with Patmore’s idealized “Angel in the House.” The other, the true heroine of Jane Eyre is Jane as she truly is—strong, capable, and the complete antithesis of Patmore’s ideal. Both these works were popular in Victorian England, yet the messages these twoworks send about feminine virtues are quite different.

References

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre, 3^rd Edition. Kindle Edition, 1848.

Patmore, Coventry Kersey Dighton. The Angel in the House. Boston, MA: Tickner and Fields, 1856.  Print.