解读《简.爱》的帝国主义意识

Abstract

Cultural aggression is one of the ways that imperialistic countries conquer the colonies, as the production of the culture; Jane Eyre includes many factors of the imperialism. In the middle of 19th century, Britain began to expand to the outside rapidly, most of the British people revel in the dream of the White Myth. As one of the represents of ideological novel, Jane Eyre was inevitable to advance to the cultural empire, and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is one of the most important loops in the narration. In the novel, the antagonism between suzerain and colonies, the superiority of the empire and discrimination to the colonies permeated through it. The imperialistic flavour pervaded in it. From Victoria times on, Britain began to develop colonization. At the same time, the cultural source of ideology played an important part. Jane Eyre includes the recessive structure of the imperialistic consciousness, exhibits all kinds of cultural characters in the period of the imperialism, and reveals the connection between the culture and imperialism.

Key Words

imperialism; colonialism; culture; feminism

摘 要

文化战略是帝国主义国家控制殖民地的一种方式，作为文化的产物，<<简.爱>>包含了帝国主义的各种因素。19世纪中期的英国，以前所未有的速度向外扩张，人们普遍沉醉于白色神话的迷梦中，而作为意识形态表现之一的小说也在向文化帝国迈进。夏绿蒂.勃朗特的<<简.爱>>是其叙事链中举足轻重的一环。在这部小说里，宗主国与殖民地的对立，帝国的优越感和对殖民地的歧视都渗透其中，弥漫着十足的帝国主义味道。英国自维多利亚时代开始，就不断发展对外殖民事业。其中，作为意识形态的文化资源也起了举足轻重的作用。<<简.爱>>这部小说中也有着帝国主义意识的隐性结构，隐性话语，展示了帝国主义时代的种种文化上的特点，显示了文化和帝国主义之间的联系。

关键词

帝国主义; 殖民主义; 文化; 女权主义

Introduction

Jane Eyre was created in the middle of 19th century. It is always a classical love story in people’s hearts. Charlotte Bronte also became very famous all over the world because of it. Jane Eyre was figured as a great woman，who was chaste, well-informed and strong-willed. She lived in the bottom of the society, suffered enough from tribulations, however, she was stubborn, aggressive and brave to seek for her happiness and fairness. So her spirits was admired by people too. People never changed such kind of thought that it is just a love story, but after reading many times the writer got a lot of new views about it. According to the created time of the work, Britain began to expand to the outside rapidly and develop colonization. And at that time the imperialistic colonization was not only the expansion of the territory and pillage of the source, but also the ideological colonization. At that time, as the ideology, the cultural source played an important part in the colonization and in the imperialistic condition, as one of represents of ideological novel, Jane Eyre was inevitably to advance to the cultural empire. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre that was created in this period implied strong imperialistic colour. There are full of the antagonism between suzerain and colonies, the superiority of the empire and discrimination to the colonies. The imperialistic flavour in this novel exhibited all kinds of the cultural characters in the period of the imperialism. As one of the representative works in the period of British colonization, Jane Eyre was a very great work of the love stories. From a love story to the reflection of the imperialism, Charlotte Bronte was at pains indeed, the love was difficult to escape from the affection of the imperialistic consciousness because in the period of the imperialism people’s live was related with the imperialistic consciousness in some degree.

I. Some Treatise 0n the Imperialism

In terms of the widest meaning, the imperialism refers to the structure of some empire, so if some country expanded its control to one or more neighbouring countries, the imperialism became one side in that period. According to the common meaning, Edward Said thought the imperialism was some metropolis centre of the control which ruled the distant possession it was a practice, a theory and a attitude, and the course was also different from colonialism which indicated migration and colonization in the distant possession.(Edward Said, 55) But generally speaking, the word “imperialism” as a public policy which through the way of the stratagem and politics to get the advantages of the economics and conquer the colonies appeared until 1880th. Before that time, the word “ empire ” , especially in Britain indicated a process that the Europeans expanded to the colonies on the flag of beneficent—the colonies were not occupied, but accrued. In the middle of 19th century, the word “imperialism” was described for the government and the policy of Napoleon III who appointed the emperor for himself. Till 1870, the word was used in the British parties who slandered for each other. But after 1880, the “imperialism” became all kinds of political, cultural and economical reasons among European countries. It was obviously an aggressive policy.

The imperialism is that a country conquers and robs to another country, from Rome period to today, it has a very long history and the most obvious represent is that the historical power on its back is the plenty of the materials, the wide markets, and the cheapest labours are needed by the competitive economical system of the west countries. At the same time, the ideology supplied the important support to the imperialism and made it lay the foundation on the cultural and political advantages of the imperialistic countries. The strong ideology and the bureaucracy system moving all over the world was the reason why the imperialism was different from colonialism. The imperialism kept up the kind of systematic hegemony by a lot of ways, which included the slavery, the civilisation, and modernization in the politics, law, religion, health and education. After World War II, the imperialism had new patterns which not leaned to the hostility, operation and arms race of the countries in Europe, but aimed at the economical relation between first world country and third world country. This kind of new stage of the colonialism became the research object of the post-colonialism finally.

II. The Deep Relations of the Imperialism, the Colonialism and the Culture

There is a simple way to explain the close relation among the imperialism, colonialism and culture: making phrases respectively with the word “culture” by the words “imperialism” and “colonialism”, two phrases have formed—Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Colonialism. The two phrases can explain the deep relation among the imperialism, the colonialism and the culture very well.

In order to give a perfect explanation of Cultural Imperialism to the learning world, there were a lot of savants had made good explanations of Cultural Imperialism. These explanations also embody the close relations of them. they mastered Cultural Imperialism according to the meaning that the economic was the pioneer and the culture was the aim and defined it according to the meaning of the culture was the pioneer and served for the economics and politics. Some savants thought that Cultural Imperialism was medium imperialism and some others believed that it was a national culture in place of another one. Hans J. Morgenthau thought that it was a policy which is not by the way of conquering the territory and controlling the economic lives, but conquering and controlling people’s mind. According to his ideas, if a country carried out the policy of Cultural Imperialism to conquer the main people’s mind, further to rule the whole country, it was better than by the way of military affairs.

From above these, I can say that the colonialism permeates in every stage of the capitalistic development. Cultural Colonialism is a policy that the west countries aggress undeveloped countries and make them lose the national culture; conquer the people’s hearts of these countries and make these countries become the colonies and half-colonies. Cultural Colonialism is a form of the colonialism, but Cultural Imperialism is a behaviour that a country forces to another country in cultural value idea, it is the succession and development of the Cultural Colonialism under the new history.

The imperialistic consciousness needed the culture to spread and the culture needed a lot ways to spread too. As one of the ways, the novel played a great role in spreading of the imperialistic consciousness and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre was the representative work of the kind of the novel.

e Imperialistic Consciousness Embodied in the Background of Jane Eyre

Culture aggression is one of the ways that the imperialistic countries conquer the colonies, as the production of the culture, Jane Eyre includes many factors of the imperialism.

In the middle of 19th century Britain began to expand to the outside rapidly, most of the British revel in the dream of the White Myth. As one of the represents of ideological novel, Jane Eyre was inevitable to advance to the cultural empire. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is one of the most important loops in the narration. In the novel, the antagonism between suzerain and colonies, the superiority of the empire and discrimination to the colonies permeated in it and pervaded pure and simple imperialistic flavour.

IV. Main Ideas of the Explanation and Analysis about Jane Eyre

A. The Mad Woman in the Attic.

In the Jane Eyre, empire eagle with the White Myth hovered in the air of Caribbean—the birthplace of Bertha Mason. She was Rochester’s wife and also one of the most important characters in the novel. As the woman born in colony, Bertha Mason was the variety in the high-system empire, the wedding between Rochester and she was not accord with the basic benefit of the empire. For the pureness of the empire, the wedding should be overset and the variety should be cleared off too. In this novel, the combat began with Jane broke into Thorn field, end up with Bertha Mason’s destruction, the “illegal” family composed by Jane and Rochester defeated the legal family composed by Bertha Mason and Rochester. The imperialistic ideology offered reasons for Jane’s wedding which from illegal to legal. In these reasons, as first world woman Jane formed strong contrast with Bertha Mason who was third world woman.

As the same as all the colonialism of the time, there was a trend existed in suzerain Britain that was all the despicable behavior of human being that they had known ascribed to colonial. In the Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason was a humble, devilish and cruel Creole. In order to confirm Creole’s truculence, through numerous descriptions, the novel repeatedly narrated the cliché that hags ate the meat and drank the blood of human being in the West Indies. Jane arrived at Thorn field before long, she experienced the fear in the midnight and heard Bertha Mason's laughter “ This was a demoniac laugh—low, suppressed, and deep—uttered, as it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. ” Mason came, “I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog quarrelling.” In the course of rescued Mason, the author emphasized purposely “The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there have been teeth here. ” The last night before Jane and Rochester walked into the church, Charlotte finally let Jane saw Bertha Mason’s face in the dream at the first time, “It seemed a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was white and straight; but whether grown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell. Fearful and ghastly to me, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured face—it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments! The face was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the black eyebrows widely rose over the bloodshot eyes. It reminded me the foul German spectre—the Vampire. ” In the novel, Charlotte described Bertha Mason Like this “In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at the first sight. It grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face.” Under the author’s pen, Bertha Mason could not be distinguished difficultly that she ever was a wild beast or a person, even was “ a wild beast covered with clothing ” , led a bestial life—inhuman, sluttish and crazy.

Compared with Bertha Mason, Jane was shaped to a new female of the empire in the novel—aggressive, strong and ambitious. She was well-informed, strong-willed

And militant when she was a child. But most important, there concealed an unusual heart under her mediocre look. She liked to dream and desired passion. The trace of the strength was carved on her face and the thought flied to here and there the entire world. The mind rippled “The rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.” These chimeras made Jane desired to become famous, she believed “The real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.” In the novel, Jane certainly was full of fight, struggled against the life bravely, and sought after the ideal steady; she was the knight of the empire in the period of blood and fire. (Charlotte Bronte,34-41)

But this argument was pulled down by feminists completely. “Vampire” Bertha Mason was not only looked down upon, but also sympathized. The most famous feminism work was The Mad Woman in the Attic, its authors were two American female savants, and they were Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Goober. In this book, they thought the mad woman was just a side of the concealment, anger and insanity in Jane’s heart. Both of them were sisters who oppressed by the male. It was Rochester forced Bertha Mason walked up to the madness. But J.Spivak said that the cultural hegemonism was produced in the period of imperialism. A sufficient rewrite of literature could not get the flourish from the refraction and the fracture of the imperialism, because it was pretended to be a jurisprudence of the “principle” and the only “truth” by the foreign things.

Bertha Mason was not a mad woman actually, but she had to be in the novel for the affection of the imperialistic consciousness of the time. She was the variety in the high-system empire, so she should be cleared off. In the novel, she was described to be inhuman, sluttish and crazy, even a wild beast and the empire did not need a woman like her, so in the condition of the imperialistic consciousness, Bertha Mason became a mad woman was not accidental.

B. Religion Hero

After hovered in the air of Caribbean, empire eagle flied to Asia and looked into the distant India with the White Myth. At this time, as the religion hero, Saint John sallied. He was a raptor who filled with crazy religious devotional and venturesome spirit and cherished a glorious dream of imperialism. He said “ My vocation, my great work, my foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven, my hopes of being numbered in band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race—of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance—of substituting peace for war—freedom for bondage—religion for superstition—the hope of heaven for the fear of hell. It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for. ” ; “As his disciple I adopt his pure, his merciful, and his benignant doctrines. I advocate them: I am sworn to spread them. Won in youth to religion, she has cultivated my original qualities thus—From the minute germ, natural affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy. From the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of the Divine justice. Of the ambition to win power and renown for my wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread my Master’s kingdom; to achieve victories for the standard of the cross. So much has religion done for me; turning the original materials to the best account; pruning and training nature. But she could not eradicate nature: nor will it be eradicated till this mortal shall put on immortality. ” The vow looked like Christian “religiosity” and “goodness”: helped the behindhand nation to improve their nation and so-called wild culture.( Charlotte Bronte, 78-90) But in fact, it caused by the Religion exclusionism. It was well-known that Christianity was a strongly exclusive religion and the Christians often looked down upon the other religions. In the course of expanding to the outside, they thought themselves had the obligation to rule and rescue the other culture, and took themselves attached to the language system of the empire so that they could clear away the colonial people to resist them and preach the salvation power of the empire.

On the other hand, there always existed the dualistic antagonism between the suzerain and colony in the idea of the westerner: the empire was the “ego” and “centre” of the noumenon, politics and culture, but the colonies were foreign. Therefore, under the author’s pen, India was a fiendish area where only had the burning sun of east, the desert of Asia and the brutal clan and the coloured were savage, ignorant and superstitious, there nation was inferior and it needed to be domesticated. Through this difference, the colonists found the “right” reasons for robbed the cultural source from the eastern countries and built a cultural empire for the western countries. As Edward Said what he said that there existed an opponent language pattern that is the politics, economic and the cultural ideas of the suzerain and the politics and the culture of the fringe countries, they were dualistic antagonism. In this pattern, the fringe countries were only the weak foil of the “strong myth” of the suzerain. Faced to the cultural hegemony, they just derogated for themselves and the power politics fabricated a kind of “east myth” so as to reveal the supreme superiority.

The author disparaged the east countries, even described them mistakenly. But to Saint John, the author was filled with the affirmation and respect: he was strong and austere, to the other people and himself, he always insisted the consistent principle. Because of the duty of the priest, he gave up fell in love with Miss Oliver and the temporal lure, but devoted himself to the “civilized” career of the empire. In the “wild” India, his health was destroyed and his life was also threatened greatly. However, he still was intrepid and filled with the zeal of the preacher. He did not intend to release the emotion and instinct so that people could get free from the degenerate and slavish status from the holy commandment and rational control. On the contrary, he insisted on doing the ascetic, self-regulating, difficult and continuous works and desiring to die in the course of his philanthropy. Finally, when Saint John died, the author thought that he exploited the way to the Asia for the empire and presented the beautiful anthem to Saint John through Jane “He entered on the path

From this part, in some degree, we could found that Charlotte Bronte not only did revel in the physical benefit of the empire, but also was absorbed in the cultural career of the empire that by the centre of the religion expansion. Her ideas accord with the cultural expansion stratagem of the empire and she wanted to prove the right of the imperialistic: made the heretics become “human beings”, treated themselves liked the purposes.

Compared to Bertha Mason, Saint John was the hero of the empire and he was the person that the empire needed. So in the condition of the imperialistic consciousness, he was the best pioneer of the empire who full of passion, power, faith and piety.

Conclusion

Culture is a stage, it is not only an elegant and calm sanctum but even possible become a battlefield. The culture sometimes records the secrets of all the conflicts all over the world. Indeed, as the reflection of imperialistic consciousness in culture, Jane Eyre was filled with the world conflicts of that time. It mainly included the conflict between the empire and colony, and formed a “cultural battlefield” between them. Charlotte Bronte emphasized again and again that her success and fascination was due to her distinctive inspaniduality, strong passion and abundant imagination .she think the world that she created just existed in her heart. But the implicit language condition of the suzerain and the imperialistic mentality in her work reflected the author’s idea. As a citizen in the first capitalistic country and biggest colonial suzerain of that time, the author was full of the passion and ambition to build a “cultural empire” and created a “White Myth”.

Bibliography

[1]Ashcroft, Bill and Helen, Tiffin. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies. London: Routledge, 1998.

[2]Brooker, Peter. A Concise Glossary of Cultural Theory. London: Routledge, 1999.

[3]Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

[5]GayatriC, Spivak. Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism; The Post-Colonial Critic. New York: Routledge, 1988.

[6]Innis, Harold A. Empire and Communication. Toronto: Uinversity of Toronto Press, 1950.

[7]Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.

[8]Tomlinson, John. Cultural Imperialism. London: Pinter, 1991.

[9]Tomlinson, John. Globalization and Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999.

[10]罗刚, 刘象愚. 后殖民主义文化理论[M]. 北京: 中国社会科学出版社, 1996.

[11]穆尔吉尔伯特. 后殖民批评[M]. 杨乃乔等(译). 北京: 北京大学出版社, 1997.

[12]穆尔吉尔伯特. 后殖民理论—语境、实践、政治[M]. 陈仲丹(译). 南京: 南京大学出版社, 1997.

[16] 夏绿蒂.勃朗特. 简爱[M]. 黄源深(译). 南京: 译林出版社,1994.