Discord in Thornfield Hall: critical postcolonial intersectionality in Jane Eyre

Abstract

By applying the lenses of postcolonial and trauma theory to the novel, we can begin to develop an understanding of how Jane and Bertha can become critically intersectional characters. Each of these lenses illuminates the clear struggle that each woman faces within a tightly structured Victorian society, and their means of navigating it result in their processing of emotions on a deeper level. I argue that while on the surface it appears that Jane and Bertha are each recognizing the other, they do so only on the most basic level because each only sees it in relation to her own self rather than on a more widespread level. Throughout this thesis, I argue that by exposing the crudeness of this original intersectionality, as well as the privileges gained and lost through the patriarchal structure of Victorian society and empire, Brontë's initial creation of crude intersectional characters can evolve into a deeper level of understanding of one another, or what I am calling critical postcolonial intersectionality.