charolette bronte's depiction of the relationship between jane and bertha is in a gray area of both similarities and differences. bronte relates the two to Rochester immediately by the bonds they equally share with him. after the devastating wedding, bronte then displays the two ladies as both foils and counterparts. what were brontes motives in her comparison between bertha and jane? are they two examples for the ever occuring theme of passion, bertha being excessively passionate and jane balancing her passion. bertha died from her instanity, displaying her overflow of passion. Jane was nearly persuaded to india by the tantalizing effects of St John, how he surpressed her passion and nearly extiguished her inner flame. yet bronte relates the mistresses by both displaying over passion, with their wild cries(unknown cackles of bertha and the red room horror cry of jane). also from their absence from rochester they fluctuate in levels of passion. bertha excessively to her dramatic state of mind and then death. jane with her subdued passion of St John and need to reignite it with Rochester. both bertha and jane were talked as savage, jane my mrs reed and bertha, well by any stable minded human being. regardless, they both diminished into states that were frowned upon. of all the relations between jane and bertha, the most important is their shared quality of being restrained, of being contained. bertha is locked in a hidden room and rarely sneaks the key from grace poles grasp; jane is continuously locked up behind curtains and in the red room and under bed coverings. this theme shows us bronte's stand point of how women are treated in that era. they are contained, their passion restrained, their inner flame on the verge of extinguish.
that theme of how the female characters passion is either over repressed or over zealous occurs throughout the novel and is shown as a topic of passion to bronte(pun intended). if this is a fair statement to assume is the argument that will be discussed throughout the essay. is bronte just in her assumption of the repression of female spirt or is she overcritical?
Excessive versus 'balanced' passion--I think you have the makings of an excellent analysis here. Just make sure that you keep things grounded in the text. Before you begin 'comparing and contrasting' these two characters, go back and consider their similarities (Bertha's lair is reminiscent of the red room) and differences (in several places in the novel, Jane finds the fire "too hot", whereas Bertha is constantly trying to torch things). Again, this strikes me as a very productive approach to the novel--just make sure that you anchor your analysis is close readings of actual passages lifted from the novel. I look forward to reading your first draft!
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