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Examine the post-colonial approach to the Victorian novel Jane Eyre

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Post-colonial approach to the novel, Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte's masterpiece has been a subject of much literary criticism, and the post-colonial approach has provided the novel a new direction and meaning. The post-colonial reading of the text provides ample evidence of colonial and anti-colonial elements within the 19th-century novel. The post-colonial literature took active replica from the 18th and 19th-century novels (Crossref-it.info para-10). Most of the novel was given interpretation with a new thought, and some novels contained the instances of issues of the colonized that prompted the post-colonial literary figures to study the literature and assess the dominating influence of literature and pointed out to make it colonizing or decolonizing force.

Thesis statement: the purpose of the essay is to examine the post-colonial approach to the Victorian novel Jane Eyre.

As a theoretical approach, the reader and critics with post-colonial tendencies seek to consider the anti-colonist and colonist elements are present in the text. They regard European value as more value is the thing of true value (Sparknotes para-2). The novel considers similarly. The novelist wiring the novel from the columnist pint of view presents the other as inferior or mysterious.

The post-colonial approach critics seek to formulate the prototype or typical English women kike Jane who is found to be sincere, frank, and lack of personal vanity. The superficiality and materialism are criticized in the course of the novel, and these are offered in the character of Celine Varens and her loving daughter. As Rochester said, Celine Varens charmed the "English gold" from his "British Breeches" which is a comment which focuses on British innocent and her degrading French way. "By presenting the text and its heroine as collaborators in the discursive enterprise of the empire, however, these readings ignore how the author's and the narrator's contradictory position as lower-middle-class women within a metropolitan society necessarily inflects Jane's representations of female and racial otherness" (Mardorossian 2)

Jane's position in the novels comes in direct conflict with Rochester. Jane is known to be a member of the colonized group. Her claims are returned with Rochester's smile as if Sultan "would bestow on a slave his gold and gems". Rochester pinpoints her reduction as a sex slave and powerlessness (Cliffsnotes para-6). She claimed that she will turn into a preacher and endow women with liberty, her comment shows her dual position as colonizer and her sympathy for colonized. She is found to have divided herself into the colonizer and the colonized.

As Charlotte Bronte was from Colonizing society, the essence of a colonial objective is evident in her classical work. The post-colonial literature focuses on the unknowable and uncharted territory, and the novels written in the colonial context. IN Jane Eyre that is a classic novel has some elements of colonial tendency as the East or colonized countries were regarded as trapping civilization. IN Jane Eyre, the essence of the post-colonial element is found in the presentation of the West Indies and the society of India. Rochester in the novel is sent to West Indies and he was tricked into marrying Bertha. Her fascination for him comes from Rochester's motherland rather than Rochester's inner self. As a part of colonial society, the difference grew intense as Bertha vampire appears implicates she is found to have sucked the lifeblood from the innocent Rochester. His goodness as an innocent boy has been snatched away by the savage women as it is Bertha. She is found to have fought with the "virile" force (Kees 875). The novel depicts the foreign women Bertha has to go to alter for sacrifice to protect the native women. The identity and culture of colonized are degenerated and affected deeply with the current action.

The post-colonial literature also assesses the characters who were found to have visited the far and distant lands especially in the colonized society and enjoyed the mystery and uniqueness of society. The reader is not providing enough evidence of the society of Madeira. The reader is given a clue in the text that the place is a source of wealth creation. The novel depicts how John Eyre accumulated wealth and passed it to his niece Jane.

The post-Colonial study also concentrates on East as other which was a source of wealth creation, and little focus is laid on the condition of others and the slaves working for the English owner. John is found to have considered India as a land of mystery where the culture of heathen is dominant. John focuses on the imposition of English culture and English religion to make the country enlighten.

It can be said that the novel Jane Eyre contains a large number of colonial and anti-colonial elements that provided the post-colonist critics to point out the novel in the post-colonial reading. The post-colonial approaches provide awareness to the readers how the west separated others from self.

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