Symbol and Theme: a study of natural imagery in selected novels of Emily, Charlotte and Anne ...

200 Pages·2016·2.85 MB·English

Symbol and Theme: A Study of Natural Imagery
in Selected Novels of Emily, Charlotte and
Anne Bronte
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Kiathrine Gillman
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Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Arts
University of Cape Town
1994
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The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No
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quotation from it or information derived from it is to be

published without full acknowledgeement of the source.
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The thesis is to be used for private study or non-
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commercial research purposes only.

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Published by the Universit y of Cape Town (UCT) in terms
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of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author.
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Acnowledgements
I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Mrs
Ruth Boxall, for her unfailing support and guidance during the
writing of this thesis. Thanks also go to my colleague, Ms Lara
Dunwell, who proof-read the original draft, and whose criticisms
were invaluable.
This thesis comprises an in-depth study of Emily Bronte's
Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Villette,
and Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,
examining each sister's individual use of nature, and its
related symbols and images. This thesis will show how the
natural world provides the structural principle on which each
of these novels is based, and how the Brontes' use of it
reflects and enhances the thematic concerns of their novels.
The individuality as writers of each of the sisters is upheld in
the thesis, as it examines the novels as separate entities. This
is done in order to show that whilst the Bronte sisters all
placed an important emphasis on the natural world in their
novels, they did so with varying emphasis and intentions.
In Wuthering Heights nature is given a place of prime
importance, both as provider of symbols and images, and as a
tangible realm. Physically, nature is perceived as the moors
that surround Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange;
symbolically, it is a realm of freedom from the human world of
classification and differences. The thesis employs a Lacanian
interpretation of the separation of Catherine and Heathcliff,
and this illustrates how the natural world, for them, becomes a
realm in which they can regain their childhood unity. It is
eventually in the spiritual world, the supernatural realm, that
they are united, and this realm is seen as an extension of
nature.
In Jane Eyre and Villette, the landscape over which the
protagonists move is read as a reflection of their inner
emotional states. It is this Romantic 'emotional reciprocity'
tha:t is emphasised in Charlotte's novel, and the thesis
illustrates how the symbols and images drawn from the natural
world enhance the novels' thematic concerns. Both of Charlotte's
novels describe a young woman's retrospective account of a
search for fulfilment, and a place within society that
simultaneously allows her self-expression and self-control. The
natural world is not perceived as separate from the human world,
but as part of it, and the thesis demonstrates that Jane Eyre
and Lucy Snowe can achieve a place within both.
In Anne Bronte's novels, the natural world is given a
different emphasis. It is used to enhance the thematic intention
of both Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is
moral instruction. Nature is perceived as part of God's creation
and hence pure, and the protagonists' and the other characters'
attitudes towards it are indicative of their inner moral stance.
This thesis demonstrates that Anne's powers of description are
worthy of critical note, and that her use of symbols and images
is as evocative as that of her sisters.
This thesis contributes to the already wide range of
criticism pertaining to the Bronte sisters, in that it attempts
to shed new light on their use of nature, both as a physical
entity, and as a provider of symbols and images. It also aims to
prove that Anne, frequently marginalized by the critics, is a
serious writer, and that her novels, although different to
Emily's and Charlotte's, are equally as deserving of a place in
the canon of English Literature.
Contents
Introduction 1
1 Wuthering Heights 11
2 Jane Eyre 46
3 Villette 85
4 Agnes Grey 126
5 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 151
Conclusion 175
Notes 179
Bibliography 189
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Introduction
The five Bronte novels under scrutiny-- Emily's Wuthering
Heights (1847), Charlotte's Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette
( 1853), and Anne • s Agnes Grey ( 1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell
Hall ( 1848) -- have running through them the common thread of
the emphasis placed on the natural world, and the images and
symbols the three sisters derived from it. They shared a deep
and abiding love for the heath and moors surrounding Haworth,
and all three yearned to return whenever they were separated
from horne, first by being sent to school, and later by financial
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·necessity . The natural world thus became a symbol of freedom
from the constraints and pressures of society for them, and this
much is evident in all five novels.
This thesis will attempt to show that the natural world
holds a place of prime importance in each of the Bronte novels
chosen, and that whilst each noveJ?s ·· treatment of nature is
thematically different, it is nevertheless the thread that binds
the sisters together as artists. The relevant chapter pertaining
to each novel under study examines the utilization of nature
from a different perspective, scrutinizing each novel as an
individual entity. This is done in order to show the works of
Emily and Charlotte in a new light, as well as to demonstrate
Anne's independence, as a novelist, from her sisters, despite
the shared usage of nature as the structural principle of their
novels.
Whilst chronologically Victorian writers, the Bronte
sisters are often allied with the earlier Romantic tradition,
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owing to their reliance on the natural world for imagery and
symbols. This alliance is strengthened by the importance that
each of them places on the creative imagination and on the
individual seeking self-fulfilment. Immersed in the outside
world of nature, the sisters' protagonists are frequently seen,
like the Romantic poets, to be engaged in a type of 'emotional
reciprocity' with the landscape. Their own emotional states are
projected onto the landscape, and nature's changing patterns and
appearances are read as a reflection of that emotion. It is thus
"an interweaving of extreme objectivity [the landscape has no
'emotion' ] with extreme subjectivity", one that "uses external
nature to clarify and give body to inward feeling, and uses
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inward feeling to give significance to external things 11 .
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This reading""meanings into the landscape" is important for
gaining a greater understanding of all five novels, and is
discussed more fully in the relevant chapters.
The terminology "natural", "nature", and 11 landscape"
utilized in this thesis is taken to signify the outside,
external world, manifested in the land itself, its vegetation
and animal-life, and in the weather and the elements of fire,
wind and rain. This is opposed to the human world of society,
with its constraints and social divisions, although "landscape"
is often extended to include the houses built on it, for their
appearances either blend with the natural landscape or starkly
contrast with it, which is in itself significant:
Each of these houses is seen as a projection of
the owner' s personality. . . ea4h, in its way, stands
for a way of life, for values .
So, too, do the various characters' attitudes to nature reflect
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their way of life and their values, and the symbols and images
applied to them are drawn accordingly.
These symbols and images in each of the five novels are
drawn from the natural world, and are used predominantly to
explain and give significance to the protagonists and their
emotions. The Romantic symbol, according to Todorov, is a
complex thing: it does not
simply signify, it also is ... it is productive,
intransitive, motivated; it achieves the fusion
o~ cogtraries; it is and it signifies at the same
t1me .
Thus, when the natural world is utilized to give significance to
something or someone else, it is simultaneously it?elf and
connected to that which it signifies, creating an important,
unified entity: "the object is not given in advance to the
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viewpoint -- but the viewpoint adopted creates the object"
In the terminology of M. H. Abrams, the Romantic poetic mind is
not a "mirror", in the traditional sense of the word -- "a
reflector of external objects" -- instead it is a "lamp", "a
radiant projector which makes a contribution to the objects it
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Perceives"
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This definition of the symbol is important in a reading of
the Brontes' work for, owing to the fact that all five novels
are personal, retrospective accounts of events, the narrators
single out those aspects of nature that add to, and give
cohesion to, the prevalent emotion at the time. It is their
"viewpoint" that "creates the object"; it is their retrospective
narration that "makes a contribution" to the landscape. For Jane
Eyre, Lucy Snowe, Agnes Grey and Helen Graham, the landscapes
aver which they pass are simultaneously themselves -- objective
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things-in-themselves -- and reflections of the protagonists'
emotions, hence subjective. Even the passions of Catherine and
Heathcliff, recounted by Nelly Dean and Lockwood, are evident in
the natural symbols used to describe them, for the subjectivity
is both the narrators' own and of those whose words they repeat.
It is on this structural principle that the novels are founded.
It is, however, crucial to note that whilst all three
sisters relied on the natural world for the symbols and imagery
in their novels, they did so with differing thematic concerns.
The-natural imagery of each novel is individually patterned,
supporting individual themes, and consequently, nature is
granted a different status in each novel. The difference between
'symbol' and 'imagery' is perceived when the natural 'symbols'
frequently recur, which thus creates an 'imagery' of nature, a
"distinctive pattern" or "tonality" of the text, as opposed to
when, in some of the novels -- especially those of Anne -- the
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'symbols' are "episodic and isolated images" , which, whilst
nevertheless important, are fitted into the hierarchical
structure of the novel.
Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights gives prime importance to
nature and the symbols and imagery drawn from it. Nature is
physically manifested as the moors and heath surrounding the two
houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, but this
tangible nature is superseded by the vast range of referential
natural imagery utilized in the text. All the characters of the
novel are allied in some way with the natural world, either in a
positive or a negative way. For the main protagonists, Catherine
and Heathcliff, the natural world symbolizes a realm of no
differences, an escape from the cultural and sexual divisions of
human society that demand their separation. They embody the