Existential parameters of the window niche in “Jane Eyre”

And “Wuthering Heights”

In philosophy and psychology the window is considered as hope. Psychologists think
that the person, sitting next to it is not very active in real life. A lot of the psychologists say
that dreams and dreaming have very interesting role in the life of that kind of people. The
window, the light which comes through it and the nature are a symbol of destiny, loadstar. In
“Jane Eyre”, written by Charlotte Bronte the window and the window niche serve like a
hiding place and inspiration. In “Wuthering Heights”, written by Emily Bronte, we see again
the window as a hiding place but in that novel it is a hiding place for the ghost of a young girl.
It is also from the time (Chapter 3). The window also serves as a borderline between the
inside and outside. In both novels it is a way to understand the women characters. Both
Catherine and Jane Eyre leave the readers clues to understand their feelings and their
qualities.
It is interesting that “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” present two very similar
pictures of Jane Eyre and Mr. Lockwood, sitting in the window niches. Of special interest are
the books they read and the pictures they present. Despite the different themes they have
something in common.
“But Bewick’s etchings (which as real readers we can still share with the fictional
Jane) are the clue here: monochrome, darkly suggestive, yet fine they echo Jane’s
imagination…”
Keith Carabine, Rutherford College
The “vignettes” are a metaphorical expression of Jane and her lonely spirit as an
orphan child. “… to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me
from the drear November day. At intervals while turning over the leaves of my book I studied
the aspect of that winter afternoon…” the winter has been used as a symbolical image of the
orphans, loneliness, poverty etc. in many cultures. In the Bulgarian literature this thing does
Hristo Smirnenski. Ivan Vazov in one of his very early works- the ballad “Poor Woman”, also
use the winter to enforse the image of death and the two helpless orphan children.

Сред стаята ковчег положен , Ден,минува, друг настава,

в ковчега- моминско лице, буря по небето вий,
и жълти старчески ръце а жената нито шава,
и дъсченото ложе. нито яде, нито пий,
Неясно по стените голи- и децата все си пискат,
пробягват сенките завчас от майка си хлебец искат,
пред мъничък иконостас а тя с цъклени очи
детенце дрипаво се моли. гледа страшно и мълчи.
( „Зимни вечери”- Хр. Смирненски”) („Сиромахкиня”- Ив. Вазов)

In most of the pictures in Bewick’s book the figure that hit us in the eye is: one (“the
rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray”, “the broken boat stranded in a desolate
coast”, “the cold and ghastly moon”). And we the readers rarely see Jane Eyre with someone
else in some of the most important moments in her life (for example when she desired liberty
in Lowood or when she takes the decision to leave Thornfield).
We know the theory which says that everything in the world is separated in pair (good
and bad, heaven and hell, black and white etc.). We see that in “Wuthering Heights”. There
are two families, two houses, two generations, the new and old world. It is very curious that in
Bewick’s book which Jane Eyre read there is a picture of two becalmed ships and a torpid sea
which resemble me very much of the world and chronotope of “Wuthering Heights” and
especially of Catherine and Heathcliff. The sea in the same vignette may be seen as the two
families. Something which makes impression is the epithets “becalmed” and “torpid”. They
direct us to the moment when Catherine is going to marry Edgar Linton and Heathcliff hasn’t
come back yet. At that point everything seems peaceful, but isn’t it just an illusion? Aren’t the
ships ready to “set sail”?
The window niche in Jane Eyre serves as a hiding place and a place from where you
can safely observe the others and think about their heartlessness. In “Wuthering Heights” The
window niche also serves as a hiding place but for the love of two young people. Catherine’s
writings preserve the memories and protect the “secret” of her true love. By sitting in
Catherine’s room, reading her writings on the window ledge (Catherine Earnshaw- Linton-
Heathcliff), actually seeing the ghost of Catherine and dreaming he activates the mechanism
of narration. In that way Catherine’s room becomes something like a “time machine”, starts
the retrospective narration in the novel.
As a hiding place in the novels we see also the garden. Both Charlotte and Emily
Bronte use it as a chronotope for the meetings of Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester (Chapter 23)
and Catherine and Heathcliff. The garden as a hiding place for lovers we see also in Giovanni
Boccaccio’s book “Il Decameron”:
“Габриото не само узнал за любовта която изпитвала към него Андреола ами
бил въвеждан често и в прекрасната градина на нейния баща за най-голямо
удоволствие и на едната и на другата страна... Набрала много бели и червени рози
(тъкмо били разцъфтели), седнали двамата край прекрасния бистроструен водосток
в градината, радвали се дълго един на друг...А за да не може нищо освен смъртта да
сложи край на тяхната щастлива обич, двамата станали тайно съпрузи.”
In another aspect the cold weather and winter landscape in “Jane Eyre” and
“Wuthering Heights” (Chapter 3, p.21-22) accumulates with the heartlessness of John Mrs.
Reed and Hindley. This is as Patricia Ingham says in her book “The Brontes”: “multiplied
rigors of extreme cold”.
The winter in “Wuthering Heights” enforces the feeling of ghostliness. It creates
something like an independent world. This world is just like Gondal. I think that the
imaginative world of Emily’s poetry finds its literature reincarnation. It is a world of
retrospection. The window niche somehow, as a closed space is a preserver of the past. It is
just like a “time machine” activated by the books and Cathy’s childish writings. Very curious
is how Emily Bronte combines the impressions of the reality and the supernatural: “I began to
dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality…We came to the chapel- I have
passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice: it lies in a hollow, between two hills- an elevated
hollow- near a swamp…Oh, how weary I grew. How writhed, and yawned, and nodded and
revived!”. The dream is like a “bridge” between our life and the life after death.
There are two principles for getting to know the world. The first is rational. We see it
in “Jane Eyre”. It says that man uses the mind to understand the world. It is no chance that
many critics say that “Jane Eyre is a thinking novel. And we do not see that in “Wuthering
Heights”. When Catherine takes the decision to marry Edgar Linton doesn’t she make it
without thinking of her true feelings? The second one is empirical. It is clearly shown by
Roger Ascham (Роджър Ашъм) who said that “Through his life experience man finds the
shortest way after continuous wanderings.” („Чрез жизнения си опит човек открива
краткия път подир дълги скитания.”). It is based on experience. I think this corresponds to
“Wuthering Heights”.
 It is curious that almost every important decision in Jane Eyre’s life has been made in
sleepless nights, beside a window. Looking at that we see “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering
Heights” make a very strange opposition. Jane is able to make decisions just by observation of
the world outside. For example when she decides to publish an announcement and find herself
a job as a governess. Here comes again the question of the world outside, the freedom it
symbolize and the world inside. But these two categories must be conveyed into the character
himself. The inner self of a man I think is in some way the present and the outside world is the
future and it express wonderfully one’s ability to jump over boundaries. It has the role of
catalyst in certain moments:
“I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the two wings of the
building; there were the skirts of Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all
other objects to rest on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I longed to surmount;
all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed prisonground, exile limits…And now I felt
that it was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty;
for liberty I grasped…” (Chapter 10).
The nature we see also in Jane Eyre’s paintings. We hardly ever “see” her paintings. If
we come back to the very beginning of the book we see again Bewick’s pictures. The pictures
describe one part of Jane Eyre’s development as a character. It is from the moment when she
was a little girl, punished by her aunt to the stage when she begins to think herself as a person
or equal and later her marriage to Mr. Rochester. In that way “Jane Eyre” becomes the perfect
example of bildungsroman.
The written on the window sill name “Catherine Earnshaw- Heathcliff- Linton” shows
as Katherine Frank says in an introduction to “Wuthering Heights” that “She (Catherine) was
considering two prospective husbands and trying out their surnames with her own.”
As Katherine Frank says: “At the beginning of Chapter Three she (Emily Bronte)
actually provides an outline of her plot inscribed on the wooden window ledge of Catherine
Earnshaw’s panelled bed… The legend on the window ledge, then plots the course of the first
half of the novel, charting the love between Catherine and Heathcliff, Catherine’s marriage
to Linton, the return of Heathcliff and Catherine’s death giving birth to her daughter,
Catherine Linton. Read in reverse, from right to left-Catherine Linton, Catherine Heathcliff,
Catherine Earnshaw- the names sketch the events of the second generation of the families at
Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.”
This resembles me of the pharaohs in Egypt and their tombs and pyramids and the
curses which have to protect them. The window niche and especially the written on the
window ledge name is just like them a preserver of the past, but it also looks like a prophecy
to her daughter
The window has a very interesting role in Ilya Repine’s picture “Ivan Grozny and his
son Ivan”. In it the window and the light are the only witnesses of the murder. The window
niche in “Wuthering Heights also serves as a witness and more, as a confessor to the love of
Catherine.
Things which we immediately associate with the gothic are here in “Wuthering
Heights”. For example it is the ghost of Catherine which Mr. Lockwood sees when he is
sitting beside the window in chapter 3, the grave of Catherine. I think that Chapter 3, the
Chapter when Heathcliff is at Catherine’s grave and the last one make a very peculiar plot
frame. I think that chapter 3 is actually the beginning of the novel. By seeing something so
“vivid” as Catherine’s ghost and by reading the messages she had left Mr. Lockwood triggers
the mechanism of narration. If we accept that theory we may say that the end of the last
chapter is a reflection of the “first” one because we see again a ghost but this time it is
Heathcliff’s.
There are elements of the gothic in “Jane Eyre” too. One of them for example is the
image of the madwoman. Something else which is also connected to the gothic symbolic
system is the darkness. And every time Jane Eyre sees or hears the laugh of the madwoman,
this happens in the night and darkness. In these cases is apparent the Byronic influence to the
Bronte’s works.
There is only one moment in each book when the characters sit outside and watch
through the window inside:
“In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot out the friendly gleam again, from
the lozenged panes of a very small latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still
smaller by the growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick over
the portion of the house wall in which it was set. I could see clearly a room with a sanded
floor, clean scoured; a dresser of walnut, with pewter plates ranged in rows, reflecting the
redness and radiance of a glowing peatfire.”
(Charlotte Bronte- “Jane Eyre”)
“We crept through a broken hedge, groped our way up and planted ourselves on a
flower-pot under the drawing-room window. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there. Edgar
and his sister had it entirely to themselves; shouldn’t they been happy?”

(Emily Bronte- “Wuthering Heights”)

Here we see again the figures: one in “Jane Eyre” and two in “Wuthering
Heights”, or the lonely Jane Eyre and the two children who are always together but at the same time
separated because they hardly ever tell the true about their feelings. The love between Catherine and
Heathcliff as K. Frank says is like a “gothic romance”. But what does Jane Eyre of the same name
novel and Catherine and Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights” see through the window? They see what
they want. Jane Eyre- the warmth and cosiness of the house and Catherine and Heathcliff see the
children left alone, and the rhetorical question clearly show us this.

If we observe the names of the living places in “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights”
we see two very interesting pairs:
Thornfield : Lowood
Thrushcross grange : Wuthering Heights”
We immediately see the vertical opposition: “low” and “height”. The word “field” also
creates the feeling of something plain. Of these four places Lowood and Thrushcross grange
are the symbols of reality. Especially Lowood is the very best symbol of poverty, realism,
hunger. And we see the prototype of this school in the real life of Charlotte and Emily Bronte.
If Lowood is one of the very good symbols of realism, both Wuthering Heights and
Thornfield have some gothic elements, considering ghosts, grave, the love between Catherine
and Heathcliff and in Jane Eyre- the dreams, candles, attic etc. According to Sally Minogue
(Canterbury Christ Church University College) who speaks about “Jane Eyre”, “The tendency
to use bathos to undercut fantasy is a characteristic feature of the narrative and it allows
Bronte to indulge the reader’s pleasure in romance, the gothic, the supernatural, but within a
realist frame.”. And as Katherine Frank says the marriage between Catherine and Edgar
Linton and their life in Thrushcross grange “provides the standard denouement” of domestic
realism. It is interesting that Catherine Earnshaw is born in Wuthering Heights and dies in
Thrushcross grange and her daughter Catherine Linton is born in Thrushcross grange but
marries and goes to live in Wuthering Heights. This makes a very strange circle frame in the
text and where is the beginning there is the end. This makes the feeling of infinity, alluded by
the writings on the window ledge.
Another thing is that we see nature in all names. Nature in both novels is not just a
background. In “Wuthering Heights” it is an emblem of a pre-historic time, when nature and
culture require submission. Heathcliff is a transitional character between the old and new
world. In “Jane Eyre” it is an object of surveillance.
The window in “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering “Heights has a very interesting role. In
Jane Eyre it is a symbol of loneliness. But in another way it is a lodestar, a symbol of hope
and as I have already said the window is a catalyst of making decisions. It would be
interesting to ask what would happen if two things hadn’t happen. In “Jane Eyre” it is the
night when she takes the decision to publish an announcement. In “Wuthering Heights” it is
the evening when Catherine and Heathcliff go to Thrushcross Grange and see Edgar Linton
and his sister through the window. Probably Jane Eyre would continue being teacher in
Lowood and after years marry someone. But the decision which she makes then sitting beside
the window becomes a turning point in the novel. The same thing is in “Wuthering Heights”.
If that night Catherine and Heathcliff hadn’t gone to Thrushcross Grange Catherine would
probably not marry Edgar Linton.

References:

1. “Jane Eyre”- Charlotte Bronte; introduction and notes by Dr. Sally Minogue,
Canterbury Christ Church University College; Wordsworth Classics; first published in
1992.
2. “Wuthering Heights” – Emily Bronte; introduction by Katherine Frank; published in
1991; Millennium Library
3. “The Brontes”- Patricia Ingham; Longman, 2003
4. “Джейн Еър”- Шарлот Бронте и „Брулени хълмове”- Емили Бронте; увод
написан от Владимир Филипов; изд. Народна култура- София, 1978
5. „Декамерон”- Джовани Бокачо; изд. Народна култура- София, 1980
6. Събрани съчинения- Иван Вазов, том 1; София, 1974
7. „Тес от рода Дърбървил”- Томас Харди, избрани творби в три тома (том II); изд.
Народна култура София, 1987; стр.268
8. www.sparknotes. com
9. www.wikipedia.org
10. www.slovo.bg