Autonomy, Colonial Inheritance and the Limits of the Alliance Economy in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Öz
This study examines Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) as a pre-feminist text, situating it within the legal conditions of coverture and the period before organised feminism existed in Britain as a political movement. By closely analysing the novel’s plot, the study first explores how the Bildungsroman genre and the Cinderella fairy tale frame and limit the novel’s feminist themes. Building on Rappoport’s analysis of Jane’s gift practices, the study observes that admission to the network of kinship Jane builds is contingent on prior benefits previously conferred on Jane. Additionally, the division of her inheritance is legally permissible only because her wedding is interrupted by the revelation of Bertha’s existence, and this highlights an ironic truth. It is indeed Bertha who made the kinship possible despite being excluded from it for having supposedly conferred no benefit. The Eyre fortune’s connection to the colonial trade associated with Bertha’s family adds a financial dimension to this procedural debt. In light of Spivak’s critique of feminist individualism, Bertha’s exclusion paradoxically becomes a condition of the kinship Jane finally constructs.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Jane Eyre, autonomy, Bertha Mason, colonial inheritance, coverture, kinship, pre-feminism
Kaynakça
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