Feminist Encounter with High Victorianism: Exposing the Nexus between Masculinity and Colonialism

Abstract

The text of feminist theory and those of post-colonial concurs on many aspects of the theory of identity of difference and of the interpellation of the subject by a dominant discourse. The experience of women in patriarchy and those of colonized subjects can be paralleled in a number of respects such as representation, identity, gender, economic and so on. Feminism, like post-colonialism, has often been concerned with the ways and extent to which representation and language are crucial to identity formation and to the construction of subjectivity. However, both feminists and colonized people, like other subordinate groups, have also used appropriation to subvert and adopt dominant language and signifying practices. Jane Eyre has been read from the perspective of the colonized group which aims to bring into light the hidden colonial history that permeates nineteenth century European literary texts. Rochester in the novel enacts the role of omnipotent western patriarchy who presents himself as the colonizer. And Bertha, that of the native Other suffers from cultural deracination. Bertha's imprisonment might signify Britain's attempt to control and contain the influence of these subject cultures by metaphorically locking her in the attic. And Jane the Anglo- European women constitute the social outsiders in the novel and have been marginalized.