Psychoanalytic criticism

The relationship between writer and text

This approach would concentrate on Brontë's own experience, such as:

• Her lack of a mother
• The time she spent at Cowan Bridge School
• Her supposed isolation and ignorance of sexual love.

These can be seen to result in a romantic plot that operates as a kind of wish-fulfilment. Such interpretations are not always based on reliable biographical knowledge (see Author section).

Analysis of character in psychological terms

Here, critics might concentrate on how characters behave, treating them aspsychological cases:

• Mrs Reed would be a suitable character for study, particularly in relation to the loss of her husband and her inability to handle responsibility
• The highly repressed Mr Brocklehurst, with his distaste for the ‘natural', could be seen as an example of a man who uses strict religious practices as a means of concealing his own psychological problems
• Women had been associated with ‘the flesh' and sexual passion – thus Bertha Mason, the deranged creature who lives in Rochester's attic and has a hold on his life can be seen as symbolic of his lust / passion
• St John Rivers is an example of a personality undergoing conflict between a sense of duty and his passionate feelings for someone else. This is seen in Chapter 32 (volume 3, Chapter 6), where he allows himself to give way to his feelings for a set time
  The maiming of Rochester at the novel's end could be seen as a sort of castration of his passion and physical prowess – although that does not take account of his subsequently fathering children by Jane.

Link: http://www.crossref-it.info/textguide/Jane-Eyre/9/1098

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