Open Prompt Response, December 4

1997. Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, and other social occasions. Such scenes may reveal the values of the characters and the society in which they live. Select a novel or play that includes such a scene and, in a focused essay, discuss the contribution the scene makes to the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or another novel or play of literary merit.

                During a wedding you don’t often hear people speak against the marriage, saying “I object!” or any such thing.  Though rare, that is exactly what happens to poor Jane during her wedding to Mr. Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.  The wedding scene in Jane Eyre contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole by revealing details about the society in which the Brontë sisters lived.

            By the time we get to the wedding scene in Jane Eyre we’ve had enough foreshadowing to know that it cannot end well.  For example, in the middle of the night on the eve of the wedding, Jane sees a woman enter her room and rip her veil in half.  Lo and behold the next day, part way through the wedding, a man enters the church and says that they can’t legally be wed.  It is revealed that he is the brother of Bertha Mason, the woman Jane saw, and that Bertha is already married to Mr. Rochester.

            In British society in the days of the Bronte sisters, people rarely got married for mutual love.  It was possible that the man loved the woman, but rare that they both loved each other.  Typically one or both was trying to be raised a social class, or gain a fortune.  Charlotte Bronte uses this scene in the novel to show how unlikely it was for a love based marriage to succeed.  They were normally blocked by an ugly impediment, family.  Families often wouldn’t accept a marriage where they did not stand to gain anything, and Bronte uses Bertha Mason to act as the unaccepting family.

            We also see some feminism showing through, as Bronte uses the scene to enforce her ongoing theme of how hard it was for a woman of her time to be truly happy, and get what she wanted.  Throughout the novel Jane has her happiness taken away from her, the moment that she is happy something comes and ruins it.  This scene shows her ultimate happiness, being with Mr. Rochester, being taken away from her.  After this scene her life continues to go downhill, until she eventually returns to contentment.  But true happiness isn’t something she achieves again until she is reunited with Mr. Rochester at the end of the novel. 

            All in all by ruining the wedding, Bronte makes multiple comments on her society and the place of a woman in that society.  Bronte herself was well known to lean towards societal commentary in her novels, and this is just one scene in one novel that particularly outlines that.  And so we see how the simple ruining of a wedding can show us two meanings of a novel.