Ellie Beck

Ellie’s piece is also an appropriation of Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’, however this response aims to connect with Bertha’s perspective in greater depth. This imaginative piece and reflection were composed for her Year 11 Extension English I assessment task.

I had nursed from the breast of hope for 15 long years in that attic, though my circumstances and their duration turned her milk acrid and scarce towards the end of my confinement. My freedom had renewed her reserves and I drank deeply then for the first time in a long time till I was swollen with the stuff; stuffed to the seams with raw, desperate, life-affirming hope. A naïve kind of hope for the future and justice and freedom that stuck steadfast for a moment, even when it was announced that I was the one being prosecuted. That moment was beautiful, and brief.

The first to quash my hope was not my husband, Edward Rochester, but a man that claimed to be our butler. It was the first time I had ever seen him. He could not meet my eyes and spoke rapidly, saying that I’d tried to burn my husband as he slept and near succeeded. “If only he’d come forward then,” he had sighed. “It couldn’t be helped, I suppose. She’d threaten to cry abuse herself, and with all this MeToo stuff, he’d have stood no chance”.

Grace Poole was next. I watched in disbelief as she sat perched upon the stand and wrung her talons between performative sobs, recounting the ‘horrors’ that she had supposedly experienced at my hands. Oh, how I had terrorised her! Throwing things at a whim, pulling her hair, tearing her clothes. How little she had been given in return; a pittance of a wage and bruises! I was a madwoman, she said, and I had intended to burn her as she slept on that fateful night. I made the mistake of scoffing at the incredulity of it, and every face in the courtroom turned towards me; the faces of the jury members twisted in degrees of distrust and shock, and that of my ex-husband in a kind of gleeful smile. Perhaps, my scoff had seemed a snarl, I had thought, and they were merely taken aback. I pressed down the truth; that they saw my matted hair and dark appearance and a kind of broken manner of speech instilled by my confinement and believed the lies. My denial sustained my hope momentarily.

But then the next witness took the stand and affirmed Grace’s story. That I had abused Edward over the course of our marriage. That I had been paranoid, almost certifiably psychotic, that I was violent, and as cunning as a witch. That I had mostly confined myself to a room, only emerging to abuse my husband and the staff or to cause some kind of commotion. Each day brought forward yet another batch of my captors-turned-witnesses-for-theprosecution in a seemingly unending chain. The gardener. The cleaners. The maids. They all told the same story; the story of Edward Rochester, a timid, kind man, driven to infidelity by his cruel, abusive, crazy wife after 15 years of torment. The same lunatic wife that had set their house alight in the dead of night, intending to kill him and the rest of the staff.

The media sank their fangs into this narrative, as I would later find out. At the time, though, I was clueless to the workings of the modern world. My scoffing at manufactured testimony had been front page news. There were thousands of video essays about me. Socalled experts analysed my manner and body language as I left the court. A mere tilt of my head away from the crowds that had gathered to hurl abuse was a sure-fire sign of my guilt. I became the unwilling figurehead of a movement; I came to represent the women who conspire to ruin powerful men with false accusations, the hysterical woman, the manipulative ex-wife, the gaslighting girlfriend, the female. If it had been up to the media and public, I would have burned at the stake along with my reputation.

I eventually took the stand, though. I told the truth as best I could, struggling to put thoughts into words, struggling to catch myself when I spoke internally rather than aloud. I hoped that my single voice would be louder than the machine that is a powerful man. I looked into the eyes of every jury member and hoped that they would somehow see my innocence in my pleading gaze because I could not escape my vessel, an inescapable glove in which Edward’s narrative so perfectly fit. I told the jury of how I had been held captive in the attic, forced to endure Edward’s rages, forced to watch as he cheated with a French dancer, then a young governess. I told them of how I had tried to escape again and again, and how my wings were clipped every time. I told them of how on the night of the fire, I had tried to escape too, but Edward had been outside of my room, and I just knew that he would hurt me, so I punched him, and ran, but he caught me by my hair, and threw me back into the attic before setting the door ablaze in a fit of rage. I told them of how I had to make the choice to jump from the roof, nearly breaking my legs in the process. I told them everything. I knew they hadn’t listened.

At that point, a sense of finality had settled over me like a fine mist, and as the cross examination bled into the verdict, the teat of hope had finally run dry. By the next day, when the verdict was delivered, it was barren. I watched as a sharp sword emerged from the mouth of the judge, and he struck me down with it on Edward’s behalf to the beat of his gavel. I remember a single thought rising, swelling to the brim of my skill; unjust, unjust!

PART B: REFLECTION.

Numerous stylistic choices in my appropriation support my purpose of privileging the new perspective of Bertha and giving rise to a new understanding of Bertha’s treatment as an injustice enabled by the privilege of her abuser and societal attitudes. Bertha’s perspective is privileged using first-person narration, which communicates the account of events and opinions that constitute her perspective. The use of stylistic choices to give rise to a new understanding of Bertha’s treatment as an injustice enabled by the privilege of her abuser is epitomised by a biblical allusion, which describes how “a sharp sword emerged from the mouth of the judge” and struck Bertha down “on Edward’s behalf”. This references a line in the Bible emphasising God’s power by using a sword as a metaphor for his power. By likening the power of the Judge to that of God and demonstrating that this power has been harnessed by Rochester by virtue of his privilege, it is made clear that an injustice has occurred. As this modern setting reflects the original text in that Rochester similarly avoids accountability for abusing Bertha by virtue of his privilege, this suggestion promotes new understanding of Bertha’s treatment in the original text as an injustice too. Additionally, this injustice being enabled by societal attitudes is suggested using listing to emphasis the multitude of sexist stereotypes such as the “hysterical woman” or “manipulative ex-wife” that affect Bertha’s treatment and reflect societal attitudes. This mirrors the fact that societal attitudes towards women and women’s mental health similarly enable Bertha’s unjust treatment in the original text. Overall, these stylistic techniques very effectively accomplish my purpose of privileging Bertha’s perspective and giving rise to a newfound understanding of her treatment as injustice enabled by the privilege of her abuser and societal attitudes towards women and women’s mental health. •