aesthetic for cinema based on the dubious assumptions that this art came out of thin air! (371) And while Eisenstein may have focused his attention on Charles Dickens, I wish to point out the incredibly proto-cinematic ways of Charlotte Brontë, particularly in her novel, Jane Eyre. Besides proving that Brontë is under acknowledged for her visual capabilities, this paper will delve deeper into her imagery to identify the formerly misinterpreted understanding of women as not just bearers, but creators of image. But to do so effectively, I will begin by situating my argument historically. Historical Context No artwork is created in a void, nor is any author unaffected by the world around her. Charlotte Brontë’s environment is, therefore, worth acknowledging when reading Jane Eyre with purpose. Born in 1817, Charlotte Brontë lived through the hectic time of industrialization in Victorian England, and through many profound personal events; although she died at only 38 years old in 1854, she had outlived her mother and five of her siblings (Ewbank ix). Charlotte’s father, Patrick Brontë, left Ireland to attend college at Cambridge, then went on to become an ordained priest of the Church of England in 1807 (Stoneman 5). Somewhere in this shift of location, he also embraced a shift in identity by changing his name from the Irish Brunty, to the French sounding Brontë (Newman 4). He then became the curate in a small, remote, industrial village in which most people were tradesmen producing woolen cloth.
Linder, A. Cynthia. Romantic Imagery in the Novels of Charlotte Brontë. London: The Macmillan Press LTD, 1978. Print. Metz, Christian. “Identification, Mirror.” Film Theory and Criticism. Eds. Leo Braudy, Marshall Cohen. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 694-710. Print. Miller, Lucasta. The Brontë Myth. New York: Random House Inc, 2001. Print. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism. Eds. Leo Braudy, Marshall Cohen. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 711-722. Print. Murray, Simone. The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural Economy of Contemporary Adaptation. New York, NY. Routledge, 2011. Nestor, Pauline. Charlotte Brontë. Totawa: Barnes and Noble Books, 1987. Print. Nestor, Pauline. “New Opportunities for Self-reflection and Self-fashioning: Women, Letters and the Novel in mid-Victorian England.” Literature And History 19.2 (2010): 18-35. Web. Newman, Beth. “Biographical and Historical Contexts.” Jane Eyre. By Charlotte Bronte. Boston: Bedford of Saint Martin Press. 1996. 3-13. Print. Newman, Beth. “A Critical History of Jane Eyre.” Jane Eyre. By Charlotte Bronte. Boston: Bedford Books of Saint Martin Press. 1996. 445-457. Print. Schor, Hilary M. “Fiction.” Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture : New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture. Ed. Herbert F.
Suggested Reading Alexander, Christine. “Educating ‘The Artist’s Eye’: Charlotte Brontë and the Pictorial Image.” The Brontës in the World of the Arts. Eds. Sandra Hagan, Juliette Welles. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008. 11-29. Print. Brontë, Charlotte. Villette. Eds. Margaret Smith, Herbert Rosengarten. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print. Brosh, Liora. Screening Novel Women: From British Domestic Fiction to Film. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print. Drabinski, Kate. "Incarnate Possibilities: Female To Male Transgender Narratives And The Making Of Self." Journal Of Narrative Theory 44.2 (2014): MLA International Bibliography. Web. 23 Sept. 2015. Gaines, Jane. “White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory.” Feminism and Film. Ed. E. Ann Kaplan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 336-355. Print. Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1966. Print. Sadoff, Dianne F. Victorian Vogue: British Novels on Screen. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. Print. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism.” Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. Eds. Reina Lewis, Sara Mills. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.