Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen have portrayed another type of masculinity which is related to religion, the religious masculinity. Religious men in Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and Emma are not gentlemen by behaviour. Even they are not guided by the rules of religion. The heroines of these novels come across these religious men but refuse their marriage proposals. Jane Eyre refuses to marry St. John Rivers, Elizabeth Bennet refuses Mr. Collins’ proposal and Emma Woodhouse also refuses the proposal of Mr. Elton. This is because they cannot find a gentleman-like behaviour in these religious men. Even, Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre stands for the most tyrant character in these four novels of Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen.
Brocklehurst, the headmaster of the Orphaned Lowood School, is a threat to gentleman masculinity and to femininity as well. He treats the orphaned girls badly at his school. The masculine behaviour of Brocklehurst dominates every movement of the girls inside the school. Charlotte Bronte presents him as a “black pillar” towering over Jane Eyre. His aggressive behaviour towards orphaned girls does not make him an ideal man or a true gentleman. His actions are not according to his preaches. He pretends to be moral, but in reality he is not. He does not have any trait of the ideal masculinity or gentlemanliness because of his double standards. His wife and daughters dress in fashionable dresses and the girls, under his dominance, are left to plain-looking clothes and left freezing and hungry. This is not the way to be a man and a gentleman. Religion proposes equality for all human beings, males or females. His masculine behaviour should command him to ensure pleasurable conditions for those under his control. Such masculinity of these religious men does not adopt equality. His masculinity is the best example in which men use religion to justify their dominance over women and the poor. The male dominance in this religious masculinity is deeply rooted in God’s power.
St. John Rivers is another religious man who assumes superiority over women through religion. At his first encounter with Jane Eyre, he appears to be an ideal Christian man. He welcomes Jane into his house. He seems to be a charitable man, “willing to aid [her] to the utmost of his power”, Jane Eyre (p.295). He promises her to get a job. However, his relation with Jane Eyre starts to be that of slave-master relation which is not different from the one with Rochester. He proposes to marry Jane Eyre not because of love but because of her courage and less beauty. This will make her a useful helpmate since he has devoted his life to missionary life. Jane Eyre refuses the religious masculinity of St. John Rivers. This religious masculinity will snatch her heart and the liberty of her mind. Neither Jane nor St. John find each other born for love, which Charlotte Bronte considers essential for the mutual understanding of the relationship between the masculine and the feminine. Love makes no one superior or inferior.
Charlotte Bronte rejects the religious masculinity that suppresses woman’s love and sex into duty. Jane Eyre rejects St. John’s idea of love because she will lose her identity as a woman. Jane firmly tells him “I scorn your idea of love…. I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it”, Jane Eyre (p.348). Jane prefers Rochester, the sinner to St. John Rivers, the religious man. This religious masculinity does not recognize the sexual identity of woman. The gender role of woman is a good helpmate for her husband to do his duty. This masculinity is rejected by Jane Eyre as well as Charlotte Bronte because it deviates from God’s word.
Jane Austen’s portrayal of Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Elton in Emma is not different from Charlotte Bronte’s portrayal of Brocklehurst and St. John Rivers. Both of Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen are not satisfied of the gender role of the religious man in the Victorian period. Mr. Collins is presented as pompous, arrogant and stupid. He has not any feature of being a gentleman. He is not romantic at all. When he proposes to Elizabeth, he mentions ridiculous reasons for him to marry. He mentions these reasons:
“My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced that it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly—which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness”, Pride and Prejudice (p.111).
None of these reasons is reasonable or sensible. Mr. Collins explains it is his religious duty as a parson to marry. Moreover, it is Lady Catherine de Burgh who has recommended that he do so. His religious duty is not abided by God, but by his patroness. His declaration of his proposal is of business style rather than a romantic one. It is a proposal of religious duty rather than a love proposal. It is similar to the proposal of St. John Rivers to Jane Eyre. Duty is the most essential standard for the religious masculinity, whereas love and equality are the most essential one for the gentleman masculinity. The religious masculinity of Mr. Collins suppresses the emotional needs of Elizabeth. Elizabeth Bennet resists this kind of masculinity. At the Netherfield Ball, after dancing with him twice, ‘the moment of her release was ecstasy’ .
Mr. Elton in Jane Austen’s Emma is another religious man. Jane Austen rejects the religious masculinity of Mr. Elton. He is the vicar of Highbury. At the beginning of novel he is helping the poor, but he is changed totally after Emma’s refusal of his proposal. Most characters are suspicious about his religious masculinity. Mr. Knightley warns Emma when she wants to match Elton with Harriet Smith. Mr. Knightley justifies his worries: “He [Elton] knows the value of a good income as well as anybody”, Emma (p.42). This line determines the nature of the religious man. Namely, he is a fortune hunter. His interest in Emma is not of love relationship. His impression with Emma is for her fortune rather than her charms. It is a matter of good fortune that this religious man is engrossed in. Emma is astonished to realize that Mr. Elton is in love with her. She says: “Mr. Elton in love with me! What an idea”, Emma (p.73). She does not accept him because he is not as gentleman as Mr. Knightley. His pursuit of Emma and Augusta, later Mrs. Elton, reveals him as a fortune hunter.
The lack of gentlemanliness in the religious men of Austen is the cause of her heroines to reject them. After the refusal of his proposal, he is presented as egotistical and cruel. To revenge his refusal, Mr. Elton refuses to dance with Harriet Smith at a ball in purpose with his wife, Mrs. Elton. This behaviour before the audience reflects his lack of gentleman-like behaviour. Mr. Knightley is the true gentleman who replaces him to dance with Harriet to save her face. This is an innate gentlemanliness in Mr. Knightley compared to the ungentlemanly behaviour of Mr. Elton. Mr. Elton is arrogant to dance with Harriet. His wife’s behaviour is similar to his arrogant behaviour.
Jane Austen presents the religious men as not accepted by the society. This is because they behave ungentlemanly. The image of the religious men in Austen’s novels, Pride and Prejudice and Emma is spoiled by their arrogant and cruel behaviour. This is the religious masculinity that Austen has` presented similar to the religious masculinity of Charlotte Bronte. Brocklehurst, St. John Rivers, Mr. Elton and Mr. Collins are religious men but they deviate to act according to God’s word. For St. John Rivers and Mr. Collins a marriage proposal is a religious duty. However, Mr. Elton’s proposal is a matter of fortune. Their personal motives guide their behaviour. Jane Eyre, Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth Bennet refuse their proposals strongly because they arrogant, deceitful and they lack romance and gentle behaviour. The religious masculinity is not accepted by Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen.
5-3-2-4 The Effeminate Masculinity:
Another form of masculinity depicted by Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen is the effeminate masculinity. de Hamal in Villette, Frank Churchill in Emma, and Wickham in Pride and Prejudice are the effeminate men presented by Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen. The presentation of these characters is intentional to show us that masculinity is not a matter of biological differences. Some characters lose their masculinity because they are prone to womanish features.
de Hamal is presented by Charlotte Bronte as:
“pretty and smooth, and as trim as a doll: so nicely dressed, so nicely curled, so booted and gloved and cravated…What a figure, so trim and natty! What womanish feet and hands! How daintily he held a glass to one of his optics!”, Villette (p.247).
de Hamal is feminine in his size, his dress and his curls. He is effeminate in his character because he behaves in womanish demeanour. He is a man in woman’s disguise. He is the sexual partner of Ginevra Fanshawe. Lucy thinks that he must be a man “Not a woman of my acquaintance had the stature of that ghost. She was not of a female height. Not to any man I knew could the machination, for a moment, be attributed”, Villette (p.566). He is attractive and smooth, but these features make him feminine to Lucy. In such a case, it is Lucy who decides the masculinity. de Hamal’s masculinity is measured through the eyes of Lucy Snowe. . Gilbert and Gubar in The Mad Woman in the Attic argue that:
“de Hamal and Ginevra represent the self-gratifying, sensual, romantic side of Lucy. Posturing before mirrors, the fop and the coquette are vacuous but for the roles they play.”
Gilbert and Gubar add that Charlotte Bronte shows us how the apparently female image of the nun masks the romantic male plots of de Hamal. Lucy finds nothing masculine in de Hamal. Furthermore, she played his masculine role as a fop in the school play. de Hamal has eloped with Ginevra breaking the norms of gentleman masculinity and even the norms of the traditional masculinity.
Wickham is another effeminate character who is presented as a seemingly perfect gentleman at the first half of Pride and Prejudice but in the second half a wicked man as his name suggests. Elizabeth Bennet is fooled by his seemingly gentlemanly behaviour. He is one of the reasons that make her decide the refusal of Darcy’s first proposal. Wickham is immoral and deceptive. Jennine Eamon sees a kind of effeminate masculinity in the militia men like Wickham. She comments that “unlike their more masculine counterparts in the regiments of the line, these sorts of treatise argued, effeminate guardsmen and militiamen focused on the beauty of their person but lack true bravery of character” . Though Wickham a militia man, he focuses overtly on his beauty to be in company with girls. Most women are cheated by him. Lydia is cheated by him to elope not for love but money. His elopement with Lydia Bennet is similar to de Hamal’s elopement with Ginevra Fanshawe. His intention is not for love or romance; it is for fulfilling financial purposes since he has debts. This accident, though awful, solves the controversy of Elizabeth and Darcy over the ungentlemanly behaviour of Wickham. Darcy does his duty as a man towards Lydia since he pays the amount of money to Wickham. Elizabeth Bennet realizes the gentlemanliness of Darcy through the ungentlemanly and effeminate behaviour of Wickham. She finally comprehends who Wickham is. Mr. Bennet as a father lacks duty towards Lydia after her elopement with Wickham. Wickham is another de Hamal of Villette. Their gender roles destroy the essence of masculinity.
Frank Churchill is also the effeminate man. His effeminate masculinity is French, which is compared to the gentleman English masculinity of Mr. Knightley. Jane Austen has a national pride. Frank Churchill lacks sincerity. Mr. Knightley targets this superficiality when he disputes Emma’s description of Frank as “amiable.” This contrast of Frank’s effeminate masculinity with the Knightley’s gentleman masculinity has encouraged some critics to view Mr. Knightley as an exemplar of the English masculinity. Claudia Johnson argues that the plain style of speech and conversation employed by Mr. Knightley “is a matter of national import, constituting the ‘amiable’, the true English style, as opposed of course to the ‘aimable’, the artificial, the courtly, the dissembling, the servile, and (as the tradition goes) the feminized French” Johnson (p.201). Frank Churchill wishes he be in France. The French masculinity is effeminate as depicted in Emma.
Knightley summarizes the nature of Frank’s masculinity when he observes: “He is a disgrace to the name of man” Emma (p.280). Put it simply, Frank is not a man, not a masculine, at all by any English paradigm. He is feminine. Mr. Knightley remarks about Frank Churchill’s handwriting: “I don’t admire it …. It is too small – wants strength. It is like a woman’s writing” Emma (p.194). Knightley observes that the handwriting of Emma is mightier than that of Churchill. Churchill according to Knightley is gallant only in a debased manner.
Lucy Snowe is cheated by the effeminate masculinity of de Hamal, Elizabeth Bennet is also cheated by the gallant and effeminate masculinity of Wickham, and Emma Woodhouse is cheated by the effeminate masculinity of Frank Churchill. Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen present these heroines as more masculine than these emasculating men. Lucy Snowe is astonished to see how womanish de Hamal’s hands are. This reveres the masculinity construction. In such a case, it is woman who decides the masculinity of men in the Victorian period. The behaviour also determines the masculinity. The behaviour of de Hamal, Wickham and Frank Churchill determines their effeminate masculinity. Moreover, Lucy Snowe, Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse are presented mightier than these effeminate men. Masculinity in the hands of Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen is not only the product of men.
5-3-3 The Role of the Gaze:
The traditional role of the gaze especially the male gaze is to be the dominant one over women. The male is the gazer and the female is the gazed. The gazer is the subject and the gazed is the object. The gaze plays a major role in Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen’s construction of masculinity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The new construction of masculinity gives power to woman as both a gazer and gazed. Bronte and Austen confront the traditional view of masculinity and newly deconstruct it. Rochester, Paul Emanuel, Darcy are using their gaze as a power instrument with which they objectify women. Mr. Knightley is not using it as a power instrument since he is the gentleman from the beginning to the end of the novel. Emma, instead, uses the gaze to objectify the people around.
According to the Male theory of Laura Mulvey, there is an implicit visual hierarchy since man is in the dominant position as the viewer and woman is in the subordinate position. Mulvey suggests that the active spectator position of a viewer imposes masculinity over the person being gazed. According to Mulvey, the bearer of the look is necessarily masculine: “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active or male and passive or female”.
Mulvey states that woman is only a passive object for the gaze of the active subject. Women are always the objects of the gaze. They are never the possessor of the gaze.
Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen are against this power hierarchy. They deconstruct new dynamics of power hierarchy in which both man and woman are the gazer or the gazed; a woman can be a gazer or a gazed and vice versa a man is. The gaze has revised the parallel between power, authority, and dominance from one side and powerlessness, submission and subordination from another side. The passivity of a woman cannot be seen in Bronte and Austen’s masculinity. Both novelists weaken the power of the male gaze and empower the female gaze. This is because they find the male gaze patriarchal. At the earlier parts of the select novels, the female is the gazed and the male is the gazer. Jane Eyre is the object of the ‘flashing and flaming’ eyes of Rochester, Lucy Snowe is also the object of Paul Emanuel’s ‘diving’ eyes into her inner and mental world, and Elizabeth is the object of Darcy’s gaze till the end of the first half. Emma’s gaze is masculine since the beginning objectifying all men around her except Mr. Knightley who resists strongly. Emma fails to objectify men at the Box Hill when she has overwept after the blaming of Mr. Knightley over the issue of Miss Bates. The gaze is the symbol of hegemonic masculinity of the Victorian society. Therefore, Charlotte Bronte usurps Rochester’s eyes at the end of the novel making him helpless seeing through the eyes of Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre says:
“Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw nature—he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam—of the landscape before us; of the weather round us—and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him: never did I weary of conducting him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished to be done.” Jane Eyre (p.384).
Jane’s gaze becomes the gaze of Rochester and Jane is no more than the “Apple of his eye”. Charlotte Bronte has based unity and equality for her new construction of masculinity through the tool of the gaze. No one is dominant or subordinate.
Lucy Snowe in Villette suffers a lot from this destructive gaze of males around her. She is objectified by Dr. John, Paul Emanuel and even from the gazes of women like Madame Beck. Watchful eyes are everywhere, and Lucy, who deeply values her privacy, observes that her privacy is constantly invaded. The penetrating gaze enters into her rooms, her personal compartments, the panes of her windows and at times even into her mind as in the case of Paul’s reading of her skull. She describes his eyes before playing the role of a man on the stage: “the door opens …two eyes first vaguely struck upon, and then hungrily dived into me”, Villette (p.159). Here, Lucy is offended because of the hungry gaze of Paul. Women are seen an object of the male hungry gazes. The word ‘hungry’ has a sexual denotation. They are an object as well as a sexual object which is a total humiliation for women. This hungrily gaze of Paul Emanuel is similar to Rochester’s at his bedroom after fire. The fire is a symbol for that sexual gaze; a gaze with fire. Lucy resists to be objectified by the gaze of Paul Emanuel. One day, she has broken his glass at the Pension School. This indicates that she is powerful to resist his powerful gaze. Lucy wants to gaze at him and to be gazed without any difference. Charlotte Bronte makes the gaze of her heroine resistant to be as powerful as Paul Emanuel is.
Charlotte Bronte changes the current of Paul’s gaze from the patriarchal gaze to a love gaze that helps him to read well the needs and desires of Lucy. Paul’s reading of Lucy helps her to get her self-knowledge and woman identity. Charlotte Bronte has changed the diving, hungry and penetrating gaze of Paul Emanuel into a ‘gentle look’ from his eyes. After Lucy has fulfilled her woman identity as an equal to Paul, she reveals: “A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes, would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me; it would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness”, Villette (p.577). At the beginning, the male gaze is patriarchal, whereas at the end, the gaze becomes lofty and brings the woman into a more active relationship to the society as an equal partner.
Austen changes the hegemonic gaze of Darcy to be a gaze of a man full of compassion, love and equality. At the beginning, Darcy in Pride and Prejudice has a patriarchal gaze in which he sees the beauty of Elizabeth but not enough handsome to tempt him. His gaze is full of pride because of wealth and rank in his society. He can see nothing beautiful in Elizabeth except the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. Though Darcy’s gaze is patriarchal, it leads him to the eyes of Elizabeth in which there is an expressive language. This expressive language of her gaze is her power. Elizabeth through gaze discovers the pride of Darcy. Accordingly, she resists the male gaze of the Victorians in his eyes. His gaze is erotic as Charlotte Locus realises that. In the first half of novel, Darcy is the gazer and Elizabeth is the gazed. She is the object of his gaze. The gazer is powerful, whereas the gazed is powerless. In the second half it is vice versa. Darcy is being gazed by Elizabeth, i.e. Darcy is being objectified. Jane Austen does this in order to empower her heroine. The moment of gazing and being gazed is done at his estate, Pemberley. She enjoys the art of gazing at his absence. Elizabeth gazes at his image and imagines him gazing at her. So, it is a moment of being the gazer and the gazed; the subject and the object at the same time. Elizabeth objectifies with pleasure his Castle and his portrait. Jane Austen lets her heroine practice the art gazing on his estates; then Elizabeth finds Darcy at the door. At this moment no one is powerful, no one is superior and no one is inferior. Jane Austen makes them equal. The same moment is repeated at the scene of the Big Kiss when Elizabeth accepts his marriage proposal at the end.
Emma Woodhouse is the only heroine of the select novels who adopts the male gaze. Emma behaves like a man since her father lets every affair to her to manage. Rachel S. Grate argues that “Emma believes she can overcome the marginalized role of women in society and adopt the male gaze herself to transform her female objects in appearance and class status”. So, the male gaze used by Rochester, Paul Emanuel, and Darcy is used to marginalize woman. Emma through her gaze objectifies all men around her like Elton, Frank Churchill, Martin and Mr. Knightley. However, Mr. Knightley resists her male gaze and refuses her masculine behaviour firstly as a matchmaker and then her hegemony over other women like Jane Fairfax, Harriet Smith and Miss Bates. Emma is another Darcy of Jane Austen. She is wealthy with social rank. She is with a male gaze. Mr. Knightley finds that Emma represents the phrase “Myself creating what I saw,” using her perception and what she “saw” to “create” and shape the world around her”, Emma (p.224), which is taken from is taken from William Cowper’s The Task, Book IV, “The Winter Evening”. “Myself creating what I saw” is taken from these lines: “In the red cinders, while with poring eye / I gaz’d, myself creating what I saw” . Emma gazes herself to create the world around her. Jane Austen challenges the gender roles in her society by giving Emma the male gaze. She uses her gaze to do matchmaking of the people around her. However, Emma fails to use her gaze as a source of power since Elton refuses to marry Harriet and all her other plans fail. The gaze of Emma fails as a source of power before Mr. Knightley who opens her eyes about Elton, Harriet Smith, Frank Churchill and Miss Bates.
Finally, Emma rejects her gaze as masculine or powerful. It is Mr. Knightley who helps her to use her gaze as a gazer and gazed. She is the subject as well as the object of the gaze. Mr. Knightley opens her eyes about others and about herself. She is objectified by his gaze especially when he rebukes her about Miss Bates. Her eyes tear up before his eyes feeling repentance and accordingly she objectifies him as her lover whom she accepts him as he husband after a long period of resistance to marriage.
Jane Eyre, Lucy Snowe, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Knightley help Rochester, Paul Emanuel, Darcy and Emma Woodhouse to change their hegemonic gaze which marginalizes others. The masculine gaze is changed to another to see both men equal to each other. Both men and women are the gazer and the gazed. Both are the subject and the object.
Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen use the gaze as significant tool to change the power dynamics between men and women. Men and women are powerfully equivalent; no one is superior to the other. This is the essence of the masculinity of both Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen.