Jane Graham of ‘The L-Shaped Room’, is never put in such dire circumstances which cause her to be without basic human needs, therefore we assume her to be more focussed on material possessions than Jane Eyre. However, during her time at Lowood Jane Eyre focuses her attentions on material things, such as food, temperature, clothing and the appearance and fine interior of rooms as one might expect a child to do, however she is not made unhappy by the lack of friends she makes. Bronte portrays food and drink as symbols to illustrate broader hungers and thirsts that the characters' experience. Bronte’s description of the scanty, spoiled food at Lowood emphasizes hunger and this may be a metaphor in which hunger represents Jane's appetite for social, sexual, and spiritual fulfilment. At Lowood, Jane's "ravenous" hunger suggests the passion and impulsiveness of her youth.
The fact that Jane focuses almost entirely on material things at Lowood evokes great sympathy and thus emphasises the cruelty of Mr Brocklehurst and his harsh Christian ideas, which relate strongly to the theme of religion within the novel. Although religion is not a particularly predominant theme within ‘The L-Shaped Room’, it is highly important to recognise its significance within ‘Jane Eyre’. Charlotte Bronte even included a note about the value of religion within the book and to highlight and make the reader clear of her disregard for prejudiced, severely religious people and her high regard for God. She also intended to emphasise the differences between the bigotry of Mr Brocklehurst and the religious piety of St John. In ‘The L-Shaped Room’ the theme of bigotry with regard to religion is also apparent. The feelings of Terry towards Toby indicates the anti-semantic attitudes of many people at that time and I think that it was intentional that we learn to love Toby’s mild character before the reader is actually aware of his religion. Even Jane expresses regarding John as inferior simply due to the colour of his skin and often expresses disgust at a person’s sexuality. It is only sometimes that her shame is evident, showing that this would be the accepted reaction of the majority of society at that time.
The bigoted and prejudiced nature of society is very important within both novels and especially emphasises the position of the women within society and the views of other people. Almost every character within ‘The L-Shaped Room’ has some form of prejudice exercised against them. Early within the novel there are many occasions when Jane herself is seen to discriminate against those who are different, this is ironic as she herself is in a position which means that it is easy to judge her harshly. John is a character particularly illustrative of the feelings of society at that time towards those who are different. Jane is initially scared of John and this is never excused. When they share their pain at Toby’s disappearance, Jane ‘felt a little twinge of uneasiness at being embraced by this huge, odd-smelling, odd-coloured man’ and describes him as being of a ‘forbidden race’. As Jane journeys through her pregnancy and matures, she realises the importance of looking at everyone equally and reserving judgement. Indeed, when she discovers John’s homosexuality she does not react how she did at the beginning of the book to Malcolm: ‘I realised something I hadn’t grasped before about John. It gave me a shock, but not an unpleasant one. I waited for a change in my affection for him, the faint revulsion I had felt for Malcolm and others like him in the past. But there was no change. I knew what I owed to John, and that he couldn’t have helped me in the way he had if he had been any different’.
There is also a lot of bigotry aimed towards the women, in particular Jane Graham of ‘The L-Shaped Room’, this represents the hardships and expectations enforced by society upon the women. As in ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘The L-Shaped Room’ does contain many examples of bigotry within religion, but, unlike in ‘Jane Eyre’, this is mainly between many religions rather than just within Christianity. Jane, who, like Jane Eyre, is not highly religious, expresses her feelings towards religion: ‘religion is - the pinning-up of faith across the ugly vista of logic and reality, to fulfil a need.’ This cynical view is something which separates the two Janes drastically; Jane Eyre has an innocent naivety to her character whereas Jane graham appears a lot more sceptical with regard to religion and men. However Jane Graham appears to be a lot more vulnerable and although she dismisses help from God early in the novel, she instinctively relies on Him when things are at their worst: ‘I had been working vaguely on the basis that God would provide’.
Terry, like St John-the character with whom he shares many characteristics, has strong religious beliefs, but, where St John’s are positive, Terry expresses a strong anti-semantic attitude. This is the reason why Terry is so disrespectful towards Toby, calling him things such as ‘Jew-Boy’ and saying, ‘”If I’d lost you, I’d let you stay lost”‘. Terry is not the only character within the novel to express these opinions. In an outburst of fury James, Jane’s boss calls the Jewish owner of the business a ‘slimy, devious little kyke’. However, like Jane we are surprised when he Toby tells her; ‘I’m a Jew. So you probably wouldn’t have wanted to marry me anyway.’ Until now the reader has never suspected that religion was an issue between the couple, but obviously after Toby had received so much abuse from the general public, this was a reaction he would have expected.
Bronte also conveys many different religious values and often contrasts Jane Eyre with characters who have strikingly opposing religious beliefs. Where Jane is seen as searching and questioning, these other characters hold strongly to one form or another of religious beliefs, for example Helen Burns. On her deathbed Helen speaks with Jane about both her depravity and her deep affinity with God.
"By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault."
"But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?"
"I believe; I have faith: I am going to God."
"Where is God? What is God?"
"My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what he created. I rely implicitly on his power, and confide wholly in his goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to him, reveal him to me."
"You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven; and that our souls can get to it when die?"
It is easy to condemn Brocklehurst's religious doctrine, but here Bronte also undermines Helen's absolute religious beliefs. Jane's questions may not plant any seeds of doubt within Helen, but the reader cannot miss her point. Helen and, later, St. John Rivers seek happiness in Heaven; Jane is determined to find hers here on Earth.
To continue the theme of religion, Bronte uses constant, but unstated referral to prayers, and direct quotes from the Bible. The "drear November day" does not have a specific date attached in ‘Jane Eyre’. Within the first chapter there are quotes taken from the Bible; "But the souls of the first are in God’s hand, and torment shall not touch them …” “… Then the just man shall make his stand full of assurance, to confront those who oppressed him.” These two passages, when read in full, contain the total sum of Jane’s experiences within the novel. These passages open up a new perspective to the audience; we see ‘Jane Eyre’ to be a work of deep religious conviction. This novel was groundbreaking simply because Charlotte Bronte changed in the view of Victorian society, from an isolated, naive clerics daughter with a inclination for fantasy worlds, to a passionate campaigner determined to break free from the restrictions imposed upon an intelligent, articulate Victorian female without wealth or influence.
These two books are remarkable for their portrayal of character, the reality conveyed through the stories of these two women and the compassion they evoke. The depth of character means that the reader often forgets that these novels are fiction, indeed Jane Eyre was originally titled ‘Biography of a Woman’ and includes many aspects of Charlotte Bronte’s own life and it is ironic that many of the critics at the time dismissed any possibility of ‘Currer Bell’ being female because of the structured, very deliberate style of writing. Similarly Jane Graham in ‘The L-Shaped Room’ draws us into her life and the reader is able to share her thoughts and feelings even when they are not put into words. The storyline of these books, although at times a little fantastical, is also easy to believe due to the honesty with which it is written, the complexity and unpredictable nature of the plot and the impression of the girls’ failure in their bid for happiness. The realistic nature of these two novels makes it a lot easier for the readers to lose themselves within the book, almost ‘becoming’ the heroine, meaning the misfortune of the characters evokes more emotion.
Within the novels there are many character parallels, both women have a kind relative, Aunt Addy (‘The L-Shaped Room’); and Uncle John (’Jane Eyre’) who leaves them money. Both women are proposed to by men for whom they feel little and who hold conflicting views on life with which the women don’t sympathise-Terry (‘The L-Shaped Room’) and St John (‘Jane Eyre’). The women’s lovers, Toby (‘The L-Shaped Room’) and Rochester (‘Jane Eyre’) are both described as neither handsome nor ugly and have both changed drastically by the end of the novel. The two heroines within the novels make an obvious comparison, with them both sharing many similar characteristics. However, I would say that Jane Eyre has a more independent personality, proving that she can live without Rochester when she makes the decision to run away from Thornfield. Whereas Jane Graham from ‘The L-Shaped Room’ appears to be a lot more reliant on the other characters within the book, when she initially runs away she is on her own but she seems unable to cope until she befriends the other characters. She is a lot more needy of other people’s understanding and is relieved of great pressures when her friend Dottie displays this, explaining how she’d got herself a ’ frightful job in a dirty old canteen, just to punish myself.” On hearing this Jane realised that she didn’t have a ‘mental kink or a leper complex’ and her need to be understood and sympathised with is realised.
‘Jane Eyre’ also appears to be significantly more true to herself, always knowing what she wants and sometimes deliberately denying it to herself, while Jane in ‘The L-Shaped Room’ is often unsure of herself with regard of her feelings towards the baby, Toby and her father among other things but she often also punishes herself but in a more subconscious way.
The authors of both these novels appear to have included an ‘alter ego’ of the heroine hidden away within their home. Lynne Reid Banks, author of ‘The L-Shaped Room’, has cleverly emphasised this by including a character of the same name as the heroine. This highlights the link between the two women since it would be unnecessary to give two characters the same name within a novel without there being a reason as it would simply cause confusion. This ‘Jane’ is the prostitute who is hidden away in the basement of the house and Jane Graham, the heroine, notices herself the relevance of this: ‘Two tarts in one house called Jane’. I think the author includes this to show readers that Jane is not entirely innocent and also to illustrate her hatred towards herself which may have been induced by society at that time.
Alternatively, the character hidden from view within ‘Jane Eyre’ does not represent her but is more of an opposite character, incorporating everything that Jane, and Mr Rochester, regard with loathing. However, like the tart in ‘The L-Shaped Room’, Bertha Mason does represent what the pressures of society can cause women to become, and, how one less strong than Jane may have ended up. The reader is also forced to consider the boundaries that are created by Thornfield and how both Jane and Bertha are held there. This could represent the entrapment and enclosure which women faced at that time. Jane can only grow and find true happiness once she has left Thornfield, leaving us to think how she cannot endure the denial of her freedom anymore than a madwoman can.
Places, especially homes are also a strong theme within both books. Both women speak of an almost magnetic force pulling them back to their homes, or rather where they belong at that point in their life. For example, while Jane Graham is in hospital she found that she ‘was longing to get back to the L-shaped room, or perhaps its associations with Toby were what lent it this sudden magnetism.’ Jane Eyre realised herself when it was time to leave Lowood and after eight years there went to seek adventure. However, towards the end of both novels the women feel homing desires and realise that it is time to return to the place where they are safe and loved. When Jane Graham realises that she is walking back towards her father’s house, it gives her ‘quite a shock. It was as if I were a mindless pin, being drawn through a magnetic field.’ Jane Eyre experiences this same feeling as she is returning to Thornfield: ‘Once more on the road to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home.’
Jane Graham of ‘The L-Shaped Room’ views buildings as having their own personality and falls in love with the L-shaped room’s piteous nature. She herself notices the significance of her choice of accommodation: ‘I’d instinctively chosen an ugly, degraded district in which to find myself a room. There was the practical aspect of cheapness … but there was something more to it than that. In some obscure way I wanted to punish myself, I wanted to put myself in the setting that seemed proper to my situation.’ Changes in settings are also used to convey and highlight important ideas within the texts; some of these changes are also symbolic and represent the true feelings within the women and their inner state. This theme relates strongly to the position and expectation of women, especially within the home.
The main characters within these novels share many characteristics but their backgrounds and the expectation society placed on women within their time periods mean that their outlook on life is very different. In ‘Jane Eyre’ when Jane leaves Lowood she longs for company and speaks of a woman’s need for excitement. Whereas Jane Graham in ‘The L-Shaped Room’ seeks isolation and moves to the L-shaped room in an attempt to become ‘invisible’ and ostracise herself from the society that rejects her. Here, however, she finds that although this is what she thinks she wants, love and companionship are basic human needs and however hard she tries to exclude herself from the world, she will always be part of it. The needs of a woman is a major theme throughout both books, however both women are fiercely independent and often deny what they need on the basis that they want to retain their autonomy and because they don’t want to appear to have any vulnerabilities. Both the Janes need their own identity more than they need marriage and feel that they can’t truly love and be loved until their relationship is equal and their men are as dependent on them as they are on their men:
“And there was pleasure in my services most full, most exquisite … he loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.”
Jane Eyre speaks of her feelings towards Mr Rochester after their reunion, and how her love for him was only accentuated and heightened by his need for her. Alternatively, at the end of ‘The L-Shaped Room’, Jane and Toby’s relationship ends because their need for each other does not prove to be strong enough. This quote illustrates the contrast between the two Janes’ reactions at being reunited with the lovers:
“The fledgling look was gone forever; the darting, restless eyes and nervous hands were calmed and still. He’d learned to live alone, to discipline himself … after weeks of miserable loafing about, missing me desperately and unable to come to grips with anything.”
The relationship ended because Jane and Toby were no longer interdependent, they had both acquired new priorities. Jane realises this as Toby explains his success with his writing: “’I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be so totally absorbed in one’s work that nothing else impinges at all.’ I thought of the feeling I had had while David was being born, and nodded.”
Both women are proposed to by men for reasons other than love and are offered both an unchristian marriage, or relationship as in ‘The L-Shaped Room’, and then a loveless marriage. Both women know that they cannot have a loveless marriage but in each of the two women’s relationships there is a major obstacle in the way of their happy life together with the man they love. In ‘The L-Shaped Room’, it is Jane’s baby, or the fact that the baby has been kept a secret from Toby that stands in the way of their relationship. Alternatively, in ‘Jane Eyre’ the barrier which comes between Jane and Mr Rochester is a secret that has been kept from her, that of Rochester’s mad wife, Bertha. Although a baby is not the ruin of the relationship in ‘Jane Eyre’, Jane’s dream of herself with a baby foreshadows the presence of the bestial wife. Jane believes that it is bad luck to dream of infants, and she seems to be right. She dreams, that she is carrying a baby. Jane's phantom 'shivered in my cold arms and wailed piteously in my ear’. Jane’s dropping of the child because ‘I was shaken; the child rolled from my knee’, and the second fantasy where she is searching for a child, represents her loss of innocence, which is soon to occur. Jane’s baby in ‘The L-Shaped Room’ symbolizes the same thing and it is the origin of her cynical attitude towards life and men.
Jane Eyre’s dream also refers to the barrier created by Thornfield Hall and the passion and lust it inspired. The child in her dream impedes her progress, feeding off her strength and making it nearly impossible to ascend the barrier, just as Jane's emotions and Rochester's immorality keep them from ascending their barriers. When the wall crumbles, it represents the destruction of that immorality and losing the child within the boundaries of the Hall signifies Jane's complete release of the innocence of her previous nature.
Both the infants symbolized the Janes’ fixation on the need for growth and rebirth. Throughout ‘Jane Eyre’ it becomes evident that to achieve true happiness, both Jane and Rochester must grow and be reborn and this is indeed what happens. In ‘The L-Shaped Room’, Banks portrays rebirth in the literal sense of Jane’s journey through her pregnancy and when she finally gives birth, she herself is being reborn and her outlook on the world has changed drastically: ‘David, who was creating the causes of alarm and despondency, was also neutralising them at source. One look at him grinning gummily up at me made the world and its judgements recede.’
I have already mentioned the needs of a woman to be an influential in both novels and it is widely perceived that women have a maternal instinct and need to reproduce, however, Bronte steers clear of contemporary baby-doctrines altogether by treating babies as less than unimportant whereas Lynne Reid Banks demonstrates clearly the effects of child bearing in changing a person. The baby in Jane Eyre's dream is by far the most attention-worthy infant in the ‘Jane Eyre’; otherwise babies are simply things that various women have, which usually grow into children, and are only then deserving of interest, when they have established themselves as a person and developed their own character.
Jane Eyre’s dreams are part of another less prominent theme of fantasies and dreams, which is more dominant within ‘Jane Eyre’, whose dreams often help the reader to gain a deeper insight into Jane’s character and situation. The almost telepathic event that Jane experiences towards the end of the novel is the first sign of the supernatural other than these dreams which Jane had the night before her wedding. In ‘The L-Shaped Room’ any references to fantasies are kept a lot more down to earth and reserved. Towards the beginning of the book there is a lot more unsaid thoughts and events she wished would happen, but there is little reference to the supernatural throughout the book. This is possibly because this isn’t necessarily something that more modern readers would be looking for, whereas books exploring the supernatural were popular during the era in which ‘Jane Eyre’ was published.
Charlotte Bronte, like many Victorian authors, infuses her work with elements of the fantastic, a fact evident in ‘Jane Eyre’. Bronte incorporates fantastic elements into a more realistic narrative structure by weaving in references to fairy tales, prophetic dreams, mythic imagery and extraordinary plot twists. She uses the fantastic to inform the reader of concealed emotional subtexts in the novel. Her prophetic dreams provide the reader with vital information regarding the state of Jane's emotional health. Bronte uses the fantastic to expand the parameters of societal conceptions of what is comprised by reality. This method is often undertaken by modern authors and is perhaps why this novel has enjoyed timeless popularity spanning many decades.
Lynne Reid Banks also uses dreams to convey Jane’s relationship with other characters, in particular her father. She dreams she is ‘in some complex obstacle race. It was terribly important that I should beat him’. However as the dream continues they remain alongside each other until suddenly Jane is out her depth and the race doesn’t matter anymore and all she wants is to call out for her father. This symbolism isn’t as obscure as that used in ‘Jane Eyre’ and Jane herself begins to discover its meaning on her return home. ‘Every time he proved to have been right, I resented him more. Any time he proved wrong, I scored a point for myself.’ Jane continues to analyse the letter in which her father states, ‘’You almost seemed to enjoy telling me…’ I had enjoyed it. It had been another point scored, the decisive victor. It had proved hollow immediately, but at the moment of telling, I’d relished it. It had been a war between us for so long. Or perhaps I’d been fighting alone…’
On the whole, Lynne Reid Banks chooses to convey her heroine’s emotional state using more symbolic techniques. She often uses the settings as a characterisation of Jane’s feelings. This is an explanation why the novel takes places in many different locations, this is also true of ‘Jane Eyre’. The time of year and day are often other ways of showing us what is going on within Jane’s mind.
Both women experience times, in the middle of the novels, where they are without love and have run away from the troubles which their men have caused. This period within ‘Jane Eyre’ is especially troubling because we see her building herself a new home and readers begin to question her return to Thornfield and Mr Rochester. Another question that readers will be asking themselves at this point of the novel is about the reasons behind the rejection of Rochester and his plan that they cohabit in a “white-washed villa” in the south of France. This rejection, with the variety of motives which may have caused it, is the most troubling and complex issue in ‘Jane Eyre’. I think that the author must have intended this; the idea that Charlotte Bronte had to make Jane leave Rochester because of Victorian standards is not likely. It is true that Bronte probably couldn’t have published a novel in these times in which Jane yielded to Rochester’s urgings and became his mistress, but I don’t believe that she wanted such an outcome for her heroine. If she did, she could have published a novel in which her heroine sacrifices all for love, in different plot circumstances. As it is the disclosure of Bertha’s existence and Jane’s dilemma are the central events in ‘Jane Eyre’ and the author cleverly causes her readers to question their Victorian judgements. People who thought their ideas on bigamy were well established could probably be found wishing, like the rest of us, that Jane had been kept ignorant of the existence of Rochester’s first wife.
This dilemma is the main section of a theme that exists within both books: the battle of a person’s moral strength versus their sexual desire. Jane Graham herself finally saw her father as ‘an undemonstrative man struggling to pull his world together, with pride and prejudice on one side and love on the other’ thus proving that she is not so far removed from her father as she thinks. Another question raised is whether a woman should do what she has been taught is right of what she feels in her heart to be right. The stubborn nature of both women means that they often take the hard road, sometimes as a punishment to themselves but also so that they will be able to live with a clear conscience and can justify their decisions. However Jane Graham expresses a lot more weakness here than Jane Eyre, saying that ‘one has got to try the easy way, to prove that in the long run it’s harder than the other.’
Both novels contain a spiritual revelation within the final chapters. For Jane graham in ‘The L-Shaped Room’, this is a very personal moment of realisation when she finally discovers that during her labour there are two births, one of her baby, and the spiritual rebirth of Jane herself.
‘There was this strange, out-of-this-world moment when I understood with absolute clarity why I’d run away to the L-shaped room … something to do with mirrors. It was as if I had hated my own face and wanted to escape from the mirrors which reflected it … only the mirrors turned into people, and it wasn’t my face that was ugly, but me, as a person. Now that was changed somehow, and the L-shaped room had served its purpose-as a mirror-less house would no longer be needed by someone whose blemish had gone.’
This quote illustrates Jane’s interpretation of her own journey, and to me portrays the L-shaped room as some sort of cocoon, in which an ugly ‘caterpillar’ crawls to escape and rebuild their life emerging a beautiful ‘butterfly’. This is why the ending of ‘The L-Shaped Room’ is so effective because we see Jane return to her true home where she can now be happy and another ‘caterpillar’ enters the L-shaped room and the similarities between her and Jane at the beginning of the book gives the reader hope because Lynne Reid Banks uses dramatic irony to give the reader a knowledge of this woman’s fate and it is one which she will definitely not have contemplated for herself.
The change in Rochester is linked with the main theme of religion within ‘Jane Eyre’; "You think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog" he confesses to Jane, "but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now". It is interesting that Jane doesn’t view her time in Morton as a punishment from God but appears to think that God has given Rochester what he deserves for his sins referring to the fire that destroyed Thornfield as an instrument of "divine justice". It was this fire which created Rochester's newly found faith and his ensuing change of character making possible his marriage with Jane. The discovery of God, then, ties together all the loose ends of the novel, fulfils true love, and closes the book with an overall affirming message that two impassioned souls can unite in marriage after all, if the Lord wills it.
This element of a fairytale marriage ending in ‘Jane Eyre’ contradicts the critics who give both these novels the label ‘feminist’ even though neither book conveys any messages about women’s political, legal or educational equality. Both books simply demand the recognition that the same heart and the same spirit drive both men and women. ‘Women feel just as men feel, they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts’. This quote, taken from ‘Jane Eyre’ emphasises the equality of spirit within both men and women and their need for excitement.
‘The L-Shaped Room’ is set in a time period where women have greater control over their lives but Lynne Reid Banks uses this novel to convey her views about the outdated attitude towards single motherhood. This is Lynne Reid Banks’s effort to convey negative messages about a woman’s position within a judgemental society This even more apparent within ‘Jane Eyre’, probably because the sexist expectations of women during this time period were a lot more prominent and Jane expresses the view that women ought not to be confined 'to making pudding and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags’. Bronte’s condemnation of empty women of a shallow beauty, like Blanche Ingram, is also evident.
Both these novels end with the women discovering their eventual happiness after a traumatic journey of spiritual and emotional growth. They show a woman’s difficult struggle through the prejudices and expectations inflicted upon them by themselves and the society they live in and end with the women’s return to where they belong. For Jane Eyre this is her reunion with Rochester, and for Jane Graham it is her return to her father. The women have emerged at the end of the novels with a clear sense of self and have chosen for themselves a place within the society that initially rejected them, whether that is through marriage or family.
