The Sultan and the Slave: Feminist Orientalism and the Structure of Jane Eyre

 

The Sultan and the Slave: Feminist Orientalism

and the Structure of Jame Eyre

 

 

Thesis  

Part of a large system of what I term feminist orientalist discourse that permeates Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte's sul- tan/slave simile displaces the source of patriarchal oppression onto an "Oriental," "Mahometan" society, enabling British readers to contem- plate local problems without questioning their own self-definition as Westerners and Christians.

          Background

Yet by calling Rochester a "sultan" and herself a "slave," Jane provides herself and the reader with a culturally acceptable simile by which to understand and combat the patriarchal "despotism" central to Rochester's character.

 Zonana, Joyce. The Sultan and the Slave: Feminist Orientalism and the Structure of Jane Eyre. The University of Chicago Press. 18:3 (Spring, 1993): 592-617.