Bread and Burnt Porridge: The Role of Comestibles in Jane Eyre
Bread and Burnt Porridge: The Role of Comestibles in Jane Eyre Throughout Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Jane’s ambiguous social class is often a problematic force within the novel. One mechanism with which Bronte attempts to elucidate Jane’s standing during certain episodes in the novel may be the appearances of food strewn throughout the book. The particular foods provided to Jane – specifically bread and porridge – as well as the providers of the sustenance and the varied contexts in which they are given to Jane, indicate that Jane’s social class is somewhat malleable and can rise and fall with the presence of certain interactions, interactions that can be characterized as positive or negative for Jane’s position relative to the rest of British society based on the type of food given to her. The Gateshead episode of the novel, the first setting in which Jane encounters a perceptible form of social oppression, also marks the brief introduction to the extended role of food throughout Jane Eyre. All members of the Reed household note Jane’s social inferiority to the Reeds, referring to her as a “dependent,” and even some servants treat her as if her mere existence is a transgression; Miss Abbot goes as far as to declare that Jane’s social standing is subordinate to not only that of the Reeds, but even that of a servant because she “[does] nothing for [her] keep” (Bronte 9, 11). After Jane’s deterioration in physical and mental health following her harrowing hallucinations in the Red Room, however, she enjoys a degree of compassion from Bessie, who asks if Jane would “like to drink or… eat anything” (18). Later, Jane is given “bread and milk” as breakfast but rather than completing the meal, she crumbles “a morsel of roll” left over and scatters the crumbs across a windowsill to feed the birds under the false pretense of “dusting” the sill, almost lending credence to Miss Abbot’s prior accusation (30). However, Jane is ultimately prevented from being “less than a
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