Mind, Millinery, and Meaning: A Feminist Reappraisal of George Eliot’s Critique

The Silly Novels by Lady Novelists is an essay published in 1856 by “George Eliot” which was the pseudo-name for female Victorian writer Mary Ann Evans. The essay criticizes a particular genre, comprising of novels typically written by women, which was considered fatuous unrealistic, and preachy. This type of literature was especially famous amongst Victorian women at the time. Eliot uses the term “Mind and Millinery novels” to describe the literature she rejected. Mind represents intellectual depth and introspection whereas Millinery is a term used to describe fashion so together these two terms indicate that these types of novels tried to depict profoundly deep issues in a superficial, fashionable, and decorated manner.

To understand the undertones that this essay carries we first must dissect what the term “silly novels” implies in this context. In Victorian England, “silly” was an adjective often used harshly against women, especially in intellectual spaces. Calling a woman silly wasn't just about being artistically bad but it was undermining the entire gender's intellectual credibility. Men often used the term to belittle women’s issues and diminish their voice in ways that reflected deeply rooted beliefs about female inferiority, emotional fragility, and even intellectual inadequacy. The term functioned not only as a description of foolish behavior but as a tool of control to silence women's ideas and reinforce misogyny. It was a subtle way of saying “You don’t understand the world. You’re being dramatic. You should leave the thinking to men.”

The fact that this term has been used by a woman- Mary Ann Evans to describe other women, can be considered a revealing factor that her critique stems from a place of internalized misogyny. She perhaps believed that women should not create literature within a genre that is unacceptable to men. So ultimately, it can be argued that her critique wasn't just constructive but also a way to demean women’s writing in a way that a Victorian man would have at the time.

Another argument would be that George Eliot does not oppose women writing novels but she passionately believes that their literary potential could be used in ways to make an impact. Her critique aims to encourage women to write with greater intellectual depth and moral seriousness in a way that reflects real human experience. She is right to assume that these novels with recurring themes of a brooding hero and an unrealistically perfect heroine reinforce narratives of Victorian society that are impossible to achieve. These narratives may even profoundly impact young women who are not like the heroine and are not conventionally attractive or wealthy. She aimed to encourage women to contribute to the literature in significant ways and not give into empty verbosity and false elegance. Eliot was also sympathetic to the root causes that would have driven women to write such “silly” novels. She reflects upon the economic realities that led many women to become writers. She states that “We had imagined that destitute women turned novelists, as they turned governesses because they had no other “ladylike” means of getting their bread”. She draws attention to the limited options available to the middle-class women at the time who desperately needed to earn a living in a socially respectable manner.

On one hand, it can be said that Eliot was a feminist for wanting women to redirect their narratives from ones that were originally created by patriarchy, by creating higher standards in women’s writing. On the other hand, one might question who defined what a “high standard” is in the first place. Why should it be so unacceptable for “silly” novels to exist, and for women to fantasize about a perfect life and perfect hero? And isn’t feminism all about freedom of choice and self-expression for women? The truth is, regardless of the arguable criticism that these novels by lady novelists might receive, they had a well-established audience and market for them. Many Victorian women were drawn to sentimental and romantic stories because they offered them an emotional and imaginative escape from the restrictive realities of their own harsh lives. This attraction to escapist fiction reveals both a craving for a meaningful identity and a resignation to the confinement of the female imagination. George Eliot recognized this tension. Her criticism in the essay is feminist in spirit, as she wanted women to expect more from literature and themselves.

However, this is not to say that “silly novels” cannot coexist with more complex and deeply psychological ones written by women. While feminism champions freedom of choice and self-expression, it also involves embracing diverse perspectives. It's important to accept all forms of women’s writing while continuing to resist patriarchy’s attempts to suppress the female voice.

Art vs Artifice: The moral compass of Jane Eyre

 Charlotte Bronte uses the contrast between art which is a tool for inner expression and creativity, and artifice which is used as a mask for social survival to narrate the extensive nature of Jane's integrity and honesty.

Jane is seen constantly rejecting societal artifice and she refuses to play roles that deny her self-hood. Jane does not want to perform and instead aims to assert her truth even when no one is watching. This is seen especially within her art that she creates from a very young age despite having no audience to show. Creating art is not only a hobby for Jane but also a medium that allows her to express herself in a way that may seem unacceptable in traditional Victorian society. Her sketches are not romantic landscapes with a conventional backstory or a Romeo and Juliet trope, her images are surreal, and symbolic and often depict a sense of melancholy and loneliness. For example, Jane draws a shipwreck with a drowned corpse “Foregrounded was the mast of a ship wrecked in stormy seas. A corpse, hair streaming, was bound to the mast. A giant arm emerged from a cloud above, holding a shroud ready to enwrap the dead figure.” The shipwreck may represent despair and emotional drowning, while the giant arm with a shroud may represent divine intervention and judgment which are religious frameworks that encompass Janes's own faith in god. Jane’s work mirrors her soul, where art is used as a language of truth and forthrightness to manifest her own narratives and beliefs into physical abstraction.

Jane is seen criticising the artifice of Victorian social norms especially those imposed on women such as Blanche Ingram. Blanche is beautiful fashionable and witty, she performs the roles of an ideal Victorian woman. However, beneath her cultivated charms lies cruelty, vanity, and calculated moves made to capture a position in society. She is inauthentic and wears a mask of elegance to impress people and lure a wealthy husband like Rochester. She even uses forms of art for purposes different from Janes. She has musical abilities but uses them not as a form of self-expression but rather as a means to attract male validation.

Similarly, Mr Brocklehurst is a symbol or moral artifice, he preaches Christian humility to the girls at Lowood by forbidding them to dress up and have curls in their hair, not out of piety but to assert control. He is not virtuous, he simply tries to manipulate the appearance of young girls as a way to feel powerful and dominant. His hypocrisy and moral questionability become glaringly evident when his own wife and daughter arrive at the school adorned with extravagant clothing and hairstyles. This reveals the double standards and self-serving nature of his moral grandstanding.

Even Rochester’s entire relationship with Jane is based on a concealed truth: the existence of his wife Bertha Mason. He attempts to dress Jane in fine clothes and gift her with luxuries, however, Jane recognises that these are not acts of love. Rochester's subtle attempt at moulding Jane into a more “proper” looking lady suitable for him to marry represents the artifice that he imposes upon Jane. Jane stays authentic here too by refusing a comfortable and lavish lifestyle with a wealthy man like Rochester even when deeply in love. She finds no comfort in being a mistress, although it would be the easier decision, she chooses her self-respect, she says “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now”. Leaving behind physical and transient comfort, Jane seeks a path that is authentic and built on her terms. She knows love without truth is a form of spiritual death.

What sets Jane apart from her surroundings is her unwavering commitment to emotional and moral truth. Even as a child, she stands for herself against Mrs Reed when faced with injustice. She declares to Mrs Reed “You are deceitful”. Her honesty is dangerous in a world that punishes women for speaking too boldly, yet Jane never retreats into passivity, false performance, and artifice. 

A woman set aflame: what role did Bertha Mason play in the Jane Eyre novel?

In the novel, Bertha is the plot obstacle for Jane and Rochester’s romance. However, feminist readings have created meaningful analogies on what the tragic character of Bertha Mason could represent. “The Mad Woman in the Attic” is a novel that has served as a groundbreaking feminist literary piece by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. It makes direct references to the character of Bertha Mason from the novel and uses her character as a central metaphor for how women have been silenced, repressed, and misrepresented in Victorian literature written by men. They argue that Bertha Mason is the dark suppressed double of Jane and is a symbol of the anger and frustration faced by her as she is trapped in a patriarchal system.

Critics have said that Bertha is “the monstrous embodiment of psychosexual conflicts which are intrinsic to the romantic predicament- paralleled and unconscious in both Jane and Rochester”. This suggests that Bertha is not just a madwoman in the novel but she is the physical embodiment of what is repressed or suppressed within Jane herself. Bertha is everything a woman is forbidden to be in Victorian England. In a society where women are expected to be composed, obedient, and rational, Bertha is the opposite. She is unhinged, chaotic, frantic, and untamable. She is described in animalistic and dehumanising terms and her mere existence showcases how men in a Victorian society locked away or silenced women who would not conform to the ideals they imposed upon them.

Bertha is not only mentally ill but she is the symbolic consequence of a world that suffocates female agency. It can be hypothesised that Jane sees in her a dangerous image of self expression through chaos and anger. Jane too embodies this somewhere in her unconscious however she cannot safely express it within the constraints of Victorian respectability. Marriage in the 19^th century often meant loss of agency and autonomy for women and Bertha's actions manifest in a way that Janes's unconscious mind was feeling. For example, the act of Bertha tearing Jane's wedding veil with her haunting presence at night can be read as a symbolic enactment of Jane dreading to marry Rochester because she fears dependency and the loss of her autonomy.

While using symbolism and metaphors to understand Bertha Mason can add depth and abstraction to the Jane Eyre novel, it is important to also assess the situation for its stark reality. The truth is that Rochester uses Bertha as a means to an end both emotionally and socially. He marries her not out of love, but due to family pressure and the lure of wealth. His family imposes the marriage upon him to secure a large dowry while deliberately hiding from him the reality of Bertha's family history of mental illness. After marriage when Rochester discovers the truth about her behaviour and illness, he chooses to hide her away in the attic, stripping her of basic needs and humanity. He speaks of her as a burden and a shadow over his own happiness, and he uses her condition as a justification for his own emotional suffering and moral compromise. Yet he is deceptive and pursues relationships with other women including Jane all while being legally married.

The truth is that Bertha is in fact a real woman within the book and is denied a voice, locked away like an inconvenience, and made out to be a monster. She is used as a scapegoat for Rochester to receive sympathy from Jane and ultimately Bertha becomes a mere obstacle that needs to be removed before he can “earn” a new life with Jane. The interpretations must not understate the undeniable existence of a woman who was ultimately destroyed to serve as an instrument to Rochester's redemption and “happy” ending. Her fate reflects the darkest underside of what many mentally ill or unstable women faced in Victorian society, where nonconforming was met with dehumanisation and being locked away both metaphorically and literally. 

Feminism through the lens of Jane Eyre

Feminism is constantly showcased through the liberating choices Jane makes on her terms as a woman living in 19th-century Victorian England. She consistently seeks independence and a life that is created by herself in an honest and morally integral manner.

After spending nearly 8 years at Lowood Institution she expresses in chapter 10 how she desires liberty and desperately prays for god to grant her a new servitude. This moment marks how her servitude at Lowood has come to an end and she realizes that her mind and spirit are constrained by the routine and isolation of the place she has lived at for nearly a decade, she now craves a soul that experiences the profound depths of companionship, adventure, new choices, and love. She wants to create a transformation in her life- from passive servitude at Lowood to active selfhood that can be given to her through exploration of a new perspective experience. Hence, she uses her education to advertise herself and embarks on a journey to become a governess to her pupil Adele Varens at the lavish Thornfield Hall.

There too, she is faced by many dilemmas that she tackles by exercising her autonomy and freedom of choice. Jane becomes especially aware of her needs and desires and her sense of morality as she chooses to flee Thornfield, leaving Rochester behind after she learns that he is already married. She finds no comfort in being a mistress, although it would be the easier decision, she refuses to sacrifice herself and instead chooses her self-respect, she says “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now”. Leaving behind physical and transient comfort, Jane seeks a path that is built on her terms and enables her virtues as a self-respecting woman and a moralistic Christian.

This event in the novel marks a profound feminist act taken by Jane. She believes that she deserves more than being the mistress of a man who has been dishonest with her. Although she loves Rochester, she refuses to sacrifice her dignity and the love she believes she is in full right of receiving. Victorian England was a society that often expected women to be submissive to patriarchal power, especially to a man with economic and class-related power who was willing to provide for a woman. In this dynamic, Rochester is at a position of authority as her employer and is wealthy. He can give Jane the luxuries that she has been deprived of as a poor orphan, however, she refuses to be owned and become his possession. She says to Rochester “I am no bird, and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will which I now exert to leave you”.

Further, Jane rejects the Victorian norm that a woman’s worth is tied to her beauty and status. She says to Rochester “Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings?... Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?”. Jane only returns to Rochester after he is free of his previous marriage with Bertha Maison and Jane has inherited a fortune from her Uncle. This allows her to go back to the dynamic with a sense of equality between Jane and Rochester not only in terms of financial status but also in terms of morality. Rochester has paid his price or even Karmic debt for locking Bertha Maison in the attic and deceiving those around him- especially Jane. For this act he committed, he loses an eye and a limb in a fire which also causes him to lose the Thornfield Hall mansion. Only after this incident is he able to attain the moral clarity and integrity necessary to becoming worthy of marrying someone like Jane, who has always remained true to her principles and true to herself.

The novel ends with Janes closing tribute to St John who poses as a rigid and patriarchal figure in the novel. Jane's rejection of him is not just personal and because she is in love with another man, but she also rejects the rigid Christian worldview that he presents. St John’s religious mission can be seen as a tool for male dominance and it seems unfair for St John to impose his individual beliefs on to Jane and expect her to sacrifice her desires for love to become his companion on a mission in a foreign land. He tells her “God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not personal but mental endowments they have given you; you are formed for labor, not love. A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine; I claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.” His neglect of Jane’s individuality is demeaning as he implies that her values and needs lie in her usefulness to his goals reinstating the patriarchal view set by men in the Victorian era.

Further, Jane approaches the idea of marriage with introspection by critically questioning the character of the man she is to marry rather than merely conforming to the societal expectation of marriage. For example Jane writes- “St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him…he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him…I comprehended, all at once, that he would hardly make a good husband; that it would be a trying thing to be his wife”. Here she is viewing St John not as a potential suitor but as a human who could impact her happiness and desires profoundly.

In a time when women were denied their right to shape their own futures, Jane took a stand for herself and refused the reduction of herself to an instrument of male purpose. 

How Jane Eyre navigated identity in a conformist world

 Jane's passion and repression throughout the novel are both part of how Jane creates her Identity. In other words, Jane's emotional struggles, her desires, and even her moments of submission are not signs of defeat but rather part of her process of becoming a complex and deep character. The novel doesn't simply show rebellion followed by acceptance of unfair circumstances through repression but rather presents a world where conflicting feelings and ideas are met in a nuanced manner, shaping who Jane is. Jane is not a simple character, she is rebellious, spiritual, moralistic, and passionate. The novel helps us understand how someone like Jane tries to build a life around her ideals while still fitting in a society that tries to limit her choices.

Jane begins as an angry narrator and then learns to repress this anger by understanding, accepting and almost becoming part of the society she exists within. As the book proceeds she starts to tell and narrate her story with less wormwood as compared to her earlier narrations. The book portrays her gradual evolution from defiant exclusion to harmony within the social order by showcasing her various interactions with characters within the narrative that acted as catalysts toward her change.

One might argue that Jane’s rebelliousness is softened over time, particularly after her friendship with Helen Burns and the spiritual self-discipline she learns at Lowood. However, Jane never fully abandons her resistance. She continues to reject the life of passive subordination, refusing the security of a loveless marriage to Rochester when it would cost her integrity, and resisting St. John Rivers’s attempt to control her under the guise of religious duty. These acts of defiance reveal that Jane’s sense of self remains grounded in autonomy and moral strength, even as she moves through different social environments.

At the beginning of the novel, Jane Eyre is marginalized and outcasted by the reeds at Gateshead as she is an orphan child who is not only financially dependent but also often rebels against what is expected of her. She is often found in dilemmas where she is morally defiant and resists the exclusion being subjected upon her by the Reeds as she refuses to accept inferiority to them by using dialogues such as “I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you...”. Jane who is aware of her marginal position, actively tries to assert her sense of self especially when being questioned by dominant power structures such as Mrs Reed whom she speaks back to, and Mr Brocklehurst by whom she objects to being falsely branded as a liar.

At Lowood School, her fiery spirit is tempered by suffering and her friendship with Helen Burns. Helen represents a kind of spiritual acceptance that initially confounds Jane, who finds it difficult to forgive injustice. Yet Helen’s influence is critical: she teaches Jane stoicism, endurance, and the value of inner peace, all of which Jane integrates into her character without losing her essential sense of right and wrong. This blending of rebellion with self-control is an early example of how passion and restraint are not opposites in Jane’s journey, but co-existing forces.

As a governess at Thornfield, Jane finds herself in yet another ambiguous position neither fully a servant nor fully part of the upper class. Her love for Mr. Rochester introduces a new emotional challenge: desire. Her passion for Rochester is intense and real, but she resists allowing it to overpower her self-respect. When she discovers that he is already married, her decision to leave him despite the heartbreak it causes is one of the clearest examples of how Jane’s repression is not passive submission, but a deeply conscious, moral choice. “I am no bird and no net ensnares me,” she says, asserting her need for autonomy over romantic attachment.

Later, when offered a marriage of duty by St. John Rivers, Jane again rejects repression disguised as righteousness. St. John wants her to become his missionary wife, not out of love but because it suits his vision of purpose and sacrifice. Jane resists this path as well, recognizing that such a union would suppress her emotional and spiritual needs.

Jane only returns to Rochester once the power dynamic between them has shifted. He is blind and humbled; she is now financially independent. Their union is now based on mutual respect and equality, not submission or dependence. This resolution doesn’t suggest that Jane has given up her ideals or compromised her beliefs. Rather, it shows how she has managed to reconcile her passion, her moral compass, and her desire for belonging on her terms.

Critics have pointed out that Jane narrates her story ten years after marrying Rochester, meaning that the need that still exists within her to tell her story implies that the tensions and difficulties she lived through are still profound and emotions around them continue to linger.

The novel’s ideological power lies not in presenting a clear political stance, but in illustrating the complexity of navigating a world where class, gender, and morality intersect in constantly shifting ways. Throughout the novel Jane does not settle into a fixed social identity instead, she learns to adopt different class positions in response to her external environment. For example, she works as a governess with minimal income on her hands and later is blessed with a fortune left behind for her by her uncle. As an heiress, she gains a form of independence that allows her to return to Rochester on equal terms. Her adaptability reflects a nuanced awareness of how identity is shaped by circumstances rather than fixed by birth or profession.

Thus, Jane’s story is not one of choosing between rebellion and repression, but of learning to hold space for both to use repression as a form of integrity, and passion as a form of resistance. Through her choices, Jane Eyre offers a portrait of a woman who builds a life rooted in her values while navigating the constraints of a society that repeatedly tries to silence or define her. This balancing act between desire and duty, between resistance and restraint is what makes her journey so enduringly powerful.