The hero/heroine controversy

A literary controversy! A few days ago, Sebastian Faulks published an article in The Telegraph comparing Jane Eyre to Becky Sharp which he began by stating that the former is a heroine while the latter is a hero.

Jane Eyre is a heroine; Becky Sharp, the main character of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1847-48), is a hero. No one seems to question the distinction: it’s obvious. Rather harder is to say quite why. In the end, I think, it’s a question of independence.
Jane Eyre is a resilient woman, of higher moral calibre than Becky Sharp, but her happiness, and her psychological “completion”, seem to depend on her securing the love and companionship of another, Mr Rochester. All her battles from the orphanage onwards, with whatever doughty and feminist intelligence they are fought, are presented as leading to this one end.
Becky can’t be a heroine because she is not a “good” enough person; while Jane Eyre’s fine qualities see her through against the world, Becky is too much of that world. Her resourcefulness and skill at dealing with it, however, qualify her first for our interest, then for our backing and finally for something like heroic status.

On Salon, Laura Miller thinks that Faulks has got 'Brontë's creation tragically wrong' and retaliates with an in-depth analysis very much worth reading:

For a great novel, "Jane Eyre" has endured more than its fair share of misguided, condescending misinterpretations, but none quite so extravagant as an essay published in the British newspaper the Telegraph last week by novelist Sebastian Faulks. "Jane Eyre is a heroine," he announces in the opening sentence, while "Becky Sharp, the main character of Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' (1847-48), is a hero." Furthermore, "No one seems to question the distinction: it's obvious."
In explaining this curious formulation, Faulks acknowledges Jane's "resilience" and "moral calibre" but qualifies this praise by claiming that "her happiness, and her psychological 'completion,' seem to depend on her securing the love and companionship of another, Mr Rochester." This need, he maintains, is incompatible with heroism. [...]
The belief that Charlotte Brontë's novel is in essence a romance, with Jane's marriage to Rochester serving as her character's "completion," is certainly a common one. One reason for this error is that "Jane Eyre" is one of the key inspirational texts for an entire genre of fiction, the romance novel, in which the marriage of heroine to hero is the primary purpose of the narrative. But "Jane Eyre," despite its fictional legacy, is not a romance novel.
The pivotal moment in "Jane Eyre" is not the one in which the Byronic Mr. Rochester professes his love for the "poor, obscure, plain and little" governess and asks her to marry him. Rather, that moment comes after Jane learns that she can't wed the man she loves because he is already married (to a madwoman, whose existence he has concealed from her). Rochester attempts to keep Jane by suggesting they run away to France together, but she refuses. She flees his house and, without family or other protectors, the penniless young woman is soon reduced to beggary, grateful to eat scraps originally intended for pigs.
This episode is only one of a series -- including the chapters devoted to Jane's childhood amid unloving relatives, her years in a harsh boarding school, and the weeks when, having been rescued by a family of a devout Calvinists, she contemplates life without Rochester -- that describe not Jane's quest for love but her assertion of her autonomy in a world that regards her as entitled to none. In the past, Jane rebelled against authority figures to defend the legitimacy of her feelings, but when she leaves Rochester, it is her own desires that she defies, this time on behalf of her principles.
It's often difficult for modern readers to grasp the importance of Jane's resolve because our moral code has shifted. We might, for example, regard it as a greater evil to abandon true love than to violate a marriage as empty as Rochester's. But Jane believes to her core that what Rochester proposes to her is wrong (also, that it will ultimately damage his respect for her), and even if we can't necessarily agree with that, this is what matters in the context of Brontë's novel.
What modern readers are also prone to miss is that Jane sacrifices not only her heart's desire, but also, for all she knows, her life. A woman of her class, without family, money or wealthy friends, had few ways of making a living besides governessing (an option lost to her without references) or prostitution (which, even if Jane would have considered it, was itself merely a drawn-out death sentence), especially in the pre-industrial English countryside. Within days Jane has begun to starve. Though the Rivers family saves her, she has no reason to expect or even hope for that salvation. (Read more)

MobyLives has also picked up on the controversy and praises, and agrees with, Laura Miller's article, as do we.

The recap of an episode of Pretty Little Liars (Season 1, Episode 13: Careful What U Wish 4) on AfterEllen also leads to a pointless remark:

(Also, Meg Manning says "Weathering Heights" instead of "Wuthering Heights" and I wouldn't hold it against her except one of her apparent baby-sitting accomplishments was making Aria turn off The O.C. to read it. Which: Dumb. Even Emily Brontë had no idea who was narrating that tale, and the first two seasons of The O.C. were some damn fine storytelling.) (Heather Hogan)

On the contrary, and widely agreed by those who know what they are talking about, Emily Brontë was splendidly in command of it all. But then again, if you conside The O.C. better than Emily Brontë, there's hardly anything else that can be said.

Perhaps the writer of the article might befit from what the BBC announces in its Year of Books 2011 press release:

Every Sunday night on BBC Radio 3, Drama On 3 has a mixture of new plays commissioned for radio, radio productions of stage plays, adaptations from fiction and stage transfers, highlights this year include a new adaptation of Emily Brontë's haunting Wuthering Heights.

Jonathan Holloway is the author of the new adaptation.

This journalist from All Voices appears at the very least to have read the novel:

I can empathize with Deidre Gover and the other mothers, fathers, spouses and other relatives and friends of slain British soldiers who say they are untouched by Blair’s concession of regret – presumably intended for their ears most of all. Their “obdurate perversity”, to use Emily Brontë’s words, is probably one of bereavement’s most enduring features. (Junior Campbell)

The words com from chapter XXXII of Wuthering Heights.

Papercutgirl writes about Villette (which she hasn't liked at all), TaleTraveler posts about Jane Eyre and Misti's Musings recommends Jane Eyre: the Graphic Novel. Flickr user dougal-shot (been mad busy) has uploaded a few pictures of Haworth.

Categories: Audio-Radio, Books, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights