Visual Culture and Scopic Custom in Jane Eyre and Villette

Bibliographic Data

ID12411571
AuthorsJane Kromm (Purchase College, corresponding author)
Year1998
Volume26
Issue2
Pages369-394
Publication date1998-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueVictorian Literature and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1060-1503 • E-ISSN: 1470-1553
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1060150300002461
OpenAlexW2079983988
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited14

Art making and art viewing activities steeped in assumptions about gender recur throughout Jane Eyre and Villette . This paper will argue that Charlotte Bronte developed these fine arts devices as part of a carefully crafted feminist critique of spectatorship and representation. Bronte pursued this end by demonstrating that incidents relating to the production and reception of visual culture were relevant for visual experience more broadly understood by linking these events in the narrative to “scopic custom”; that is, the art experiences of Bronte's characters are presented as occurring in relation to the customary, gendered patterns of looking and being looked at which dominated Victorian society. This strategic interweaving of visual culture with scopic custom allows Bronte to accentuate their interdependence as a socio-cultural dynamic of critical significance, and to illuminate their share in the cultural and social constraints affecting women as producers and objects of representation

Aesthetics · Art · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Relation (database · Representation (politics · Sociology · The arts · Visual arts · Visual culture · Computer Science · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Historical Art and Culture Studies · History · Law · Visual Culture and Art Theory

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