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. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation:" (such as, one might add, when the writer's sister is raped, as Dubus' Kathryn)
Rather, Jane continues, laws and faith "are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth -- so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane -- quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.'"(http://www.literature.org/authors/bronte-charlotte/jane-eyre/chapter-26.html)
In "Giving Up the Gun," Dubus is thus given a traditional masculine ethos of being in the world, of militarism, that he must ultimately reject, less he kill his true self, or kill another. In Jane Eyre, Jane is given the traditional method of rendering the female self in the social world of Victorian England, that of marriage. However, Jane realizes as a penniless governess to a wealthy landowner, that to marry would be a rejection of her independence and true self.
This inner truth becomes even more manifest when the real Mrs. Rochester, Bertha Mason comes to the forefront of the tale, showing that had Jane entered into the marriage contract she would have rendered her supposedly respectable husband a bigamist in the eyes of the cold, cruel law, and made herself into a title less as well as penniless harlot.
Only by...
Thus, social constructions of male and female identity are not safe for Dubus or for Bronte. Marriage can prove a lie, and guns can more easily kill their owners. Even houses, of that metaphor 'safe as houses' are really unsafe, for one's sister can be raped upon the lawn of her own home, and one can lose one's house, as does the protagonist of the House of Sand and Fog when she loses her home to an Iranian national, a stranger from a strange land in this woman's eyes. Indeed, houses are only so much sand and fog, only as worthy as the individuals who inhabit them and who invest emotionally in these houses.
Jane becomes imprisoned in the red room at the beginning of Jane Eyre, and is subject to visions of horrors as a result. The Creole stranger Bertha Mason becomes a prisoner of England, in her wealthy home, gleaned through marriage, as well as prisoner of madness, and Rochester is blinded by his home in a fire, engulfed by what should protect him. His only true protection comes from Jane's love, as Dubus' only protection comes from a trust in himself and the world's goodness and in God, not in the metal guns of men and the human constructed institutions of houses.
Works Cited
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Available Online. Full text. The Online Literature Library. Last updated Tuesday, 29-Jun-1999. http://www.literature.org/authors/bronte-charlotte/jane-eyre/chapter-26.html
Dubus, Andre. "Giving up the Gun." From Songs from a Moveable Chair, 1999.
Dubus, Andre. "About Catherine." From Songs from a Moveable Chair, 1999.
Dubus, Andre. The House of Sand and Fog. 2000.
