Re Jane begins working as a live-in nanny for the Mazer-Farleys and their adopted Chinese daughter after the post-graduation job she had lined up at Lowood was rescinded following the burst of the dot com bubble. She is hired despite the fact that she’s not Chinese and does not speak Chinese.

When Jane goes for her job interview, readers realize that a significant departure from Jane Eyre is underway—not only is the Bertha-figure (Beth) immediately revealed to be alive and living in the house, she’s perfectly sane and decidedly married to the Rochester-figure (Ed). The Beth and Bertha’s roles in their respective novels are so drastically different, it would be challenging to identify Beth as a Bertha-figure if it weren’t for the overt allusions to Jane Eyre that surround Beth. To begin with, she’s described as having “black, wiry sprouts of hair” peeking out from her armpits, wearing a “sleeveless, shapeless tunic top” (which harkens back to Bertha’s nightgown apparel), and being “gaunt, with yellow circles under her large, dark eyes” (Park 25). Additionally, Beth does all her work feverishly in her attic office. There is an “unspoken rule” that her office is off limits (Park 61). Lastly and most significantly to the plot, Ed feels trapped in his relationship to Beth just like Rochester feels trapped in his marriage to Bertha. Beth’s presence is described as being tap-tap-hae for the entire Mazer-Farley household and Ed at one-point remarks, “I was only twenty-seven when we got married. The hell did I know back then? I think I was only in love with the idea of her. Not Beth herself” (Park 123). This statement is especially ironic given that later, when she is only twenty-five, Ed attempts to pressure Jane to move in with him.

Beth is not insane, entrapped, violent, or dead at any point in Re Jane. This is a self-conscious engagement on Park’s part with the feminist discourse surrounding the hypotext and, more specifically, Jane Eyre’s treatment of Bertha. Beth is ensconced in feminist discourse within the text. She is a Victorianist who wrote scholarship specifically on Bertha Mason and the idea of female madness. She takes it upon herself to give Jane an education in feminist scholarship. It feels as though Beth’s own feminism leaves her impervious to the misogynistic violence her counterpart in Jane Eyre endures for the entire novel.  

Park, Patricia. Re Jane: New York, Penguin Books, 2016.

Seltzer, Sarah. “It’s Jane’s House— We Just Live in It.” Bitch Magazine: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, Apr. 2016, pp. 46–49. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=114144400&site=eds-live.