Jane Eyre (post 7): Bertha Mason misbehaves because she is “prompted by her familiar”—the alternate personality of her multiple personality disorder.

Rochester says that his wife, Bertha Mason, “is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at night [himself], to stab them, to bite their flesh [her brother]…” (1, p. 257).

Who or what is Bertha’s “familiar”? What is a “familiar”?

According to Wikipedia, familiar spirits, sometimes referred to simply as “familiars,” are supernatural entities. “When they served witches, they were often thought to be malevolent, while when working for cunning-folk they were often thought of as benevolent…The former were often categorized as demons, while the latter were more commonly thought of and described as fairies.”

Some familiars take animal form, such as a witch’s black cat. Other familiars take human form, common in Western Europe. According to one definition, “A familiar spirit (alter ego, doppelgänger, personal demon, personal totem, spirit companion) is the double, the alter-ego, of an individual.”

Accounts of familiars were often striking for their “ordinariness” and “naturalism.” Familiar spirits “were often given down-to-earth, and frequently affectionate, nicknames. One example of this was Tom Reid, who was the familiar of the cunning-woman and accused witch Bessie Dunlop.”

Now, if I were to translate “familiar” to modern, psychiatric terminology, I would say that it refers to alternate personality, as in multiple personality. And since Bertha Mason’s multiple personality causes her distress and dysfunction, it would be multiple personality disorder.

1. Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre. New York, W. W. Norton, 2001.