The Illusion of the Safe Space
When Jane & Amudha Shattered the Mirror
#mirrorsymbolism #reflections
The very first time I studied mirror symbolism with such meditative reverence, was while reading through Bronte’s Jane Eyre.
I had the privilege of teaching Jane Eyre way back in 2002, for the BA English Literature Class in American College, Madurai.
In fact, on hindsight, realisation dawned on me that, the novel sports one of the most famous mirror scenes in all of literature. 😊
Also, I’m in pure awe of Bronte for the richness of her symbolism - a masterful writerly Mani Ratnam of the Victorian Era!
In Victorian literature in general, and to Charlotte Bronte in particular, mirrors were not just vanity objects. They served as rich psychological devices, representing the duality of human nature, the fracturing of identity, the soul, and the strict societal expectations placed upon individuals (particularly women).
Sample this scene in the Red Room in Chapter Two –
When she was just a ten-year old child, an orphaned Jane is unjustly locked in the terrifying Red Room. When she is alone in the room, she catches sight of herself in the “great looking-glass.” Instead of seeing a familiar child, she sees a strange, ghostly figure of herself in the mirror -
All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit...
The mirror reflects Jane’s profound sense of alienation and otherness. She feels disconnected from the wealthy Reed family and even from her own body. The reflection here represents the suppressed, rebellious spirit inside her that Victorian society deems unnatural for a young girl.
Now, let’s try and compare Bronte’s Jane with Mani Ratnam’s Amudha – ‘texts’ that are 155 years apart but still hold a lot of similarities between them.
Both stories host very young girls as their protagonists.
Jane is 10 years old, while Amudha is nine years old.
Both girls grapple with a fractured sense of identity!
Jane Eyre is a literal orphan, treated as an unwanted stranger in the house! However, Amudha who discovers that she is adopted only on her ninth birthday, is deeply loved by her adoptive parents. But still, this revelation shatters her known reality.
Like Jane, she suddenly feels she is an outsider in her own home.
For both protagonists, the realisation of their “orphanhood” triggers an existential crisis!
Interestingly, Neither Jane nor Amudha are passive victims of their circumstances; they are fiercely vocal and rebellious children who refuse to let adults dictate their reality.
When young Jane is unjustly punished, she famously erupts at her Aunt Reed saying –
“I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you...”
Amudha too exhibits the exact same fiery, uncontainable and indomitable spirit. When her parents try to gently manage the truth of her adoption, Amudha rebels. She runs away from home, and demands that her parents take her to Sri Lanka.
We find here that, both Jane and Amudha use their voice as a weapon against the trauma of their displacement!
Both girls hence, are out on a quest in search of the ideal maternal figure.
Similarly, both the ‘texts’ use the physical environment as psychological spaces to mirror the internal psychological chaos of their protagonists. (Remember the very first memorable line of Yeats’ ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’?
Mani Ratnam’s Kannathil Muthamittal also sports mirror symbolism in the beginning of the film – quite a regular and habituated trope for Mani Sir! 😊
There’s this intimate scene between Shyama and Dileepan – Amudha’s biological parents - which is mirrored for the viewers.
A beautiful piece of masterful symbolism!
It could connote the fact that the peace and the love and the intimacy which Shyama and Dileepan are experiencing now is painfully temporary, alluding to the fragility of their ‘real’ world, which is as fragile as a mirror!
Just as a mirror is easily shattered, their marriage, their home, and their lives are about to be violently shattered by the erupting civil war!
In that way, the mirror symbolism acts as a kind of visual foreshadowing of sorts!
The mirror here creates a temporary, almost illusionary safe space haven!
And that’s where Lacan comes handy for us –
To Lacan, when a child first recognises their reflection in a mirror, they perceive a unified, whole self (the Ideal - I). However, this is a misrecognition, that masks the subject’s actual fragmented reality.
The “known reality” of Amudha’s safe Chennai upbringing or Jane’s initial, structured life at Thornfield are these Imaginary, mirror-stage illusions!
That’s hence, Lacan says that, one cannot stay in the Imaginary for long. The mirror must shatter for the subject to have an encounter with the Real – something that is traumatic, and something that disrupts our ‘constructed realities’ for us.
Well, to conclude then, both Jane and Amudha, are ultimately on a journey to resolve the trauma of their displacement and finally they find a true sense of home – by shattering the mirror – resulting in a beautiful transition from the mirror to the real!
One memorable quote that I love a lot, from the only Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz would – I’m sure – be the icing on the cake for this little post. So here goes –
Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease!
Woww! 😊
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