A multimodal analysis of Jane Eyre book covers

4.1 Book covers in the 1930s–1940s

In the early 20th century, the Chinese people suffered greatly under the influence of feudalism, capitalism, and colonialism. The warlords supported by different foreign powers fought with each other and put the country in terrible chaos. Therefore, patriotic young intellectuals were more concerned about the future of their nation rather than their personal affairs. They preferred books which could help the construction of the country rather than books about romantic love, like Jane Eyre. As a result, when the first translation, by Guangjian Wu, came out in 1927, few people were interested in it. The book cover was so simple that it only included the necessary publishing information. The publisher substituted the original title of Jane Eyre with Gu Nv and Piao Ling which means a story of an orphaned girl. It appealed to people’s sympathy with the heroine and ignored the strong sense of feminism contained in the book, although Chinese women began to demand equal rights to those of men after the New Culture Movement (1915–1923), and a feminist movement also appeared in China. In 1936, Jane Eyre was reinterpreted in China under the title of Jian ai zi zhuan, which means Jane Eyre’s autobiography. The readers were only attracted by the growth of the heroine, and the book was read merely for pleasure. There was no serious study about it in China at that time.

4.2 Book covers in the 1950s–1960s

The decade from the 1950s the the1960s was a particular time in China’s social development. For one thing, the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 aroused the consciousness of freedom among the Chinese people and a sense of pride in being a nation. The Chinese government promulgated the Marriage Law in 1950, and it approved the constitution four years later. These were decisive steps for the country, which started to shape into a political figure with its own rights and responsibilities. The social texture of China, once scattered and bendable by the hands of many, was now starting to knit itself into a strong net. Legal jurisdiction and the presence of national laws also paved the way toward increased gender equality and created the prelude for women to eventually acquire equal rights in all aspects of society, in the political, economic, cultural, and social fields (Wu and Lu 2011). Under this improved social condition, the idea of independence and equality that Jane Eyre kept on pursuing struck a chord with young Chinese readers, in particular female readers (Zhang 2017). Figure 3 is a typical narrative image, which represents a dramatic knocking action. The female participant, leaning against a gate of iron branches, through a transactional schema plays the role of actor, while the gate acts as the goal. The transactional relationship between the female and the gate is realized by the vector that links them, namely the glance and outstretched arm of the female participant. It could be interpreted that the gate stands for traditional cultural confinement. The knocking action shows that the leading character is trying to break the shackles of society and pursue a bright future. However, at the same time, this is an offer image, for there is no contact between the represented participant and the viewer. The adoption of a long shot and high angle not only helps the establishment of an impersonal relation, but also implies an unequal relationship between the reader and the heroine. The title Jane Eyre in traditional Chinese is located on the upper left of the book cover, in bold characters, which is considered as the necessary information. The participant sits on the left side of the image, and the position of the female character is secondary, rather minor, compared to the title. In this picture, the woman only occupies a small part of the cover’s left corner, while the gate of the abbey takes up a larger space. The dichotomy identified in the design of the image (female heroine close to the system, yet not part of it; female heroine aware of the system, yet left outside) could be interpreted as a contradictory attitude to Jane Eyre held by the Chinese society of the time. On the one hand, readers seemed to accept Jane Eyre as a novel that can expose the capitalist society in its true colors (reflected in the analysis of the representational meaning); the criticism of the class conflict as portrayed in the novel is echoed in the interpretation of the interactive meaning and the compositional meaning. Chinese women, like Jane, wanted to fit in, but they were still left outside of the scope.

Figure 1:

The commercial press (1935).

Figure 2:

Shanghai life bookstore (1936).

Figure 3:

The new Shanghai literature and art publishing house (1956).

4.3 Book covers in the 1980s–1990s

The 12 book covers were published during the period of the 1980s to the 1990s, out of which we selected four images, representing the early, middle, and late 1980s–1990s.

Figure 4 features the silhouette of a traditional young lady who is standing sideways. Her profile is chiseled with her head down, the straight bridge of her nose and her eyes looking down, the latter probably closed. The female participant serves as the actor and her eye line acts as the vector. She is holding flowers and looks pensive. With the existence of the vector and the action process, this cover belongs to the non-transactional action process – one type of narrative structure. The eyes, the sitting pose, and the background space of the represented participant all reflect the typical offer image. The long and oblique angle respectively imply the distant relationship between the female participant and the viewers and the different position between them. A distance divides the reader from Jane, a sort of pensiveness or incommunicability. The title of the novel is placed on the left, where the secondary elements in visual compositions go.

Figure 4:

Shanghai translation publishing house (1980).

Compared with the former two periods, the use of the original English name instead of the Chinese translation may confirm that the Chinese readers were familiar, at this point in history, with the bestseller. The novelty and social uproar that the cover represents is Jane standing at the right corner of the cover – this may show that the social interest and attention may no longer be on the book per se, but on the heroine and what she represents. Nevertheless, by locating Jane in that position on the cover, it may also mean that Chinese society was still not ready to accept, let alone embrace, full consciousness of women and women’s rights.

The represented participant in Figure 5 hits the viewer’s eye with her firm and confident demeanor. The vector (the eye line of the designated participant) connects the reactor (the represented participant) and the phenomenon (the imaginary viewer). Meanwhile, the direct visual contact also boosts the interaction with the viewer. By communicating with Jane, the viewer can not only share the same feelings, but also gain some enlightenment. The picture shows a close shot of Jane’s head and shoulder, hinting at an equal relationship between the female heroine and the viewer. The shot is also placed at an eye-level angle, which is the known angle to avoid or mitigate power difference. The given information is put in the left position. Overall, the cover makes us believe that the status of the female has gradually been recognized, which means that support for women’s rights has gradually been accepted by society, which also means readers are approving of the feminist consciousness and women’s rights revealed in the novel.

Figure 5:

Shanghai translation publishing Nanjing normal university Press (2017).

Both male and female characters are presented in Figure 6 and Figure 7. In Figure 6, both Jane and a much older and much taller Rochester are looking directly at the viewer at the same time. The image is a close shot, a rather intimate look at their lives. The two participants resemble the couple in American Gothic, by Grant Wood. They are austere, rather cold. They are close, but they do not touch each other, quite in opposition to the scenario portrayed in Figure 7. Here, the represented participants not only make eye contact but are caught in an intimate moment, with a young and handsome Rochester tenderly caressing the face of a stunning young Jane. We have reason to believe that the clash of context in Figures 6 and 7 echoes the unprecedented wind of change that hit China from the end of the 1980s and through the 1990s. The country embarked on a policy of gradual openness to the outside world, leveled old fears, began embracing different lifestyles, and welcomed more and more foreigners.

Figure 6:

Yilin press (1994).

Figure 7:

Qinghai people’s publishing house (1995).

China was experiencing a time of prosperity and growth. It started to consolidate its role internationally, while the initiatives and rules of linguistic and cultural harmonization kick-started in the previous decades started to show their benefits. The country’s and individual wealth started to grow. All the changes in the book covers reflect the social changes of the time. Jane Eyre was starting to be explored, and eventually also explored as a love story. There was space for some romance. The viewer started to accept the romantic thoughts transmitted by the novel. Both Figure 6 and Figure 7 are achieved through the narrative process. Nevertheless, there are also subtle distinctions among these book cover images. As demonstrated in Figure 6, the represented participants connect the interactive participants by looking directly at them, realizing a visual communication between the represented participants and viewers. The represented participants serve as reactors. They are all looking out of the frame, which gives the viewers some imagery space and contributes to the interaction between the represented participants and the viewer. In Figure 7, Rochester touching a graceful Jane on the face serves as the reactor; his eye line is the vector, while Jane is the phenomenon. Figure 6 is a typical demand image, for both male and female participants are looking directly at the viewer. It is through the vector of their gazes that eye contact and social relations have been established between the represented participants and the viewer. Figure 7 is an offer image. The represented participants have an interaction with each other instead of communicating with the viewer. Figure 6 and Figure 7 are taken through a close shot by the image producer, for the heads and shoulders of the represented participants are visible in the book cover image. They are also depicted from an eye-level angle. The adoption of this perspective has helped the social relation of equality and solidarity between the represented participant and the viewer. The title is put in the upper part of Figure 6, showing the necessary information of the novel to the viewer. In Figure 7, the central conveyed concept of the novel is love and affection. At this point in time, by the end of the 1990s, the selected book covers suggest that the general Chinese public is rediscovering the book, and its heroine is being perceived as a more approachable, personal, and even likeable young woman who happened to fall in love.

4.4 Book covers from the 1990s until the present day (2018)

With the development and progress of society, the technique and concept of design have steadily progressed. In the late 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century, with the help of multimedia transmission, all sorts of electronic resources are being introduced into the market to meet the requirements of different ages. This unique social background has been pushing the printing and redistribution of the Chinese version and of the English version of Jane Eyre in China. We were able to retrieve more than a hundred different Chinese versions of the book.

As the previous book covers gradually showed, the female participant started to have more eye-to-eye contact with the viewer. The social distance between Jane and the viewer was also shortened, while the space occupied by the protagonist also became wider. The last period of this analysis is dominated by book covers with novel content and vivid colors. We selected, in our opinion, the four most representative book covers.

If we use representational and interactive meaning to analyze Figure 8, we can easily find similarities with Figure 5, which was published in the period of the 1980s–1990s. The cover is characterized by its bright background color, the choice of putting an original name and the Chinese characters at the top of the image as the most salient element, the eye-to-eye interaction, and the equal relationship between the female participant and the reader. However, the element of novelty lies in the title. Words like Xin Ke Biao appear in the image as the most significant part of the information. Xin Ke Biao responds to the new Chinese curriculum standards or quality requirements of the primary education curriculum. The adoption of these words shows that the Chinese national education department selected this novel as a required reading book for primary and middle school students. Also, the definite description of the leading character of Jane Eyre is presented below the picture. These specific details and additional description positively reflect the literary status of Jane Eyre as well as its educational significance. Figure 9 is also the version of the book for primary and middle school students as basic compulsory reading, which shares the same meaning with Figure 8.

Figure 8:

Liaoning children’s publishing house (2009).

Figure 9:

Foreign language press (2009).

There is another type of Chinese-version book cover of Jane Eyre that differs from the former ones. As we can see, no images of Jane appear in Figure 10, Figure 11, or Figure 12. The covers only show symbolic objects, like flowers or feathers, in Figure 11 and Figure 12, to symbolize a rather vague, yet delightful vein of Jane Eyre – now that the main features of the heroine are clear, the novel leaves space for some abstract imagination and thinking. It no longer has to be interpreted as an austere piece of work, as a critical investigation of heavy topics, but rather it could also be read as a simple, although remarkable story. In Figure 12, there are just the title and the necessary publishing information about the novel. No images are employed. Unlike Figure 1 and Figure 2, the composition of this book cover’s image is more colorful. This visual composition reflects that contemporary Chinese readers are familiar with Jane Eyre as classic literature and as a masterpiece. Introductory words are no longer needed. People choose to read Jane Eyre at this moment not for the idea of female consciousness or the independent conception, but for the artistic atmosphere and rich literary connotations of the novel, the love story. It feels like we have come back to a classic time of reading, with readers enjoying reading just for the sake of it.

Figure 10:

The People’s literature publishing house (2012).

Figure 11:

Jilin people’s publishing House (2013).

Figure 12:

Nanjing normal university press (2017).