...“The main source of Jane Eyre’s interest is the story of immense human endurance” How far do you agree with this statement (Explore the methods which Charlotte Bronte uses to present the idea of human endurance) Jane as narrator certainly shares with the reader a story of immense human endurance. We see this throughout the whole novel. Early example of such are in the Gateshead section of the novel where Jane endures a lack /absence of love. She is forced to endure physical and verbal cruelty though the actions of the cousin John Reed. Who taunts her about her social class and lack of money, ‘You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mamma says; you have no money; your father left you none; you out to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us..’ Jane endures physical cruelty when John flung the book at Jane, striking her on the head. Through the red room we are able to see the symbolism of Jane’s entrapment, isolation and desire to break free. There is also an element of foreshadowing and imagery emphasises on how isolated Jane is from the rest of her peers “dark and haunted chamber” Even at Lowood this is a recurring theme of the unjust and sufferable nature of her childhood. The endurance from the Red Room is a symbol of her isolation from compassion during her childhood. Through the repeated use of this symbol we see how Jane is imprisoned by her own treatment. Following Jane’s escape from the Red Room we see that she...
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...Gothic Literature Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel. Melodrama and parody (including self-parody) were other long-standing features of the Gothic initiated by Walpole. Gothic literature is intimately associated with the Gothic Revival architecture of the same era. In a way similar to the gothic revivalists' rejection of the clarity and rationalism of the neoclassical style of the Enlightened Establishment, the literary Gothic embodies an appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion, the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime, and a quest for atmosphere. The ruins of gothic buildings gave rise to multiple linked emotions by representing the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations—thus the urge to add fake ruins as eye catchers in English landscape parks. English Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period, characterized by harsh laws enforced by torture, and with mysterious, fantastic, and superstitious rituals. In literature such Anti-Catholicism had a European dimension featuring Roman Catholic excesses such as the Inquisition (in southern...
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...Unit 1 – Explorations in Poetry & Prose “The main interest is the male characters.” Both Jane Eyre and The Magic Toyshop present the reader with a rogues gallery of men who exhibit the worst, and occasionally the best, traits of their gender. To a modern feminist, the suggestion that both Jane and Melanie are defined by their experiences with these male characters would be a heresy, but there is little doubt that the males’ primary function is to provide the challenges that shape the emergent womanhood of the female protagonists. They are interesting because they are grotesque. Jane’s early experiences with men are physically and verbally abusive, highlighting Jane’s vulnerability as both orphan and young girl in a patriarchal society: ”Wicked and cruel boy --- You are like the Roman emperors! “ This comparison may seem exaggerated, even comical, were it not to show how John’s reign of terror impacts on a young child whose only frame of reference lies in the books she reads so avidly. These early experiences also reflect the connivance of women in men’s abusive behaviour towards other women, whether through defect of character or social conditioning. “John no-one thwarted, much less punished…” John’s mother indulges her wayward son just as she preconditions Mr Brocklehurst in his treatment of Jane by calling her a liar. Melanie too is quickly exposed to the brutishness of a dominant male, the extreme effects manifest in the symbolic and actual silencing of...
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...15 Jane Eyre – Preparation of Chapter 21 and 22 Jane’s return to Gateshead What is the significance of Jane’s repeated dream at the beginning of Ch 21? • Refers to what she once overheard from Bessie about dreams about small child foreshadowing trouble, either to one’s self or one’s kin. • Foreshadowing a great tragedy, not only John Reed and Mrs Reed, but trouble with Mr Rochester. • Very prominent, dreams persist for over a week and in many different forms. • Mystery/suspense. Jane’s return to Gateshead marks an important part of her development and demonstrates how she has developed and matured. Pick out and comment on relevant quotations. • Pg 262 “I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.” Gained confidence, dignity, and some sense of her place in the world. • Pg 264: “A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power over me it once possessed.” No longer agitated in that childish manner. • Pg 264: “…within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent than any they could raise…” She has been enlightened and distracted by other things that these things now seem meaningless and insignificant. • Pg 265: “…received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved...
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...GNST 200 Term Paper Jane Eyre: Charlotte Brontë One of the most brilliant works of Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre was published in 1847 during a time when women were considered social embellishments, and nothing more than offspring bearers for that matter. She defied these beliefs by doing something no women did in that time, write. This book was revolutionary, especially since the release of Jane Austen’s works, which had a lot more of a happy ending feel that were published a century before. Charlotte Brontë and her sisters Emily and Anne, wrote novels that were much more dark and mysterious. Jane Eyre became one of the most successful novels of its era. This novel is set in the early decades of the nineteenth century, and depicts themes such as social class, religion, and gender relations. The novel is a hybrid of three genres: a romantic novel, a bildungsroman novel, and a gothic novel. Each of these genres are used in Jane Eyre, and rightfully so. They help to tell the story of Jane Eyre’s life in the most mysterious, sometimes supernatural, and retrospective way. I believe that Charlotte Brontë depicted her life through the novel of Jane Eyre, she did this by using her own experiences in life, namely through some key developments from her life translated into Jane Eyre’s life. Jane Eyre and Charlotte Brontë embody each others lives. This is clear through all the similarities between the novel and real life. Some examples of these are: both Jane and Charlotte being orphans...
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...Q2: Comparison of Jane Eyre and “Goblin Market” Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” are both texts written in the Victorian period. They both carry similar themes of the evils of patriarchy and the importance of empowering women to assert their identity in this time period. Both Jane Eyre and Laura are characters that are affected by the issues that mainly affected women in the male-dominated Victorian society. This is clearly portrayed when the men in both texts try to confine women physically and emotionally through deception and force. The different portrayal of both male and female characters also plays a very important role in communicating these issues. Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” can be read as a criticism of Victorian arrangement of marriage. She stresses the importance of women’s friendship as the main agent that can help in fighting against or changing society’s exploitation of women. The two sisters represent two different kinds of women; Lizzie, the submissive ones and Laura, those that fought against patriarchy, and the goblins represent the patriarchal system. It shows that women can control their destinies, gain some level of independence, and avoid society’s oppressive rules and work towards their liberation and happiness. In the Victorians society men where more educated, powerful and rich hence they dominated women. Women were subjugated to the home as housewives whilst their husbands earned money for the family. This gave the men even more...
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...of women: equality and respect --Jane Eyre Jane Eyre is known as one of the greatest and most permanently popular novel in the world of English literature in the nineteenth century. Written by Charlotte Bronte, a great woman writer in England, it is the first English book I have ever read. I can’t forget how excited I was when I read the novel three years ago for the first time.” It is such an amazing and excellent work that it attracts me deeply,” I thought to myself. Up till now, I have read the novel several times and each time I read it, there were some new feelings and thoughts occurring to me, which made me gain a lot. Charlotte Bronte, the author of Jane Eyre, was born in 1816 in northern England. She lived in a family of poets and her father Patrick Bronte was a curate of Haworth. Charlotte has one brother and four sisters. The young Brontes learned their lessons under the guidance of their father and read books borrowed from local library. With their vivid imagination and hard work, some of them have made great achievements in literature. Charlotte Bronte finished her great work Jane Eyre while her sister Emily Bronte is famous for the novel Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre is an influential work. It is widely believed that the book is a reflection of its author Charlotte’s real life. It tells a story about an orphaned poor British girl, who suffers a lot of pain but still pursues love and respect bravely. The girl’s name is Jane Eyre. Her early life at Gateshead was terrible...
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...Jane Eyre In-Class Writing Quiz Part I. Answer the following questions as directed: 1. Jane sees Rochester almost as a god; is this, in the context of the novel, a good or bad thing? What hints are given that Jane is deceiving herself about Rochester? It is a bad thing because Jane only looks up to Rochester due to his older age, wealth, and social status. Jane is more intelligent than Rochester and is proven to also maintain higher morals when it becomes known that Rochester is already married, despite his love for Jane. However, she continues to rely on Rochester for comfort. Jane realizes that’s she’s deceiving herself about Rochester and is skeptical about their relationship when hints pop up such as saving Rochester from a fire and her torn wedding veil. 2. What happens during Jane and Rochester’s wedding ceremony? When Jane and Rochester are entering the wedding ceremony at the church, a stranger who was already present declares that Rochester cannot get married to Jane because he’s already married. Rochester admits to his mistake but wants to take everyone to show them Bertha and the room where she stabbed Rochester’s brother. 3. Describe how Jane’s reaction and choice regarding Mr. Rochester’s proposal are consistent with her character. Jane is skeptical about the marriage with Rochester, but she still accepts his proposal because she is reliant on Rochester for compassion and social status. Her reaction is consistent with her unsteady,...
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...Hide the Crazy Woman - The Figure of Bertha in Jane Eyre Introduction Over the time various famous and not so famous literary personalities have suffered from mental breakdowns. Very often writers themselves have written through their own “madness” and produced mad characters as a result. This is particularly true of many of the leading figures in Modernism, who all seem to have had some odd character traits. But even before Modernism the madman/woman was a very popular figure in literature. Just think of Shakespeare’s famous plays, where we encounter lunatics en masse. One of the most famous madwomen in English literature is Bertha, the locked up wife of Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. In this paper I will look at Victorian madness in general and at the figure Bertha more closely. Furthermore I will also look, from a somewhat feminist perspective, at Wide Sargasso Sea, a novel in which Jean Rhys takes up the figure of Bertha again. I shall try to explain this rewriting of a canonical text in a postcolonial context. Historical Madness Early in the Victorian period the madness seems to be lurking in the shadows – especially in gothic fiction, but then madness was very much on everybody’s mind in those days. The Lunatics Act of 1845 required that all counties should have mental asylums, and this led to an enormous increase of mental patients admitted to public care.[1] Before that it was not unusual for husbands to “shut up” their madwomen behind...
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...TEXTUAL ANALYSIS 1. The passage is taken from Volume II, chapter xx of the novel Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. The bildungsroman begins to focus on the turning point in Jane’s maturity. She will have to make moral decisions and the passage relates her inner forebodings. The novel cannot be truly characterized as gothic however; this chapter appears to have a very gothic tone. This can be seen in the ghostly vision and weather which exhibit supernatural tones, the damaged chestnut tree, and Jane’s restlessness for no apparent reason which she describes as “hypochondriac”. Other gothic elements include Jane’s sense of terror at seeing a vision, wearing and ultimately ruining her wedding veil, the weather, and the symbolic imagery of the Chestnut tree. The passage also represents a significant issue in regards to the morale personae of Mr. Rochester. His untruth at leading Jane to the door of marriage knowing he had an insane wife, whom he could not divorce. One may suppose he should not have offered marriage to Jane. Jane would have to make a moral decision in spite of her deep love for Mr. Rochester and make choices which will affect her life from this time forward on societal and inner morality. TEXTUAL ANALYSIS 2. The passage is taken from the novel Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot, page 68. The passage refers to the narrator speaking of Mr. Riley a “gentleman” who was a very educated auctioneer and appraiser. The passage can be analyzed on different perspectives:...
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...Dear Jane, May 10th, 1937 Ah’m writin tuh yo wid uh sad, sad heart. Ma Tea Cake is gawn, an at ma own hand. Afta da flood in da Everglades, Tea Cake an’ah make fo da high ground. When we git der, he done come down wid dis awful sickness. Ah’m tellin ya he done turn’d stark ravin mad! Jane it was awful, de Tea Cake dat ah know an love just plain vanished. De sickness done ate away at him till der was nuttin left. Ah had to fire first to he’d a killed me, ah had no choice. Ah loved him so much, but ah had to set him free. Ah’m writin to yo now from back home, in Eatonville. Tea Cake don left a hole in dis heart a mine ah swear nothing can fill. Ah just dont know what to do wid me laf any’mo. But ah think ah’m gonna start livin laf fo me. Ah done spent foty years of ma laf listening to da wants of others. Ah still have plenty of money left from Jody’s passin. Ah think ah’l git ma self a bit’o land near Eatonville. Start fresh, maybe plant uh little baby orchard. Ah always did love dem fruit trees in spring... but who knows, maybe someday ah’l find dat perfect man fo me. Ah man ah can love wid ma whole heart, an one dat will love me da same. De kind of love were ah can be free. Kinda lak dem bee’s wid da flowers in spring, now dats perfect harmony. De bees comin and goin as dey please, but perfectly happy... Ah know dis probably sounds mighty silly of me, but ah cant help but hopin. Well dats jus’bout nough...
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...to some long gone person's words read at me for 8 hours every day does not open my mind. Whether what's being said is useful or inspiring not does not matter, my view on the subject is irrelevant. I think this quote by Haruki Murakami sums it up, "If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." Education is supposed to offer me new opportunities, but at the same time it closes my mind. In the joy of reading books I get to live in someone else's world through my own eyes. Year after year I get assigned books to read that get more difficult in vocabulary, length, and comprehension. Reading for a grade does not affect me the same way as getting lost in a great classic such as Jane Eyre. Connecting with, a person who doesn't exist in this world, someone who you slowly get to know with every turn of the page. When I read about a character, I feel their upset and the pain, their delight and relief, as if it was me and I was dealing with these situations. It’s as if I magically transform into someone different and live their lives with them as I read. When alone, books educate, entertain and serve us like a great companion. When sorrowful, books console us. They remove the darkness of ignorance. A good book can inspire a fondness for knowledge that can expose a person to a new world. The world can be very blunt, but also very big and very beautiful. There so many things to do and so much to explore that it's near impossible...
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...Sargasso Sea and Bronte’s Jane Eyre with Rhys’s focus on the cultural and racial difference whereas Bronte’s focus on economic power and moral strength of female. Fanon in the “Wretched of the Earth” says that the only solution for the colonized people is through violence. This radical idea underlies premises which draws from the social norms during the time period. Fanon says “The colonial world is a world cut in two” (38, Fanon). When colonizers come to the colony, they deem their culture better than the indigenous one and their goal is to put their values above the local ones. Hence it draws a clear line between the colonizer and colonized people. Because of the stark dichotomy, there is always tension in the colonies. It is only through the eyes of characters who stand in between the dichotomy and the through the different reaction as they maneuver between different classes that shows the problem during colonization. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Ryes rewrites Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre. Instead of describing her through other people’s eyes, she gives Bertha her own voice; she has a history and goes through different emotions. It is a text which represents the issue of alienation, feminism and the representation on the European supremacy during the time period. Berta, a beautiful exotic woman who comes from Jamaica, is described through English eyes in the Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre on the same account is build through a Euro-centric view of the colonization. If Jane Eyre is a novel that represents...
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...crucial to the novel ‘Jane Eyre’. Discuss Crucial is a very strong word to describe a concept in a novel. In the novel ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Brontë, the concept of ‘sight and vision’ plays a very large part, although it is unknown whether this is a deliberate, or just an accidental feature. If Charlotte Brontë did, indeed, include frequent references to the concept of ‘sight of vision’ deliberately, then it may be argued that it is crucial, though perhaps not to the story of the novel but as a contributor of the literary techniques that help to make ‘Jane Eyre’ the classic that it is today. Throughout the book, many literal references to ‘sight and vision’ occur. This happens in the very first chapter, when the child Jane looks in the mirror and believes herself to be a ghost: “The strange little figure there gazing at me with a white face and arms speckling the gloom, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy half imp.” Jane is treated badly, by her Aunt Reed and cousins, and is treating herself harshly as a result of it. This quotation shows her lost inside herself, with no one to turn to, believing herself to be ugly. Jane judges many people’s character by their looks, for instance; Miss Temple ,at Lowood, who is beautiful and so Jane believes to be kind. Her judgemental assumption proves to be correct as Miss Temple treats jane and her terminally ill friend Helen with kindness and Generosity. As Jane grows older, and...
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...their widespread recognition. Charlotte Brontë’s coming of age novel, Jane Eyre, qualifies as a classic because it has been read in Literature classes and libraries around the world for the past one hundred and sixty years, proving it can withstand the test of time. Her classic writing style, unforgettable characters, and literary acclaim have all contributed to the novel’s success. These same characteristics apply to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, supporting that this novel will also stand the test of time. Each author has a style uniquely their own, with...
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