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Jane Eyre
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Jane Eyre 2011: Week 1 - Volume the First: Part 1 - Chapters I-V
I don't think so Lily, there would have been more explicit references to such a shocking thing. I think the Eyres were from Madeira, off the Portuguese coast. There is a reference to this 'wine making' island later on. So Jane is probably Portuguese, whereas Mrs Reed, who married into the family, is presumably English and had darker (olive) skinned, Portuguese looking, children.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia...
A truly beautiful, sub-tropical island. Mountainous and famous for its flowers as well as its wine. A gardener's paradise!
@Lily - a protofeminist is just a woman who was a feminist before the term feminist was known. I'm not sure exactly when the term began, but I always think of Virginia Woolf as the first modern "feminist." Of course, the ladies of the 50's, 60's, and 70's define what we know of the term feminist today, including Adrienne Rich, Betty Friedan (The Feminist Mystique), and Gloria Steinam, along with others.I'm not sure who the first proto-feminist was, but one of the first was Rachel Speght who wrote "A Mouzell for Melastomus" in 1617. She tried to use the Bible to say that women were equal to men, claiming that God didn't make anything that is inferior. [Speght is interesting because women normally weren't educated at that time except for household duties. But her father, a minister, educated her.]
Speght's essay is in response to a tract by Joseph Swetham called the "Araignment of Lewde, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women." If there was a NY Times bestseller list at that time, Swetham's book would have been on it. It was a conduct manual for women. One of my "favorite" lines is: "At the first beginning," saith he, "a woman was made to be a helper unto man." And so they are indeed, for she helpeth to spend and consume that which man painfully getteth. He also saith that they were made of the rib of a man, and that their froward nature showeth; for a rib is a crooked thing good for nothing else, and women are crooked by nature, for small occasion will cause them to be angry."
(Most of the first "feminists" had to use the Bible to support their claims because the men used the Bible to say that women should be at home, chaste, silent, and obedient).
Also, around that same time, Aemilia Lanyer with her "Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum" seems to claim that women are not just equal to men but women are in fact superior to men. She uses as evidence the story of the women who stayed with Christ after his arrest while the men fled.
Lanyer, who was of Italian descent, is also interesting because she was for a time in the English Court. Also, people think she was Shakespeare's "Dark Lady."
A long digression to say that all the feminists before Woolf would be considered to be "protofeminists." And they go back a long way. :-)
Christopher wrote: "Susan wrote: "Getting back to the proto-feminist idea, which is what fascinates me the most about this novel, I think we can see three signs in the first chapters that Bronte may be heading in that..."Actually, having read Villette not too long ago led me to this idea of the "anti-lady" in Jane. I think if you read both novels side by side, many more insights into Bronte's creative self come to the forefront.
Don't forget the English proto-feminists Lynn, particularly those of the 1790s like Wollstonecraft and Taylor. Later there was Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl, Dora Montefiore and the Pankhurst sisters, amongst others. The French feminist Simone Beauvoir credited Christine de Piza, a Venetian of the 14C, with being the first feminist. She was also Europe's first professional female writer and a very interesting character:-http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/ls201/...
Germaine Greer, author of The Female Eunoch, an Australian living in the UK, is still one of the most prominent feminists in the UK today.
Mod
I completely agree with you, Susan. "Villette" was a novel that staggered me emotionally and intellectually. I'd love to read it with all of you, as I'm sure that I've barely scratched the surface. Truly one of my 'great' books!
Thanks for your comments, Lynn. I suspect they shall be useful as we go forward. (FYI, I am one of "those women" who trained in basic science and engineering in the early 1960's, often the only or one of two women in my classes, so I probably have some particularly biased viewpoints of feminism, which may become apparent as these discussions progress.)
Jane's rebellious behaviour in the first couple of chapters certainly shows that she isn't the stereotype Victorian young lady and so I suppose that sets the scene for what is to follow and sets the scene too for CB's proto-feminism.
Everyman wrote: "We know she arrived safely, so apparently it wasn't all that unreasonable...."Do we think Mrs. Reed would have done the same (let them travel alone without an escort) with either of her other two daughters?
Gosh Everyman, children (and adults) do a lot of unsafe things and survive them. That doesn't mean they are all reasonable. (I doubt Mrs Reed's daughters would have travelled without a servant Lily.)
As I am forcing myself to read this novel slowly and not rush through (like I usually do), it seems I am catching Bronte's little subtleties, such as the line at the beginning of Chapter 5:"'Be sure and take good care of her' cried she to the guard, as he lifted me into the inside. 'Ay!Ay! was the answer: the door was slapped to, a voice exclaimed 'All right!' and on we drove. Thus was I severed from Bessie and Gateshead; thus whirled away to unknown, and, as I then deemed, remote and mysterious regions."
It sounds to me that she is using the word "severed" to kind of symbolize being severed from the womb, or that her adopted family at Gateshead wasn't the best family, but it was the only one she knew. I think as bad as she claims it was in her recollection, she still had some good memories and bonds were formed there. Not with Mrs. Reed, but definitely with Bessie. For some reason, in the very first scenes, she was highlighting these particular awful moments, but there must have been some good ones as well, or she wouldn't have used this particular word upon leaving.
“What do you want?” I asked, with awkward diffidence.“Say, ‘what do you want, Master Reed?’” was the answer. “I want you to come here;” and seating himself he intimated by a gesture that I was to stand before him.
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“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mamma says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mamma's expense. Now I'll teach you to rummage my book-shelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows.”
I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm; not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp; my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.
“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said. “You are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!”
Excerpts from Chapter I
I found these all such abominable examples of "child-raising" and "male/female" expectations.
Careful choice of words has clearly been expected in the treatment of addressing "Master Reed," yet "murderer" is somehow enough allowed that Jane dares use it. (I cringe.)
Then we hear John saying incredibly rude and hurtful words to Jane that we "know" he has adopted from listening to adults, probably his mother saying.
Next we learn John flings a book that supposedly was valuable enough not to be touched by someone else for reading. The throw deliberately hits another person and causes her to stumble and cut herself enough to bleed.
(One shakes one's head.)
Yes it must have been a wrench for her to leave her only home and she seemed fond of Bessie, who seemed to be her mother-figure. It was Bessie who tried to get her to eat breakfast before she left and who 'wrapped up some biscuits in a paper and put them into my bag.' Mrs Reed did not see her off - she had told Jane not to disturb her after saying goodbye the night before. I am really struggling to see any good points about this cruel woman and feel that Jane's memories of her must have been quite dire:(. It would seem that the porter's wife thought it was unusual for Jane to be travelling alone:
'Is she going by herself?" asked the porter's wife.
"Yes."
"And how far is it?"
"Fifty miles."
"What a long way! I wonder Mrs. Reed is not afraid to trust her so far alone."
And when she arrived at Lowood Miss Miller said "The child is very young to be sent alone,"
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MadgeUK wrote: "'And when she arrived at Lowood Miss Miller said "The child is very young to be sent alone"'"Thank you for the textual support, Madge. What particularly struck me was not protecting Jane's femaleness, which seems such a part of Victorian genteel parenting and chaperoning. It seemed to me in direct contrast to Mr. Reed's required promise of Mrs. Reed that she "rear and maintain me [Jane] as one of her own children."
And thanks to Chris for his fatherly/parental perspective -- I saw his comments after I posted the paragraph above.
MadgeUK wrote: "I don't think so Lily, there would have been more explicit references to such a shocking thing. I think the Eyres were from Madeira, off the Portuguese coast. There is a reference to this 'wine mak..."But, Madge, John implies his dark skin comes from his mother according to Jane in this passage in Chapter II:
"...he called his mother 'old girl,' too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own..."
(If confused by this exchange, see also Msg 148 (near end) and 152.)
MadgeUK wrote: "Jane's rebellious behaviour in the first couple of chapters certainly shows that she isn't the stereotype Victorian young lady and so I suppose that sets the scene for what is to follow and sets th..."I know that many readers admire Jane's feistiness and gumption, but as I look at her behavior I have sympathy for those who had to deal with it. A bit more of the Victorian young lady behavior wouldn't have hurt here any, as far as I'm concerned.
Everyman wrote: "There have been some very harsh words proffered on the red room discipline of Jane, including the view that Mrs. Reed is a monster at least in part because she tied Jane down and locked her in a ho..."Yes, strange as it sounds, there is a part of me that wants to see Mrs Reed in a sympathetic light. She's clearly not portrayed in the same way as Miss Temple but Jane understands that she is doing what she thinks is best, "But I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did". Being a single mother etc - she has a lot on her plate.
Also, it occurred to me in the first few chapters that Bronte seems at pains to show how well read Jane is - Gulliver's Travels, Bewick's British Book of Birds, Goldsmith's History of Rome, Pamela etc. Is Bronte perhaps suggesting that too much knowledge in a girl leads to trouble?? I wonder if Eliot based Maggie Tulliver on Jane a bit?
On reflection, I might feel some sympathy but I still think she's pretty ignorant and uncaring. Also, i was going to comment on events later in the novel to support some of these thoughts but will wait.
Everyman wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "Jane's rebellious behaviour in the first couple of chapters certainly shows that she isn't the stereotype Victorian young lady and so I suppose that sets the scene for what is to fo..."Her "mad cat" behaviour is, I believe, setting things up nicely for later in the novel and the notion of Gothic doubling.
MadgeUK wrote: "Susan wrote: Although children do not have the capacity to sort out their emotions at the time they are experiencing them, Jane as an adult is able to see the situation from Mrs. Reed's perspective..."I'm jumping into this a few days late. Jane has always been one of my heroines because she shook off all the abuse of her childhood and came out as a strong, independent, even wise, woman, and remarkably mature for her age. (I believe she's only 18 or 20 when she meets Rochester.) If she was a reliable narrator, or if the situation was worse than she remembered, how did she turn out that way? Or am I getting ahead of some of you?
Many of us who come from dysfunctional families, not even abusive families, carry hurts and handicaps into adulthood. Why not Jane?
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Yeah, I can see that comparison too, Georgie. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie...another one of my beloved literary heroines.
Let's see, off of the top of my head I'm unabashedly in love with--
Eustacia Vye,
Maggie Tulliver,
Helen Graham,
Tess Durbeyfield,
Lucy Snowe,
Amy Dorrit,
Florence Dombey, and
Marty South
Susan wrote: "...It sounds to me that she is using the word 'severed' to kind of symbolize..."Msg 161
I like your analysis of the use of the word "severed", Susan. It is such a strong word, so often associated with the guillotine.
This is from the online entry of synonyms for "separate": "SEVER often adds the idea of violence, suggesting forced separation, especially of part from whole or of persons joined in affection, close association, and so on"
"separate." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (17 May 2011).
Mod
Msg 161
I like your analysis of the use of the word "severed", Susan. It is such a strong word, so o..."
Susan (No. 161) and Lily (No. 173)-- Good catch, the both of you! I think that is precisely what CB wants us to take from Jane's departure from Gateshead.
Georgie wrote: "Her "mad cat" behaviour is, I believe, setting things up nicely for later in the novel and the notion of Gothic doubling..."Please talk at us about "the notion of Gothic doubling" or give us a good link on the subject.
Everyman wrote: "I know that many readers admire Jane's feistiness and gumption, but as I look at her behavior I have sympathy for those who had to deal with it. A bit more of the Victorian young lady behavior wouldn't have hurt here any, as far as I'm concerned. "I was generally treated very well in childhood but there was one person who consistently knocked me around. I took it and took it and took it and then would occasionally flare out in ways very, very similar to the way Jane does (trying to hit them, screaming, tantrums, etc). Because they were older and more credible and less prone to hysterics they were believed and I wasn't. Not being believed, of course, made me more hysterical because there isn't much worse than telling the God's honest truth and being discounted.
I don't see her behavior as the cause of her maltreatment; I see her maltreatment as the cause of her bad behavior. Anyone but a saint, when provoked hard enough and long enough, will eventually snap back.
ETA: This whole discussion strikes me as rather gender-biased.
Imagine we're reading about a ten year old boy who is bullied and struck by another boy and then hits him back.
We don't praise the behavior, but we don't condemn it, either, and think they're behaving in some outrageous way! We think it's only natural, even if not commendable- certainly not "shocking" (quoting Mrs. Reed there).
Mrs. Reed lived in an awfully sexist world, but we should do better.
Can someone explain to me what "Gothic doubling" is? I've never heard of this before and an internet search is fairly unrevealing.
EVERYONE has abused her, so why does she turn out so RIGHT?
Rochelle wrote: "EVERYONE has abused her, so why does she turn out so RIGHT?"I blame it all on Helen Burns.
Aha! Thanks for explaining. Who was your Helen Burns, S.? Or did you just turn out rotten? :-)
Not everyone treated me so badly, so I didn't need a Helen Burns. (Or maybe I did, and turned out more rotten than I think!)
Lily and Rosemary: I cannot speak for Georgie, but I think to explain it properly would admit spoilers to our discussion.
It might be difficult to discuss this comprehensively at this point, but I'll start the ball rolling. I suppose it is when there is a duality within a character that represents their good and evil side. It can also be seen in different characters the author presents to us throughout the text. Helen Burns could perhaps be seen as the paradigm of Christian goodness within the text - an ideal that Jane, being the feisty, spirited (and sexual??) girl that she is, can never hope to attain. Helen is also a character of renunciation, which as I mentioned before is the opposite to Jane who is a heroine of fulfillment - she goes for it and won't give up. Miss Temple also represents this goodness but in the "Angel in the House" way - this was the Victorian model for female virtue. Later in the novel we see some alternatives to this type of woman. Many of the women in the text can be seen as aspects of Jane's own character. She, like all of us, has her virtues and faults and desires. Bronte illustrates this beautifully in Jane which is why she is such an interesting character.Gothic doubling (or the doppelgänger) can be seen in much of the Literature around this time - Frankenstein has the monster - and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde shows the doubling very clearly. I'd put a link up but don't even know how to do italics!
Susan wrote: "Lily and Rosemary: I cannot speak for Georgie, but I think to explain it properly would admit spoilers to our discussion."Some links are fine. Or we can just wait. But know that we are asking. (re gothic doubling).
You're quite right Susan - I hope I haven't said too much - the nitty gritty will have to wait!
I think you explained that very well, and I learned a little something from it too!
Georgie wrote: "Also, it occurred to me in the first few chapters that Bronte seems at pains to show how well read Jane is - Gulliver's Travels, Bewick's British Book of Birds, Goldsmith's History of Rome, Pamela etc. Is Bronte perhaps suggesting that too much knowledge in a girl leads to trouble??"interesting point. It may suggest that, or it may suggest that she has had so much time to read because she has either isolated herself, or been isolated from, the other children (she resents the only activity she has mentioned which the family does together, the daily walk.) It may be that she prefers the company of books to the company of people. Which can not necessarily lead to trouble in itself, but it may lead, in a 10 year old without the perspective of an older mind, to an unrealistic view of what life should be like.
She's certainly a bookish child and most definitely prefers them to the horrid children she lives with - but we all know a lot of children will refuse to read even if they're bored out of their brains. She's clever and she escapes from her unpleasant environment through her imagination. But it's also made her an aware, knowledgeable and articulate little girl which was not necessarily how adults thought little girls (or indeed big girls) should act in Victorian times. They were to keep to the domestic sphere and were denied the classical education offered to boys (as so clearly seen in Mill on the Floss).
Georgie wrote: "Yes, strange as it sounds, there is a part of me that wants to see Mrs Reed in a sympathetic light. "Another point that struck me, as I was thinking about the early chapters while routing out box lids (a very repetitive task that leaves plenty of mind free):
I was thinking about this passage: "[Mr. Reed] had taken me when a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children."
Now, first of all, Mr. Reed had taken her into the house; in a Victorian house, he would have made the decision and might or might not have even consulted Mrs. Reed; he might equally just have brought Jane there after her parents' deaths and presented her to Mrs. Reed to raise. Second, how fair was it to extract such a promise on his deathbed? how could Mrs. Reed have had a fair chance to reflect and make a meaningful decision whether this was an obligation she was up to or not?
Third, and I think most important, only a man who had not gone through childbirth, especially in the days before epidurals and when childbirth was a risky business for any woman, expect a woman to treat an infant who was no relation to her at all, but only her husband's sister's child, the same way as she would a child who was the offspring of her own body and the man she had chosen for her life mate and made love with, or if not that at least had marital relations with, children she had borne in her body for nine long months and then given birth to and known emerge from her own womb and held in her arms still warm from her labor? I was there when my wife gave birth to our children, and I know first hand what an emotional experience it is, one of pain and joy and the most basic human -- indeed, animal -- bond of mother and child.
How could any man expect a woman to raise and nurture his sister's child just as she would her own child? I have a lot of respect for adoptive parents, I represented many of them in my family law practice, I saw adoptive parents who gave enormous amounts of love to their adopted children, but it was never the same love that women give to children they have carried in their bodies and given birth to.
That Mr. Reed could demand this of his wife on his deathbed was unfair. That he could expect it of his wife was unreasonable.
As far as I know, Charlotte had never given birth. If she had, could she have written that passage?
Lily wrote: "Susan wrote: "...It sounds to me that she is using the word 'severed' to kind of symbolize..."Msg 161
I like your analysis of the use of the word "severed", Susan. It is such a strong word, so o..."
It is indeed. This, of course, is Jane writing in reflection, so it may be meaningful that the passage, unlike much of the rest of the book, is in the passive tense. Did she think of it as severing at the time? Or did she think of it as escaping, since she had said that she wanted to go to school. I have no idea. You're right about the strength of the word. What it means is another question.
With so many women dying in childbirth at this time, it must have been very common that children were not brought up with their own parents.
Georgie wrote: "With so many women dying in childbirth at this time, it must have been very common that children were not brought up with their own parents."Yes. Many were brought up in orphanages or poorhouses. Others, like Jo the streetsweeper in Bleak House, were just out on the streets surviving as they could. I would think it was less common than otherwise for a child of parents apparently with no money to be taken into the home of a wealthy relative. I'm sure it happened. I'm not sure whether it was the rule or the exception.
Hetty Sorrel in Adam Bede is also a child living with relatives and looking after the kids and making butter etc. She was pretty dim but very beautiful - opposite to Jane.
Georgie wrote: "Hetty Sorrel in Adam Bede is also a child living with relatives and looking after the kids and making butter etc. She was pretty dim but very beautiful - opposite to Jane."Also very biddable, also opposite to Jane!
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I can hardly believe that you said this, Everyman! What the hell? Do you think husbands and wives never talk with one another? What does "family" mean to you? This is not, I assure you, an uncommon occurrence. I can tell you as the husband and father in a 'blended family' that we talk about these kinds of things all of the time. I love my wife's children, she loves mine; and we'd take in and love the children of our brothers and sisters without exception, and I'd wager most people here would too--again, regardless of time and age. [shaking my head]
I'm not attacking you, Everyman, but I am truly, truly mystified by that comment. Man, that just doesn't make sense to me...?
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Christopher wrote: "Following this same train of thought then, Everyman, it was then "unreasonable" for John Dashwood to promise his father (upon his father's deathbed) that he'd endow his step-mother and half-sisters..."John and Fanny Dashwood clearly thought it was unreasonable because they ended up giving them nothing! (it's one of my favourite Austen bits when we see in the space of a page how they self-righteously wiggle their way out of offering any real support to them.)
But I'm with you Christopher, in that they quite clearly should have looked after them as the laws made it impossible for them to be entitled to any real inheritance.
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Precisely, Georgie, precisely. For me, family is very important; and if I made a promise to my dying father I'd damn sure honor it.
Georgie wrote: "You're quite right Susan - I hope I haven't said too much - the nitty gritty will have to wait!"THANK YOU!
Christopher wrote: "I can hardly believe that you said this, Everyman! What the hell? Do you think husbands and wives never talk with one another? What does "family" mean to you? This is not, I assure you, an uncommon occurrence. ...I'm not attacking you, Everyman, but I am truly, truly mystified by that comment. Man, that just doesn't make sense to me...?"
It is not an uncommon occurrence today, as I know full well having worked in the field of family law for years. Your personal experience is quite normal for 2011.
But we are talking about roughly 1810 as the time frame of this book when Mr. Reed died. (The internal dating is inconsistent.) Do you think husbands routinely consulted their wives back then about family matters? Or did they see themselves as masters of the family, which in law they were, considering that legally the children belonged to the husband, and not to either the wife or to both together. Often they didn't even sleep in the same room, and most of their time together was at meals when they would be reluctant to discuss personal matters because the servants were present and listening.
I don't recall that we are ever told where where Gateshead Hall is, but it appears to be in a rural, not a city, area, where social progress might be even more behind than in a city (though that's a guess.) But at any rate, I don't think my comment was at all out of line for the social and marital conditions of the very early 19th century.
And no, I don't consider it an attack, I consider it an honest disagreement about the conditions that each of us think probably prevailed in an 1810 country upper class family, but neither of us really knows for sure, so neither of us is either certainly right or certainly wrong. I'm perfectly open to your point of view, and I assume you are perfectly open to mine, particularly now that I have amplified it for you.
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We know she arrived safely, so apparently it wasn't all that unreasonable.