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Jane Eyre
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Jane Eyre 2011: Week 1 - Volume the First: Part 1 - Chapters I-V
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..."Actually, yes, I think it was unreasonable to extract that as a deathbed promise. The amount of emotional pressure and baggage at that time makes rational consideration of an agreement to any promise virtually impossible.
I do think there was a code of moral behavior under which these people ought voluntarily to have agreed to help out their poorer relatives with their wealth, but that's a different thing from using the emotional pressure of the moment to extract a promise.
If, God forbid, you were ever sitting by your wife's bedside as she were dying, taking her last breaths, and she turned to you and said in a weak and weakening voice "Christopher, before I die, so I can die in peace, I want you to promise me one thing. Promise me to ....." would you really say "well, I'm not ready to promise that, I need to think about it"? Or would you press her hand and say "I promise, my dear. You can die in peace" or similar words?
That's why we working in family law make sure that our clients have thought out in advance and documented by will or other writing what they want to have happen in the event of their unexpected death. I know it doesn't make for exciting novels, but in real life nobody should be put in that sort of situation. So I think it was a clever and effective plot device by Charlotte, but I still think it was unfair to Mrs. Reed.
Georgie wrote: "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.) ."Yes, isn't that a delicious piece of writing? It gives such a delightful picture of each of them and the relationship between them -- and who wears the pants in that family!
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.
And I agree with that, too. It's the coercive nature of the deathbed promise that bothers me, not the principle of caring for one's family, which is of great importance.
Mod
I agree that you are certainly entitled to your opinions. Actually, I think we see through the literature of the day, that that opinion was not widely shared. For example, I can think of several authors who took a different approach--Dickens, Collins, Eliot, as well as Charlotte Bronte.
I can, on this topic, very easily and happily agree to disagree with you.
To change tack a little - Bronte clearly loves the emblematic names like Scratcherd and Brocklehurst for the nasties and names like Temple for the goodies - I wonder if the name Eyre alludes to anything?
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I do think there was a code of moral behavior under which these people ought voluntarily to have agreed to help out their poorer relatives with their wealth, but that's a different thing from using the emotional pressure of the moment to extract a promise."
Again, I fundamentally disagree with you, and that is fine. Personally, I'm of the opinion that some of these very difficult topics and/or decisions among family members remain unspoken until the moment is most dire and are most poignantly quite powerful. This is, I suppose, not dissimilar to people dying intestate--it simply reflects that most people, including family members, don't talk about these very important decisions until it is virtually too late; but that doesn't render their last wishes or desire any less valid.
You believe what you want to believe, I'll believe what I want to believe. For me, my parents' or my spouse's last wishes would carry significant weight.
Mod
Airy, Air, Eagle's nest on top of the peak--the aerie? I agree with the contrast in names too, Georgie.
I was a precocious actress in her eyes: she sincerely looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity. Chapter II.This is one of the passages that feels to me more the reflective mature narrator rather than the 10-year-old first person one.
Christopher wrote: "For example, I can think of several authors who took a different approach--Dickens, Collins, Eliot, as well as Charlotte Bronte.."That is an interesting exercise in trolling our memories through Victorian literature, but even those authors don't always take a different approach. Jane Fairfax, for example, in Middlemarch was cared for not by family but by friends to whom she was, if I recall correctly, not related in any way. Pip, it's true, was cared early on for by his sister, but not in a very maternal way (Joe was the more sympathetic figure), and later he moves on to non-family. David Copperfield hardly gets a good home from Mr. Murdstone, who if the "family takes care of family" theory were to apply would be the case, and he eventually has to find a home with his aunt, who at his birth had rejected him because he was a he.
I'm sure we could both come up with numerous other examples on both sides of the issue. I just suggest that even in literature it's not as clear cut as you propose. And as to the "on the ground" reality, if your view were universal, there wouldn't have needed to be nearly as many orphanages, poorhouses, and workhouses in 19th century England as there were.
I think Jane Fairfax is in "Emma" - but you're right, she lived with her relatives.
As in she's an orphan but is related to the Bates'.
Christopher wrote: "Frankly, in any day and age, I simply can't imagine sending a little girl off on an all-day trip to another locale without some form of supervision. I must imagine that there were 'predators' abou..."It was done though Christopher in days when people felt more secure. Every summer during the war I was sent to my grandparents because my parents were on war work. I travelled by train in the guard's van with the luggage across to the Lincolnshire coast for one half of my holidays and up to Yorkshire for the other half. There would be a couple of other girls and boys in the same coach. When I was at school from age 11 I travelled every day by two buses, a journey of 25 miles. My own children travelled to school by bus for a similar distance in the 1970s.
There have always been predators, yes, but people have become far more aware of them because of press hype.
Gateshead Hall is thought to be Stone Gappe Hall in an area called Lothersdale: SPOILERS.http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lkydzs43rJk...
That's quite a grand house. My husband informs me, who was born in Skipton, that Charlotte Bronte was governess at this house. The house is apparently about 20 miles from her house at Haworth and she used to walk there over Ilkley Moor. He also says Lothersdale is a very pretty farming village just off the Pennine Way. First time he's shown interest in goodreads!!
Yes, because of the high mortality rates in this period it was common for children to be placed in orphanages, indeed many were built at this time and I posted a couple of links earlier about this. Also, it was commonplace for relatives to be asked, or to be requested in Wills, to look after surviving children, especially if they were godparents. My own parents were atheists and so did not appoint god parents for me but they were asked during the war who would look after me if they died so they asked my father's brother and my mother's sister to do so. Godparents were not just appointed to look after the spiritual life of children but to oversee their material life too, especially in the event of parental death. We are more certain of life these days and so perhaps these requests are not as frequently made although I suspect that sick parents or those engaged in high risk work, might still ask near relatives to make such promises. My eldest daughter made a Will when her only daughter was a baby and she requested that my youngest daughter look after her if she died. Do Americans not appoint godparents, whether or not they are Christians?It was therefore 'reasonable' for Mr Reed to ask his wife to look after Jane because this was a reasonable expectation at the time, whether or not it was done on the deathbed. Life could be suddenly cut short by all kinds of illnesses in those times and consultations about such matters might not be possible. There are a number of deathbed conversations in Victorian literature about important matters, so it would appear that they were common enough. If Jane was already in the household it was likely that the assumption had already been made that she would continue to be cared for, unless there was another closer relative she could live with. That the Reeds were wealthy would be another reason they would be expected to take on this charitable task, which may also have been considered a Christian duty. We may learn more about the circumstances surrounding her guardianship later on as CB has made a point of writing about them at the beginning of the novel.
From The Victorian Town Child by Mary Carpenter:- 'For the many orphans during the Victorian age in England life was a constant struggle as there were not many choices one could make to guarantee survival. Charity was the only way an orphan was afforded a chance. Being allowed to enter a relative's home, stealing and panhandling on the streets, or going to a workhouse or school were the basic choices for an orphan. Workhouses were usually the last place orphans would end up. With each of these options there were obstacles in the path to survival. The first option was living with an extended member of the family. If there was a relative; grandparent, aunt, or uncle, who was comfortable financially and willing to accommodate another child in their home the orphan usually was set up to live with them. If they were lucky the family member was be able to send them to school. If there was no family, or they were not willing to accept the child then their chance for survival became complicated.....
...Workhouses [like Lowood] were horrible places where people in them were called inmates and treated as less than human. The workhouses employed any willing body that came through the door, adults or children. The inmates worked long hours under, at times, horrendous conditions in order to make an insignificant wage no matter their age. A thirteen-year-old worker in one of the workhouses in Northamptonshire described the way she worked in 1840: If I have not done my set work am kept till it's done; set nine hours and a half a-day; an hour at dinner, from 12-1. When it's very hot in summer we sit close against the door, and the windows open; feel very tired after a day's work, our arms ache so from working; very often about 10 o'clock feel faint, being so long without food; we breakfast before I go to work, about half-past six in the morning. About half a year ago was laid up seven weeks with water in the brain, the doctor said it was from sitting so many hours a- day; sat then about 11 hours, have better health now; have half a holiday on Saturday, have a day also at Christmas, Whitsuntide, and every fair day. When the missus gives us a slap with her hand, or a knock with a stick, it's not very big. A fire in the room in winter, but we don't sit near it, and feel our hands and feet very cold; work by candlelight in winter. We live very hard, have meat only once a-week; don't earn above 2d or 1.5d a week.'
Any relative with even half a heart, would surely take in an orphan relative rather than consign them to the streets or to such an institution. Mrs Reed would appear to have less of a heart than her husband.
there wouldn't have needed to be nearly as many orphanages, poorhouses, and workhouses in 19th century England as there were. There was a need because, as ever, there were far more poor people than richer ones able to adopt! Orphans, 'foundlings', were far more numerous than the people who could adopt them because they more commonly came from the poorer, lower classes who could not possibly afford to shoulder the burden but who suffered in greater numbers from deathly diseases. Census of 1861: 'In January 1862, out of a total population of 19,774,691 there was a total of 52,125 children in the workhouses of England and Wales. Of this number 11,385 were orphans and 1,880 had been deserted by their parents.'
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/t...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/...
Orphans were a huge problem in Victorian society and the subject of much government debate and philanthropy. Therefore asking relatives to be charitable to them - to do their 'Christian duty' - was commonplace. Unfortunately there were not enough kind relatives around to take on the extra cost. Hence the workhouse, hence the foundling hospitals, hence the orphanages.
The Victorians were also a very philanthropic society and 'Christian charity' was high on their list of things they should do. Taking in a parentless child would gain you kudos if you sought to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Then and now I suppose.
That's why we working in family law make sure that our clients have thought out in advance and documented by will or other writing what they want to have happen in the event of their unexpected death. I know it doesn't make for exciting novels, but in real life nobody should be put in that sort of situation. So I think it was a clever and effective plot device by Charlotte, but I still think it was unfair to Mrs. Reed. And as Christopher points out in post 206, in real life, as we all know, the majority of people do not make Wills or any sort of provision for what happens after their death so plot device or not, the situation vis a vis Jane Eyre is as likely to happen now as then. There has always been a lot of superstition surrounding the mention of death and not writing Wills is one of them. I know that isn't good news for lawyers but it was ever thus so it was no more unfair to Mrs Reed than it was/is to millions of others.
Also, you worry about the coercive nature of a deathbed promise but the Wills which you advocate are also coercive in that they extract such promises too, they are just a written form of extracting them.
About abuse in Jane Eyre, I personally feel we don't have to justify Mrs. Reed's character in any way what so ever. I enjoyed the arguments above but still I don't see her making any efforts to get along with her. Another reason is Jean Rhys postcolonial parallel novel, Wide Sargasso Sea Antoinette is Jane's alter ego. In Jane Eyre , the mother figure, Aunt Reed, shows absolutely no affection towards her niece. Coldly, Ms. Reed regards Jane only as a bothersome child she was left to raise. Similarly, Antoinette, in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, is raised disregarded and unloved by her mother Annette.
This is my first group reading in "The Readers Review" if I'm going off the topic with bring in something unnecessary let me know.
This is my first group reading in "The Readers Review" if I'm going off the topic with bring in something unnecessary let me know.Not at all Amalie, what you have posted so far has been very relevant. I have read about the alter ego theory too and it seems plausible. Be careful about Wide Sargasso Sea revelations though as part of it could be a Spoiler here:).
Christopher wrote: "Georgie wrote: "To change tack a little - Bronte clearly loves the emblematic names like Scratcherd and Brocklehurst for the nasties and names like Temple for the goodies - I wonder if the name Eyr..."I refer a different source when I teach my students about the last name. "Eyre" derives from an Old French word meaning "to travel" and Jane has a great desire for worldly experience and the novel is set with a number of journeys both figurative and literal in sense.
***spoilers included*** Her journey's include:
from Gateshead to Lowood
from Lowood to Thornfield
from Thornfield to Gateshead
from Thornfield to Marsh End
from Marsh End to Thornfield
figurative journeys:
childhood to adulthood
innocence to maturity
unhappiness to happiness
servitude to freedom
That's a good way of looking at the bildungsroman element Amalie!It is thought that the name Eyre is derived from the family who lived at Norton Conyers - Thornfield - see my Background thread. Although I agree that it is significant that it also means travel, something CB probably picked up on. (Another source might be from 'eyrie', which is a high place such as a house or castle and this could be a gothic reference.)
Because of the high mortality rates Victorian were obsessed with death. Here are some of their customs and superstitions about it:-http://friendsofoakgrovecemetery.org/...
Amalie wrote: "Christopher wrote: "Georgie wrote: "To change tack a little - Bronte clearly loves the emblematic names like Scratcherd and Brocklehurst for the nasties and names like Temple for the goodies - I wo..."That explanation for "Eyre" sounds perfect - thanks Amalie!
MadgeUK wrote: "Also, you worry about the coercive nature of a deathbed promise but the Wills which you advocate are also coercive in that they extract such promises too, they are just a written form of extracting them. ..."I don't think the difference in coercion is verbal versus written -- it is more the ability to discuss and negotiate over a more or less extended period of time in less emotionally laden circumstances. Now, not everybody uses will writing that way, but maybe we still need to better learn to do so.
MadgeUK wrote: "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 sis..."Yes, definitely! And since I was thinking English writers, forgot all about Christine de Piza.
And there are a lot of proto-feminists that were long forgotten until feminists in the 1970s started digging them up: Aphra Behn (I believe the first female in Britain to make her living by writing), Elizabeth Cary (The Tragedy of Mariam), and Margaret Cavendish (The Blazing World - probably one of the strangest books I've ever read).
Also, before women were really allowed to write, some men created strong women. Shakespeare's Juliet is a far stronger character than Romeo. Portia as well. And people argue whether the Wife of Bath in Chaucer could be considered a proto-feminist. Her famous line "Who peyntede the leon, tel me who?" In other words, who constructed women as a wild beast that devours men.
Lily wrote: "I don't think the difference in coercion is verbal versus written -- it is more the ability to discuss and negotiate over a more or less extended period of time in less emotionally laden circumstances. Now, not everybody uses will writing that way, but maybe we still need to better learn to do so...."I agree. We all know what is the right thing to do but nevertheless the majority of people do not do it and so the written Will often becomes coercive too. I have specified in my Will, for instance, that I wish my youngest daughter to take Cleo but had I not previously discussed that with her, as is often the case, my wish would become coercive because people feel 'bound' by Wills. My parents did not discuss their Wills with me and I was therefore co-oerced into a couple of things I would rather have not done. We may learn more about the Will of Mr Reed or Jane's uncle later which may throw light on what was reasonable/unreasonable, coercive/non-coercive.
Lynnm: I believe that Jewish feminists now consider Miriam to have been a Jewish proto-feminist and she is being acknowledged at the Passover meal by having a glass of water laid for her, alongside Elijah's wine. My Jewish friends acknowledged this new tradition a few years back:-http://www.holidays.net/passover/miri...
So are we saying here that we consider both CB and JE to be proto-feminists?
Mod
Whoopsie, Everyman, 'Jane Fairfax' is from Jane Austen's "Emma" and not from Eliot's "Middlemarch".
'Middlemarch' is another good example where an uncle cares for nieces - Dorothea and Celia. He was a darn sight more kindly than Mrs Reed too because when Dorothea exhibited peculiar, unladylike characteristics, rather than get a companion and guide for her he tolerated her and let her have sway in his bachelor household. I've always been rather fond of Mr Brookes:).
I'll return to some passages that I have mentioned previously that are still an enigma to me: "...he {John Reed} called his mother 'old girl,' too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own;..."
"...how could she [Mrs. Reed] really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with her, after her husband's death, by any tie?"
Each of these are from Chapter II.
http://www.enotes.com/jane-eyre-text/...
Lily-That whole paragraph is pretty telling with this description of John Reed. Sounds like Mrs. Reed has a very strange doting relationship to her son.I've been doing some thinking about this issue of an orphan child entering an established household. Any truly caring person, man or woman (does not matter), would take the child under their wing and try to care for them as much, if not more, than their other children because of their loss and so as not to isolate them from the other natural children. An orphan child would require more love, not less, and a mature caring adult would recognize this. True, there is quite the powerful bond between a mother and her child, but how is a father bound to his child? Should we then discount a father's love? I don't think so. The capacity to love is infinite and it isn't always about nature and science.
I think Lily's quote above, and I would argue the entire paragraph, simply exists to show that Jane was under the supposed "care" of an immature, inhumane woman and she is raising her son to be the same sort of person. I am saying this knowing that she is raising her children under trying circumstances. This should not give her an excuse to treat her adopted daughter as unwanted and inferior.
MadgeUK wrote: "http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/t......"I found some of the thoughts here particularly of interest relative to our reading, including a) the association of being an orphan with criminal tendencies (high distrust experienced), b) children with only a single parent were often considered orphans (John might have experienced being called an orphan in his school?), c) class played a big role (orphans were often expected to accept a lower status if they lived within families; servants might be jealous if they saw a "poor orphan" treated well), d)"Children of different social classes were not encouraged to fraternize, so if an orphan was taken into a household where higher class children lived, they could be forbidden to even speak to them." This was rather shocking to me as a "norm" of social expectations or at least as not an unexpected situation. (We see this happening in Chapter IV.)
I will add that I found the entire article well worth reading.
Amalie wrote: This is my first group reading in "The Readers Review" if I'm going off the topic with bring in something unnecessary let me know. "Not at all. A very relevant point.
Lily wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "Also, you worry about the coercive nature of a deathbed promise but the Wills which you advocate are also coercive in that they extract such promises too, they are just a written form of extracting them. ..."I don't think the difference in coercion is verbal versus written -- it is more the ability to discuss and negotiate over a more or less extended period of time in less emotionally laden circumstances. Now, not everybody uses will writing that way, but maybe we still need to better learn to do so.
"
Exactly. Very few people are capable of calm and rational thought when they are standing at the beside of a dying spouse. It is not the time to ask people to make long term commitments that will affect their future, perhaps significantly, for many, many years. If anybody but the dying spouse did this, if a friend or doctor or minister came in at that moment and required an immediate answer to such a proposition, we would consider it highly abusive.
Christopher wrote: "Whoopsie, Everyman, 'Jane Fairfax' is from Jane Austen's "Emma" and not from Eliot's "Middlemarch". ."Yeah. Brain fart. It comes with age.
Susan wrote: "... Sounds like Mrs. Reed has a very strange doting relationship to her son..."As I have been thinking about Mrs. Reed and her relationships with the children under her care, one of the first things that occurred to me to wonder was the extent to which, in her grief/loss, she was to some extent more than allowing but even making their son "the man of the house." Modern grief counseling very much warns against the practice, but even from personal experience, I can state how easy it is to slip into doing so, or perhaps more accurately, that it can be necessary to be consciously vigilante against so doing, even if one is a strong, independent person. Jane Eyre doesn't describe this phenomenon in the terms we think of it today, but it does seem to me that she accurately describes many of its attributes as they would likely have been manifest in Victorian England -- the son is "kept around," he is allowed to see himself as an authority figure -- including towards his mother, he becomes heir to family attitudes and secrets, he is granted behavioral leniency.... Today, fortunately, we see many of those developments as unhealthy and a mother often is encouraged and supported to avoid them. Not sure that was likely to be true for Mrs. Reed.
Lily wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/t......"I found some of the thoughts here particularly of interest relative to our reading, including a) t..."
Excellent points. Nice contract between Susan's view that an orphan living in the household should be given special, extra love and the societal norms at the time which, as you quoted, "Children of different social classes were not encouraged to fraternize, so if an orphan was taken into a household where higher class children lived, they could be forbidden to even speak to them."
Society and societal norms have changed a lot between 1810 and today, and even between England, where class still matters to some degree, and the United States where class isn't a factor at all.
I think there's no question that judging by modern standards of parenthood and child rearing, if Mrs. Reed were a modern parent most if not all of us (myself included) would be highly critical of her. But looking at your post and the passages you cite, by the standards of her day her contemporaries might well have considered her as acting very appropriately and even more kindly to Jane than social norms would have required.
'Bessie went into the housemaid's apartment, which was near. I heard her say, 'Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren't for my life be alone with that poor child to-night; she might die; it's such a strange thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was rather too hard.'"I think here we see some striking elements. First, Bessie truly is deeply concerned about the welfare of Jane, right down to her very life. Second, belief in the supernatural is expressed. Third, Bessie is willing to say to her peer that Mrs. Reed has been excessive in her treatment of Jane. Chapter III.
I see several of us struggling with how to view Mrs. Reed. I would suggest that even the mature Jane Eyre narrator in these chapters demonstrates an amazing amount of empathy for her foster mother, even as she so devastatingly describes Mrs. Reed's often cruel and untoward actions, especially towards a child whose growth and development depend upon whatever scraps of love and affection and caring she can accumulate -- whether from a kind servant, a visiting apothecary, a vigilant guard from the coach, or sometimes just being allowed to be herself with her books. It certainly isn't necessary to condone Mrs. Reed's actions or even to be sympathetic towards her in order to engage oneself in what she had to endure (as well as in what she inflicted). She may be an ogre, only a few of us may call her humane, but I am not convinced CB writes her as the stereotype of cruelty that illustrations and other media have sometimes portrayed her as being. (Although the ante does move up in Chapter IV.)
Having been a girl who once adored her dolls, I found these to be among saddest passages in these opening chapters:"Bessie ... opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana's doll.
"I then sat with my doll on my knee, ...To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, and in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doted on this little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it to be happy likewise."
Here we do get another sense of the harshness of Mrs. Reed: "Well might I dread, well might I dislike, Mrs. Reed; for it was her nature to wound me cruelly: never was I happy in her presence; however carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as the above. Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart: I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?"
One of my patients today was a very elderly lady brought in on an ambulance. She wasn't at all with it. The EMTs had given her a little stuffed baby seal to hold which she latched on to. She held it and wrapped it up in washcloths and took very good care of it, as she was in pain and needed something to love.The passage you quoted about the doll reminded me of that! Everyone needs something or someone to love and care for.
I would like to see whether our wonderful researchers here can find any contemporaneous reviews of JE. It would be interesting to see how they viewed the situation, whether for example they talk about this as a story of "a young orphan cruelly abused by her aunt...," which would suggest that even in 1847 there was concern about this treatment, or whether for example they talk about "a young girl raised by her aunt and sent to school ...+ not expressing any outrage at the treatment of Jane. While we of course don't have to see things the way the early critics did, it would at least offer an additional item of interest to the discussion.
Lily wrote: "Here we do get another sense of the harshness of Mrs. Reed: "Well might I dread, well might I dislike, Mrs. Reed; for it was her nature to wound me cruelly: never was I happy in her presence; how..."
Yes, this a passage of concern. Was Mrs. Reed trying to blight Jane's future prospects? Or was she, in her mind, responsibly advising Mr. Brocklehurst of some concerns he should be aware of? It can be helpful for a teacher or school administrator to know something of the nature of a child entering their school.
Jane certainly thought it was an intentional act of cruelty. And perhaps it was. But, perhaps it wasn't.
I always read it as though they were conspiring against Jane - that they delighted in being cruel to her but perhaps they thought they were doing the right thing by "correcting" her. It doesn't say much for their intelligence though.
Georgie wrote: "I always read it as though they were conspiring against Jane - that they delighted in being cruel to her but perhaps they thought they were doing the right thing by "correcting" her. It doesn't say much for their intelligence though."Or the attitudes of the times. If you have time, do read the two links Madge gives us today in Msg 218, esp. the first.
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And as we shall see next week, as we explore the Lowood School environment in our discussions, Mr B. has few, if any, redeeming values (in my opinion).
Everyman wrote: "...Jane certainly thought it was an intentional act of cruelty. And perhaps it was. But, perhaps it wasn't."Again, we may be trying to compare two standards of behavior across time. Nonetheless, human decency and concern about relationships has long tended towards the view of "don't make the other person wrong." (Even though, as my son says, sometimes it is fun to do so!? lol) I do think here, even if it was not Mrs. Reed's "intent" to be cruel, she was, even by the standards of the day.
We see similar behavior on the part of Mr. Brocklehurst, but not Mr. Lloyd, the apothecary. The servants vacillate in their tendencies and sometimes gossip sotto voce.
Everyman wrote: "I would like to see whether our wonderful researchers here can find any contemporaneous reviews of JE."Is anyone using the Norton Critical Edition to read Jane Eyre? Those editions usually have contemporaneous reviews.
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I largely strongly agree with that statement. However, I do also believe every relationship is a two-way street, even a child-adult or an adult-child relationship. At the same time, neither should adult responsibility be confused with child innocence or absolution from responsibility.