The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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Jane Eyre
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Jane Eyre 2011: Week 1 - Volume the First: Part 1 - Chapters I-V
Illness pervades this novel and can be seen clearly in the first few chapters. I suppose that is also typical of Gothic fiction and of course life in the Victorian era.
Yes indeed Georgie - the Victorian were very morbid as those death superstitions I posted showed. But considering that death pervaded their lives, that isn't surprising. I think it must have been very difficult for CB to write about the illness and deaths at Lowood when, in fact, it affected her own sisters.
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Georgie wrote: "Illness pervades this novel and can be seen clearly in the first few chapters. I suppose that is also typical of Gothic fiction and of course life in the Victorian era."Yes, illness and death are found in much of the literature of the day. But, as Madge just noted, that really isn't surprising, given conditions of the time. I think one of the most powerful features of the book is the way CB writes about illness and death. Her approach is so intimate.
As CB was writing from her life experience, it is likely that from the outset, and from the way Jane fainted and actually had to be treated by a doctor, that she is portraying a sickly child, which is one of the reasons I find Mrs Reed's behaviour so heartless.Chris I look forward to a discussion of what you have found in Barker. I haven;t looked at it recently but remember that some of it was very harrowing. I hadn't realised I was jumping ahead with some Lowood descriptions here - sorry if they were spoilers.
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It very much reminds me of what poor John Keats went through with TB in his family, including his own health. Hard to imagine the absolute and utter devastation that TB brought to so many families in the days before powerful antibiotics were discovered. Jane Campion's movie, "Bright Star" I thought really portrayed that intimate look at the devastation of disease upon that most brilliant young man--it was truly painful to witness.
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No worries, Madge. As I said earlier (way above, somewhere), I wish I'd had the sense to stop our first week of reading at the point that little Jane leaves Gateshead for her coach ride to Lowood. I think the section about Lowood will really be another whole episode in the journey of her life that we'll certainly be able to discuss at great length.
Yes, Keats' is a very moving story and that little film was excruciatingly sad. It really brought home to you the scourge of the times. So many lost lives to that disease, which was still quite prevalent when I was young - my maternal grandmother and two aunts died from TB. I had to have regular checks of my chest when young. It began to make a mark here again when we had a large influx of poor immigrants from Asia in the 60s but the NHS got it under control. Rickets too:(.As Christina posted, CB writes very powerfully about illness and death - it was all her yesterdays:(:(.
Of course, mental illness was also widely written about at the time and we can see this present in the first episode of the book when Jane collapses from emotional torment in the red room.
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I finally completed the reading, although have read it several times before. This time was very different for me. With regard to some of Eman's comments in #85 (I haven't read thru all the posts so if I'm being repetitive of something else, forgive me). Why would Jane not want to join the happy family group? Because it's not happy for her, because she's treated as an outcast, because she tormented by family members when people in authority are not around to see, because she's sad at losing her family...just to name a few.
Her calling Mrs. Reed instead of Aunt. There is one time that I can recall in these chapters that she calls her Aunt. Most children are told how they are to address the adults in their lives, I believe Mrs. Reed has indicated to Jane that this is how she is to be addressed. After all, the servants have to address her as so, and Jane has been told that she is less than a servant.
More in a bit as I go through some of the posts.
Mod
For me, the color of the room didn't bring any symbolism. I felt Jane was afraid of the room because her uncle had died there and others in the household were afraid to enter it after dark because of the possible haunting. This shows the interest in spiritualism in the Victorian period so it would not be unusual to have something like this fear in the house. Add to that the only time the room was currently used was when there was the rare guest, when Mrs. Reed visited it in apparent secrecy and for punishment purposes. I'd be afraid of the room too.
With regard to Jane's "fit" in the red room. There is a thing called vasal vegal synchopy (I've probably mangled the spelling of that). People that have this have an adverse adrenaline reaction to stress which causes them to pass out. It's not unusual for the person who has this to faint extremely quickly, and it usually takes the person several days to feel back to normal. Anything, i.e. bad news of any type, can create this same reaction along with a host of other triggers.
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I think Jane is – well, not exactly an unreliable narrator, but..."
This is not atypical of a child of abuse. Most kids that grow up in difficult situations can't even express what they feel. I still feel she is reliable though.
Tango wrote: "...Hope you don't mind my jumping into this discussion..."WELCOME! Since you have been following, you know these readers are at least as passionate as Jane Eyre 's author and its protagonist! LOL
MadgeUK wrote: "Susan: You asked for some contemporary reviews of JE. As I have in the past been criticised by certain people (not by Chris however) for posting background information within the read, I have pu..."Thank you Georgie, Christina, and Madge for all the fabulous research into contemporary reviews. I haven't read through yours yet Madge, but I was struck by this line in Christina's quotes: It is an autobiography,--not, perhaps, in the naked facts and circumstances, but in the actual suffering and experience." This goes back to our discussion of memory.
MadgeUK wrote: "Sorry, was editing as you posted!As readers of the Victorian genre, we all know that these cruelties went on in Victorian times (and ours!) but we are also reading authors like Bronte and Dickens..."
Bravo, Madge! And thank you for these Hogarth links. I love Hogarth...
Deborah wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "One the question of Mrs Reed's treatment of Jane, I find it significant that in the Red Room Jane thinks that her uncle would have treated her more kindly - she sees him as a sort o..."I think that CB wouldn't have randomly chosen the colour of the room though. Red is symbolic of passion, anger, blood - all which fit well with Jane's personality and situation. It's also named "the red room" rather than "the room where my uncle died" - so that, to me, points to the fact that the colour is somehow important.
Christopher wrote: "Christina wrote: "Georgie wrote: "Illness pervades this novel and can be seen clearly in the first few chapters. I suppose that is also typical of Gothic fiction and of course life in the Victoria..."Bright Star is one of my favorite films, Christopher. So beautiful, but yet so tragic. Our present day life has its problems, but they can't compare to the reality of death back then. One good result has been these brilliant works of literature that have come out of all the tragedy.
One of the comments that was made earlier was the view that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. While that is fairly prevalent common sense, I recently read a book that is continuing to make me think hard about that concept (I am not willing to abandon it yet, but...)The book is Rachel Reiland's Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder . BPD is a devastating mental illness and many do not recover. One reviewer describes Ms. Reiland's case thus: "...offering living proof that healing from this tenacious psychiatric disorder is possible through intensive therapy and the support of loved ones."
The part of her story that is relevant here comes from this quotation:
"For all these years, you’ve lived under the illusion that, somehow, you made it because you were tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life. But really you made it because love is so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pain of the worst things life can dish out. Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism you devised to get by. But, in reality, it has been your ability to never give up, to keep seeking love, and your resourcefulness to make that love last long enough to sustain you. That’s what has gotten you by.” From Chapter 11.
Having so recently read this incredibly powerful, albeit painful, book, I find myself asking what are/were the scraps of love that kept Jane Eyre going. Certainly we see some of them from Bessie (as distorted as even those sometimes were) and Mr. Lloyd and the coach guard (who protected her on the trip) in these opening chapters. I'll even be so audacious as to suggest Mr. Reed made available to her some material kinds of love across the bridge of his death -- Jane herself seems to recognize and grab onto that in her comments about the undesirability of being poor. As painful as were her experiences under Mrs. Reed, she does have the knowledge that comes from the circumstances in which she was able to live for ten years. I perceive she later makes good use of that knowledge.
Christopher has made clear to me that he considers my approach to reading this book unacceptable, and that comments along this line will no longer be welcome. So there will be no more of them for you to hate or enjoy, whichever you deemed the appropriate response.
Mod
Unfortunately, as usual, there is a difference of opinion and interpretation of what I said; and it had nothing to do with how the book was being read--it had everything to do with how the communication of that "approach" was being conducted. This is not the place to discuss that difference though, Everyman, as you very well know!
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Yeah, I can see that comparison too, Georgie. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie...another one of my beloved literary heroines.
Let'..."
Does your wife know this :-)
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Yeah, I can see that comparison too, Georgie. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie...another one of my beloved lite..."
Oh yeah, Susan knows about my proclivities for these women! I have shared each and every "love" with her. How could I not? ;-)
Her calling Mrs. Reed instead of Aunt.Just to reiterate that I do not think there is any significance in this. I did this for my aunts-in-law and so did my second husband. It was a Victorian custom to append Mrs to Aunts as a sign of respect. It also differentiated blood relatives, who were considered to be more important. I agree though that Jane had probably been told to addresss her Aunt thus because she was on a par with the servants but we do not know this and can only surmise.
Lily wrote:...I find myself asking what are/were the scraps of love that kept Jane Eyre going....I love the last paragraph of your post 319 Lily and feel it is very pertinent. I particularly like the idea of Mr Reed making available some sort of love 'across the bridge of his death' and we see some of Jane's feelings about him in the Red Room. Victorians were very much into spiritualism, ghosts and so on and maybe CB was inferring something of these notions when Bessie asked the other servant, after the fainting experience 'Did she see anything?', particularly as Mr Reed died in that room.
Georgie wrote: I think that CB wouldn't have randomly chosen the colour of the room though. Red is symbolic of passion, anger, blood...."Yes, we see the symbolism of the colour red, not only in Victorian literature but throughout literature in general. Those who read Ethan Frome with us will remember it occurred there too, from the red 'fascinator' onwards. In Tess, who can forget the progressive symbolism of the red ribbon through to the red heart on the ceiling! Then there is Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, which was the red A for adultery. And so on. And perhaps all of these ideas about red in our literature stem from the symbolism surrounding Christ's Passion in the Bible?
I love this historical symbolism in our literature because it reminds me that each of these great classics which we read have evolved one from the other throughout the centuries. We can therefore find friendly and familiar ideas in all of them if we delve. (I quite liked the red of the womb idea Kirsten? brought up earlier and the symbolism of the onset of menstruation also occurred to me but would CB have dared hint at those things?)
Deborah wrote: There is a thing called vasal vegal synchopy...Thanks for that possible explanation of Jane's fainting Deborah, which is very plausible. I guess it could have been one of several ordinary explanations and we do not need to attach it to mental illness unless we find later, from the text, that this might be the case. (I was quite anaemic as a wartime, pre-puberty child and fainted quite a lot myself!)
Susan wrote: but I was struck by this line in Christina's quotes: It is an autobiography,--not, perhaps, in the naked facts and circumstances, but in the actual suffering and experience."...Yes, we perhaps should not forget this element of the novel. Having read quite a lot of background stuff generally (as is my wont!) as well as Mrs Gaskell's and Juliet Barker's biographies, I am very aware whilst reading about JE of the very sad young lives of the Bronte sisters and how painful it must have been for CB to describe some of their experiences in JE. Added to which, as someone who has formally studied the social history of this period, I am only too well aware that those experiences were the experience of thousands of children, if not millions. It is there that my sympathies lie, not least because they were the most defenceless in that society. I feel that the story of Helen Burns is one of the most tragic in our literature, just because it is based on the true story of Maria Bronte, as testified by those who were also at the school, not just CB/JE. What emotions that must have conjured up for CB as she wrote about it, a catharsis perhaps:(:(.
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I don't think Chris' wife would have to ask. She would already know that he would care for them as his own.
With my gardener's hat on I noticed the description of the gardens in Chapter 5 which the children at Lowood tended as part of a 'play hour':'"To the garden!" Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with strings of coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze. I was similarly equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into the open air......The garden was a wide enclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to exclude every glimpse of prospect; a covered verandah ran down one side, and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into scores of little beds: these beds were assigned as gardens for the pupils to cultivate, and each bed had an owner.'
This seems to echo the restrictions placed on the girls themselves, nothing wild or uncultivated here, nowhere to play as we know it, everything tamed. The Victorians believed that gardening was a means to teach children good behaviour because it had seasons and could be regimented. Formal bedding, as we know it, with flowers forming regimented patterns was an invention of the Victorians and it was not until later, with the Edwardians, that the English Country Garden became popular.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/garde...
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3446/3...
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Eman -I believe the text indicated that Jane was small due to a lack of nutrition.
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Thanks for that possible explanation of Jane's fainting Deborah, which is very plausible. I guess it could have been one of several o..."
I developed this several years ago, and it literally happens so fast that you cannot even put your head between you knees. Sitting doesn't help. The individual has to lay flat. There is a feeling of being very warm first, then the passing out. Some suffer from severe nausea and vomiting afterwards. It does take about 3 to 4 days to feel back to normal afterwards.
Mod
Jane is a strong character for me. She looks for a safe spot (behind the curtains reading). She tries not to rock the boat, yet the other family members, especially, John seek her out to create strife. She had no control over that. Did she react too strongly? I don't think we can answer that because we don't know how many times a day she endured similar situations. We all have breaking points.
Her aunt, while yes a young widowed mom with kids to take care of, has enough money to be comfortable. Yet she treats Jane with clear disdane. She makes it extremely easy for John to continue to treat Jane poorly. She never asks for the complete story, just automatically assumes Jane is in the wrong.
I love Jane's strength in going against what was the norm for Victorian girls/women. Instead Jane stands up and says I am here, this is what I see.
I guess that's about all I can add to all the above posts.
Great observations Deborah - thanks! We are told that Mrs Reed spoils John and that: 'He bullied and punished [Jane]; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually' and that 'the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.'
Gone for a couple of days, and look at all these posts! It's going to take me awhile to catch up here. :-)
Deborah wrote: "...I believe the text indicated that Jane was small due to a lack of nutrition...."What passage are you citing, Deborah?
http://www.literature.org/authors/bro...
Deborah wrote: "...I noticed she had a tough life, but not that it was abusive..."Deborah -- I think "abusive" is a term that many of us (at least those of us like myself who are "older) have become much more comfortable about recognizing and naming. I perceive it as one of the "gifts" of the consciousness raising of the 1960's and '70's -- to call a spade a spade, rather than ignore or hide it.
What passage are you citing, Deborah?In Chapter 1, second paragraph, Jane refers to herself being 'humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.' And in Chapter 4 Mr Brocklehurst says "Her size is small: what is her age?" From the autobiographical p.o.v. we also know that Charlotte Bronte was very thin and small in statute.
I can't find any references to poor nutrition, only to poor appetite and 'scanty' food.
Here is the reference to 'scanty' food I found in the first five chapters: I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.
That was Jane reflecting on poverty while Mr. Lloyd was present.
Jane was forced to eat alone at Gateshead, she was not included in the holiday feasts, and her appetite waned at times under her angst. Certainly Jane encounters meager and unsavory rations the very day after reaching Lowood.
One of the things noted on other books by the Bronte Sisters has been their careful attention to time. This appears likely to be true for
Jane Eyre
as well. The following are passages that deal with the few days in January after the holidays when Mr. Brocklehurst visits and Jane arrives at Lowood. They mostly follow the weather, which reflects the mood of what is occurring.[January 15] I fell to breathing on the frost-flowers with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing a space in the glass through which I might look out on the grounds, where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost.
From this window were visible the porter's lodge and the carriage- road, and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver-white foliage veiling the panes as left room to look out, [Brocklehurst arrives].
[After Brocklehurst leaves] I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was quite sequestrated; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. I leaned against a gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was a very grey day; a most opaque sky, "onding on snaw," canopied all; thence flakes felt it intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea without melting. I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to myself over and over again, "What shall I do?--what shall I do?"
[January 19 – day of departure] Raw and chill was the winter morning: my teeth chattered as I hastened down the drive. There was a light in the porter's lodge: when we reached it, we found the porter's wife just kindling her fire: my trunk, which had been carried down the evening before, stood corded at the door. It wanted but a few minutes of six, and shortly after that hour had struck, the distant roll of wheels announced the coming coach; I went to the door and watched its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom.
[The trip] The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty: as it waned into dusk, I began to feel that we were getting very far indeed from Gateshead: we ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; great grey hills heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we descended a valley, dark with wood, and long after night had overclouded the prospect, I heard a wild wind rushing amongst trees.
I was stiff with long sitting, and bewildered with the noise and motion of the coach: Gathering my faculties, I looked about me. Rain, wind, and darkness filled the air; … we went up a broad pebbly path, splashing wet, and were admitted at a door; then the servant led me through a passage into a room with a fire, where she left me alone.
I stood and warmed my numbed fingers over the blaze,...
The night passed rapidly. I was too tired even to dream; I only once awoke to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain fall in torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place by my side. [Next day] When I again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell was ringing; the girls were up and dressing; day had not yet begun to dawn, and a rushlight or two burned in the room. I too rose reluctantly; it was bitter cold, and I dressed as well as I could for shivering, and washed when there was a basin at liberty, which did not occur soon, as there was but one basin to six girls, on the stands down the middle of the room. Again the bell rang: all formed in file, two and two, and in that order descended the stairs and entered the cold and dimly lit schoolroom: here prayers were read by Miss Miller…
[Outdoor “break.”] When full of flowers they would doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January, all was wintry blight and brown decay. I shuddered as I stood and looked round me: it was an inclement day for outdoor exercise; not positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling yellow fog; all under foot was still soaking wet with the floods of yesterday. The stronger among the girls ran about and engaged in active games, but sundry pale and thin ones herded together for shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense mist penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard frequently the sound of a hollow cough.
As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of me; I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much. I leant against a pillar of the verandah, drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within, delivered myself up to the employment of watching and thinking.
Thanks Lily: There are a lot of references to the cold both indoors and out and this, together with references to Jane's 'small stature' make me feel that she and others at Lowood are under-nourished and will inevitably feel the cold more. This, in particular, is a very telling sentence:-'...sundry pale and thin ones herded together for shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense mist penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard frequently the sound of a hollow cough.'
The hollow cough, of course, being something we often read of in Victorian literature as being a symptom of TB. So this is probably foreshadowing that illness, which we know dogged the Eyre family.
Yorkshire is a very cold county in the winter. It is well above sea level and bitter winds from the North Sea, having come across from Siberia, whip across the moors. Dense mist is common in the Dales, where the land is swampy. In my young days, before the current climate changes took place, snow remained on the ground from October to March and there were often huge snowdrifts. In the year I was born, 1933, there were 17ft snowdrifts on the roads across the moors in March, when my mother was taken to hospital to give birth to me and there were similar ones in 1947:-
http://www.myyorkshire.org/image-zoom...
http://www.absolutely-nothing.co.uk/a...
Very few houses were well heated in those days, even those of the wealthy. Heat was provided by a fireplace on one wall of a living room and by a coal 'range' in the kitchen and most of that heat went up the chimney. Fires were not lit in bedrooms unless someone was ill. To keep warm you had to sit near to a fire. Windows and doors did not fit well and so let in draughts, although if householders could afford it they were covered by heavy curtains or blankets. Woollen clothes were worn and woollen vests were kept on all night, underneath flannelette nightdresses/pajamas. Heated bricks were used as hot water bottles, which frequently awoke you when they fell out of the bed during the night! These scenes of the cold at Lowood are very familiar to me, although I was always well fed, had warm clothes and several woollen blankets on my bed. But I well remember my cold bedroom and how the condensation on the windows would have frozen by the morning so that I could draw pictures on the ice! And at my grandmother's house, where there was no bathroom, I remember how I had to wash in a cold bedroom in a bowl of hot water, brought in a jug by my grandmother from the kitchen, which was cold by the time I had finished my ablutions. Brrrr!
This photo of children reading by the fire, as the Reed children might have done at Ferndean, looks cosy but remember that their backs and the rest of the room would be very chilly indeed!
http://www.fireworksfireplace.com/Fir...
MadgeUK wrote: There are a lot of references to the cold both indoors and out and, together with references to Jane's 'small stature' make me feel that she and others at Lowood are under-nourished and will inevitably feel the cold more...."I had little or no doubt about the presence of malnutrition at Lowood. With the obvious presence of TB, it was very disconcerting to consider the use of the common glass for water.
I have responded in the next thread Lily, as we are now entering the part of the book which deals with Lowood.
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Madge, wonderful links about the Yorkshire winter; but I have to say that the link to Tristan Campbell's landscape photography is awesome! What superb landscape photography. I have book-marked his page for future reference. Thanks!
Although I'm not reading the book at the moment, I wanted to tell you all about a book I'm reading that is just wonderful. It's called "Early Victorian Novelists", by Lord David Cecil. Cecil discussed the writers he thinks of as the most important in Victorian Literature, and his section on Charlotte Bronte is quite enlightening indeed. We may not agree with his opinions about these writers' skills and such, but the book is a great read. I've listed it under the books I'm reading now shelf, and hope you'll check it out. I think you'd all enjoy it very much!http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26...
Thanks for that recommendation Ellen. Can you give us an idea of what he says about Charlotte Bronte? I know that he was an Edwardian writer at a time when Edwardians of the Bloomsbury school were rather given to disparaging Victorian novels on the grounds that they were not serious enough and that the language was overblown. They were not, for instance, discussed in University English departments at that time. There is an extract from Lord Cecil's essay here, along with extracts from the work of other late Victorian/Edwardian critics:-http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/co...
MadgeUK wrote: "Thanks for that recommendation Ellen. Can you give us an idea of what he says about Charlotte Bronte? I know that he was an Edwardian writer at a time when Edwardians of the Bloomsbury school were..."Madge, I am going to need to check the essay about Charlotte Bronte again before I attempt to summarize what he wrote, but my feeling is that his opinion of her work was positive. He does feel that she's very limited in her experience, and that unlike her sister, Emily, Charlotte is attempting to write a "Victorian" novel with all it's disadvantages (these disadvantages are detailed in his introduction to the book). I finished reading the section about Emily Bronte last night, and Lord David praises "Wuthering Heights" to the skies! Interestingly, he doesn't consider "WH" to be in the typical Victorian novel structure and tone, but rather likens Emily Bronte to Jane Austen in that she doesn't fit into her time period. I can't recommend this book more for those of us who are interested in Victorian literature, Madge. Truly I mean that. It's worth the time to read it. Thanks so much, and thanks for the link as well!
Ellen
Thanks a lot for those comments Ellen about Cecil's critique Ellen.
I like your idea about Mr Reed not trusting his wife Bunwat - certainly what we learn about her character throughout the book makes her seem untrustworthy with regard to Jane.
The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910
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Sometimes it was due to tight corset lacing but that would not be the case with young Jane. Being hungry could have been another cause. We will never know:).