more Jane Eyre stuff
Jun. 11th, 2011 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThere's stuff about JE choosing between StJohn Rivers and Rochester
and there's stuff about how Helen Burns and Bertha Mason/Rochester represent parts of Jane's psyche
but Helen Burns is just like St John Rivers, only StJ is a bully and Helen is bullied,
and Bertha does the same drinking and shagging things that Rochester does,
and the main difference between them is gender-and-power.
Helen Burns is a girl who just accepts being told what to do and accepts god's will and looks forward to death and dies,
StJohn Rivers is a man who goes around telling people what to do and accepts god's will and looks forward to death and dies.
Bertha and her husband do much the same things, but Bertha gets locked in an attic for them, by Rochester, who keeps doing them with continental women instead.
The only difference in those pairs is the men have the power and the women are powerless.
But Jane doesn't choose either of those men when they're still the powerful telling her what to do people.
And she does not accept powerlessness like Helen, or even live violently in restriction like Bertha, she just runs away.
She chooses Rochester before she knows he or his situation have changed though. But the book rewards her by making him pretty much powerless. He's still the guy who is about sex not religion, but now he really needs her so he's not going to be locking her away anywhere.
But the women get writ about as parts of her psyche, and the men don't. And those two women out of lots and lots of women get writ about as parts of her psyche, which is weird, because what makes them more psychological than Mrs Fairfax or Georgiana or Adele or Mary?
There's not just a binary opposition going on there. For most of the book the assorted women have ways of life Jane rejects, and the assorted men are great big bullies. Once Jane finds a way of life she can live with, with other women living the same way, she goes back to Rochester, who isn't a bully any more, cause Bertha got out and burned away his capacity to do the same thing to others.
We kept on being told to notice the fire-and-ice binaries in the book, and we wrote columns on the board with fire-Rochester-passion and ice-StJohn-reason, but that ignores so much I think it's stupid.
I should probably phrase that better in an essay though.
and there's stuff about how Helen Burns and Bertha Mason/Rochester represent parts of Jane's psyche
but Helen Burns is just like St John Rivers, only StJ is a bully and Helen is bullied,
and Bertha does the same drinking and shagging things that Rochester does,
and the main difference between them is gender-and-power.
Helen Burns is a girl who just accepts being told what to do and accepts god's will and looks forward to death and dies,
StJohn Rivers is a man who goes around telling people what to do and accepts god's will and looks forward to death and dies.
Bertha and her husband do much the same things, but Bertha gets locked in an attic for them, by Rochester, who keeps doing them with continental women instead.
The only difference in those pairs is the men have the power and the women are powerless.
But Jane doesn't choose either of those men when they're still the powerful telling her what to do people.
And she does not accept powerlessness like Helen, or even live violently in restriction like Bertha, she just runs away.
She chooses Rochester before she knows he or his situation have changed though. But the book rewards her by making him pretty much powerless. He's still the guy who is about sex not religion, but now he really needs her so he's not going to be locking her away anywhere.
But the women get writ about as parts of her psyche, and the men don't. And those two women out of lots and lots of women get writ about as parts of her psyche, which is weird, because what makes them more psychological than Mrs Fairfax or Georgiana or Adele or Mary?
There's not just a binary opposition going on there. For most of the book the assorted women have ways of life Jane rejects, and the assorted men are great big bullies. Once Jane finds a way of life she can live with, with other women living the same way, she goes back to Rochester, who isn't a bully any more, cause Bertha got out and burned away his capacity to do the same thing to others.
We kept on being told to notice the fire-and-ice binaries in the book, and we wrote columns on the board with fire-Rochester-passion and ice-StJohn-reason, but that ignores so much I think it's stupid.
I should probably phrase that better in an essay though.