Jane Eyre
Basic Info
- Author: Jane Eyre
- Year:
- Type: #primary1
Summary (brief)
-This is one of those stories where the kid grows up with no parents like in Harry Potter. Jayne has a ton of feminine rage, which is physically represented by the red room she is locked in as a child. The young master of the house throws a book at her which is good foreshadowing that men are just out to hurt women. She falls in love with Mr. Rochester, the first man to show her any type of attention whatsoever. Jane ultimately becomes the angel the house and does not choose Mr. R because he is keeping his mad wife locked in the attic--also probably an expression of Jane's pent up anger. I bet this will relate to Jekyll & Hyde. The mad wife jumps from the roof and dies which is hardly fair. I want to read that book from the perspective of the wife. Jane chooses destitution and morality, I guess, but also there is the danger that this woman will burn her alive in her sleep. Jane learns to be complicit over the years but I think something is percolating under the surface; ie the red room again. Jane's pick-me-ness is so internalized she stands for the abuse from Rochester.
Major Themes
Key Passages / Quotes
Lots of drowning
Quotes
Quote 1
quote:: “While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking, but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived.”
page:: 177
themes:: storytelling, truth
critical question:: how is truth shaped
Quote 2
quote:: “There pictures were in water-colours. The first represented clouds low and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched with as brilliant tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering distinctness as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was the only limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or torn.”
page:: 177
themes:: identity
critical question: monstrous depictions of interiority
Quote 3
quote:: “The second picture contained for foreground only the the dim peak of a hill with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze. Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into the sky was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dust and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck lay a pale reflection like moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star.”
page:: 177
themes:: identity
critical question:: monstrous depictions of interiority; how to narrate a life story
Quote 4
quote:: “The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter sky: a muster of northern lights reared heir dim lances, close serried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the foreground, a head,--a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and resting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and supporting it, drew up before the lower feature a sable veil; a brow quite bloodless, white as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of meaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were visible. Above the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was "the likeness of a kingly crown;" what it diademed was "the shape which shape had none"
page:: 178
themes:: identity
critical question:: monstrous depictions of interiority; how to narrate a life story
Quote 5
quote:: “The second picture contained for foreground only the the dim peak of a hill with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze. Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into the sky was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dust and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck lay a pale reflection like moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star.”
page:: 177
themes:: identity
critical question:: depictions of interiority; how to narrate a life story
Quote 6
quote:: Jane to Mr. R: "Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realise”
page:: 178
themes:: identity
critical question:: depictions of interiority; how to narrate a life story
Quote 7
quote:: Jane to young Master John: "Wicked and cruel boy!" I said, "You are like a murderer---you are like a slave-driver--you are like the Roman emperors!”
page:: 14
themes:: hating women, gender
critical question:: depictions of interiority; how do genre & craft shape truth
Quote 8
quote:: "The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary...yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the food of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne"
page:: 18
themes:: hating women, gender
critical question:: depictions of interiority; how do genre & craft shape truth
Characters / Concepts (if relevant)
-I'm thinking a lot about interiority: how do spaces and objects work as glimpses into the internal? Especially dreams, paintings, and rooms.
Jane: orphaned, governess, morally rigid, independent
Edward Rochester: moody master of Thornfield; morally compromised; hides wife in attic
St. John Rivers; cold, religious, cares about duty and god only
Bertha Mason: Rochester's hidden wife; symbolic figure of repression, rage, and confinement
Theory Connections
Related Texts
My Argument / Interpretation
Dissertation Relevance
How could this matter to my project?