Transcript Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre
by
Charlotte Brontë
Part II of II
Jane Eyre
Romantic Novel
Gothic Novel
Sentimental Novel
Novel of Manners
Autobiography
Bildungsroman
Realist Novel
and
Jane Eyre
Review: The Gothic Novel
1) The Gothic novel's story occurs in a distant time and place, often Medieval or Renaissance Europe
(especially Italy and Spain), and involved the fantastic exploits of a virtuous heroine imperiled by dark,
tyrannical forces beyond her control. The first Gothic novel is Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Orlanto
(1764), but its most famous and popular practitioner was Anne Radcliffe
2) The notion of the sublime is central to the Gothic Novel. Eighteenth-century aesthetic theory, following
Edmund Burke, held that the sublime and the beautiful were juxtaposed. The sublime was awful (aweinspiring) and terrifying while the beautiful was calm and reassuring.
3) The characters and landscapes of the Gothic rest almost entirely within the sublime, with the heroine
serving as the great exception. The “beautiful” heroine’s susceptibility to supernatural elements, integral
to these novels, both celebrates and problematizes what came to be seen as hyper-sensibility.
4) Gothic and sentimental novels are considered a form of popular fiction, reaching their height of
popularity in the late 18th Century. They reflected a popular shift from Neoclassical ideals of order and
reason to Romantic ideals emotion and imagination.
5) The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures
that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel.
6) Prominent features of Gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the
supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses, darkness, death, decay madness, hereditary secrets.
7) The stock characters of Gothic fiction include tyrants, villains, maniacs, bandits, Byronic heros,
persecuted maidens, madwomen, demons, angels, ghosts, monks, nuns, and the devil. perception of the
genre as inferior, formulaic, and stereotypical. Among other elements, Ann Radcliffe introduced the
brooding figure of the gothic villain, which developed into the Byronic hero.
Review: The Sentimental Novel
1)The sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility is an 18th century literary genre which
celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility.
2) Sentimental novels relied heavily on emotional response, both from their readers and
characters.
3) They feature scenes of distress and tenderness, and the plot is arranged to advance emotions
rather than action.
4) The result is a valorization of "fine feeling," displaying the characters as a model for refined,
sensitive emotional effect. The ability to display feelings was thought to show character and
experience, and to shape social life and relations.
5) Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility s most often seen as a satire of the sentimental novel“
that works by juxtaposing Enlightenment values (sense, reason) with and those of the later
Romantic eighteenth century (sensibility, feeling).
Review: Novel of Manners
1)The novel of manners is a sub-genre of the realist which deals with aspects of behavior,
language, customs and values of a particular class of people in a specific historical context.
2)The novel of manners often shows a conflict between individual aspirations or desires and the
accepted social codes of behavior.
3) The novel of manners describes in detail the customs, behaviors, habits, and expectations of a
certain social group at a specific time and place. Usually these conventions shape the behavior
of the main characters, and sometimes even stifle or repress them.
4) The romantic success or failure to couple in the polemic of the Novel of Manners is a
commentary on the values “or manners” of the society it depicts.
When Wikipedia Works!
Rochester and The Byronic Hero
The Byronic hero is an idealised but flawed character exemplified in the life and writings, of Lord Byron. characterised by his exlover The Byronic hero first appears in Byron's semi-autobiogrphical epic narrative poem Child Harold’s Pilgramagae 18121818).
The Byronic hero typically exhibits several of the following characteristics:
a strong sense of arrogance
high level of intelligence and perception
cunning and able to adapt
suffering from an unnamed crime
a troubled past
sophisticated and educated
self-critical and introspective
mysterious, magnetic and charismatic
struggling with integrity
power of seduction and sexual attraction
social and sexual dominance
emotional conflicts, bipooar tendencies, or modiness,
a distaste for social institutions and norms
being an exile, and oucast, or an outlaw
"dark" attributes not normally associated with a hero
disrespect of rank and privilege
has seen the world
jaded, world-weary
cynicism
self-destructive behaviour
a good heart in the end
Rochester and Jane’s Romance:
Playing with and Against the Polemics of the Gothic Novel, the Sentimental
Novel, and the Novel of Manners
1) The genius of Brontë and her contemporaries lies, in
part, in their ability to manipulate and blend literary
conventions from different genres possessed with
different polemics in order to articulate and selfdefine a new kind of woman.
2) In Jayne Eyre, Brontë puts all of these polemics to
work by infusing them into the development of the
character of her characters, into their actions, and
most importantly, into the manner in which the
characters’ actions transform both themselves and
others.
3) What is the purpose of this cross-pollination….?
Jane’s Character Development
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From the outset, Jane possesses self-worth, dignity, a commitment to justice, a trust in God. These features are possessed by the archetypal heroines of the Gothic
novel and the Novel of Manners.
Throughout the novel these qualities are continually tested, as Jane struggles both to find a sense of home or “kindred spirits” and with her desire for autonomy
and freedom.
These tests come by way of notably Gothic conventions (and sublime experiences [sublime as it exists in Burke’s thought]) that are largely the result of Rochester’s
actions or the by-products of his past actions. They come by way of conventions that are commonplace to the Novel of Manners, as Jane’s desire to find “kindred
spirits” without compromising moral principles or social codes is typical of driving force behind the heroines that inhabit the Novel of Manners. They come by way
of Sentimental conventions, as Jane’s extreme trials and tribulations elicit heightened emotional responses (in both the reader and the novel’s main characters)
that serve to organize the plot of the novel. Hence Jane’s bildungsroman is one in which her growth is offered to the reader only by way of a blend of all of the
above novelistic polemics.
However, what freedom and autonomy mean to Jane is something that, over the course of her bildungsroman, she must discover.
It is with the potential for passion and romance—the Romantic chance to liberate her true feelings—that Rochester first tempts Jane. This temptation comes by
way of Gothic convention, as Rochester is no doubt a Byronic hero of sorts.
Jane’s refusal of concubinage testifies not only to the fact that she sees the kind of liberation that Rochester first offers as also a form of enslavement, but also is in
line with the “proper conduct” of the heroine of the Novel of Manners. The fact that Bertha Mason is one of the obstacles also draws upon Gothic elements and
the extremities of Sentimental literary conventions, but Jane’s ability to flee is out-of-step with the propensity of the Gothic heroine’s susceptibility to
“supernatural.”
As Jane draws nearer to the fulfillment she eventually finds, St. John Rivers offers another type of freedom. The freedom to act unreservedly on her principles and
to live out Enlightenment ideals by exercising all of her talents working and teaching with him in India. Jane’s refusal of this offer testifies to the fact that, for her,
this is yet another form of imprisonment where her emotions and passions will always have to be held in too-tight-check, and presents us with: a heroine acting
notably outside and within conventions associated with the heroine of the Victorian Novel of Manners and a heroine that valorizes the emotion and feeling of the
Sentimental convention.
It is only when Jane can answer both to the demands of her principles—the desire for autonomy and independence which she achieves with her work and
economic independence at Moor House—and the demands of her passions that she is able to marry Rochester. This is key and in accordance with the Sentimental
polemic’s dictate that emotions should inform the morality of individual and social practices, and it is also out-of-step with the Enlightenment dictates of “sense.”
Jane’s fulfillment –her marriage between equals: “I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine”--- is the outcome (and representative of) Jane’s ability to properly
navigate the demands of: her desire for equality and kinship, her desire for principle and passion, and they coalesce neatly in a valorization of the morality found in
“fine feeling” in Sentimental discourse
Rochester’s Character Development
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Unlike Jane, Rochester is—out the novel’s outset—of suspicious moral character (owing to his past libertinage).
When first we meet Rochester, he is a failed Romantic; thrown from his horse when it slips on the icy road. He is a Gothic
villain (possessed with dark secrets that serve to give the novel suspense). He is, at times, a character given to rigid
acceptance of social morays, a kind of male paragon typical to the Victorian Novel of Manners. And he is also a character
who both eschews the sentimental (loving Jane, in part, for her frankness) and (in his outrageous manipulations) a character
who manipulates Jane in accordance with sentimental convention. The important thing is that Rochester is both all and none
of the above when first we meet him. Rather, he is a figure that vacillates not only in accordance with Byronic convention,
but also in accordance with the varying polemic of the different genres of novels in question
He first admires Jane (who will eventually “save him” for her frankness and her commitment to her principles and, he too, is
ready to set aside polite manners and considerations of social class to interact with Jane. But he also goes (initially) to great
lengths to separate her from her principles and virtue (through his trickery and the less the admirable ways he tries to plays
upon her passions) with his initial proposal. It is, as if, he wants Jane to be his “fallen” equal. The emotional extremity of his
trickery draws on Sentimental convention, his frankness and admiration of Jane’s is in line with the suitable suitor from the
Novel of Manners, and his dark past (and good heart)incarnate in Adele and his treatment of her)—not to mention his secret
in the attic—place him firmly in line with other Gothic villains and Byronic heroes.
Like Jane, Rochester must negotiate between a desire for autonomy and a desire for a kindred spirit, but his journey both
parallels and runs perpendicular to Jane’s. Whereas Jane begins (and remains) a paragon of virtue (in line with the heroines
of the Novel of Manners), Rochester begins as an exemplar of the Byronic (Gothic) hero. He sees Jane as an intellectual
equal, but not as a social equal, and—according to and in-line-with Victorian social (and sexist) codes—his view of himself as
her social superior also gives him a vexed sense that he is also her moral superior.
It is important to note, though, that Brontë does not bend this social code. It is only after she (in an almost magic fashion
common to the Gothic novel) comes into her own fortune that she is able to see Rochester as an equal and not as a master
(although Jane is, arguably, by the novel’s end, his moral superior).
Rochester’s blindness—and the partial restoration of his sight (when he is able to see his and Jane’s first son), which is also a
function of Jane’s care for him—is a powerful symbol of his character development. It is symbolic of a journey that has rid
him (with Jane’s help) of most of his Byronic (and/or Gothic) attributes, and made of him a man who can finally realize the
better part of his Romantic nature (or “his fine feelings”) He can live honestly and in accordance with social morays (and the
dictates of the Novel of manners), but his newfound morality is also, like Jane’s, in accordance with the Sentimental polemic
on the bases of morality (Rochester becomes moral because he embraces emotion [which also means excluding love born of
lust]). Nevertheless, his “good heart,” in the end, is in line with Byronic dictates.
Rochester and Jane’s Romance:
Playing with and Against the Polemics of the Gothic Novel, the Sentimental
Novel, and the Novel of Manners
1)
2)
3)
4)
The genius of Brontë and her contemporaries lies, in part, in their ability to
manipulate and blend literary conventions from different genres possessed with
different polemics in order to articulate and self-define a new kind of woman.
In Jayne Eyre, Brontë puts all of these polemics to work by infusing them into the
development of the character of her characters, into their actions, and most
importantly, into the manner in which the characters’ actions transform both
themselves and others.
What is the purpose of this cross-pollination? In part, it serves to create a new
kind of novel that draws from, works with, and works over the best and worst of
past portrayals of women in the Gothic Novel, the Sentimental Novel, and the
Novel of Manners. It results in a novelistic form, invented by women, that
becomes associated with the articulation of a new kind of woman. This new
woman is a mix of the best of the old and the promises of the now and new. She
actuates herself and is not only capable of self-portrayal, but self-realization.
One can see how this genre would prove an ideal model for Hopkins who, in
Contending Forces, charges herself with a similar responsibility: to embody and
portray a new kind of woman: the “ideal” African-American woman during
Reconstruction.
Sentimental Discourse:
The Fatal Misstep
Jane Eyre Chapter 1- (first paragraph)
“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the
leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no
company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so
penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was out of the question.”
This novel (published 1740) created an epoch in the history of English fiction, and,
with its successors, exerted a wide influence upon Continental literature. It is
appropriately included in a series which is designed to form a group of studies of
English life by the masters of English fiction. For it marked the transition from the
novel of adventure to the novel of character--from the narration of entertaining
events to the study of men and of manners, of motives and of sentiments. In it
the romantic interest of the story (which is of the slightest) is subordinated to the
moral interest in the conduct of its characters in the various situations in which
they are placed. Upon this aspect of the "drama of human life" Richardson cast a
most observant, if not always a penetrating glance. His works are an almost
microscopically detailed picture of English domestic life in the early part of the
eighteenth century.