Jane Eyre

1
Jane Eyre

• Introd. and Chaps I-X Girls Education
• duty and self-denial or
• a pursuit of liberty and knowledge

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Outline

• Review 1) Social Background 2) Brontë Sisters
• Introduction Jane Eyre and CBs Life
• Chaps 1-4 Janes Social Position vs. Her
  Cousins
• Chaps 5-10 Janes Education vs. Helen Burns and
  
• The Roles of Nature

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Victorian Society Womens Positions

• Contradictions between social prosperity and
  social problems
• Women angel in the house vs. fallen women
• Causes
• -- strict division of jobs ? women seen as mens
  property
• -- women not educated ? women physically and
  mentally unfit for serious intellectual pursuits.

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Victorian Society (2) Womens Education

• At home, taught by mothers or governesses
• boarding schools
• Jane ?charity schools
• (X 80) A ladys education
• (3) Marriage and Inheritance

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Traces of Jane Eyre in Charlotte Brontes Life
Jane Eyre Real Life
Rochester and Bertha --A governess married a gentleman who had an insane wife -- a home said to have an upper-floor room with padded walls, where an insane mistress was confined until her death in a fire.
Helen Burns Charlotte's friend Ellen Nussey in her religious piety.
Lowood Institution Clergy Daughter's School, where an epidemic broke out
Rochester's blindness Charlottes father, whom Charlotte took care of.
"Overview Jane Eyre." Literature and Its Times
Profiles of 300 Notable Literary Works and the
Historical Events that Influenced Them. Joyce
Moss and George Wilson. Vol. 2 Civil Wars to
Frontier Societies (1800-1880s). Detroit Gale,
1997. Literature Resource Center. Web. 5 Oct.
2012.
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2) The Brontë Sisters

• The Bronte Sisters (feature film) Literary
  Aspiration in their lonely and drab lives.
• 432the painting, and Emily and Ann out in
  nature (rose vs. holy bush)
• 1400letter from Southey
• 110 Emilys poems ? 116 publication of their
  novels
• 138 illness and death of Emily
• 150 Charlotte at the concert hall
• Documentary In search of the Brontes Part 1 -
  1/6 http//www.youtube.com/watch?vQQGgl-HtrmM
• The Death Of Emily Bronte http//www.youtube.com/w
  atch?vdehmUqIxgjUfeaturerelated

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Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre

• Similarities
• Bleak and gloomy natural environment
• Heathcliff and Rochester as Byronic Heroes
  Villains
• Catherines (of two generations) and Jane Eyre
  experience domestication
• Differences
• Wuthering Heights wildness presented as
  ghosts and in landscape
• Jane Eyre Bertha dead, and the protagonists
  tamed.

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Jane Eyre

• 1-4 -- Gateshead Hall
• 5-10 Lowood Institution
• 11-19 -- Thornfield Hall
• 20-27-- (21back to Mrs. Reed)
• 28-39 Leaving Thornfield ? Moor House at Marsh
  End ? (back to Thornfield ? 37 Ferndean Manor)

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Locations

• The Rydings' Ellen Nussey's early home The
  manor house that inspired Brontës creation of
  Thornfield Hall. From Jane Eyre, vol. 1 (1905).

• Haddon Hall (2011)

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Filmic Adaptations

• 1944, 1983, 1996, 1997 and 2006 Rochesters
  performances ranked here
• 5th --1996 Film directed by Franco Zeffirelli
  and starring William Hurt as Mr Rochester,
  Charlotte Gainsbourg as Jane,
• 4th -- 1997 TV adaptation directed by Robert
  Young and starring Laura Harling as Jane and
  Ciarán Hinds as Mr Rochester
• 3th -- 1944 Black and white film directed by
  Robert Stevenson, with a screenplay by John
  Houseman and Aldous Huxley. It features Orson
  Welles as Mr Rochester, Joan Fontaine as Jane
• 4th -- 1983 Television miniseries directed by
  Julian Amyes starring Zelah Clarke as Jane and
  Timothy Dalton as Mr Rochester
• 5th -- 2006 BBC miseries directed by Susanna
  White starring Ruth Wilson as Jane and Toby
  Stephens as Mr Rochester (source)

2011 Film directed by Cary Fukunaga starring Mia
Wasikowska as Jane Eyre and Michael Fassbender as
Rochester
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Using the films to

• Help visualize the story and
• Understand the importance of the novels
  narration.
• 2011 John Reed vs. Jane
• 1983 1-3 Janes changes in responses

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Chaps 1-4 Discussion Questions

1. How is Jane positioned socially? How is she
   opposed to her cousins and treated by her aunts
   and the servants?
2. How does Jane respond to her loneliness and
   mistreatment? Do you find her passionate,
   realistic or childish?
3. What are the significances of the red room?
4. What roles do Nature and books play in this part
   of the novel?

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Jane in The Reed Family

• Mrs. Reed (I 5) contented, happy, little
  children
• John (I 7-9)
• The servants (II 9-10 14) be useful and
  pleasant
• Georgiana Eliza (II 12 VI 24)
• later X 79

• Janes responses
• 1. shrined in double retirement (I 5)
• 2. Reed vs. Jane (I 7-9) habitually obedient to
  John, in frantic sort
• -- revolted slave (II)
• 3. Asserts herself (III 19) I cry because I am
  miserable.
• 4. Against Mrs. Reed (IV 28-)

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red room (II 10-1113-14) and the pattern of
Janes Pursuit
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Nature Books

• Nature
• I 5-7 (love and adventures)
• V garden

• Books
• History of British Birds
• Gullivers Travels (III 17)
• Rasselas (V 42-43)

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Chaps 5-10 Discussion Questions

• What kind of school is Lowood? Does it in any
  way resemble any school you know of or have been
  to?
• How are the teachers (Ms. Temple, Miss Scatcherd
  and Mr. Brocklehurst) in Lowood presented?
• How and why are Helen and Jane punished
  respectively? How do they respond to being
  punished?
• What are the turning points in Janes pursuit of
  liberty and a better life?

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School

• Chapter V
• Class 38
• Food 39
• Discipline 40
• Lessons 41

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Teachers

• Indoctrination and Punishment

• Wise Judgment and Sympathy

• Miss Scatcherd Chap VI
• Mr. Brocklehurst (VII 54 -55 56)

• Miss Temple Chap V 41 VIII 61

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Helen Burns vs. Jane

• Helen
• Punished V 44 VI 46,
• VI Your duty to bear (48-49)
• Love your enemy (50) youd be happier if you
  forget her severity
• (VIII 60) conscience and the invisible world
• (IX 70-)

• Jane V 44 How can she bear it so quietly
• VII 50 Good to those who are good to you. VIII
  64

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Nature

• (II 14)Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the
  moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No
  moonlight was still, and this stirred while I
  gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered
  over my head.
• Garden (V 41) VI 47 the wind outside the
  window ?a strange excitement
• (IX 67) ramble in the wood
• (X 74) Jane looks out the window again.

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Turning Points and Helpers

• Mr. Lloyd ? Lowood Institute
• Ms. Temple, clears her name, motivates her to
  make further progress.
• Helen and Ms. Temples reading of classical
  literature