Research Task 2: The Red Room

1.      Bessie’s Perspective

I have never seen Jane act in such a way- viciously attacking the young Master John. It took all the strength of Miss Abbot and me just to get her to the red room. Her words were very passionate and full of defiance, unlike the enduring girl I have come to know. Just as we had decided to make use of Miss Abbot’s strong garter to tie her down to the chair, she seemed to have decided to stop fighting and stay. I tried to warn Miss Eyre of her position in Gateshead then we left and locked the door behind us. Later our evening routine was disrupted by Miss Eyre’s hysteria in the red room. At first I was worried she had come down with a kind of illness, and enquired as to what was wrong. She desperately grabbed a hold of my hand and muttered something about ghosts. The hysteria had also caught the attention of Mrs Reed who was angry about us disobeying her orders. She commanded that Jane let go of my hand and accused her of using underhanded ways of getting her attention.  It was at this moment I retreated to my duties.

2.      Response Adrienne Rich’s “Jane Eyre: The Temptation of a Motherless Woman”

I do not agree with Adrienne Rich’s argument that we see the “germ of the person we finally know as Jane Eyre is born.” Jane Eyre as we know her is born before in the rebellion against the authority of Master John. She saw herself as being able to fight him, showing how she had come to the realisation that they were equals.  She is standing up for herself showing her determination to live and to lead a life with dignity, integrity and pride. Master John’s abuse represented her worthlessness and degradation thus standing up to it was choosing to live a life as mentioned above. The red room is a space where Jane could organise her thoughts and gives an opportunity for self-reflection. It was where she could resolve what she could do in her situation. Her ability to sort out her thoughts and seek out alternatives is very mature. The clear thing and pragmatic Jane Eyre is that the reader knows can be recognised in that girl. But it is not the germ, as it is only after her first rebellion that we see  her again gathering the courage to speak to Mrs Reed as an equal and stand-up to her just as we saw her stand up to Master John. We also see a rebellion of this sort in Lowood. Thus then it can be concluded that the germ of the older Jane Eyre was developed when she had had enough of the abuse.

                                                              

3.      Response to Sandra M Gilbert’s argument

The argument presented in the quotation states that the red room was an important scene in that it introduced the larger context of the book: the victimisation of the poor and women. The red room is the beginning of a series of challenges that Jane faces. These are similar in that they are situations where Jane is trapped and has to escape. They are situations where she is forced to reflect on herself, her position and make a decision on how to conduct herself. This explanation is too simplistic. The red room is an important scene which sets up Jane and what the reader can expect from the ten old, but the issues that Jane deals with are much more complex and different to the ones which was facing in that room. They are a different kind of reflection and escape from different situation which the red room does not prepare the reader for.  The paradigm which the red room sets up extensive enough to prepare the reader for the treatment that Jane has to endure the presence of Mr Rochester’s guests or at Lowood. 

Research Task 1: Introduction

Research Task 1: Introduction

1.      Definitions

Class: it is the division within society based on how much wealth one owns and the financial history of one’s family.

Gender: The different roles men and women occupy in society

Feminism: The demand of equality of women in the eyes of the law and society by women.

Ideology: It is a particular belief system which guides the way one views and reacts to life. 

2.      Preface of second edition of Jane Eyre

·  Bronte was motivated to write this preface to thank the people who supported her controversial book but furthermore to make a point to the harsh critics of her books, mainly the members of the higher class,  about the ideology they live by.

· The argument that Bronte presents is on the issue of conservatism and the religiousness that would accompany it.  She is very direct in her criticism and uses the Christian and bible references illustrate the points. Her rhetoric style indicates her frustration at the ideology she is standing up against.

·         Bronte writes as Currer Bell as she did not want her book to be at a disadvantage due to the prejudice against women at that time. She wanted the book to be judged on how good it was and she believed that it was as good a book as written by any man.                                                                                                                   

Victorian Class and Gender ideologies

The Jane Eyre reviews found in “The Christian Remembrancer” and “The Quarterly” reflects Victorian class and gender ideology.  Jane Eyre was a controversial book in that it was critical in the way it portrayed upper classes; mainly the way they lived their lives and how they mistreated the working class. The reviews criticising Jane Eyre are based on these class and gender ideologies which she opposes and this can be seen throughout their text.

From such a title such as “The Christian Remembrancer” one can gather a conservative nature in their publications. It first argues the sex of the writer, and it insults women by stating that “Who indeed but the a woman could have ventured, with the smallest prospect of success, to fill octavo volumes with the history of a woman’s heart.’ Thus indicating that only a woman would be lacking enough in sense to publish what she deems as important to her though they may be little success. According to this review it is an emotional risk rather than a practical one. The other publication “The Quarterly Review” also has this undermining view on women stating that “No woman trusses game and garnishes with the same hands” and “Above all no women attires another in such fancy dresses as Jane’s ladies assume”. These quotations show how society viewed women as being unable to master or concentrate on more than one skill and having inherent base qualities such as jealousy. The publications then are reflectors of the paradigm of the Victorian Society.

Women were not the only victims of Victorian ideology; the working class were also perceived in a derogatory manner. The Christian Remembrancer states that if the author had not been part of the working class, “[the reader] fear[s] [Jane] is to whom the world has not been kind”, thus showing how the society then thought that the working class deserved the poor lives they led. The Quarterly Review also emphasises how “it pleased God to make her an orphan, friendless and penniless” elaborating this idea of how the poor deserve their low status in life as it was ordained by the unquestionable will of God. In this regard of similarity one can assume that these were the current ideologies of the Victorian era.

The class and gender ideologies discussed above were the basis upon which these reviews were written. These ideologies can be detected throughout the article not only in words written in these reviews but also the general sarcastic and condescending tone found. Therefore it can be concluded that Jane Eyre was successful in disrupting the general societies what of thinking and living.