Research Task 4: Jane’s Dreams & Paintings

It is clear that one realises that Jane has a very active and creative imagination; this may be because of Jane’s horrid childhood that she tried to escape from her bad circumstances.  Jane‘s dreams and paintings tells one more about how Jane tries to face reality, threw her dreams and paintings she enables herself to look at her reality in an easier way.

In the novel one can note on the many dreams that Jane has and even some parts of them became true. When Jane awakes from her dreams she realises that the dreams are not true but only parts in her imagination.  Jane has a lot of dreams about children; this can inform the readers on Jane’s bad childhood, or the fact that Jane wants children of her own. This can even show one that as a governess Jane had a close bond with children.

Jane dreams about children lying in her arms, sitting on her lap or playing outside with the water. The children in her dreams were sometimes happy and in other days sad, this can be an indication to readers that Jane is still struggling with bad memories of her childhood. The fact that Jane’s dad that loved her left her at her aunts, and this haunts her at night.

When Jane gets engaged to Rochester she has dreams of them both walking on a road and he walks to fast for her to keep up. In terms of love Jane dreams about Mr. Rochester, marrying Blanche Ingram and that when they are married they fire Jane and show her to work at another place. Jane also gets awake from a nightmare and then her wedding dress material is thorn and ripped in pieces.

Jane’s paintings in the novel are closely linked to her dreams for both represent what is going on in her subconscious mind. One of her first paintings shows a ship’s mass, a bare hand and a bracelet rising out of the stormy sea. The second painting is a picture of a hill with heavy winds, a nightly sky from which a woman’s face is showing.

Adel also asks Jane to draw a picture of Mr. Rochester and so Jane does this, but Rochester think it is a mockery and tries to tear up the paper before Adel grabs it from him. After Jane leaves Mr. Rochester, because of their engagement failing she is after a year again in a happy environment teaching to less fortunate girls. It is here where she draws pictures to her enjoyment, showing one that she is once again happy.

Jane’s painting is her way of communicating, and Mr. Rochester is aware of Jane’s creative talent. In Jane’s dreams and paintings she uses a lot of water and human’s as inspiration which shows one her love for nature and that she likes to be around people that cares about her, this can be because of her childhood past. Jane so tries to escape getting trapped in a patriarchal society and faces her problems without letting them hurt her.

Research Task 3: Becoming a Governess

1

The men were confused about where a woman’s place in the society was; because of the fact that feminists ensured that the women and men will have the same opportunities and rights. The women question was the concern of the people, but most important because the men were struggling to accept that women can also get educated and own their own property and have equal rights to them.

These change in society confused the men of the Victorian era, because they were not the only people in society with power, it now had to be shared with the women. Men could no longer manipulate and abuse women, because women could now be in control of the situation. During this movement getting a divorce was also made legal, which made it possible for the women to find a way out of their abusing situation. The 

women were no longer trapped in their situation and this change in society confused a lot of men.

2

Governesses had to work for their money so one can say that a governess came from the working class where the there ladies that visited Mr. Rochester lived as middle-class people. In chapter 11, Jane is surprised how she is treated as a visitor in the house of Mr. Rochester. Jane is allowed to read in the library and Jane was able to talk openly with Mr. Rochester about how to understand his own daughter.

The manner in which Jane is treated at the Rochester household differs from in society, because in chapter 14 Jane is been scolded at by a man for the way in which she as a governess talks to him. In chapter 16 Jane is told to draw a self portrait without softening it and to write governess below the picture. In chapter 17 one can clearly understand the views of the middle-class ladies towards a governess. Jane is referred to of Adele’s governess and Miss Ingram talks about her memories with her governess as a young girl and Amy Eshton is talking about how she would question her governess. Both of the ladies agree that a governesses and tutors should not be involved and that they will also hire a governess someday because they do not want to raise their children on their own.

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It is well known by this time in the novel that a governess was from the working class but society was afraid that the governesses acted like they were also middle class. The middle-class people saw this as a threat because the barrier or separation from the classes was starting to break down, meaning that the middle-class people were not seen as more important. One of the duties of a governess was to teach the children good values, meaning that so a governess also had to have good values herself.

A governess could not marry a servant because they were seen as a higher class, but a governess could also not marry into the middle-class, because they had to work for them. A governess did all the duties that normally a mother, from the middle-class should do, but they could not me named one.

Research Task 2: The Red Room

1.

Bessie Lee one of the Reed houshold servants, witnessed that Jane’s cousin was the one that firstly attacked Jane, but Bessie could not have told Miss Reed this, because she was one of the employees of the household. In telling the truth Bessie could lose her job. Bessie tries to comfort Jane after Miss Reed left, so Jane would be beter prepared next time. In knowing how to prevent this experience from happening again will contribute to Jane’s life. Unfortunately Bessie is an employee so she must respect Miss Reed’s decisions fot the sake of her job, even if she does not aprove of them.


2.

I do agree with Rich’s argument that it is in the Red room, where Jane’s mind set changes to a better life for her as woman, to choose her life with pride. From a young age Jane was seen as an outcast under her cousins and family, because she was not of the same class as them. Jane was treated differently and felt rejected by her own family.  Jane is still dependant of her family, that’s why she behaves in an orderly manner to show her appreciation. It is when Jane is tired of pretending to play the perfect role and when she looses her mind, which causes the incident of the red room.
As a young girl, Jane was unable to stand up for what she believes in, but her first opportunity, after she was sent away to Lowood, is at school. Jane then makes a decision in the red room that would change her life forever. Jane decides that she will not fall under the rules of society, class, gender or her family and that she would rather follow her own mind instead. Jane comes to this conclusion from the very first moment she was placed in the red room unfairly, because this was her first big injustice that somebody has done to her and thus changes her mind set and her point of view in life.

3.

Jane as young orphan experienced a lot of rejection and whished she was loved more by the people around her.  On a later stage of the novel, Jane tries and restores her feelings from the past by showing a lot of attention and love toward Adel, Mr. Rochester’s daughter. When Bertha loses her mind and try to attack Jane and burn down her house, Jane is reminded of the presence of her uncle’s ghost and her experience of the misterious fear against something unknown.
Jane is countlessly humiliated by people in her society. It is in Logwood, where Jane is again bad mouthed by someone that is of a higher class then she was and this person also accused Jane for being different. Even when Jane falls deeply inlove with Mr Rochester she is again humiliated by the fact thet he is married to a crazy woman.
In the novel Jane gets sent away, because of the red room incident but it is after Jane’s humiliation of her own wedding that Jane chose to flee her own way. The incident of the red room and effects that the red room had on Jane, influenced a lot of Jane’s decisions threw out the novel.

English Studies: Jayne Eyre

Research Task 1:
Introduction

Number 1:
Class: In Brontë’s novel, Jane is used as an example to cross class relationships boundaries. Class in the Victorian times where defined as a group relation to the means of production. It is for example made up of workers or owners.  In the Nineteenth- century, people spoke of the “working classes” or the “middle classes” in those times there was  different types of social groups and normally a specific upper class group won’t interact with lower groups. The upper class groups can be connected to social groups that lived in leisure and that were wealthy. The lower class social groups were normally traders and hardworking people that had to earn their money in a hard way.
Gender: Is usually used to determine the social role of men and women. Gender can also be understood as when men do typical men things and they don’t allow women to do the same. In the Nineteenth- century things started to change for women in the Victorian era. Slowly women started to have a bit more freedom and power of speech as before and could take part in more, before seen as men work opportunities.
Feminism: A feminist can be seen as a person fighting for the right of woman. Jane expresses her feelings of how women are being treated by showing that women are equal to man. Women from the Victorian times always had to be on their best behavior and on their place. Jane would have been a feminist, because she says what she feels and she does not let the role of men in society get her down. She stands up against the male power.
Ideology: It can be described as a set of believes. The idea people from the Nineteenth- century, wanted others to be controlled according to social rules of that time.

Number 2:
In Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, Brontë gets the reader on her heroin’s side even before starting with her story.
Brontë included a preface, in the second edition for readers to be able to understand the different acknowledgements she made.
She thanks everyone in a proper manner, trying not to forget a person.
Brontë also makes a special dedication to author, W.M. Thackeray.
“Self-righteousness is not religion” this line makes the reader understand what the authors, impression of Christianity is.
In those times your spirituality was important to society to be accepted.
This preface shows that the reader can understand that Brontë, according to her writing work had a lot of criticism which she had to defend herself on, in the public eye.
Brontë also makes use of her preface to protect her novel from bad criticism under critics.
It is clear to one that Brontë cared a lot about her work, when responding to al the bad critic she got and trying to prove them wrong.
This preface she wrote indicates her passion for her work and that she is aware about the critic given to her.
Brontë, used a false identity because during the Nineteenth- century, a women writer would not be taken seriously. That is when Brontë decided to write under the male name of Currer Bell.
When Brontë dedicated her novel to another male author, it made her ghost name more believable to the readers and to the community.
Brontë was a strong willed woman and nothing was going to stand in her way of writing to prove her point in Victorian society.

Number 3:
The Christian Remembrancer and the Quarterly Review: Victorian class and gender ideologies.

It is clear that Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre is more popular under the modern society as for the Victorian class. The societies during the Victorian times were over thrown by different ways that the government wanted people to live their lives according to the local rules that were in place. One can note that the novel was unpopular in the Victorian era, because of the novel that goes against the gender and class ideologies. When looking at further quotes from the medium used one will come across lines that define the gender and class ideologies.
One can get a better understanding from the, “Christian Remembrancer and the “Quartery”, that a lot of people did not approve of Brontë‘s writing, because they are believers in ideologies of men that has to have the main role in the family and only men should do a certain part of  the work around the house. Where women opposite from men are weak and are not allowed to have freedom of speech. Jane Eyre does not approve of these ideologies that people separate the power of men to woman. Elizabeth Rigby and the Quarter Review accuse Jane Eyre for being a rebel against their structured rules.
In the Nineteenth- century, the people living in the era of the Victorians were very strong about their feelings towards their spirituality. Everything in society had to be done in the right Christian like manner. Brontë went against peoples beliefs when writing such an honest novel, which attracted a lot of critics towards her work. “Jane Eyre is proud and therefore she is ungrateful too. It pleased God to make her an Orphan, friendless and penniless, yet she thanks nobody, and least of all Him.” Eyre is seen as unchristian in society when she is not thankful for the way God has provided for her. “There is throughout it a murmuring against the comforts of the rich and against the privitations of the poor.” Eyre is observing the classes around her, which the critics do not want. When you were born in society rich or poor, it was seen under the people of that time that one should be thankful for what you receive, because it was the will of God to place you in that curtain situation.
Elizabeth Rigby describes the relationship of Eyre and Rochester to be, “illegitimate romance”. Rigby does not like the fact that the couple represents everything that they not approve of and that Rigby would rather have coupled Rochester with a lady of his class rather than an orphan child.
When looking at the relationship between Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre one can note that, the both of them does not follow the rules according to the class and gender ideologies of the Victorian era. Rochester is the man in the relationship and he has to represent the strong, hardworking provider of the family, during the novel. In the novel, Rochester surprises one at the ending by doing the unexpected for a male figure in a Victorian era, by going against his standards. Brontë was also then criticize for writing about “unworthy” characters.
This could have been an indication that Rigby did not like the match of the couple or the fact that Rigby did not approve of Eyre taking over a male role around the house. This statement is also a good example why modern society is more likely to understand the novel, because they can relate to Eyre for wanting to be independent. The critics of the Victorian time, was very narrow minded people and did not see the bigger picture behind the work of an extraordinary author.