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.

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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.