Comparing the Quest for Self in Jane Eyre and Villete

3575 Words8 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How charlotte bronte's life is reflected through jane eyre

Quest for Self in Jane Eyre and Villete

"Why is Villette so disagreeable? Because the writer's mind

contains nothing but hunger, rebellion and rage." Matthew Arnold, 1853.

Matthew Arnold was certainly forthcoming about the defects of both Charlotte Bronte's mind and of her novel. Indeed he was not alone in his reaction to her; Anne Mozley in The Christian Remembrancer ;in April 1853 wrote in reaction to Bronte's other great work of "rebellion", Jane Eyre, that she had to make "a protest against the outrages on decorum, the moral perversity, the toleration, nay, indifference to vice which deform her picture of a desolate woman" (my italics). Mozley even went far enough to label Jane Eyre a "dangerous book", a sentiment which Arnold's comments show that he shared. Yes both Villette and Jane Eyre are pervaded by "hunger, rebellion and rage" but it is this very factor which allows Bronte's protagonists to explore their own identities in, crucially, their own terms.

That both Jane Eyre and Villette are first person narratives is highly important. Unlike Catherine Earnshaw, Maggie Tulliver and Isabel Archer, Lucy Snowe and Jane Eyre are able to define their own stories, and subsequently, to define themselves. As Tony Tanner stated, Jane's "narrative act is not so much one of retrieval as of establishing and maintaining her identity" and this can easily be extended to Lucy. Indeed in Villette the importance of language to proclaim identity, and therefore power, is demonstrated by Lucy's inability to speak French when she arrives in Villette " I could say nothing whatever". Of course the role of teaching Lucy to speak French falls to M. Paul demonstrating the masc...

... middle of paper ...

...ion and rage.

BBIBLIOGRAPHY

The Bronte's: The Critical Heritage, ed. Miriam Allott (1974).

"Person, Narrative and Identity in Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre", Tony Tanner in Teaching the Text ed. S Kappeler.

"Jane Eyre's Interior Design", Karen Chase in Jane Eyre (New Casebook), ed. Heather Glenn.

"Introduction" to Villette (Penguin,1979), Tony Tanner.

"The Buried Life of Lucy Snowe" and "A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane's Progress" in The Mad Woman in the Attic, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar (2000).

"Charlotte Bronte as a 'Freak Genius'", David Cecil in Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyreand Villette (A Casebook Series) ed. Miriam Allot.

"Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism", Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in The Feminist Reader ed. Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore (1997).

Show More
Related

  • Essay On 1970-1980

    1331 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the 1970’s, the United States experienced "Watergate," the most famous political scandal in American History. It was a scandal that began with a break in and ended in resignation. On June 17, 1972 five intruders were caught and arrested for illegally entering the rooms of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate Complex. "The investigation of the break-in lead directly to the reelection campaign of President Richard M. Nixon and unraveled a web of political spying and sabotage, bribery and the illegal use of campaign funds" (Washingtonpost.com). Two-and-a-half-years later along with a number of court hearings led to the 1974 resignation of Richard M. Nixon. Nixon became the first President in U.S. History to resign. During all the political drama the United States brought an end to an unpopular war and made great strides in space exploration.

    Read More

  • Richard Nixon´s Involvement in the Watergate Scandal

    814 Words  | 2 Pages

    With this in mind, people can understand why such a fuss was caused when Nixon, involved for so long in government, was discovered to be part of the cover up. John Dean, a former counsel of Nixon, said Nixon had paid the burglars a lot of money to not say the White House was involved. D...

    Read More

  • Reflections On The First Amendment

    1819 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (First Amendment Center, 2008)

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre's Childhood as a Precedent for All the Trouble

    1795 Words  | 4 Pages

    To finalize my point about Charlotte Bronte's intent in describing Jane Eyre, the parallels between Bronte's life and her character Jane need to be examined. Bronte herself experienced "a period of depression and ill health" (Rollyson 5) Bronte was known to feel "keenly the solitude of her existence." (25) "The most basic facts of Bronte's life reveal a history of loss of guile similar to Jane's" (26) The name that Jane Eyre was originally published under was "An Autobiography". From this one can deduce that Bronte cared to make more than a surface feministic point in her book.

    Read More

  • New Deal Dbq

    507 Words  | 2 Pages

    The New Deal referred to government programs and policies of the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its main goal was to promote economic recovery and maintain social order. Different from Hoover ‘s idea that the government should not overly involved in helping the economy, President Roosevelt “reshaped understandings of freedom” in the new deal; he “repudiated the older idea of liberty based on the idea that the best way to encourage economic activity and ensure a fair distribution of wealth was to allow market competition to operate, unrestrained by the government.” (1) Recognizing the worker’s right to organize unions and building thousands of units of low-rent housing, Roosevelt’s government represented a remarkable departure from traditional American politics by providing direct and indirect help to the people of this country. (2)

    Read More

  • Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre: Jane Eyre's Artwork

    1820 Words  | 4 Pages

    "Jane Eyre." Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 3. Ed. Laurie Lanzen Harris. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1982: 42-3.

    Read More

  • Richard Nixon Accomplishments

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    On June 9th, 1972, there was a break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters Watergate building complex. The employees of Nixon’s reelection committee were arrested for the break-in and for burglary. Later, they had found out that the White House had evidence of the break-in and that there were attempts to hide information relating to the break-in. Nixon said that he did not participate in the scandal or cover-up and that they could do a full investigation of the case. He stated, “You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I'm innocent. You've got to believe I'm innocent. If you don't, take my job.” Later they had learned that Nixon had made secret tape recordings of conversations in the White House since 1971. Before the court desicion, committee members voted three articles of impeachment against Nixon. He resigned as president before his

    Read More

  • New Deal Dbq

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    A very highlighted act of the reform program was the Social Security Act (SSA), and it was designed to provide the elderly who are no longer able to work with money to survive, and that helped increase FDR’s popularity as he was the first president to take money from the young by taxes and give it to the elderly who can no longer support themselves. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was another reform program that was designed to ensure depositors their money in savings banks, because one of the things that Roosevelt urged the people to do was to deposit more money than they withdrew from banks but considering all the banks that went bankrupt during the depression, he had to give the people a sense of

    Read More

  • Religion And The U.S. Constitution

    1823 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Constitution dealt with the church precisely as the Articles had, thereby maintaining, at the national level, the religious status quo. In neither document did the people yield any explicit power to act in the field of religion.

    Read More

  • Richard Nixon Watergate Scandal

    1642 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the alarming times in American history came directly after August 9, 1974 when President Richard Nixon was forced to resign by the United States Congress. Nixon had been convicted for secretly recording every conversation he ever had in the White House, whether in person or on the telephone, and for the discovery of his involvement behind the Watergate complex break-in. Although considered a victory for the Constitutional government of the United States, Richard Nixon’s resignation for the crimes of the Watergate Scandal of 1972 brought an inadvertent consequence for the American people of a growing lack of faith and cynicism for the government and the office of the president.

    Read More

  • Rasselas in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    3060 Words  | 7 Pages

    Bronte, Charlotte. The Letters of Charlotte Bronte: 1829-1847. Ed. Margaret Smith. 2 vols. New York: Oxford UP, 1995-2000.

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre Through Bronte's Eyes

    3631 Words  | 8 Pages

    Analyse the methods Charlotte Brontë uses to make the reader empathise with Jane Eyre in the opening chapters. Reflect on how the novel portrays Victorian ideology and relate your analysis to the novel’s literary content.

    Read More

  • A Tale of Two Hearts in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    1170 Words  | 3 Pages

    While an artist uses a variety of colors and brushes to create a portrait, Charlotte Bronte used contrasting characters and their vivid personalities to create a masterpiece of her own.  In her novel Jane Eyre, Bronte uses narration and her characters to portray the struggle between a society’s Victorian realism and the people’s repressed urges of Romanticism.

    Read More

  • Independence and Love in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

    1336 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout Jane Eyre, Jane searches for a way to express herself as an independent person who needs help from no one, yet she also wishes to have the love and companionship of others. Often times, Jane finds that she can have independence but no one to share her life with, or she can have the love of another at the loss of her independence. Jane's entire journey is based on the goal of achieving a seamless blend between independence and love, a mixture that rarely seems to go hand in hand.

    Read More

  • Physical & Emotional Abuse in Jane Eyre: How This Affected Jane’s Evolution Into a Dynamic Character

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Richard J Dunn 3rd ed. 1847. New York: W. W.

    Read More

More about Comparing the Quest for Self in Jane Eyre and Villete

Open Document