Portrayals of Prostitution in Jane Eyre
Bronte paints many parallels between the characters in the novel and the trade of prostitution. One of the main characters that Bronte attributes poverty to is the character of Jane. Jane’s poverty is intrinsically important to the plot of the novel because Bronte uses Jane’s poverty to allow the reader to picture Jane as a virtuous woman, such as when Jane flees from Thornfield to escape the entrapment of Rochester. The reader is urged to feel sympathy for Jane as she adheres to her strict, virtuous moral codes and does not allow herself to succumb to temptation. Jane exhibits her desperate situation when she has fled from Thornfield and is struggling to sustain herself. Jane states, "Once more I took off my handkerchief-once more I thought of the cakes of bread in the little shop. Oh, but for a crust! For but one mouthful to allay the pang of famine!" (Bronte, ch.28; 323). The language used in the passage shows that Jane is in a state of desperation and she still does not resort to prostitution, even though in many respects she does not have another choice. Jane is at a point in her life where she must do something to sustain her life, but Jane never even contemplates prostitution as an option to enable her to obtain money or food. In Victorian society Jane’s poverty and subsequent life would have rendered her a prime candidate for taking up the trade of prostitution. The description given by Vicinus of the woman most vulnerable to fall victim to the trade of prostitution is similar to Jane’s life. Jane is a domestic servant in her roles as a governess at Lowood and Thornfield and she has no familial ties.
One of the dominant distinctions of a Victorian prostitute was her dress or "love of finery." When the love of finery is introduced Bronte veers off the course of identifying Jane with the likeness of a prostitute. The Victorian prostitute is associated with the love of fine dresses, like that of the upper-class society. The prostitute's dress denoted her as a disgraceful and immoral character because she wore the type of dress that was not associated with her class. Valverde states, "…What was or was not finery depended upon the socioeconomic status of the wearer" (Valverde 169).
The love of finery is relentlessly associated with the Victorian prostitute, but Jane portrays an image of plainness in the attire that she wears.
War can be as damaging to the human body as it is to the mind. In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, this idea that war causes psychological disorders is represented throughout the book through the main character, Paul Baumer. This book follows the lives of young soldiers in World War I. Together, these men create powerful bonds. They go through terrifying experiences that continue to strengthen their bonds, but also destroy their mental state. Through Paul’s eyes, Remarque shows the devastation that war has on the mind.
The story takes place through the eyes of a German infantryman named Paul Baumer. He is nineteen and just joined up with the German army after high school with the persuasion of one of his schoolteachers, Mr. Kantorek. Paul recalls how he would use all class period lecturing the students, peering through his spectacles and saying: "Won't you join up comrades?"(10). Here was a man who loved war. He loved the "glory" of war. He loved it so much as to persuade every boy in his class to join up with the army. He must have thought how proud they would be marching out onto that field in their military attire.
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque, is a classic anti-war novel about the personal struggles and experiences encountered by a group of young German soldiers as they fight to survive the horrors of World War One. Remarque demonstrates, through the eyes of Paul Baumer, a young German soldier, how the war destroyed an entire generation of men by making them incapable of reintegrating into society because they could no longer relate to older generations, only to fellow soldiers.
Remarque, Erich Maria, and A. W. Wheen. All Quiet on the Western Front. Boston: Little, Brown, 1929. Print.
In the history of modern western civilization, there have been few incidents of war, famine, and other calamities that severely affected the modern European society. The First World War was one such incident which served as a reflection of modern European society in its industrial age, altering mankind’s perception of war into catastrophic levels of carnage and violence. As a transition to modern warfare, the experiences of the Great War were entirely new and unfamiliar. In this anomalous environment, a range of first hand accounts have emerged, detailing the events and experiences of the authors. For instance, both the works of Ernst Junger and Erich Maria Remarque emphasize the frightening and inhumane nature of war to some degree – more explicit in Jünger’s than in Remarque’s – but the sense of glorification, heroism, and nationalism in Jünger’s The Storm of Steel is absent in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Instead, they are replaced by psychological damage caused by the war – the internalization of loss and pain, coupled with a sense of helplessness and disconnectedness with the past and the future. As such, the accounts of Jünger and Remarque reveal the similar experiences of extreme violence and danger of World War I shared by soldiers but draw from their experiences differing ideologies and perception of war.
In order to discern between the Victorian and Romantic themes, Bronte selects certain characters to portray the perfect stereotype of each theme. Mademoiselle Celine Varens is the model of the Romantic attitude. Varens a “French opera-dancer” found herself as the “grande passion” of Mr. Rochester. The amour between Rochester and Varens started in a “complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmere, diamonds, dentells, etc.” and ended with Rochester “finding her out” with another man. Varens’ irrationality did not only affect Rochester, but also her child: “she abandoned her child and ran away with a musician or singer.” Celine Varens, a woman in a daring profession, led a life of passion, freedom and irresponsibility. Her life was ballad of adventure idolized by Romantics but frowned upon by society. Mrs. Reed is the perfect representative of Victorian realism. She had all the visual attributes found in a Victorian styled lady. She possessed gentry as the mistress of Gateshead Hall and her material wealth was made obvious by the luxuries found in her home –“a bed supported on massive pillows of mahogany, hung with curtains of damask”—and in her children “in their Muslim frocks and scarlet sashes.” Besides wealth and gentility, Mrs. Reed also maintained Victorian characteristics of insularity and censoriousness.
All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of Paul Baumer’s service as a soldier in the German army during World War I. Paul and his classmates enlist together, share experiences together, grow together, share disillusionment over the loss of their youth, and the friends even experience the horrors of death-- together. Though the book is a novel, it gives the reader insights into the realities of war. In this genre, the author is free to develop the characters in a way that brings the reader into the life of Paul Baumer and his comrades. The novel frees the author from recounting only cold, sterile facts. This approach allows the reader to experience what might have been only irrelevant facts if presented in a textbook.
In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre there are many occasions in which there is motifs about division and bias relations. Money was a major division between people in the Victorian Era. Family made people rise in the standings with others, If your family was rich or well known, then you were going to be well known and well liked. There are many situations in which Jane is thought of as poor and worthless, as well as having no family.
Throughout their lives, people must deal with the horrific and violent side of humanity. The side of humanity is shown through the act of war. This is shown in Erich Remarque’s novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”. War is by far the most horrible thing that the human race has to go through. The participants in the war suffer irreversible damage by the atrocities they witness and the things they go through.
during the war. This novel is able to portray the overwhelming effects and power war has
Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, is set in a Victorian England, where social class is a huge factor in life. Brontë is very critical of Victorian England’s strict hierarchy. the main character, Jane, is a governess. Her social position is very complicated in which she has to be sophisticated, educated, intelligent, and soft spoken but she is then talked down to as she is of a lower class. The job of a governess is to teach children, whether it be art, writing or reading english literature. Victorian society is very corrupt and in the novel Brontë truly captures and illustrates the challenges that Jane has to face as a governess. The novel also emphasizes the social gap between individuals and how big it really is. In Victorian society, the rich get the most out of life and life for the poor gets harder. No individual should judge or belittle another due to the very minor factor of social status, but it seems to be very important in Jane’s society. The message that Brontë expresses in the novel is that social class is a meaningless catalyst in the progression of relationships, creating giant gaps between individuals.
Alan Nadel argues that the object of the fence in August Wilson’s play, “Fences” symbolizes a great struggle between the literal and figurative definitions of humanity and blackness. The author summarizes the play and uses the character Troy to explain the characterization of black abilities, such as Troy’s baseball talents, as “metaphoric,” which does not enable Troy to play in the white leagues as the period is set during segregation (Nadel 92). The author is trying to use the characters from the play as examples of black people during the segregation years to show how people of that time considered black people not as literal entities and more like figurative caricatures. Stating that these individuals were considered to be in a kind of limbo between human and object. Nadel’s thesis is easy to spot, and is actually pointed out directly on page 88 of the text. It reads that August Wilson’s play actually investigates the position of black persons as the metaphorical “fence” between humanity and property, arguing that the effects of this situation interacts within the “context of white [America]” so that a wider range of people are able to view the internal struggles of the black community.
The novel Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, depicts the coming of age of a woman who encounters great hardships, obstacles, and heartbreak. During the Victorian era women were subordinate to men and often times lacked the same opportunities and privileges that society and the family structure gave to men. Although society and the family structure of the Victorian era treated men and women differently, men were also oppressed, experienced suffering, and had to overcome poverty, but due to the masculinity that men were forced to portray during the era often times the hardships of men have been overlooked when analyzing the men in Jane Eyre. The characters John Reed, St. John Rivers, and Edward Rochester suffer various forms of lack and poverty that contributes to their oppressive and suffering nature precipitated by societal and family structure as well as being impoverished by their circumstances throughout the story even though they come across as having wealth and power.
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte is a novel about an orphan girl growing up in a tough condition and how she becomes a mature woman with full of courage. Her life at Gateshead is really difficult, where she feels isolated and lives in fear in her childhood. Her parents are dead when she was little, her dead uncle begged his evil wife, Mrs. Reed, to take care of Jane until she becomes an adult. But Mrs. Reed does not keep her promise, no one treats Jane like their family members even treats her less than a servant. By the end of this essay it will be proven that Jane’s life at Gateshead has shaped her development as a young woman and bildungsroman.
The novel, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë is about a female character battling society's conservative view on women's rights and roles in civilization. Jane Eyre was written during the Victorian Era when women were seen less than equals to men, but more as property and an asset. At the end of the era was when feminist ideas and the women's suffrage movement began to gain momentum. In the novel, Jane encounters three male characters, Mr.Brocklehurst, Mr. Rochester and Mr. St. John Rivers, who try to restrict her from expressing her thoughts and emotions. In Charlotte Brontë's novel, Jane Eyre, Victorian ideology influences today's society by making women seem inadequate to men. Brontë wants to convey that rather than conforming to other's opinions, women should seek freedom and break free of the barrier that society has created for them.