Reed Essays

  • What it Means to be a Thinking Reed

    2994 Words  | 6 Pages

    What it Means to be a Thinking Reed The quotation above, taken from Pascal’s Pensées, seems disparaging of reason. Reason, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and that which has traditionally been held as the central attribute that differentiates humans from beasts, is here said to be limited and restricted in its powers. Instead of being able to grasp the truth about the universe in its entirety, instead of having that Cartesian hope where one “firm and immovable” (Descartes, p.63) point is

  • Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed

    3620 Words  | 8 Pages

    Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed Mumbo Jumbo is a novel about writing itself ? not only in the figurative sense of the postmodern, elf-reflexive text but also in a literal sense? [It] is both a book about texts and a book of texts, a composite narrative of subtexts, pretexts, posttexts, and narratives within narratives. It is both a definition of afro American culture and its deflation. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Author of The Signifying Monkey Mumbo Jumbo is Ishmael Reed?s third novel and by many

  • Poverty and Charity in Jane Eyre

    1140 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poverty and Charity in Jane Eyre When Jane Eyre resided at Gateshead Hall, under the care of her aunt, Mrs. Reed, she yearned for a change. The treatment that she received at Gateshead Hall was cruel, unjust, and most importantly, lacked nurture. Jane wanted to escape Gateshead Hall and enter into a school. The school that was imposed upon Jane was Lowood Institution. Through her eight year stay at Lowood, Jane learned how to control her frustrations and how to submit to authority. After leaving

  • Orphans in Jane Eyre

    1519 Words  | 4 Pages

    and culture. Jane tells about how she has no family; her mother and her father had the typhus fever, and "both died within a month of each other" (58; ch. 3). As if this is not bad enough, she is also excluded from being a part of the Reed family: Me, [Mrs. Reed] had dispensed from joining the group, saying, 'she regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavoring in good earnest

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

    1170 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

  • The Powerful Opening of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    1719 Words  | 4 Pages

    the wealthy Reed family. A young girl, Jane Eyre sits in the drawing room reading Bewick's History of British Birds. Jane's aunt, Mrs Reed, has forbidden her niece to play with her cousins Eliza, Georgiana, and the bullying John. John Reed goes looking for Jane and finds her sitting at the window seat. He sits himself in an armchair and gestures for Jane to come and stand before him. He starts chiding Jane for being a lowly orphan who is only permitted to live with the Reeds because of his

  • Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre - Confronting Repression, Achieving Progression

    951 Words  | 2 Pages

    repression. Jane's journey begins at Gateshead Hall. Mrs. Reed, Jane's aunt and guardian, serves as the biased arbitrator of the rivalries that constantly occur between Jane and John Reed. John emerges as the dominant male figure at Gateshead. He insists that Jane concede to him and serve him at all times, threatening her with mental and physical abuse. Mrs. Reed condones John's conduct and sees him as the victim. Jane's rebellion against Mrs. Reed represents a realization that she does not deserve the

  • Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre – A Story of One Abused Child

    3617 Words  | 8 Pages

    (Ashe). Ashe, whose criticism appeared in Novels for Students, Volume 4, is correct in his opinion. Jane’s abuse first begins in her own home. Her life until age ten is filled with abuse from her cousin John Reed, the mockery of the household servants, and the physical and mental abuse of her Aunt Reed. John’s first abuse of Jane comes when he throws a heavy book at her head. Bronte writes in Jane’s voice, “I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with

  • Minor Characters in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    524 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jane's character, like Maria Temple and Helen Burns, are idealised - made to seem saint-like. others, who contrast with Jane, like Georgiana Reed and Blanche Ingram, are grotesque in order to emphasise the difference between them and her.They become, in effect, symbolic and their excesses or virtues sharpen the contrast with Jane. Georgiana and Eliza Reed are described by JE as "feeling without judgement"(Georgiana) and "Judgement without feeling" (Eliza) - both are drawn by CB to show the results

  • Coaches and Players Relationships

    1770 Words  | 4 Pages

    or practice sometimes the player or coach my lose their composure. Which happened in the three articles that I read, dealing with Latrell Sprewell choked his coach PJ Carlesimo during practice, coach Bobby Knight choked one of his own players Neil Reed, and when Rick Carlisle defended Ron Artest and other players he coached after the brawl in Detroit. In reading those articles I feel that they told me that there is either a bad, competitive, or good relationship between a player and coach. The one

  • Impact of Tone in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    even blunt. There is no prissy little-girl sensibility, but a startlingly independent, even skeptical perspective. At the age of 10, the orphan Jane already sees through the hypocrisy of her self-righteous Christian elders. She tells her bullying Aunt Reed, "People think you a good woman, but you are bad; hard-hearted. You are deceitful!" and "I am glad you are no relative of mine; I will never call you aunt again so long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks

  • Importance of Settings in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    842 Words  | 2 Pages

    novel to associate Gateshead with the emotional trauma of growing up under its "hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart." Gateshead, the first setting is a very nice house, though not much of a home. As she is constantly reminded by John Reed, Jane is merely a dependent here. When she finally leaves for Lowood, as she remembers later, it is with a "sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation." Lowood is after all an institution where the orphan inmates or students go to learn. Whereas

  • Deceit and Dishonesty in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    1130 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dishonesty "'The marriage can not go on: I declare the existence of an impediment'" (306).   Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, is the story of an orphaned girl who is sent to live at Gateshead Hall with Mrs. Reed and her three cousins, whom Jane doesn't get along with. At the age of ten, Mrs. Reed sends Jane away to Lowood Institution, an all girls' school, where she spends the next eight years of her life. At the age of eighteen, Jane leaves Lowood and accepts the position as governess at Thornfield

  • Christianity in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    1864 Words  | 4 Pages

    "Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last" (35). In Jane Eyre, Bronte supports the theme that customary actions are not always moral through the conventional personalities of Mrs. Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and St. John Rivers. The issue of class is prevalent in the novel. The novel begins in Gateshead Hall when Jane must seat herself away from her aunt and cousins because she does not know how to speak pleasantly to them.

  • Independence in Jane Eyre

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    identity. Jane’s a girl who is “unhappy, very unhappy”(23). She grows up with relatives that treat her unfairly because her diseased family was not wealthy. Jane’s uncle Mr. Reed had reminded his wife and family to consider Jane as their own, but in contrast she experienced physical abuse by her aunt and cousin John. “John Reed knocked me down and my aunt shut me up in the red-room...”(23), the abuse that Jane experienced impacted her young soul, but also helped her grow into a stronger person. Unlike

  • Jane Eyre

    608 Words  | 2 Pages

    to find out how a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with her responsibilities. . Mistreated abused and deprived of a normal childhood, Jane Eyre creates an enemy early in her childhood with her Aunt Mrs. Reed. Just as Mrs. Reeds life is coming to an end, she writes to Jane asking her for forgiveness, and one last visit from her. “Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is. It is my intention to write shortly

  • Gender Equality and the Law

    1057 Words  | 3 Pages

    11). Ginsburg carefully selected cases which she felt would produce the greatest results. To do this, she “pursue(d) a series of cases that illuminate(d) the most common instances of gender distinctions in the law (Ginsburg 14). In three cases, Reed v. Reed, Frontiero v. Richardson, and Craig v. Boren, Ginsburg was successful in arguing that legal distinctions on the basis of sex qualified as suspect classifications. Therefore the state must show a compelling interest in its legislation, and “must

  • Jane Eyre

    3036 Words  | 7 Pages

    Eyre Is also filled with hypocrisy and I will expose that. The suffering that Jane endures will be discussed. The book Jane Eyre starts out very powerful. Our first meeting of Jane is at Gateshead. Jane is an orphan who is being taken care of by Mrs. Reed her aunt by marriage. There is no love for Jane here; not only that the only thing here for Jane is abuse. “Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned?”(Pg.11) Keep in mind that this girl is only 10 years old.

  • multicultural society

    1401 Words  | 3 Pages

    composed of people who came here from around the world. In the 20th century, after new immigration laws were enforced, two opposing trends became obvious: the one state that America is multicultural; the other claims that America is monoculture. Ishamel Reed, a popular and well-known African American literary figure, represents and strongly argues in favor of the first tendency. In his article, “America: The Multinational Society,” written in 1988, he states that the time has come to review the old-fashioned

  • The Masterpiece of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle

    2161 Words  | 5 Pages

    exemplified with the opening line "Call me  Jonah" (Vonnegut 11). The line is a parody of  the first line  of Melville's most-famous  Moby Dick.  Literary critic  Peter Reed  points out  that "it  is characteristic  that Vonnegut's  speaker should  be a Jonah, who does in  effect get swallowed by the  whale, rather than a whale-hunting Ishmael"  (Reed 124). If  the reader was  to examine  the  use  of  this  line,  he  would recognize that Vonnegut's intent and purpose is not to provide a reasonable and  serious