Frankenstein Ch 21. – 22 Reading Check

1. Do you believe it is important to read classic novels like Jane Eyre? How do you feel lately about reading fiction in general? Why or why isn’t it important? Do you think that with our advanced, high-tech forms of communication and storytelling that novels and books will become less and less relevant? Why or why not? What do you make of the reasons John Green gives for reading? Green concludes that reading and writing is primarily an act of deep communication and connection....Is it important to be in "communication" with people that have died long ago? Why or why not? 2. In today’s world, do you think it is possible to find and maintain “true love” (a “soul mate”)? What barriers exist to people forging long term, true romantic relationships? How do you feel about the idea of “true love” and “soul mates” in the first place? Do you believe in it? Why or Why not? 3. Reflect on the importance of inner strength, persistence, and self- respect. Where do these things come from? Can we get more of them? How?

Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre is a Bildungsroman (a coming-of-age tale) about an orphan who overcomes the challenges of gender in her society and her own tragic history to build a happy and fulfilled life for herself.

 The rise of the governess (1851) was by-product of Industrial Revolution.  Nouveau Riche in England followed upper class lead and hired live- in teachers for their children.  Working-class women worked in factories.  Middle-class women became dependent on their husbands.

 Unmarried women, if they didn’t have inherited income, (which many did not) had to rely on the charity of their relatives or a post as a teacher or governess.  Although the governess was considered a status symbol, she was treated as just another servant who worked long days for little pay.  The governess was shunned by both her employers and the other servants.

 Other servants ignored her because she was considered to be of an upper class.  Employers ignored her for one of two reasons: 1. They were intimidated by her education 2. They thought of her as a servant Therefore… Governesses were isolated and lonely

 According to Bronte’s friend, feminist Harriet Martineau, the largest group of women in Victorian mental asylums were former governesses.

 Jane Eyre is a groundbreaking work –  The hero is small, plain, poor, AND female!  She is the first female hero who fully claims the right to feel strong emotions and to act on her convictions.  No novelist before Bronte had created a female hero with so much psychological complexity.

 A recurring theme in Charlotte Bronte’s work is religious hypocrisy.  She castigates those who preach one doctrine but live another.  Bronte was accused by one critic of being anti-Christian.  Although many of her contemporaries sought to clear her of these charges, modern critics agree that Bronte’s subtext undermined the social, political, and ethical values of the day.

 Charlotte Bronte was born in 1816 – the third of six children  Her father was an Anglican clergyman  When Bronte was five, her mother died of cancer.  Patrick Bronte sent his daughters to the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge.  Because of the substandard conditions at the school, Maria and Elizabeth contracted tuberculosis and died.

 Charlotte then became the oldest child.  She and her sister, Emily, came home after their sisters’ deaths.  The remaining four Bronte children were all gifted.  Charlotte, Emily, and Anne wrote and published poems and novels.  Their brother, Branwell, was an artist.  For a short time Charlotte worked as a governess  She also taught at Roe Head school.

 In 1847 Charlotte published Jane Eyre and her sister, Emily, published Wuthering Heights.  All three Bronte sisters initially published their work under masculine pen names because women writers were not taken seriously in Victorian England.  Charlotte = Currier Bell; Emily = Ellis Bell; Anne = Acton Bell

 After turning down three marriage proposals, she finally accepted the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls.  They were married in 1854  The next year, Charlotte became pregnant, then ill.  She died a month before her 39th birthday.

 One must be true to the inner self first and foremost  A person should judge oneself by one’s own conscience and not according to the opinions of others  One cannot live by passion or by reason alone  Abuse or unfair treatment makes a person angry and bitter  It is possible to rise above bad circumstances

 The mark of maturity is the ability to forgive others for the wrong they have done to you  Everyone needs some love and regard from others  Only when we love ourselves can we truly love another  A true marriage require a meeting of the minds and equality between man and woman  Love can transform appearances in the eye of the beholder  Women have the same need as men to exercise their powers and achieve recognition

On Jane Eyre – “I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.” On being a teacher at Roe Head, at 19 years old “The thought came over me; am I to spend all the best part of my life in this wretched bondage, forcibly suppressing my rage at the idleness, the apathy and the hyperbolical and most asinine stupidity of those fat-headed oafs, and on compulsion assuming an air of kindness, patience and assiduity?”

 For one minute, write all the things that come to mind when you think of your gender as it is defined/conditioned in us by culture at large

Now flip your bird over, and write words that feel describe your gender and yourself personally.

 Finish Frankenstein Due Tuesday 3/15  Read and annotate “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in textbook pp Due Thursday 3/17