This month on Chattin Teh Classix: Jane Eyre! Self-realization, spookiness and romance abound in this 1847 work by Charlotte Bronte, considered to be ahead of its time in the portrayal of its female lead as an all-around badass.
Meredith: I’ll use this time to tell our readers we are half-way through with Jane Eyre.
Srry.
We’re busy women
/keep falling asleep
Emily: ok so you know who GETS IT?
Meredith: please tell me who I think you're going to tell me
Emily: JANE EYRE
Meredith: bammmm
yes
Emily: and Andy Millman from Extras.
Meredith: HAHAHAHHAAH
Just want to say that I would have Stephen Merchant's goofy babies any day.
Emily: I’m sensing a theme.
Meredith: ugh shit
They ain't even Jewish.
Just straight up nerdy.
Okay anyway. There’s also religion in Jane Eyre.
Emily: Yes there is.
Meredith: Not sure how I made it 25 years without having read other Victorian novels written by great ladies. But this is number 1.
Though I read some gothic kinda stuff which trailed behind the “Romance period,” and there's definitely influence.
Emily: Yes. I agree. Even though I was initially kind of bored to tears because I am ruined by teh internet, I was consistently amazed at the quality of the writing itself and the story.
And Jane.
Meredith: Yesss.
Emily: I can't think of a more impressive heroine, even in modern fiction.
She just doesn't give a fuck about what anyone else wants her to do.
Meredith: She seemed hard and cold to me for a little bit but then I realized she was treated like shit for her formative years and had to be like that!
Locked in the red room with a ghost!? That’s fucked up.
Emily: Totally. And I LOVE how because of that past, she then unearths her own viewpoint, interests, sense of self, etc. In the words of Thoreau, “know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it and gnaw it still,” and in the words of contemporary Swedish pop star Robyn, “don’t fucking tell me what to do.” I’m guessing that must have been somewhat radical for the time.
Meredith: absolutely!
Emily: What 90s singer songwriter do you think is Jane's closest analogue?
Meredith: Alanis? Without the bitter ex-lover bit.
Emily: That’s a good one… Alanis keeps it real, can be sweet but has an edge.
Meredith: I’ve actually been almost frustrated that she's been sitting in corners for this whole "party" at Thornfield. Also, they put on plays for fun. How cool is that??
Emily: I know! We should start doing that. I used to do that with my friends when we were little. It was awesome.
Meredith: Yes!!!
Emily: PBR gets in the way.
Meredith: /makes it better. I’m sure the rich people are drinking brandy snifters or sommmmething.
Emily: True. So, I think Jane Eyre has something of a coming of age element to it, and I was talking about it with a friend. He says that he thinks girls have better coming of age stories than guys, because he feels that the males in classic coming of age fiction are never satisfied, and that they're always searching for something else.
Meredith: That’s really interesting. They seem to be more about the adventure too, than the actual 'coming of age.’
Emily: I think this whole male/female fiction narrative disparity is due to the false dichotomy of gender in which we exist/ that informs our life trajectories, which enables men toward transcendence and women for imminence.
Meredith: Whoa girl. more more more.
Emily: In most art throughout history, women are portrayed as primarily oriented toward catching a “good man” and this is the struggle that mainly defines them. Meanwhile, men are able to explore and then define the nature of human existence.
Which creates a narrative in which men are able to transcend the confines of the human condition or die tryin', and women are only looking for a dude to complete them, at which point the story ends happily ever after.
Which is why I LOVE Jane.
Here’s a great quote that really runs counter to that entire paradigm:
"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel... they suffer from too rigid a constraint... precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them if they seek to do more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex."
So there’s a revolution in a paragraph.
Meredith: Gah that's beautiful.
What part is that?
Emily: When she first gets to Thornfield.
Charlotte Bronte’s just looking around and being like, What the fuck, 19th century dudes.
Y’all r dumb.
Meredith: Absolutely. And for a woman to write that in mid-1800s must have been quite a controversy.
But also: since we're halfway through and I don't know how it ends, I almost don't want it to end because I’m nervous about Jane loosing her edge to get with Mr. Rochester.
I have faith in Charlotte that she's developed this great character
Emily: LOSING MY EDGE- Jane Eyre feat LCD SNDSTM
Charlotte will not let us down.
Meredith: Ok.
Emily: So I first read this book for summer reading before 10th grade.
Meredith: ah ok
Emily: And I really liked it.
And I kind of feel myself dorking out all over it like I'm in braces again.
And cheering for Jane. And just thinking, DO IT GRRRRLLLL!
Meredith: I really wish I had had this as a tool to help me develop into a lovely young lady.
I probably wouldn't swear as much.
Emily: Jane would approve of you! She would encourage you to take up embroidery.
Or something.
Meredith: hahaha
I didn't realize you'd read it before. What did you think of it when you were younger?
Emily: I remember just really liking Jane’s character. Maybe I wasn’t conscious yet of how rare a decent female in literature/film/teh media is.
I was young and unjaded.
Just bought my first j. crew bikini.
Meredith: fulllll circle
Emily: Yup. But I definitely liked how Jane was her own person and wasn’t trying to change 4 teh boys.
Meredith: Have you read Wuthering Heights?
Emily: No!
Meredith: I kind of want to just so I can know what Kate Bush is talking about
But I fear I might never know what Kate Bush is talking about.
Emily: So I found this quote I never would have noticed the first time around as a tween:
"it is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it is quitted."
Pretty effective imagery to represent the end of childhood.
But I liked the metaphor of being cut adrift and unable to go back, because I feel like I’ve been in that scenario about 80 times since reading this 10 years ago. I spose we all have.
Meredith: hah absolutely. That’s really good. And there's definitely that tendency as a child/twenty-something to feel completely alone and on a raft and not knowing where you're going.
Emily: Definitely.
Meredith: And then you can only hope your raft will bump into some other rafts on that vast ocean
Emily: HEARD THAT
Meredith: Also I read that this structure is called Bildungsroman.
Meaning the protagonist goes through life phases in different locations.
So her childhood is spent in the terrible Gateshead.
Then tween years at Lowood and maturing twenty-something (i.e. 18 in the 1800s) at Thornfield.
I'M EXCITED TO SEE WHAT'S NEXT
Emily: ME TOO!
Meredith: A Bildungsroman tells about the growing up or coming of age of a sensitive person who is looking for answers and experience. -Wiki
Emily: LOLLZ
Meredith: I’m bildungsromaning right now
hahfdklaha
Emily: I’m gonna get bildungsroman tatted on my back
in gothic letters
Meredith: yessssssss
Emily: or my abs
above "ALT LYFE"
in gothic letters.
