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Varsity Jacket by Megan L
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Varsity Jacket by Megan L
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Denise Levertov
"two by two in the arK of/the ache of it"
Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones)
"there was no one there..."
Adze
Chuck. Chuck. Chuck.
John Wieners
Christmas star, christmas tree, mistletoe, and holly/(but mother under everything in festival paralysis).
Jeff Mangum (with his band Neutral Milk Hotel; Jeff is the one holding the angel)
The only girl I ever loved was born with roses in her eyes
William Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
"Returning, I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed.... and the strange little figure there gazing at me...had the effect of a real spirit: I though it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp..."
Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable..."
Translations by Brian Friel
"I set out for somewhere but I couldn't remember where. So I came back here."
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
"I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself.... What am I doing in this place and who am I?"
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
"Who knows, but that on the lower frequencies I speak for you?"
8 comments:
Though I read the Marxist essay, I liked the ideas surrounding the essay on Jane In Search of Her Story. From the discussion in class it was summarized that Jane Eyre becomes a storyteller not through reading all the right books, but by reading into herself. Lucy pointed out that depending on her audience, Jane chooses her words, but also what part of the story she wants to tell. The Essay referenced Jane’s conversation with Rochester about how St. John treated her, and the reader picked up that there were some essential parts that Jane left out purposely. Jane was not being sneaky, she was just playing her role correctly. She looked into herself, and from past experience knew what to hold back. The way in which Jane and Rochester talk to each other is not in story, but in more credible, succinct facts. Though it seems dull, it is what connects the unlikely pair. Apart from that, the author asserts that Jane not only figures out how to tell her life story properly, but also learns about what kind of story it is. Jane’s story of her childhood is of no fairytale, as Bronte is credited with saying on the first page of the essay. This, Jane knows. She also knows of her success for in the Essay there is a comment that was passed over slightly in class. “Jane’s pain and confusion is established from the beginning as a response to the disjunction between the descriptions she must listen to and the truth of her character. Her first spoken words are, ‘What does Bessie say I have done?’” In the beginning of the novel, Jane feels more unfair blame and that is probably an aid to her sudden burst of anger towards Mrs. Reed. As the story continues, and Jane meets people like Helen, she begins to take less undeserved blame unto herself. This is what helps her in her journey to becoming more self-aware. If you can take a look at yourself and take blame for what you have done wrong, then you are strong. If you can look at yourself and take blame for what you have been wrongly accused, then you are as weak as those who misjudged you. This means that taking the blame for a loved one because you do not want them to feel shame is also shameful. This is where Jane’s no-nonsense attitude starts to take shape. As Mrs. Reed wrongly accuses Jane, she grows. As she is wrongly accused on one of her first days at Lowood, she grows. When she takes no blame for Rochester’s secret wife, she is self-aware. By becoming so self-aware, Jane is able to tell her story in a way that she understands, and that others find credible, but also maintains that level of security to know what kind of story it is.
In the first sentence of the second full paragraph on page 157, Bodenheimer states, "Jane's pain and confusion is established from the beginning as a response to the disjunction between the descriptions she must listen to and the truth of her character." Bodenheimer is basically saying that Jane yearns for the truth. She was falsely accused by her aunt in the beginning of the novel, and felt that it was a great injustice that she did not have the chance to defend herself. Here Jane learns for the first time how powerful language can be. She finally retaliates to her aunt by attacking her character. Jane is aware of her victory and subsequently, she finally feels empowered. I believe that it is here that Jane adopts the idea of "what she has always wanted most: the power to make others believe her" (pg 158). This desire to hold such power as a storyteller provides strong evidence as to why Jane is so adamant about having her own voice and telling her own story, opposed to a 3rd person narration. It is very difficult to hear another explain your own story.
This whole idea can be summed up in one simple assertion made by Bodenheimer that, "'truth' is not credibility, that it is made of different, less coherent stuff." (pg159). In other words, what an audience will accept as truth is not necessarily the most credible story. Rather, the accepted “truth” must derive from a combination of personal and artistic account as well as a credible one. For example, Miss Temple considers both Jane and her Aunt Reed’s version of the story in which Jane’s character is called into question. It is clear that Bodenheimer believes that Jane is desperate to tell her own story, and therefore she is the predominant narrator throughout the novel.
Sarah Johnson
Reading this essay, I was most captured by the strong parallels and contrasts between Portrait of the Artist and Jane Eyre. On page 162, I started having mini-epiphanies and tried to see everything through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus. As Bodenheimer writes about Jane’s judgments regarding moral status, she quotes Jane Eyre, describing Blanche as being “not good”, “unoriginal” and to “repeat sounding phrases from books”. This last one struck a chord from me, because I instantly thought of Stephen and the way he took words he heard (sea-dappled clouds, ellipsoidal, etc) and used them as his own. But then I considered the way Stephen used his experiences to channel his energy and synthesize something new, such as when he writes the villanelle in chapter 5, which is the opposite of what the “unoriginal” Blanche does, spouting meaningless phrases without an opinion.
Stephen is very much like Jane, as Bodenheimer says the stories within the narrative act as measure for the progress of her “art” and raise questions about what they mean in her life. This is true of Stephen as well. As Caitlin ahs pointed out, Joyce breaks text often, and these delivered stories and songs mark a progression of Stephen’s artistic development the same way the storytelling in Jane Eyre does. As Jane’s tale is told through her memory, her relationship with Rochester, and by John the Baptist, the reader can watch the progression. With Stephen it is more subtle, as Brian pointed out on a blog post about stories throughout the book. Stephen struggles more, as indicated by his pained relationship with his father, mother and even h is friends. However I disagree with Brian here, because I don’t think that stories always indicated a shackle for Stephen, but more like a lens. The lens begins thick and dirty when he’s a child, and it’s and entrapment, but as he grows and is able to step back to see the lens, it becomes clearer and clearer until he finally strikes out as his own story teller (short poems, villanelle, journal entries, etc). He sheds the binding stories, and this is how is progress is marked, in a different way but similar in principle to Jane Eyre.
Bodenheimer also says that Jane talks about Rochester as though she were “creating his character in her imagination”. This is a strong parallel to the way Stephen fantasizes about E.C. As someone else wrote on the blog, when they actually met, they seemed to have little in common, yet Stephen felt that he knew enough about her to be so in love with her, and make assumptions about she and a teacher, and write poems about her! Jane also fantasizes about Rochester, and sometimes thinks of him in ways that she wishes he was, not that he is. Both Jane and Stephen struggle to express their true feelings at first, and hide them and let them fester, uncontrolled in their mind (though Jane does end up quite more successful with this than Stephen).
Though I have more, I will lastly note that as Bodenheimer asserts, Jane’s flight from Rochester might be interpreted as a search for a “true and equivalent story of her own”. Now if that doesn’t scream “Stephen Dedalus”, I don’t know what does. Stephen’s flight at the end of the book is due to his inability to find a place he can be artistically free, despite his best efforts to throw himself into various social roles. Jane too tries on several roles before finding the right niche, as we discussed today with the Marxist study, in that she is serving but controlling. Stephen too is running away but searching and striving at the same time. These paradoxical experiences make these two characters similar in that their place in society is untrue to social standards of the time.
Page 162
Jane wants to be considered original, as she sees it as a “moral attribute”. (“The moral status of originality is also apparent in Jane’s judgments. Her indictment of Blanche Ingram takes this form: ‘She was not good; she was not original: she used to repeat sounding phrases from books; she never offered, nor has, an opinion of her own.’”) Her narrative, as well as her dialogue, is something that gives her this desirable quality. Bronte’s other minor characters are trying to have a story of their own. Bronte sets up characters to contrast with Jane Eyre’s story---“Georgiana and Eliza Reed function…as parody heroines of other and lesser stories”---to prove not the importance, but the originality of the main character’s story, and consequently, of the main character. In a novel full of conventional stories, “…the only possibility of originality… [is] the ability to draw back and recognize them as conventions.” Jane’s originality makes her more appealing to Rochester, who is also unique with his dialogue, as well as storytelling. Rochester’s story, like Jane’s, is not a simple romance, nor a gothic tale. Bodenheimer claims that both Rochester and Jane rely on the conventional stories; Rochester is “desperate[ly] reli[ant] on conventional stories…used to mask the ‘true story’ of his marriage, Jane takes a “dependent position of independence” in stepping outside conventional stories to tell her own. Each makes their story original, and thus attractive to the other.
In Jane Eyre in Search of Her Story by Rosemarie Bodenheimer, several bold assertions regarding the way Jane Eyre's character tells her story made me consider Bronte's novel's narration. We discussed how multiple narrators exist in Jane Eyre. Jane tells her story, while Rochester tells his. St. John tells Jane's story as well. I just thought it was interesting how at first we see a basic structure of narration, where Jane is telling her story. Then as the novel progressed, it seemed that for Jane to get her story across, and for Bronte to say what she wanted readers to understand, other characters had to narrate their own stories within Jane's. Characters like Rochester and St. John who tell a story are able to better highlight aspects of Jane Eyre's story.
I really wish that some of the comments were posted so that I could respond to them...but since they're not...
Something that really jumped out at me was on page 157 when Bodenheimer says "...the tension between Jane's- and our- listening in outraged silence to the versions of her offered by members of the Reed household..." in relation to her comment about how Jane tells her story through fairytales and the story of others. Anyone would be outraged upon hearing false information of themselves given by others, and I think this plays a very important role in how anyone tells their own story. By refusing to accept the displeasing account of Jane that Mrs. Reed offers, it emphasizes Jane's "assertive" and "fierce" speaking. She is determined to tell her own story in her own words, but including the Reeds’ comments shows that Gateshead was an important part to the whole of her life that she cannot leave out. Gateshead brought about Jane’s passion for truth and honesty, something that would have left the novel empty in its absence. By sharing with the readers the enraging and false comments of the Reeds, Jane brought us into her story, allowing us to feel the passionate dislike that she shared towards her childhood family. Though the Reeds’ version of Jane’s story was phony, it was still a part of the honest narrative that Jane shares with us the readers.
It seemed to me that Bodenheimer was making the assertion that Bronte only uses conventional tools to degrade convention. She uses them to mark a difference in the real lives of Jane and Rochester and simply the conventional fiction told for other people. For example, Bodenheimer brings up Rochester's affair with Celine Varens. Rochester's own description is that "I had not , it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness." The story is truth, but a truth trying to cover his history with Bertha. Again, Rochester tries to make Jane into a convention with the jewels and fine clothes after she consents to marry him. He tries to cover what Jane truly is-lower class and poor-but Bronte chooses to make Jane different and refuse the gifts. Every time Bronte starts to use a conventional story, the reader is left to believe that it is wrong. Rochester's affair is just a convention that young men fall into; if Rochester's attempt to change Jane had succeeded (if she had become conventional) she would no longer be worth marrying.
Bronte then uses unconventional stories to endear the reader to her characters. Jane's brazenness about Rochester's looks and her bluntness about her opinions toward Rochester make Rochester love her. Jane's unwillingness to stay and become St. John's wife makes her unconventional.
Bronte decided to use conventional stories in her writing, but she uses them to make the reader dislike convention. She juxtaposes conventional stories and unconventional stories to make the reader want the unconventional.
B&N Classics Edition
Some people have already discussed one of the main questions that both Bodenheimer and the character of Jane try to answer, “How shall I learn to tell the story of my life?” I wanted to delve into the second question, “What kind of story is it?” Bodenheimer says that “…Jane Eyre’s history may be read as the story of an empowered narrator, which describes her gradual, though partial release from conventional bondages, both social and fictional” (Bodenheimer 156). Bodenheimer also asserts that interpreting Jane’s story as pure romance and fantasy “…has been well argued away by critics who show how little we can identify Jane’s romantic daydreams with the vision of the novel” (Bodenheimer 156).
As Jane is the one telling her story, the reader can learn from her what kind of story it is. We can tell that certain aspects of the story are romance and fantasy such as when on page 23, she imagines that she sees a “…coming vision from another world” when locked away by her Aunt Reed in the red room. Later in life, she also fantasizes that Rochester’s dog is a “Gytrash” (133 Bronte). But there are also elements of the Gothic and realism such as on the very next page when Jane notes that Rochester shouts “What the deuce is to do now?” when he falls off his horse.
Though Jane’s story does seem to be a melding of fantasy and realism, the most important thing about her story is that it is a story about a woman’s search for truth. One of the main purposes of a story, especially a personal story, is that it is told to an audience so that they might hear, understand and ultimately, believe. Between telling Helen Burns and Mrs. Temple the story of her abuse at the hands of Mrs. Reed, Jane begins to learn the difference between a “credible story” and a personal truth. Bodenheimer asserts that the novel implies that “…’truth’ is not credibility, that it is less coherent stuff” (Bodenheimer 159).
Throughout the rest of the novel, Jane continues to seek the truth, especially personal truths. In is in this quest that she realizes that she could never marry St. John. When he proposes,“Can I receive from him the bridal ring…and know that the spirit was quite absent?...” and then decides, “No! Such a martyrdom would be monstrous!” (Bronte 469). This is just one example of the many truths that Jane finds in her story.
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