APPUNTI - MARY SHELLEY E FRANKENSTEIN, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica APPUNTI - MARY SHELLEY E FRANKENSTEIN e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! ENGLISH LITERATURE Mary Shelly (1797 – 1851) Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley is the daughter of Wollstonecraft and Godwin who married Percy Shelley. She lived a long life, longer than many of her friends, so, she had a chance to write a lot. Nowadays we maybe remember her as the author of Frankenstein, but she wrote many other works. We study her in context, so into the Romantic Period, considering it as the Age of Revolutions, into the literary debate in England on the French revolution. She’s representative of an age. We study her in relation with Burk, Wollstonecraft, Pain and Godwin, so in the context of modern science, like chemistry, biology, electricity and their practical applications and of Gothic literature. She was born in 1797 and her mother dies 10 days after giving birth to her, so she never met her mother, but read all her works, in fact she was a very devoted follower of her principles. Wollstonecraft had a daughter with an American adventure, Fanny, who lived with Mary Shelley for a while. After Wollstonecraft died, Godwin remarried really soon with Jane Clairmont who already had two children of her own (Charles and Clara). So, the household where Mary grew up was a modern extended family. Later, Godwin and Jane had another son together. The Godwin’s household had financial problems, because it was a large family. In 1812 we date the beginning of the friendship between the Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was young at the time, he was a very talented, young poet. He was expelled from Oxford because of a pamphlet called The Necessity of Atheism. He was revolutionary, also a baronet and he was married with Harriet soon pregnant with twins. Actually, Percy contacted Godwin because he was a follower of his ideas and asked him permission to become a follower of his and promised, if he needed financial help: he was very generous. Mary, when Percy started visiting the household, was in Scotland, because Mary and Jane didn’t get along well. She was enjoying the freedom; Scotland was a more relaxing background. Mary met Harriet and Percy once before leaving to Scotland and will meet him again when she comes back at 16 years old. They 178 immediately became close friends and they shared a lot of intellectual affinity and sympathy. They established a strong bound from the very beginning. He lamented that he was unhappy with Harriett, who was pregnant. Mary and Percy used to spend a lot of time reading together at the graveyard of Wollstonecraft. Claire always follows them. In July of 1814, Mary accompanied by Claire leaves the household with Shelley and they go to a tour in France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland. However, this tour wasn’t really successful. They had financial difficulties. They spent much time in bad places to live. They were very young and eccentric. Even if the trip was miserable, the company had no money, they returned to England at the end of the summer and Mary was pregnant but from a married man. Mary had left Godwin’s house as an impulsive gesture and he didn’t welcome her anymore. So, they had to live by themselves only using Percy’s means. He also rejected his wife and children, so they were criticized and banned from society. In 1815 Mary gave birth to a girl who died a few days later. In a diary she wrote “I dreamt of my little baby came to life again”. This thought of giving life to someone that is dead started from the loss of this child. In January 1816 a son was born, William. Mary’s family with Claire left to Geneva, at Villa Diodati, with Byron and Polidori. This is the place where Frankenstein was conceived: here she started to think about it. Byron was already a celebrity and had many lovers, a lot of relationships and had left England forever. He was happy to spend time with Percy, his close friend. They shared ideas and they had a strong literary connection. They were composing some of the masterpieces of Romantic poetry at the time: Byron was finishing Child Harold and composing Manfred and Don Juan and Percy wrote Mont Blanc and other poems. This special summer produced a lot of masterpieces in terms of literary works. Eventually, Byron started an illicit relationship with Claire with a daughter left in Bagnavallo. At the end of the summer, the couple went back to England. Mary began to write the manuscript in different phases of her life. She began writing it and decides it would be a novel. In 1816 many traumatic events followed: the suicide of Fanny Imlay and the suicide of Shelley’s first wife Harriet. Eventually after this suicide they married in London and Godwin after the marriage welcomed Mary in his household. They restarted a relationship between daughter and father, but actually Godwin was a literary mentor for Mary. In 1817 Percy refused custody of the first children by his first marriage. The Frankenstein was completed. Claire had Allegra and Mary had Clara. In 1818 Frankenstein was published and Mary, Percy and Claire left for Italy, the land of freedom. 2 transported electricity through nerves and muscles worked as receptors of electricity. Living organs resembled electrical machines, each with its own energy able to react to external stimuli. This research between electricity and motion attracted the attention of an international community paving the way for research into electromagnetism and neurophysiology. Perhaps inspired by galvanism, in Frankenstein Mary depicts the creator animating the creature with electricity. Giovanni Aldine, Galvani’s nephew, travelled in England performing public experiments of Galvani’s and Galvanism in front of an audience. Another kind of science included in Frankenstein is the studies activated after the so-called Chemical Revolution: it was when Alessandro Volta invented the modern battery. He had the ability to send and electrical current to material substances. So, this principle of conveying electricity using a body was present. The last discovery was advanced by Sir Humphry Davy in England. Davy, in a series of public lectures, founded the Royal Institute and demonstrated the powers of electricity in breaking down physical materials. He was the first personal chemist in Britain and he considered chemistry as the basis of many other sciences. He said the chemical knowledge was fundamental everywhere, for many other operations of common life. He represents the scientist that is investigating with an intrusion into the laws of nature. Let’s read an extract from his Elements of Chemical Philosophy. It [science] has bestowed on him powers which may almost be called creative; which have enabled him to modify and change the beings surrounding him, and by his experiments to interrogate nature with power, not simply as a scholar, passive and seeking only to understand her operations, but rather as a master, active with his own instruments. He uses the female gender for nature, while the scientist is male. The scientist investigated with instruments, so he is intrusive. It’s a very intrusive action science is doing on nature. Dr Frankenstein is very intrusive with the natural world, because he’s looking for the secret of nature in order to create something new with his powers (scientists are men of power). This kind of activity and its method could be very dangerous and this is why Davy’s approach is also called “bad science”. This investigation about the natural world is dangerous because they’re trying to modify nature, not observing but intruding the natural world. Percy and Mary read together Davy’s pamphlet. Mary’s father had taken her to hear the chemists and inventors in 1812. By consequence, Davy is considered the model for the professor that Victor meets in the novel. Mary, also, spent several weeks studying the psychological philosophy of 5 Locke. Finally, we have another discipline, by Darwin: biology. It is another pivotal scientific approach which is opposite to Davy’s one. Erasmus Darwin was a key figure in the philosophical and scientific field of the time, because devoting himself to the study of “good science”. We have the study of nature from the outside, he is not intrusive. He’s looking very closely to the natural world but without instruments, without penetration. Filling the gaps of what is unknown about the natural world, he used the power of imagination, which is why he’s in between philosophy, literary, poet and scientist. He was a physician, poet, inventor, natural philosopher, interested in agriculture, botanic, and female education. He wrote The Botanic Garden in verse, describing the natural lives of plants. He uses a poetical eye to describe plants insisting on giving interest into the sexual system of the plants which was a novelty and also looking at some of them having both genders and then he started to argument a sort of evolution of the plants, anticipating the theory of evolution that Charles Darwin, the grandson will theorize. The last scientific element is anatomy: the dissection of a body. It was a less prestigious kind of science; it was considered a semi-illegal practice. How did the story originate? What was the source of inspiration of Shelley? As we read, there are a lot of elements that include her into the Gothic literature mainstream with her own novelty, detaching herself from the romance, not employing the stereotyped character of the heroine or the villain. Her characters have a sort of double, like Frankenstein who is a hero and villain too. The story originated from a ghost-story competition in summer, when she and Percy Shelley, Byron and others gathered in Villa Diodati in Switzerland. It was a stimulating company, in strict company with the sublime atmosphere in terms of landscape. So, she was really stimulated. The idea of the novel is to be found somewhere in this context, stimulating, intellectual atmosphere and landscape. She was influenced by the landscape. She was taking part, sometimes as a silent listener, in a company of people that were discussing Gothic novels and experiments. They were also discussing the Myth of Prometheus; The title of Frankenstein is Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus, but the second part of the title has been cut off from all the consequent life of the novel. To go back to Prometheus and the significance of the modern kind of myth: why is it a modern Prometheus? It’s a modern myth of creation to ancient preferences. There’s a Greek god Prometheus, but also a roman source, so two sources linked to the myth. The Myth of Prometheus was called Punished by Deus for stealing fire and giving it to the men. The roman source is different. It describes how he created mankind from 6 scratch, just like Dr. Frankenstein does. Both the roman and Greek literary traditions were fused together. The act of the creation in this novel is a sort of mingling of the spark of life (symbolized by science and galvanism) but also creating something from raw material. This new reinvention, embodying two different sources from a modern perspective, of the mythical figures started in the Middle Ages, where Prometheus was representative of a divine power that created human life. And again, during the Renaissance, thinking about Othello, there’s a famous quote that mentions Prometheus. Then it became a symbol of artistic activity and creativity. It became a model for Mary Shelley, representing creative genius. Percy Shelley wrote Prometheus Unbound, so getting his freedom at the end of the story: it’s a tragedy where Prometheus embodies a free spirit, embodying Percy’s ideas of freedom to get rid of any kind of tyrannical power. Also, Byron wrote a poem Prometheus 1816, and in Manfred he used the myth for his rebellious character. Mary Shelley is the first to consider a modern revision of Prometheus as creator of mankind. She links the myth to the contemporary scientific theories: he suggested that the divine spark of life might be electrical in nature, so a sort of natural kind of electricity discovered by scientific research of the time. Shelley described the original idea of the novel in the introduction of the second edition, while the first came out anonymously with a short preface. So, it had two important editions, the first one in 1818 (with a short preface written by Percy Shelley). There’s a quote from Milton in the first edition from the Paradise Lost: “Did I request, Maker, for my clay/ To would me man? Did I solicit there/ From darkness to promote me?”; which can be seen as questions that the creature makes to the creator, like: “did I request to be alive?”, but then Victor abandons the creature immediately, just after the creation. So, the suffering creature is asking why he created him if he left him all alone in life. We said that we have a second edition dated 1831: why do we have a second edition? It’s longer than the first and there are differences in chapters and characters; it was revised by Mary herself. It was quite common to revise a work, also because of comments, it’s usual to have a second edition that is different from the first one. Actually, there is another edition in the middle of these two, but we won’t go into the detail because we don’t have the manuscript and if we know it, it’s because Mary said it in her letters. AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION (1831) In 1831 the publishers asked her to include her novel into a sort of collected edition of standard novels. So, they wanted a collection of 7 reactions. However, she has some problems at the beginning, and in the meanwhile, Percy asked her continuously about it. I busied myself to think of a story , - a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror - one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart. If I did not accomplish these things, my ghost story would be unworthy of its name. I thought and pondered - vainly. I felt that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our anxious invocations. 'Have you thought of a story?' I was asked each morning, and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative. […] 2 Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener. During one of these, various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others the nature of the principle of life, and whether there was any probability of its ever being discovered and communicated. They talked of the experiments of Dr Darwin (I speak not of what the Doctor really did, or said that he did, but, as more to my purpose, of what was then spoken of as having been done by him), who preserved a piece of vermicelli in a glass case, till by some extraordinary means it began to move with voluntary motion. Not thus, after all, would life be given. Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth. Night waned upon this talk, and even the witching hour had gone by, before we retired to rest. When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. She’s also taking inspiration from a conversation about philosophical doctrines, the principles of life, galvanism, etc. (so scientific sources) with Percy. There’s also the power of the romantic eye of imagination, influencing her, giving her the images that inspired the story. So, she has this waking vision of an artist bringing a creature to life. In the next passage we have resumed everything we read about the core of the story, the act of animating a lifeless body: I saw - with shut eyes, but acute mental vision - I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half- vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handywork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated 10 would fade; that this thing, which had received such imperfect animation would subside into dead matter; and he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench forever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps; but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold, the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes. I opened mine in terror. The idea so possessed my mind, that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. I see them still; the very room, the dark parquet, the closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling through, and the sense I had that the glassy lake and white high Alps were beyond. I could not so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still it haunted me. I must try to think of something else. I recurred to my ghost story - my tiresome, unlucky ghost story! O! if I could only contrive one which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night! She’s not saying she invented a story. It’s interesting as a strategy of the author presenting the story as a vision, a nightmare that came to her. “I saw”, the eyes are the eyes of imagination, “acute mental vision”, “unallowed art”, so doing something out-law. She’s calling the scientist an artist. She talks about the consequences of this as a challenge against the natural laws. The creator hopes that after the sparkle the life will go away, but it’s not the case. In the introduction she anticipates some of the story, because the creature that is formed is horrifying: the creature opens his eyes that are yellow meaning that there is something putrid in them, but speculative, so endowed of reasoning. Even if the corpse (one of the big questions of the novel) is hideous and the eyes are repulsive, yellow, underneath there’s something alive, with a brain, that is thinking, that can be educated and become a person like herself. So the big question is: how do you judge the other? From the external appearance or push yourself beyond it? The creature is not a dead corpse anymore, it’s got a soul, feelings, a heart. After this vision, she’s terrified and thought that if she would be so, probably the readers will be as well, so it could be a good ghost story/gothic story. Swift as light and as cheering was the idea that broke in upon me. 'I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.' This is the core of the story and of the adaptations of the story. On the morrow I announced that I had thought of a story. I began that day with the words. 'It was on a dreary night of November,' making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream. At first I thought but a few pages - of a short tale; but Shelley urged me to develope the idea at 11 greater length. I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but for his incitement it would never have taken the form in which it was presented to the world. From this declaration I must except the preface. As far as I can recollect, it was entirely written by him. And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart. Its several pages speak of many a walk, many a drive, and many a 3 conversation, when I was not alone; and my companion was one who, in this world, I shall never see more. But this is for myself; my readers have nothing to do with these associations. […] M.W.S. London, October 15th, 1831. The day after she announced that she had come up with a story: Percy encouraged her. Everybody recognized Shelley as the author, because she was a young girl, but here she’s stressing that the story is entirely hers from the very beginning. She, once again, in a second edition, says goodbye to the creature. It’s a sort of prevision of what will be going on in the future, with the progeny of the creature. She already envisioned. She would know that this creature will take a separate life from herself. She wants to share some of her pains about losing her husband, who played a great role in her literary and private life; but also, she’s a committed writer and cares that the readers enjoy the story and are entertained. THE NOVEL What is interesting in the narrative structure of the novel? The novel offers an interesting narrative structure of letters. The opening of the story is made of letters written by Robert Walton, an English explorer, an overreached, so a very similar character to Victor Frankenstein: they share the passion for scientific investigation. Robert is an explorer, so pushing the limits of the expedition, in order to find new lands to be discovered, and this expedition is very dangerous. He actually is writing letters to his sister, Margaret, who’s in England. Robert Walton’s tales narrated through letters that he sent to his sister, whose initial are MWS (Margaret Walton Saville), are also initials of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. This female receiver of the story is a marginal character, just the receiver, but she plays a pivotal role, collecting the stories and eventually giving us the story. Then we have Victor Frankenstein’s tales narrated to Robert who narrates them to his sister. Then there is a second frame that is the creature’s story that he narrates to Victor Frankenstein and Victor Frankenstein narrates the creature story to Robert and Robert is narrating the creature story to his sister. Then we have the 12 At the end of the story, Robert will go back to England to his sister. So, after the story, it worked well, meaning that Robert abandons the dangerous expedition to take care of the crew and to be safe at home. Family ties are important for Mary Shelley, and when they’re interrupted there are great consequences. She’s condemning a bit these characters who sacrifice everything to satisfy an egotistic ambition. Victor is doing it for selfish ambition, not for the sake of mankind, in fact he’s endangering mankind. In a way, this story of warning is something we met in Coleridge with The Ancient Mariner, where the mariner is stopping the wedding guest, narrating his journey as a warning, as an act of repentance to prevent any similar act in the future. In fact, Coleridge is quoted here by Mary Shelly. Also, there’s a quotation from Milton’s Paradise Lost. The story of the education of the creature, at the center of the plot, is pivotal. The creature was like a tabula rasa, feeling things and knowledge of life through experience. It’s turning into a murderer because the experiences of life turned him into such. The creature is essentially benevolent when he’s created. He’s the natural man who desires the contact with his creator. There is a description of the creature like a new-born baby who needs love, protection, someone to take care of him. But everything is prevented to him. The creature said to Victor “remember that I am thy creature”, when they first met (metaphorically, Vincent is like God). The creature is describing himself as a new Adam, but is rather a fallen angel. Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous. It’s a powerful speech. The creature is essentially benevolent and from Adam he’s seen as a fallen Lucifer, because during his education the creature read Milton’s Paradise Lost and started to think of himself as Adam, he should be Adam, but feels closer to the fallen Lucifer. But there’s a distinction, because the creature lived in hell like Lucifer, but wasn’t rebelling at all, he hadn’t committed any sins, it’s an injustice. Why was he created if condemned to suffer for life? The other two important readings the creature does, are Goethe’s Whether and Plutarch’s Lives. Together with these books he finds a copy of Victor’s journal, becoming aware of how he was created. Especially, from the journal the creature knows he’s being rejected without guilt. He goes back to Victor, to revenge all his misery and will kill everybody around Dr. Frankenstein and finally 15 asking for a female companion, to start a new life away from civilization and society. The celebrity of Frankenstein came from the adaptation in the theatre. When the novel came out it received a mixed reception. It became a hit through the first theatrical adaptation. Chapter IV is dedicated to books and experiments. Chapter V is dedicated to the creation. The other extract that we have on Virtuale has the quote from The Ancient Mariner. Chapter IX is about gothic landscape and the Sublime, because when Victor is abandoning the laboratory and is going through a crisis, he goes back to his family in order to rebuilt his sanity. When Victor goes back to his family he is as a changed man. Even though he hopes that the creature is dead, he has got a great sense of guilt: it is something very wrong in his life. All the years he spent in doing the experiments emaciated his body as well. So, he is a changed man in physical appearance, but also psychologically he’s signed, because he can’t enjoy the same joys of his past time, he can’t share his guilt with others because it’s so strong: he did something so miserable and dangerous that he can’t talk about that. The first time he is able to give voice to this sense of guilt, it is when he faces a sort of Sublime experience by himself. He used to sale alone during the night: he’s in a lake surrounded by mountains thinking about jumping in the water, suffering for his life. His act has compromised any sort of happiness for his future. Mont Blanc is present in the landscape. The landscape is in synergy with the nature of Frankenstein, he’s unable to experience other experiences than the Sublime. Not by chance the first meeting between Victor and the creature takes place into the Alps, a very unique place that is a Sublime experience. The creature is strong and can kill Victor easily, but he doesn’t. We can notice in this Chapter X two kind of language: the creature speaks in a passionate kind of language and he is asking for sympathy, while Victor is cold, detached, not sympathetic at all. Victor again rejects the creature. (Per vedere i video guardare registrazione di lunedì 11 aprile) The creation has been staged and adapted in several ways. There’s an interesting adaptation of Nick Diem who organized the scene erasing the scientist for a moment, giving importance to an element linked to science using light and sparking meaning electricity, the spark of life, and another element about the big circle made of leather, a metaphor of the maternal womb and how he’s coming out from it, mimicking the natural birth that should take place, but it’s 16 reproduced and recreated by a man. So, it’s the maternity, the semiotics of maternity used also as a visual adaptation. There is another adaptation where we see the power of electricity, the machine and its great effect. There’s a sort of reproduction of amniotic liquid. So, there’s the element of the maternal pattern missing, reproduced by the power of science. It’s a reproduction of what comes out of the female body after birth. Dr. Frankenstein and the creature are fighting but touching and getting to know each other: when a baby is born the first thing to do is to put him or her near the mother or eventually the father. The baby needs to touch the flesh. The creature wants a female companion to have someone to sympathies, someone disproportionate in body, but with feelings. Victor says yes to this request, he goes to Scotland to prepare and start a new creation. The very first creation saw Victor who never stopped thinking of his mission. In the second time he’s ready and the raw materials are assembled into the table, and the creature is hidden in the same room. A second before giving the spark of life again, Victor thinks of the consequences. So, what if this female creature doesn’t like the creature? Can you impose a woman to love a man? If she rejects the creature what can be the consequences of the creature’s fury? What if they don’t get along? What if she loves someone else? What if they get along and create a new creature? The female body Victor was creating was able to procreate. These questions made Victor destroy the raw material, preventing him to go through the second experiment. We can imagine the reaction of the creature seeing the destruction of his dream knowing he’s destined to be alone forever. We realize that the two characters are going to live in a perpetual hunt one after the other and we don’t know if it’s Victor trying to destroy the creature or the creature trying to kill Victor, because they’re double. Education in this work has an important role: if you lack education, you don’t know how to behave in society, but also lacking love when you’re young has big consequences later on. Mary Shelley follows Rousseau’s ideas of a good man who turns corrupted because of society or experience. Eventually, Mary discloses that even if Victor had a good education and was loved by his family, he could have been a good man but he got driven by these desires. The creature didn’t have such a great education and was rejected by his parent, but he had good feelings, wanting to live in the society, and eventually he turned into a murderer. 17 we’re not sure of her opinion because of the irony, which sometimes is difficult to interpret. Then we have the 1810 sketch by Cassandra, so another family portrait. This time we have the face, where the eyes are dark and penetrating; she has thin lips; the expression is not happy or inviting. There’s a severe expression, she is a bit judgmental with the eyes. She’s cross looking, with her arms folded. The lines are those of the Middle Age, so not in the first years of her youth. It’s unsophisticated, quite it is an unfinished portrait, so the families after Jane died wanted to have a nicer portrait of her, they wanted a softer representation. So, we have a new kind of Watercolor portrait, commissioned by the family after her death, so it is a sort of Victorian representation. The Victorians wanted her as a kind, gentle and soft writer. It’s an improved version of Cassandra’s, the starting point is the same, but with a different attitude: it’s a prettified portrait. It’s the version that dominated the XX and XXI Century representation, even though this portrait was made by someone who never met Jane (James Andrews). Then we have another much improved representation, in 1869, by William Home Lizards. It was the portrait that the family used when they published the first autobiographical sketch of the author. Here the artist has not only finished the unfinished portrait, but he has added many differences and new elements, like the dress: she wears very elegant clothes. Moreover, he changed the body language, because the expression on the face is much more accommodating. She has lost the skeptical eye and it’s more inviting and relaxed, she has a more childlike expression. We have many images for the modern kind of Jane Austen, taken not from the sketch, but 20 from the improved versions: there is a new face, a new body, a new expression and a new message to convey about her. These portraits give to the readers a softer and domesticated kind of Jane. This is the image that her fans love the most. There are a lot of readers who are imagining her as they want or as the popular image of her has conveyed her. But, there’s also another group of her representations that want to treat her more seriously, showing a less accommodating woman and writer. But it is not surprising that when the bank of England issued for the first time a banknote of 10 pounds with a female author they chose Jane Austen, but which kind of portrait? The nice and kind one. So, who is really Jane Austen? She has a lot of different portraits and representations, receptions and critical interpretations. She also gave life to a sort of cult, acquiring a celebrity status all over Europe, so she also became a commercial phenomenon. She has occupied a position within the English speaking culture that is both popular (public icon for the great public) and canonical (the only female writer that you find in every syllabus). She is an accessible kind of writer, but also complex and sometimes inaccessible. Virginia Woolf is a great receiver of the female tradition of the Romantic Period. During the XX Century Woolf observed that Austen’s characters were so rounded and substantial that readers treated them as living people. Woolf saw in Austen’s works a direct invitation for the readers to enter in the novels and to supply what’s not there. Something in the end of the novel is usually missing, so there is still a curiosity to know what is going on after the end of the novel. Woolf said that Austen invited the audience to create new products and reinvent her characters in a sort of made-up fictional way. Jane Austen was born in 1775; she spent her life mainly in the Hampshire County. It’s the South part of England: the countryside, but very close to London, so very rich and polished. She never travelled abroad: she spent her life there. The Austens were a very close-knit family. She had six brothers and one sister, Cassandra, with whom she can share women content. Jane’s father was a rector, so the position of the family was gentry, not aristocracy but not middle class (in between). She had a very active social life. She had all these brothers that all had experiences around the world and shared them with her. Her father was well educated; the family had a good library of 500 books and was enlisted in the circulating library (so, she read a lot). From the mother Jane inherited the sense 21 of humor and practical abilities. One son went to live in a close neighborhood because he had problems, with handicap. Another son was adopted by a rich family, who didn’t have any son and in order to keep all the estate only to one male heir and not dissipate it, they adopted one of the Austen’s sons, Edward. Frances and Charles entered the young naval academy. So, she had two brothers enrolled in the navy, which is pivotal for Persuasion. These two brothers raised in ranks, so they were successful in their careers, during the revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She frequently corresponded with all her brothers, so she knew what was going on during the war. She did travel very few miles around the Hampshire, but had the chance to know well the political and social context she was living in. Harry (another brother) became a baker. What about the two young girls? Not much. Options in life were much more restricted for the girls, forcing them to rely on men for financial maintaining. They were tutored in Southampton and Reading and acquiring all the female accomplishments, singing, playing the piano, drawing, etc. Cassandra became engaged to a clergy man who was a bit poor and so he went to Jamaica to do missions that would grant him some money, but died of yellow fever; so, Cassandra never married. Jane had flirtations around, attended male balls, loved theatre and society. She had a flirtation with Thomas Lefroy, who was a young man from Irish origins. He was advised not to marry Jane, because she was penniless. The result was that she was close to Cassandra and they lived happily together. Actually, Jane received a marriage proposal from an aristocrat, she accepted and the day after she changed her mind. She was an enthusiastic reader, she read everything. She loved Gothic Fiction and also, she loved theatre and at the time the standard activity that was practiced in the countryside was to do the theatricals (if there was a village in the country side, they organized a sort of stage production where all the families were involved). Jane wrote a lot of small theatricals, she also loved performing and she did collective readings. All her characters and settings in her novels are focused in the gentry middle class she lived in. The setting and the characters are taken from this life experience she lived. She started writing very early to entertain her family, what we call these works the Juvenilia. For a time, she moved with her family to Bath and despite the fact that some of her relatives said she didn’t like Bath, we know that she did. It was there that she received a proposal that she refused on the second day. During her time in Bath, she started to write about the characters of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey. She changed titles very much, so 22 of Jane’s novels that is chronologically framed) begins in summer 1814, when the war was coming to an end with Napoleon defeated and exiled to Elba and the heroes of the military forces, particularly the navy, returned home. The story ends in February 1815 just before the renewal of the hostilities in Europe, following the escape of Napoleon from the exile in Elba (After that there will be the Battle of Waterloo). It’s important because the story is located in between a moment of short peace that will come to a close end soon. The renewal of the war turned out to be brief, with Waterloo and Napoleon’s final defeat. The navy was remobilized and by the time that Austen wrote the novel, peace was reestablished. The point of view of the writer is pivotal, especially in the ending. The temporality of this hoping peace is pivotal at the end of the novel. This sort of suspense about the possibility of another war is perceived at the end of the novel, because the main character is in a sort of suspension about the war, that could lead her to say goodbye to her husband (“if the war is again on, I have to say goodbye to my husband”). The end of the novel depicts Anne, the protagonist, facing the possibility of another war that will come. Austen knew that peace would come, but the character is suspended in this question: is the war over? It’s a big question. In the span of the time of the novel (summer 1814 - February 1815), the naval officers from the British navy came to the shore, because it was a temporary peace time in order to pursue marriages, especially the young soldiers (like the hero in the story). The navy plays an important role as a new social power, challenging the vanity of aristocracy. The naval system unlike aristocracy is based on merit. The wealth the militaries are acquiring is made by work, while aristocracy is about hereditary titles and properties. We have in the novel a distinction between the wealth of the navy acquired by employment, so difference with the merit and activity that distinguish the navy from the highly located gentry. Jane knew the naval world very well, because her brothers Frances and Charles had successful careers in the royal navy, so she knew how these careers were achieved. Not by chance Anne’s first words in Persuasion are a sort of acclamation for those in the navy: she’s appreciating the navy, comparing it to her father’s rank-obsessed declaration. The navy, I think, who have done so much for us, have at least an equal claim with any other set of men, for all the comforts and all the privileges which any home can give. Sailors work hard enough for their comforts, we must all allow. 25 The father’s anxious to maintain the status of aristocracy (“The navy, I think, who have done so much for us…”). The “us” of the sentence is the family, her, the father, but also England in general as the nation. They are as important as the aristocrats for her. They are entitled to have privileges because they own them through their work. “We must all allow”, sending a straight forward message: to be grateful for the navy who played an important role in the war, and how their wealth is owned. Austen knew everything that was going on in the West Indies. The protagonist is Anne, who’s 27 and unmarried (quite old for Austen’s novels). Her being unmarried is due to a mistaken decision she took eight years before, because she broke an engagement with Frederick Wentworth, who was a young naval officer with uncertain prospects. She was persuaded by Lady Russell (motherly figure for Anne) who saw the match as socially and financially risky for Anne. Anne respected very much her opinion, which was in according with her conservative father’s. Lady Russell was however proved wrong, because after eight years Frederick came back as Captain, so he had proved to be very successful in the navy and Anne never got over her feelings from him. The focus on the relation between the personal struggles in life and social community are the two main fields Austen is investigating in Persuasion. Also, the life in a social community, it intervenes in wide political and social events. So from social and personal issues, Austen investigates into wider political and social debate. Starting from personal and social issues, she investigates into wider political debates in a period where political crisis, due to the war, but also social mobility, were crucial points related with moral values and moral behavior. All these moral values are related and distinguished in the classes Austen is introducing: ruling class, middle class and the navy. Also, this author writes about gender roles across these classes, different forms of social identity and finally she considers the institution of marriage as a political institution that reproduces social stability and order, with a mutual respect between husband and wife (which is very modern). She promotes a marriage made by two people that are respecting each other, living together, sharing experiences together. She treats marriage as a mutual space, without the separation between male and female space. Locations are very important in Persuasion; they represent different moments of the novel and the struggle between the individual and society. Kellynch Hall represents family tradition, the aristocracy 26 that has been inherited over the years, the old tradition, something untouchable. Unfortunately, their family is facing financial struggles, which is quite common for the aristocracy at the time,: they owned titles not money. So, the father, Sir Walter Elliot, a baronet, must rent the property in order to face his debts and relocate in a cheaper location. Kellynch Hall is very expensive, very big; so, the solicitor of the family is advising the father to relocate. The location suggested is Bath, because it’s still a fashionable place to live, but less expensive, where you could enjoy very good social relations. So, the father relocated to Bath with the older daughter Elizabeth. However, someone of the new class of the navy would be able to pay to live in such an expensive place, so Kellynch Hall is too expensive for a baronet but not for an admiral of the navy, which is a new social class, new position, new money. So, Admiral Croft and his wife (who happens to be the captain’s sister) will be the new tenants of Kellynch Hall. Sir Walter’s principles are presented to be opposed to the navy. He is against the navy, but he’ll be persuaded to let the house be managed by them. The navy is a challenge to the father’s vanity of person, but also vanity of birth and hierarchy. On the contrary, the Croft and the Captain offer a most attractive alternative way of living, alternative people that have nothing to do with inherited privileges of land and estate and everything to do with merit. Croft is rich because of his career in the navy, so he can afford an expensive estate. Few miles from Kellynch, there’s Uppercross, a small village where the family of the youngest daughter’s husband live, the Musgroves. At the beginning, when Sir Walter and Elizabeth are moving to Bath, Anne goes to stay with her sister Mary and her husband, in the cottage near the great house. Meanwhile, Louisa and Henrietta, the young girls of the Musgrove’s family, are described as open in their manners, fashionable and happy. They are not aristocrats, they’re middle class, gentry; so, they’re not refined people, not sophisticated. They’re not affected in the manners, not respecting a rigid code of behavior as Sir Elliott is doing. Sir Elliott is very attentive to respect all the aristocratic etiquette, unlike the Musgroves. So, they also represent a challenge to Sir Elliott’s values, like the navy. The Musgroves get along very well with people from the navy because they are quite similar in their behaviors. Anne enjoys very much their company, the time she’s spending with the Musgrove’s family. She also feels of some use for the family, welcomed by them. Also, Uppercross is where Anne meets the Captain Frederick Wentworth after eight years. He arrives at Uppercross, after returning from the navy and is still unmarried. 27 complaining about something, also about the fact that she isn’t married, but Anne is the unhappiest cause she’s regretting having broken the marriage. Mary is not so happy in her marriage, because she married someone who wasn’t an aristocrat. She complains about the fact that the Musgroves are not following the rules of society, otherwise she would be the first to enter into the dining room, and not Mrs. Musgrove. She doesn’t know the etiquettes: Mary is more located than her, but Mrs. Musgrove is older than her so she does what she wants. 3) The Navy: The Crofts (Admiral Croft and Mrs. Croft); Captain Frederick Wentworth (Mrs. Croft’s brother); Captain Harville and his wife (at Lyme Regis); Captain Benwick (Fanny Harville’s fiancé; then engaged to Louisa Musgrove) How does Jane introduce the characters in the novel? She uses the free indirect discourse, a modern narrative technique also called free indirect speech. This technique is based on plunging the readers into the character’s consciousness and showing things from his/her point of view. So, we enter into the consciousness of the character in order to see things from his point of view. So, free indirect speech represents characters inner lives. Through the words that they are saying to themselves, their thoughts, feelings or emotions, we get aware of their point of view. But the author gives no tangible signs when she’s moving away from the conscious and out of the character, entering in a more objective mode of narration. So, the difficulty is to detect when the author is using the point of view of the narrator in order to tell us something about the story, or when the narrator goes into the consciousness of the character. Doing this kind of analysis, we have to keep in mind the distinction between the author Jane Austen, the third person narrator (sometimes they can share the same opinion and voices, but sometimes the author disagrees with the narrator, and that’s difficult to detect). It’s also difficult to detect when the narrator leaves the character and describes the scene from the partiality of the point of view. When the narrator is describing a situation, it should be an impartial description of the scene. When we go into the consciousness of a character, the perspective is partial: if we have the opinion and the feeling of a character, it is about their own feelings. She moves from an impartial description form a partial one. The technique is very refined here, because she’s worked on it for a long time. In this last work this technique is much more flexible and refined, so it’s even more difficult to detect the changes. 30 We can read the passage when Mr. Sheppard, the lawyer, is keen to persuade Sir Walter Elliott to locate in Bath, because he must be paid by the family. There is also the possibility to settle in London, which would be risky because there are too many people and he can’t live in his big estate anymore. Sir Walter had at first thought more of London; but Mr. Shepherd felt that he could not be trusted in London, and had been skilful enough to dissuade him from it, and make Bath preferred. It was a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament: --- he might there be important at comparatively little expense. --- Two material advantages of Bath over London had of course been given all their weight, … This is a very good example of the free indirect speech, because from the very beginning we are going into Mr. Sheppard’s character. He said this to himself, he feels it, we are going into his mind. Actually, he doesn’t reveal his real attitude as the narrator has previously indicated (he’s afraid to lose money himself if Sir Walter Elliott doesn’t agree). But, after we’re going into his consciousness and his terror, he’s not allowed to say what he’s feeling, because it is too risky. This is why we know it is happening inside the character. He’s thinking to himself about how he must persuade Sir Elliott to move to Bath. The perspective is moved from the inside of the character with the two dashes that indicate that the point of view is moving from the inside to the outside. Lady Russell was fond of Bath, in short, and disposed to think it must suit them all; and as to her young friend's health, by passing all the warm months with her at Kellynch-lodge, every danger would be avoided; and it was, in fact, a change which must do both health and spirits good. Anne had been too little from home, too little seen. Her spirits were not high. A larger society would improve them. She wanted her to be more known. Lady Russell has got economic interests and is in favor of Bath. How is she helping Mr. Sheppard in persuading Sir Elliott? We can detect what character she is. She’s quite imposing, opinionated. You can see from these kinds of description how the character is presented. The readers gather Lady Russell cares for Anne and her happiness, and maybe feels responsible for her and her unhappiness. There’s something about the tone of her expression, categorical mood of expression. There’s the use of “must” (it’s her internal voice, she’s not saying it out loud). She is not saying that they must go to Bath, it is something that she is thinking; so, we go into her mind. Then, we see that her temperament is very important, she knows her own mind, she knows what’s good for her, it makes us understand how she imposed herself on Anne. Maybe, Lady Russell is looking for a husband to Anne. We can presume she’s got this firm character, 31 imposing attitude, a maternal figure, but a bit of an intruder. We know it from the outside (external narrator) and inside (internal narrator). There is a an even more refined use of the free indirect discourse, in the fourth chapter of the novel. We can read Anne’s opinion, even if it’s difficult to detect who’s talking. Anne’s interior self? External narrator? Something unspoken but felt? A bit of everything. How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been, - how eloquent, at least, were her wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerful confidence in futurity, against that over-anxious caution which seems to insult exertion and distrust Providence! - She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older - the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning. We’ve got a sort of agreement between the author and the narrator. The narrator’s sympathizing with the Anne. It’s something Anne isn’t sharing out loud, she’s thinking about making the wrong decision and her anxious thoughts ruined her life. It’s something she’s not ready to admit to herself, which is probably why the narrator enters into her consciousness, disclosing something even Anne isn’t ready to face and admit as the truth. She’s suffering from this wrong decision. It’s difficult to detect. who’s really thinking? Is the external narrator or is her consciousness coming out aloud? This narrative strategy is called focalization: the author is focusing on the character, entering in the style and using the voice of the character. It’s a sort of mingling between the narrator’s voice and the character’s voice. Then there’s Anne talking about an attachment in her love for the captain. She’s always overshadowed by other characters. There’s a big dilemma of the character: if you don’t follow your feelings, you will be overwhelmed by them sooner or later. It was too late, when she acknowledges her feelings: this natural love comes from an unnatural beginning. ANNE ELLIOT Also, the presentation into the earliest chapters of Persuasion of the protagonist is quite interesting and not really traditional. Anne Elliot is much older than Emma from Emma or Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. She’s even more tragic than the previous characters. Anne had compromised (when she was young) her happy future. She’s a much more complex character for her relationship with the family, especially Lady Russell, from which she’s driven to follow her opinions and then repents such a choice. In the first chapters she’s resented as completely overshadowed by other members of the family. All the concerns of the family are 32 “Such opposition, as these feelings produced, was more than Anne could combat. Young and gentle as she was, it might yet have been possible to withstand her father's ill-will, though unsoftened by one kind word or look on the part of her sister; - but Lady Russell, whom she had always loved and relied on, could not, with such steadiness of opinion, and such tenderness of manner, be continually advising her in vain. She was persuaded to believe the engagement a wrong thing - indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success, and not deserving it.” […] This passage is Anne’s point of view. She was persuaded to change her mind. We are inside her consciousness: it’s something she can’t say out loud. She’s admitting she would have been a happy woman. Mary talked, but she [Anne] could not attend. She had seen him. They had met. They had been once more in the same room! Soon, however, she began to reason with herself, and try to be feeling less. Eight years, almost eight years had passed, since all had been given up. How absurd to be resuming the agitation which such an interval had banished into distance and indistinctness! What might not eight years do? Events of every description, changes, alienations, removals, - all, all must be comprised in it, and oblivion of the past - how natural, how certain too! It included nearly a third part of her own life. Alas! with all her reasoning, she found, that to retentive feelings eight years may be little more than nothing. Now, how were his sentiments to be read? […] This is the recollection of the past, but what happened when they first met after that? We already can imagine the feelings of these characters. Anne is absolutely repentant of what she did. This is the very moment that they meet. There’s an impressionistic way in the narrative technique, it’s very cinematographic. The first part is the inside of Anne: she’s trying to feel less. If she’s trying to dominate her feelings, she’s in love with him. Frederick Wentworth had used such words, or something like them, but without an idea that they would be carried round to her. He had thought her wretchedly altered, and, in the first moment of appeal, had spoken as he felt. He had not forgiven Anne Elliot. She had used him ill; deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shewn a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided, confident temper could not endure. She had given him up to oblige others. It had been the effect of over- persuasion. It had been weakness and timidity. He had been most warmly attached to her, and had never seen a woman since whom he thought her equal; but, except from some natural sensation of curiosity, he had no desire of meeting her again. Her power with him was gone for ever. It was now his object to marry. He was rich, and being turned on shore, fully intended to settle as soon as he could be properly tempted; actually looking round, ready to fall in love with all the speed which a clear head and a quick taste could allow. He had a heart for either of the Miss 35 Musgroves, if they could catch it; a heart, in short, for any pleasing young woman who came in his way, excepting Anne Elliot. Through the passage we get to know clearly her feelings. What about him? She asks herself that and also Austen asks it for the reader to guess. The first feelings she’s recalling are these. Wentworth said to her sister that he should not meet her again. Then we enter again in a reported speech by her sister Mary. Wentworth complained about Anne breaking the engagement following others’ opinions and not her opinion. “She had given it up to oblige others”. It’s not questioning Anne’s own feelings but her feebleness of character. “He had never seen a woman since who had been her equal”, he’s also been constant. He’s ready to meet another girl except for Anne. There’s agitation so also a physical reaction in Anne, it’s quite common, she’s troubled but excited, agitated. She acknowledges later on in the passage of her repenting feelings which are said to be very powerful. His complaint against her is the feebleness of character in giving in to others. He’s powerful, active and Anne is described with passiveness and timidity. He’s convinced that Anne gave in to social pressure rather than following her personal feelings. He’s questioning not her feelings but the fact that she gave it up to social pressure. These kinds of opposition can be seen as another version of the opposition between self and society which is clear here. Another interesting element we have to consider is the attention that Austen gives here to human body. It’s clear from the opening chapters. “They pride themselves of their useful good looks”, they associated the beautiful of the body with the social superiority. Vanity was the beginning and end of Sir Walter Elliott and his character. Beauty and prestige are pivotal. They (the father and Elizabeth) judge Anne by her body: in her father’s eyes she’s now thin, feeble and faded. They don’t make compliments to her body. Looks are important in the novel, but also body and her ability are. Physical injuries happened or have happened to three people (the young Musgrove child, Captain Harville who has been laid at sea and most seriously the concussion of Luisa Musgrove, hitting her head in the rocks). Mrs. Smith is invalidated and dependent in Bath. She’s a perfect example of illness and time and how they can drastically change life. She’s Anne’s friend. In Persuasion, there are many deaths, many people are recollected from the background. Mary Elliott is recollected, she died when Anne was 14; Fanny died during an engagement; Dick Musgrove died at sea. The deaths are not incidental, they are recollected in crucial scenes because injuries and disabilities can create communities of caring in various ways. 36 Anne Elliot is a caregiver, like nowadays it is said. In Persuasion several women characters assume the role of nurses, especially Anne (taking care of al lot of characters). Together with nursing there’s also mourning and grief. Anne sympathizes with other people suffering. In contrast with these many instances of injury, grief and loss, we have Wentworth who’s the epitome of good looks, happiness, wealth and attractiveness. In Anne’s opinion, he’s not changed through the years, in contrast to his opinion of her who’s unrecognizable: “she had seen the same Frederick Wentworth”. He’s very physical in everything he does. In the early scenes we have references to him shooting, walking around and very ready to help people. The proximity of Wentworth causes a lot of physical reactions to Anne. She’s electrified by only hearing his name. She has to recover from the initial shocks she has. Then when he appears in person and she’s close to him, she says she’s aroused. This physical excitement in a heroine is very new in a novel. It’s quite unique. This happens in different scenes, sort of a chemical reaction. She’s not just blushing, but she’s also aroused, it’s a sexual reference. It happens when they’re sitting in a sofa, when he helps dealing with a nephew and she feels his presence over her, and also when he assists her in entering into a carriage. Another interesting passage, about the opposition between the navy and the aristocracy, when we have the description of Captain Harville and Mr. Elliot. Here we can understand in what way would these descriptions direct our judgement of the characters concerned. In both passages the author’s voice emerges with Anne’s point of view, giving authority to her voice, and engaging the reader to be active and their judgement is reassured it’s a source of reassurance that if the narrator and character agree it’s the truth. There is the description of the narrator and Anne agrees with it. Our judgement is influenced by key words (positives or negatives). Captain Harville is warm, his wife shows good feelings. Mr. Elliott is opposite; he never shows feelings. She’s using the same semantic field but in a strong opposition of the characters, so good judgment for captain Harville and a negative one for Elliott. Mr. Elliott is polished but not open. Harville is less polished, not equal in manners, but he shows exactly openness and sincerity with feelings with the wife, which Anne feels Mr. Elliott lacks. It’s an opposition between feeling and reason. Captain Harville, though not equalling Captain Wentworth in manners, was a perfect gentleman, unaffected, warm, and obliging. Mrs. Harville, a degree less polished than her husband, seemed however to have the same good feelings; and nothing could be more pleasant than their desire 37 Captain Harville: No, no, it is not man's nature. I will not allow it to be more man's nature than woman's to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe in a true analogy between our bodily frames and our mental; and that as our bodies are the strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing most rough usage, and riding out the heaviest weather." "Your feelings may be the strongest," replied Anne, "but the same spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer-lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own. It would be hard, indeed" (with a faltering voice) "if woman's feelings were to be added to all this." Well, Miss Elliot," (lowering his voice) "as I was saying, we shall never agree I suppose upon this point. No man and woman would, probably. But let me observe that all histories are against you, all stories, prose and verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men." "Perhaps I shall. - Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove any thing. Captain Harville is disagreeing. He believes the revers, an analogy between the strength of men’s bodies and their feelings. She says that with the same analogy women’s feelings are more tender. Benwick is an average reader and knows everything about books. “These [books] were all written by men”. Men have every advantage in telling their own stories. The pen has been in their hands. They don’t have books to prove anything. “I will not allow books to prove anything”. This is also Austen’s voice, saying an important truth of history of women in literature. Here Anne is using the conversation to convince Wentworth who overhears of the constancy of women’s love but also of course there’s a reference to herself and her own feelings. It’s the first location in which she really speaks out for herself. She’s not assuming, reporting or feeling, but she’s facing someone and speaking her opinion, asserting her own beliefs. She’s not suggesting, but asserting. Implicitly she is doing what she didn’t do eight years before. It’s the dichotomy of self and society, but also self-assertion with which she wins happiness. He changes his mind 40 and recognizes that she’s in love with him. The end is very short. She writes a letter and the love is back. In doing so she’s true to her feelings for the first time. It also shows that flexibility and willingness to change is something to accept. After being passive for much of the story she becomes active. It’s a change that began with Luisa’s fall. Everybody then seemed unable to react, but she was the point of reference, everybody followed her directions. She had a sort of firmness despite the feebleness Wentworth judged her for. She wasn’t feeble. In case of emergency, she’s the only one reacting. In the past she had been the character in the background, overhearing conversations. But now the roles are reversed, Anne speaks and he overhears. The heroine grows in self-confidence, this opens a discussion between men and women’s roles in society. There’s a sort of metaphorical discussion about gender roles in society, a theme of constant importance in Austen’s fiction. Anne has an acute awareness of these kinds of experiences, men are more active in the world. This idea of balance of equality of men and women is recurrent in Austen’s novels. Often women’s roles are contrasted by men’s ones. Anne’s defense of herself is more radical than other works. She asserts herself against a male-dominated written tradition. They are in control of writing because they were given a proper education. She is suggesting that had society been organized in a different way, women could have written different stories. She sees that. Austen is really giving this final speech all the power of her involvement in questions of gender roles in society. The final example is Mrs. Croft, a sort of new woman. Captain Wentworth: “I hate to hear of women on board, or to see them on board; and no ship under my command, shall ever convey a family of ladies any where, if I can help it." This brought his sister upon him. "Oh Frederick! - But I cannot believe it of you. - All idle refinement! - Women may be as comfortable on board, as in the best house in England. I believe I have lived as much on board as most women, and I know nothing superior to the accommodations of a man of war. I declare I have not a comfort or an indulgence about me, even at Kellynch-hall," (with a kind bow to Anne) "beyond what I always had in most of the ships I have lived in; and they have been five altogether." (…) But I hate to hear you talking so, like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days." "Ah! my dear," said the admiral, "when he had got a wife, he will sing a different tune. When he is married, if we have the good luck to live to another war, we shall see him do as you and I, and a great many others, have done. We shall have him very thankful to any body that will bring him his wife." "Ay, that we shall." "Now I have done," cried Captain Wentworth - "When once married people begin to attack me with, 'Oh! 41 you will think very differently, when you are married.' I can only say, 'No, I shall not;' and then they say again, 'Yes, you will,' and there is an end of it." He got up and moved away. "What a great traveller you must have been, ma'am!" said Mrs. Musgrove to Mrs. Croft. "Pretty well, ma'am, in the fifteen years of my marriage; though many women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic four times, and have been once to the East Indies, and back again, and only once; besides being in different places about home - Cork, and Lisbon, and Gibraltar. But I never went beyond the Streights - and never was in the West Indies. We do not call Bermuda or Bahama, you know, the West Indies.” Mrs. Musgrove had not a word to say in dissent; she could not accuse herself of having ever called them any thing in the whole course of her life. "And I do assure you, ma'am," pursued Mrs. Croft, "that nothing can exceed the accommodations of a man of war; I speak, you know, of the higher rates. When you come to a frigate, of course, you are more confined - though any reasonable woman may be perfectly happy in one of them; and I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been spent on board a ship. While we were together, you know, there was nothing to be feared. Thank God! I have always been blessed with excellent health, and no climate disagrees with me. A little disordered always the first twenty-four hours of going to sea, but never knew what sickness was afterwards. The only time I ever really suffered in body or mind, the only time that I ever fancied myself unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by myself at Deal, when the Admiral (Captain Croft then) was in the North Seas. I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience." The new woman is starting to take power in the Victorian period. Austen is anticipating themes. It’s a modern kind of woman, Mrs. Croft is presented as an intelligent woman, with experience, possibility to travel alongside her husband. She chose to follow her husband and to live into a ship instead of waiting for him at home and conducting a passive life. So, she lives an active life alongside her beloved. She didn’t conform to the society’s expectation of how a woman should behave. Mrs. Croft decided on following her own will to choose a different path. It’s significant because their marriage is presented as one of the happiest in the novel, when they are two pairs. It’s not a relationship between a superior man and inferior woman. They are two people respecting each other. When Wentworth talks about his need to have a wife, there’s Croft and the admiral giving him advice. There’s a sort of patriarchal way in Wentworth. The final passage shows how the marriage of the Croft is based on mutual respect. “As long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed 42 Romantic period. There was the desire with the great exhibition to give the impression that England was the first nation in economic development, colonial expansions and industrial growth. There are many novels inspired to these events. There were new buildings. England is a modern urban society with London becoming the new appealing capital. There was also the rising of the working class (we are familiar with Dickens, so we can easily associate the development of industrialization with his novels). During this period, there’s such a development (expansion and economic growth) that allows so many new things the human can do, so there’s the anxiety derived from such a great expansion and such a new modern society that was looked with fear because of the unknown future, also due to the scientific discoveries. Everything is faster, changing, so there’s also great anxiety also portrayed in literature. The railway started to develop. Also, from an artistic point of view, we see the point of view of the artists that is completely reversed, accelerated. The landscape (Radcliffe described the change) is completely different if you travel by train. There are new colors and shades. There’s the importance of the Reform Bill in 1832 that transformed England’s class structure. More people had seats in the House of Commons. There was the introduction of a system of Free Trade applied to imported goods (The Corn Laws). Then, in 1851 er have the Great Exhibition in London (symbol of the modern industry and science). Also, Victoria was named empress of India. Moreover, the telephone was invented, so there was a great improvement and a big exchange in communication. There was a crisis of the rural economy and communities. In the city, slums are also born, where all the poor people were lodged. The working class lived hard conditions. Children were employed in factories, as well as women, for long hours. All this was mediated with the Factory Act (1833) that prevented children to work more than 69 hours a week. But still the working conditions were miserable, they had no rights. The slums we were talking about, are these areas where all these working people assembled. They became the dark dangerous size of the city that alimented a lot of detective stories. Also, crime fiction started to develop and circulate. Victorian values that were represented by the queen and shared by the strongest class (middle class), were hard work and sense of duty, idea of respectability, charity and philanthropy as activities to be performed for the wealth of the society, the importance of the family, also a strong regulation of gender relationships and repression of sexuality and patriotism. There were strong religious values. All this is kind of specific of this period. Mary Shelley in the 45 Romantic period was an atheist, many authors didn’t care about religion at all, while for the Victorians it is pivotal: in Jane Eyre religion plays a very important role. Darwin with the Theory of Evolution, changed the way people thought of the natural world. The reception of The Origin of the Species was controversial, because human was an animal that evolved from apes. These theories were attacked by the Church and created a crisis of faith and spiritual doubts among many contemporaries. John Stuart Mill had a fundamental role in Victorian England for the individual rights: he also campaigned for women’s rights. He theorized the necessity of equality of the sexes. So, even though the gender boundaries were respected, at the same time there is this questioning about the equality of men and women. There was also the national movement of the Suffragettes, that started with a petition (modern kind of social protest, which was also used for the abolitionist campaign). The Suffragettes were arrested and imprisoned. Women struggled to be heard and recognized as rational creatures. Also, the vote had to wait a long time for women. At the same time as the Suffragette movement was born, there was a New Woman, which was much related to literature as well. The New Woman is a sort of independent woman starting to be detached from the angel of the house, the traditional role that the woman had. It was a woman able to get an education and who wanted to have a job and be financially independent. She was smoking cigarettes in public, riding bicycles and following all the modern lifestyles which enabled women to free themselves also against Victoria’s portrait of perfection. They were interested in gaining a personal fulfillment before familiar duty: they saw duty as a sort of cage. The New Woman was involved in literature, there were a lot of writers. It was seen as a sort of rebellion to the moral rules of the time. We started talking about women grouping together with the Blue Stockings, but eventually there’s a sort of genealogy with the New Women having references in the past. They were not an invention of this period, but part of the tradition that was a slow campaign for women’s education (Wollstonecraft, proto-feminist). So, Wollstonecraft is not a New Woman at all, but eventually the New Woman was taking her as a strong example of proto-feminism. There’s a genealogy, a tradition that was there and helped the New Woman to be a New Woman. They could free themselves from the traditional dress, break the rule of the petticoats. The petticoat enhanced the shape of the woman’s body, but it damaged women’s 46 health and body. Not to use the petticoat means to free the body and let the shape be seen in public. VICTORIAN LITERATURE Literacy increased significantly with also the circulation (more printed material and cheaper, too). The reading culture became more common and it was shared, so, not so exclusive anymore. The novel is the most dominant genre. The rise of the novel is dated XVIII Century, with Swift, Defoe, etc. The Romantic Period has novels, but there is a strong experimentation in poetry that becomes the language for people. During the Victorian Period the novel became published in serial forms in the newspapers. The novels had a very large circulation. The novel of the Victorian period is depicting the social world, the economic condition and the social condition. There’s a strong attention to social world, with men’s and women’s struggles for self-realization. The number of newspapers, periodicals and annuals increased exponentially. There were elements of gothic, with ambiguity, vampire of society. Also, detective, crime and science fiction developed. The Victorians actually didn’t invent anything, they just mingled what was done during the Romantic Period. William Makepeace Thackeray is really important. He wrote Vanity Fair, A Novel without a Hero, which is about the Victorian society. The novel is the medium to understand the Victorians and their society. Charles Dickens is really important, too. He gave importance to the description of the social condition in factories. Thomas Hardy is another fundamental author of the time. Then we have The Bronte Sisters who were three sisters writers. Elizabeth Gaskell dedicated a lot of attention to the urban condition in the north of London. She was from Manchester and she wrote a quite interesting biography of Charlotte Bronte. She dedicated attention to the women’s role in society, too. George Eliot wrote with a male pen name, but she was a woman. The portrait of women with her is really unconventional. It seems to be the story of a woman following the rules of the Victorian society, but eventually we find in the plot really strong unconventional issues, with also the New Woman depicted with a first role. GOTHIC FICTION This is the Victorian gothic with the anxiety. Dracula is the one about the vampire that metaphorically represents the aristocrats: he sucks the blood from the middle class. He is completely passive, but he is rich and he want more. He wants to go to London. There’s The New Woman, Mina, a woman travelling, committed to the cause, 47 humiliated her. The members of the family, even if they were rich, they weren’t so well educated they saw her as a threat because she was educated and independent. It was a complex position that of the governess. She leaves that position after two months and a half and declines another marriage proposal. She prefers not to compromise, even if her life wasn’t easy. In 1841 she became again governess for John White but left the position after 10 months. She saw the potentiality of a governess, especially of a teacher. Barbaud also was a teacher. Teaching positions for women was a good kind of activity. In 1842 to refine her training as teacher, together with Emily, she travelled to Brussels. They could better acquaint with the French language. She could also become a better teacher with experience in the field. They attended the Heger’s School. During her time in Brussels, she, who was a Protestant (the Protestants believed in the individual and direct contact with God), lived in a strong Catholic family so there were too many rules to attend. Especially she saw a sort of tyrannical religion in Catholicism. All the gothic literature was located in Italy because of the Catholic belief seen as a tyrannical power (also Radcliffe narrated this). For Bronte this conformity to the rules of the pope was kind of a tyrannical background. She was happy but she wasn’t fitting the rules and ideas of the school. There she taught English and Emily taught music. The time at the school was cut short when the woman who took care of the children died. Charlotte must live Brussels and begins plans to establish a school for girls with her sisters. They published the first collections of Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, with a pen name to protect their own identity. Three of them are girls and they were a clergy family. Only two copies of the collections were sold, but the sisters received good reviews by the critics. They continued writing for publications. Then they wrote the first novels with these noms de plume. The correspondence with the publisher was also made with a pen man. Charlotte Bronte’s Professor was turned down by several publishers, so she started writing Jane Eyre, published in 1847 in 3 volumes. The sisters were publishing their main works more or less at the same time. Jane Eyre was successful. In 1849 Anne dies and Charlotte travels to London meeting a lot of intellectuals like also Thackeray, while she was an established novelist herself. She wanted to go to London to meet other novelists. In 1850, Charlotte meets Elizabeth Gaskell. In 1851, she declines James Taylor’s marriage proposal. In 1854 Villette is published. In 1854 she eventually marries the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, who had long been in love with her. In 1855 she died. The father had 50 objected to the union with Nicholls because of his wealth. She died with an unborn child. She goes against the traditional stereotype of a woman, thinking becoming a wife is endangering her condition, it’s not safe. She thinks marriage is endangering herself and her position. For a writer especially she had freedom to write whatever she liked. We know that Arthur was constantly reading everything she was writing. There was a sort of censorship from the husband. She’s a free spirit. She was in love with him but she recognizes that having a husband means to have a duty. Being in the North surrounded by industrial cities, means being into in unhealthy place to live. The landscape also influences the psychology of a person (Wuthering Heights strong conflict between the landscape and the feelings). Being from a clergy family they couldn’t take up physical job, or that involved money or economy. The limited option was marriage and all the worries that we read in Jane Eyre about the economic condition. This is why she also wrote for publication as the only way to survive and establish herself. She also engaged in a correspondence with Robert Southey, a late poet friend of Coleridge and Wordsworth who lived in the Lake District with them. At the beginning of her career, she collected some of her writings and sent them to him. She was asking for literary encouragement from a literary established person. He answered: Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and a recreation. She was very afflicted by this reply, but she didn’t stop to write. He said writing wasn’t a job for a woman, while the woman’s place was in the family with her female duties. She said she would not have him decide her female duties. In 1846, Currer Bell (nom de plume) appears in print. Her first volume of poems marks the beginning of Charlotte’s career. The entrance was tough and she met many failures, but the success of Jane Eyre compensated the hard start. Eventually she became very famous. The choice of an ambiguous penname neutralized the question of gender. Without Currer Bell, which seemed to be a man name, she probably would have had a worse reception. The question of the woman’s proper sphere and characteristics of proper femininity were discussed. The subtitle of Jane Eyre is An autobiography, but the critics said that no woman could have conceived such an autobiography, because of the powerful language and aesthetic attention. Also, the question of gender is important: 51 Jane Eyre is a modern and outspoken woman. To have a novel which clearly supported a female character who refused to send controversial messages to the readers, especially women, it was a novelty. The standard was the fundamental necessity of women to follow traditional rules. It’s a bildungsroman, where there should be the integration of the woman in her connection with society. Here, it’s a bildungsroman with an accomplished woman who, through her experiences, is facing more struggles in facing society than integration in it. She’s resisting the rules of the society. She’s challenging with her choices the rules of society. Jane Eyre was written with a pen name and attracted the curiosity of the critics and public. It is a sort of autobiography of a young female girl. This heroine that starts with a poor background is facing a lot of difficulties in life but she’s very strong with a good education and firmness of mind. She applies resistance to the society’s intimidating power. The novel opens with the introduction of the heroine, an orphan, without looks (she is not an attractive heroine from an esthetic point of view, like Anne is), money and without an obeying and submissive character. You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense. Now, I’ll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they ARE mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. (Chapter I) From the words of John Reed, her little cousin, he introduces her. She’s only 10 years old at the beginning. They are preventing her from reading the books of the library. She will remember through her life all this status that will be overturned. “You have no money” says the child. His words are cruel. He’s young so he’s repeating what his mother said. There’s this contrast between the wealthy relatives and her (the orphan). He says she’s using their money. This evaluation demonstrates her vulnerability in a world that only values what she does or possesses. She’s nothing in a materialistic world. In her cousin’s way of masculine prerogative of ownership, there’s a declaration of power: Jane is powerless. John Reed is just the first of male figures who will attempt to impose their will on Jane. There’s a refusal to accept these patriarchal values. She will challenge all these male figures. Imposing male characters are John Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst (master of the school she attends) and Edward Rochester and St. John Rivers (the lovers). Also, the man she loves will try to impose her on what to do. That indicates the fact 52 Such an ambivalent position generated discomfort in those around her. She uses Jane to call into question Victorian ideologies about separate fields and who is or who is not a lady. It’s difficult to label Jane in terms of social class. Jane has an interesting declaration of equality. She defines her position in the family in a very subversive way, she says she’s equal to Mr. Rochester (owner of the house). There’s the proposal of Rochester and she says she’s leaving but she accepts. She’s employed to be the teacher of Rochester’s protege. Aside from Rochester’s proposal she’s asserting her independence. She will eventually marry him under very different conditions, when she’s rich and he’s a widow. He’s married to another woman so he can’t marry Jane. Jane cannot marry Rochester after this proposal even if she accepts immediately. She wanted to leave because she thought he was in love with another woman but he says they’re equal. She can’t marry him now because he hides a secret of his past life, a woman, Bertha Mason. Together with Rochester (proprietor of a colonial estate in the West Indies) and St John Rivers (missionary in India), we have Bertha Mason, the creole wife of Rochester. She represents colonial and imperialistic themes. These three characters are connected to colonialism and imperialism. Rochester because he acquired a creole woman and married her, Bertha is the victim of colonization, and in the middle, we have St John Rivers because he was a missionary in India. There’s not a direct condemnation for the colonial power, but it’s a strong input to the debate. Edward Rochester is a kind of byronic hero. He’s struggling in life. He’s hiding a big secret. He’s unable to share his secret in society, living a secluded kind of life. He’s fascinating especially for Jane. Bronte loved Byron’s poems. The dark protagonist who wonders with an awful secret had an attraction for Bronte. His darkness takes also on a racial significance. It’s not just a gothic shade, but in the description of the physiognomy of the character darkness is included. When Jane sees him first it’s very significant. He’s got strong lineaments, dark. It’s not the softness and pallor of the English standard. His physiognomy is kind of in between a black and a white person. He’s foreign and forbidden. He’s committed sins in his life. He must be reformed because he’s stained his hand with colonialism. He was a second son of an aristocratic family where the father is unwilling to divide the money. So, he has to marry a rich colonial wife. The purpose of his journey to Jamaica was to complete an arrangement already negotiated by his family. If you’re the second child you don’t inherit property, so the family has arranged a 55 profitable marriage. Accepting this marriage is his first degradation. He’s been driven by economic advantages. He was of a “good race”. […]‘ Jane! will you hear reason?’ (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear); ‘because, if you won’t, I’ll try violence.’ […] ‘I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear or know at I was not the eldest son of my house: that I had once a brother older than I?’ ‘I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once.’ ‘And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping man?’ ‘I have understood something to that effect.’ ‘Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property together; he could not bear the idea of dividing his estate and leaving me a fair portion: all, he resolved, should go to my brother, Rowland. Yet as little could he endure that a son of his should be a poor man. I must be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He sought me a partner betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and merchant, was his old acquaintance. He was certain his possessions were real and vast: he made inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a son and daughter; and he learned from him that he could and would give the latter a fortune of thirty thousand pounds: that sufficed. When I left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride already courted for me. My father said nothing about her money; but he told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her beauty: and this was no lie. I found her a fine woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram: tall, dark, and majestic. Her family wished to secure me because I was of a good race; and so did she. They showed her to me in parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw her alone, and had very little private conversation with her. She flattered me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her charms and accomplishments. All the men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy me. I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission. Her relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she allured me: a marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. Oh, I have no respect for myself when I think of that act!—an agony of inward contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not even know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her nature: I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor refinement in her mind or manners—and, I married her:- gross, grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might have—But let me remember to whom I am speaking.’ Bertha was beautiful. Rochester admits he was struck by her beauty when he went to Jamaica. He agreed on the base of this attraction, sexual attraction of the British Royal Empire of the creole woman. This description of the first meeting and the attraction is made by Rochester. Bertha appears to him to his dark element by attracting him in the colonial darkness of the West Indies that she represents. 56 With taking her, he wants to contain her and his own dark side, so he locks her in the attic. As the marriage is over, he discovers she has mental issues, violence. Rochester’s accusing her. Rochester has imprisoned her first in the West Indies and then when they’re back. For him living in the West indies was insufferable, so he decided to bring her to Europe. He decides to go back to England at Thornfield, their residence, but he locks her up in the attic where she lives for 10 years. All these passages are from his point of view. By locking her up he attempts to contain her and also to possess himself back. Living in the colony in a way changed him. He wants to repress his dark side and reassert his European identity. When he goes back to England and locks her up, he starts travelling in Europe with many love affairs. The idea that he’s possessing a variety of women (creole, French) is a sort of un-resting in a quest for a woman is associated with him as a “sultan of a Seraglio” as Jane says. It’s a sort of oriental representation of female power. Rochester is the prototype of the Victorian man. [..] he exclaimed. ‘Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk’s whole seraglio, gazelle-eyes, houri forms, and all!’ The Eastern allusion bit me again. ‘I’ll not stand you an inch in the stead of a seraglio,’ I said; ‘so don’t consider me an equivalent for one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line, away with you, sir, to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and lay out in extensive slave-purchases some of that spare cash you seem at a loss to spend satisfactorily here.’ ‘And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many tons of flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?’ ‘I’ll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach liberty to them that are enslaved—your harem inmates amongst the rest. I’ll get admitted there, and I’ll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered amongst our hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds till you have signed a charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred.’ [Chapter XXIV] Bertha is the character of otherness. Who is her? Some see her as a central representation of the feminist point of view of the novel. She’s the victim of the colonial empowerment and she’s been put as the double side of Jane, the dark side. They are symbolic figures of gender protest. Bertha is defined as an animal. All the descriptions of her describe her as an animal, a mad woman, an inferior being making the novel a symbol of violence of imperialism. […] Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by drift of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking, with its 57 pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a chair. The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the spectators: he looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate. That is MY WIFE,’ said he. ‘Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am ever to know—such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure hours! And THIS is what I wished to have’ (laying his hand on my shoulder): ‘this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon, I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder—this face with that mask—this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up my prize.’ At the end of the novel Jane will become a rich woman. After meeting Bertha, she meets another family and so she meets Rivers. She’s also a teacher in a school, so rebuilding her life, but is still in love with Rochester. At the end she will inherit some money from colonial transactions. This is why Bronte’s position on colonialism is ambivalent. At the end of the novel, she faces the oppression of Rivers. Even if he’s different in appearance from Rochester, he’s equally authorities towards women. He believes that women should conform to male expectations and is challenged by Jane’s autonomy. He has “ivory”, “whiteness”. He’s also attempting to force Jane to marry him. As Rochester used an emotional kind of oppression on her, he does almost the same. Rivers wants to marry her to go to India as missionary husband and wife. India represented for him the opportunity to accomplish his personal missions. He wants to have new challenges in life, he’s unsatisfied with the life of a countryperson. He wants to dominate and transform India. […] ‘Jane, come with me to India: come as my helpmeet and fellow- labourer.’ […] ‘God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love. A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine: I claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.’ ‘I am not fit for it: I have no vocation,’ I said. […] ‘I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary labours.’ ‘I have an answer for you—hear it. I have watched you ever since we first met: I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited? In the village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled. In the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas:- lucre had no undue power over you. In the resolute 60 readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability with which, at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were interested, and adopted another because it interested me; in the untiring assiduity with which you have since persevered in it— in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties—I acknowledge the complement of the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease to mistrust yourself—I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable.’ […] His declaration to Jane has the assertion of the masculine will, that is uncomfortable for Jane. He wants to apply tyrannical power to the colony. He wants to die like a martyr of India. ‘Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item—one dreadful item. It is—that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a husband’s heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve me; but can I let him complete his calculations—coolly put into practice his plans—go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him—not as his wife: I will tell him so.’ I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column; his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to his feet and approached me. ‘I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.’ […] ‘I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you.’ ‘A part of me you must become,’ he answered steadily; ‘otherwise the whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we be for ever together —sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage tribes—and unwed?’ ‘Very well,’ I said shortly; ‘under the circumstances, quite as well as if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like yourself.’ ‘It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such: to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And for the rest, though you have a man’s vigorous brain, you have a woman’s heart and—it would not do.’ ‘It would do,’ I affirmed with some disdain, ‘perfectly well. I have a woman’s heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a comrade’s constancy; a fellow-soldier’s frankness, 61 fidelity, fraternity, if you like; a neophyte’s respect and submission to his hierophant: nothing more—don’t fear.’ […] Jane is more suspicious cause she doesn’t want to die. It’s very explicit the pressure John gives to Jane. He wants her to be a missionary, but it’s his call not hers. “I claim you”. She says she doesn’t have a vocation. The language is important. His perspective is all from his point of view. She says she’s ready to go to India if she’s free. Freedom for her is a priority. “I freely consent…” so she’s talking. Bronte’s text involves colonialism and imperialism but never confronts them directly. It doesn’t subvert assumptions on class and race. However, the colonial experience and space allow some self- questioning, even if the text can’t achieve such a difficult question to this aspect. Jane Eyre is a revolutionary novel, because of elements of subverting. Bronte changed the form and content of Victorian novel. It was difficult to the public to sympathize with Jane because of her rebellious side. Her novel is provocative and we see this provocation also with Jane’s passionate novel for Rochester. She describes him from a sensual and sexual perspective. The novel closes with the marriage and she says “I’ve now been married 10 years”, she has an advantage because he’s blind, they’re equal, they’re happy and they have children. they’re useful to one another. […] On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, looking very thoughtful. […] ‘He [St. John] does -- he has asked me [Jane] to be his wife.’ Diana clapped her hands. ‘That is just what we hoped and thought! And you will marry him, Jane, won’t you? And then he will stay in England.’ ‘Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a fitting fellowlabourer in his Indian toils.’ ‘What! He wishes you to go to India?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Madness!’ she exclaimed. ‘You would not live three months there, I am certain. You never shall go: you have not consented, have you, Jane?’ ‘I have refused to marry him—‘ ‘And have consequently displeased him?’ she suggested. ‘Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to accompany him as his sister.’ ‘It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you undertook—one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the strong, and you are weak. St. John—you know him— would urge you to impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?’ ‘Not as a husband.’ ‘Yet he is a handsome fellow.’ ‘And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit.’ ‘Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good, to be grilled alive in Calcutta.’ And again she earnestly conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother. ‘I must indeed,’ I said; ‘for when just now I repeated the offer of serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my 62