I think your sister definitely has a point, but similarly, my adolescent romance was more with Jane than with Rochester - I found her so utterly compelling, so absolutely important, I don't know if I can even use words to express what she meant for me. It was the bit where she longs for freedom, and the wind carries it away, and finally she yells then at least grant me a new servitude! I was a teenager in a midwestern backbeyond longing for work and freedom and activity and passion, and the sheer force of hunger and longing that was Jane absolutely bowled me over.
Rather, it seems to me that there's an ongoing conversation about whether to read the Brontës as discourse or counterdiscourse - and, by her own words, Charlotte is easy to designate as discourse. All that stuff about apologizing for Emily and suppressing Anne, put together with the fact that if Wuthering Heights is a delirium and Wildfell Hall is the waking nightmare then Jane Eyre is the wishful fairytale of being a straight girl in a patriarchy. But I still read Charlotte as firmly belonging to counterdiscourse, just an example of the way that patriarchy will try to pull the fangs of even the baddest bitch. See the fluffification of Austen for more on that last!
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Date: 2012-06-27 11:52 pm (UTC)Rather, it seems to me that there's an ongoing conversation about whether to read the Brontës as discourse or counterdiscourse - and, by her own words, Charlotte is easy to designate as discourse. All that stuff about apologizing for Emily and suppressing Anne, put together with the fact that if Wuthering Heights is a delirium and Wildfell Hall is the waking nightmare then Jane Eyre is the wishful fairytale of being a straight girl in a patriarchy. But I still read Charlotte as firmly belonging to counterdiscourse, just an example of the way that patriarchy will try to pull the fangs of even the baddest bitch. See the fluffification of Austen for more on that last!