posessions in the attic
Jun. 7th, 2006 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lotesseI've made my peace with Jane Eyre, really I have. It's very hard for me to dealwith the issues of race and racism that critics tend to raise against it, because I love Rochester and Jane so terribly. I take his character by the fact that it was Jane he wished to have, not some divine beauty. Jane: small, poor, plain, and above all fiercely independent, not content to be less than his equal. I love him for loving her, you see.
And he does treat Bertha well, at least. He doesn't send her off to an asylum, doesn't allow her to die. If her condition seems cruel to us, perhaps it is because of the cultural and intellectual changes in the understanding of mental illness. I'm sure that however bad Thornfield may be, an institution would be infinitely worse. Edward hates her, true enough, but not for her madness. She was cruel to him ere she lost her mind, and it's that that sways him, he says so himself.
(Oh, it feels so strange to be reading with the text and against its interrogators. It's not my usual method at all, and it makes me quite uneasy. But it really is the way I feel.)
But there is one thing that, every time I hear or read of it, puts me entirely on Bertha's side: when Rochester and his company are playing at charades, certain wardrobes and closets on the third story are ransacked for costumes. It's entirely clear to me that these are Bertha's things, being taken without her permission for use in a party game by a spoiled snot. It makes my heart ache. The disregard of her wishes, her very being, that they would so cavalierly carry off her things! it bothers me very much.
Maybe it's because I hated having to give up my own things so much as a girl. My sister is four years younger than me, and she spent most of her childhood wearing my handmedowns. We didn't have a lot of money, and good clothing was good clothing. But I hated it. It already reduced me to tears when I couldn't wear a particularly beloved dress or pair of shoes any more, and to see her going about it them was, in my mind, adding insult to injury. And so the idea of someone taking away my things without my knowledge and for such a silly purpose really rankles with me. It could almost make me dislike Rochester. At least Jane isn't involved--I'd be very sad to dislike her.
And he does treat Bertha well, at least. He doesn't send her off to an asylum, doesn't allow her to die. If her condition seems cruel to us, perhaps it is because of the cultural and intellectual changes in the understanding of mental illness. I'm sure that however bad Thornfield may be, an institution would be infinitely worse. Edward hates her, true enough, but not for her madness. She was cruel to him ere she lost her mind, and it's that that sways him, he says so himself.
(Oh, it feels so strange to be reading with the text and against its interrogators. It's not my usual method at all, and it makes me quite uneasy. But it really is the way I feel.)
But there is one thing that, every time I hear or read of it, puts me entirely on Bertha's side: when Rochester and his company are playing at charades, certain wardrobes and closets on the third story are ransacked for costumes. It's entirely clear to me that these are Bertha's things, being taken without her permission for use in a party game by a spoiled snot. It makes my heart ache. The disregard of her wishes, her very being, that they would so cavalierly carry off her things! it bothers me very much.
Maybe it's because I hated having to give up my own things so much as a girl. My sister is four years younger than me, and she spent most of her childhood wearing my handmedowns. We didn't have a lot of money, and good clothing was good clothing. But I hated it. It already reduced me to tears when I couldn't wear a particularly beloved dress or pair of shoes any more, and to see her going about it them was, in my mind, adding insult to injury. And so the idea of someone taking away my things without my knowledge and for such a silly purpose really rankles with me. It could almost make me dislike Rochester. At least Jane isn't involved--I'd be very sad to dislike her.