Can anyone help me understand this...?

[Quillian]

Hi,

I just found this site and joined its forums, and I figured maybe I could ask around for help or something. *shrug*

I'm currently taking a college literature course, and right now I have to write an essay on Jane Eyre. I was asked this...

~
What role does Jane's ambiguous social position play in determining the conflict of her story? What larger points, if any, does the novel make about social class? Does the book criticize or reinforce existing Victorian social prejudices? Consider the treatment of Jane as a governess, but also of the other servants in the book, along with Jane's attitude towards her impoverished students at Morton.
~

No offense to anyone who likes this novel, but I just found it hard to follow and most of it went right over my head and I had a lot of trouble trying to understand it. So... can anyone help me figure this out?

[Virgil]

Don't expect someone here to do your homework for you. Remember, Jane is a Nanny in the employ of Rochester. Consider the relationship: who's in charge and how does Jane react? I don't know if you're English, but the English class system of the 19th century was very stratified. How does that play in the relationship? Hope that helps. Try Spark Notes as well.

[Quillian]

Virgil,

Hi!

First off, I just want to note that I'm not trying to get anyone "to do the homework for me", nor do I want or expect anyone to. I'm sorry if my post sounded like that.

Anyway, thanks for pointing me in the direction of Spark Notes.

Also, that phrase above your picture... "Vincit Qui Se Vincit"... I've taken French in high school and am taking Latin in college, so lemme guess... "He who conquers conquers himself"?

[Brainser]

And your in college and you dont understand this. I am a 9th grader in highschool and we are reading that. i can asnwer it off the top of my head. Maybe you should try reading it again... don't just cheat off of sparknotes and expect others to do your own homework.
Honestly,

[Quillian]

Brainser,

1. Seeing as I did the assignment last month, the point is now moot.
2. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I wasn't cheating, I was just asking if anyone understood it. And I certainly don't get other people to try and do my homework for me.
3. Just because it was easy for you to understand, that doesn't mean it can be easy for me (or anyone else, for that matter) to understand.

Sincerely,
Quillian

[cath e]

yeh dont all jump on him he was asking for advice and he was given it, there is no need to keep on about it. lol have a nice day!

[sizzlinjojo]

hey I just wrote an essay on Jane Eyre too I’m in the 9th grade. Ummm no offence I was just wondering, how the heck did you get into collage if you found this book hard to follow?

[Charles Darnay]

Elementary my dear Watson..... Victorian literature is a concpet which, for those who emerge themselves in it - constantly reading Dickens, Bronte (any one of them), Austen - you get the point, will become very accustomed to the styles and messages contained within the novels. I do not mean to put down Victorian English authors - not that my criticism ammounts to much - but the underlying concept is often the same. The author portrayed either a satirical or mirriroed image of the flawed class system of English society - you'll find it in Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, Pride and Prejudice - and so forth.


At any rate, for those who don't read Victorian literature - and there are pletny - and suddenly take a college course in which they are forced to do so, the styles will be foreign and confusing. To you Sizzlinjojo, or Brainser.... i suggest you take a test. If you have never read William Faulkner or John Steinbeck, try doing so and seeing how easily you pick up on a foreign style. If you have read the above then seek out a style you have not read and you may understand that just becasue you understand something, does not make it universally comprehendable.

Btw, I just realized how great the word "moot" is.... so thanks

[dirac1984]

i don't think charlotte intends to break social prejudices. she is not a conservative for she advocates for the equaltiy between husband and wife. but remember she doesn't think that every person is equal, at least she thinks that people in the lower class are raw, rude. i remember quite well what she says about peasants of different european countries when she talks about english peasants and their daughters. also, she is sometimes misconstrued as a woman from the bottom of english society, this misunderstanding is due to the wild imagination of her biographer mrs gaskell. she is in fact from a middle class family. you can refer to cambridge companion to brontes.

[Newcomer]

she is sometimes misconstrued as a woman from the bottom of english society, this misunderstanding is due to the wild imagination of her biographer mrs gaskell. she is in fact from a middle class family. you can refer to cambridge companion to brontes.


Could you please clarify your assertions, as I find it difficult to reconcile them with the following descriptions; quotes from a Gaskel biography site:

One can get an idea of the quality of critical estimates at that time by noting that the Cambridge History of English Literature gathered George Eliot along with Disraeli, Charles Kingsley, and Mrs. Gaskell into a chapter on the political and social novel.)

A recent review of Mrs. Gaskell's critical reputation ....dominant one regards her as "a maturing artist, and considers each of her works in relation to the others and her general views, preferring the late fiction but giving all her writing respectful, and perhaps even admiring attention." To this summary should be added a recent special focus on her role and influence as a woman writer, and studies of her as a provincial novelist, relating her work to that of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy in its presentation of life in a regional community. It is also probably true to say that the reputation of her late fiction -- the "nouvelle" Cousin Phillis (1864) and the novel Wives and Daughters (1866) -- is still growing.

The Life of Charlotte Brontë was an immediate success and has established itself as one of the great biographies. Within the conventions of the period (she did not, for example, feel free to deal with Brontë's feelings for Constantin Heger) it is remarkably frank and full in its search for truth. Later biographies have modified but not replaced it; The Life of Charlotte Brontë still stands as a portrait of a remarkable family and its background, as well as being a detailed study of the development and motivation of its exceptional heroine.


On the point of the Bronte being “a middle class family”, 'living of Hartshead is rated in the Clergy List at £202 per annum' while Jane Austen describes Mr. Bennet's income as of £2000 or almost 10 times that of the Bronte's. Mrs. Bennet's brother, a merchant in London has a similar income. Note that the salary of a servant or of a governess was about £20-30. From this I would derive that the Bronte household, respectable as clergy while not destitute, was poor.

[optimisticnad]

Comments like these



And your in college and you dont understand this. I am a 9th grader in highschool and we are reading that. i can asnwer it off the top of my head. Maybe you should try reading it again... don't just cheat off of sparknotes and expect others to do your own homework.
Honestly,

and these


hey I just wrote an essay on Jane Eyre too I’m in the 9th grade. Ummm no offence I was just wondering, how the heck did you get into collage if you found this book hard to follow?

are not helpful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!! I'm so glad I havent come here and had treatment like that.

Just to get something straight: there are different layers of meaning in a text, when your a ninth grader your work wont be as difficult as when your in college. if that wasnt the case a) thered be no need to do further education and b) you wouldnt study the same book at different stages.

as for the 9th grader in highschool who can answer from top of their head - good for you. Your a better and cleverer person than I can ever be.

[optimisticnad]

What role does Jane's ambiguous social position play in determining the conflict of her story? What larger points, if any, does the novel make about social class? Does the book criticize or reinforce existing Victorian social prejudices? Consider the treatment of Jane as a governess, but also of the other servants in the book, along with Jane's attitude towards her impoverished students at Morton.


Break it down! That question puts me off. Most of it just repeating itself.

Jane's ambiguous position: her class position shifts doesn't it? And in the end she inherits doesn't she (its been a long time since I read this!) which means she reenters her rightful place and can marry Rochester. So Bronte's just given her the perfect happy ending, she doesn't challenge Victorian social theories.

I wish I could help some more! Whens it due? If i get time i will dig out my notes!

Best of luck. Don't worry so much when you don't understand stuff. Keep trying and you will get there, believe me! Re-reading bits is always useful. Keep an open mind, think of the context and don't approach it from the modern hip way we live.

[optimisticnad]

quillain made that post in 2005!

Im like...two years late!

And wev scared him or her away!