Bitterfly Je suis ravi de vous entendre,
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bitterfly
You can interpret the end of the novel in dozens of ways... For the moment, I'm seeing it as an apocalyptic ending which gives a sort of key for the understanding of the rest of the novel, ie you can read it like the apocalyptic text, which is cryptic, full of symbols, and therefore can be interpreted in a myriad ways
Your ideas and imagery are astonishing but you will have to understand if I do not pursue the subject. We in the New World are a bit Puritanical, adroit at burning witches, than in discussing vagina dentata. Perhaps the Administrators would permit it in Latin but my proficiency stopped at Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.
To a safer subject - “You can interpret the end of the novel in dozens of ways”, we do! Consciously or not since we all differ in experience. Since the two overlap I'll try to answer your question “There's no reason why an aesthetic understanding a novel should preclude a religious one.”
Yes a religious understanding can be an aesthetic one. However if we differentiate analysis and understanding, in my view analysis requires a closer fidelity to the text than does understanding.
If we cite a religious understanding, the problem becomes in defining the doctrinaire limits in the system of beliefs. The religious understanding for a Evangelical, for a Anglican, for a Quaker, for a Catholic, for a Buddhist, will obviously differ by the latitude of questioning of dogma tolerated. So the problem of incompatibility between religious and aesthetic interpretations can be rephrased in degree of freedom in interpretation.
In the case of Jane Eyre, Charlotte wrote in a Victorian milieu and it is difficult to state with certainty how much of Charlotte's religiosity is reflected in the character Jane.
For kiki1982 the question is answered by the circumstances of the father, a preacher and the number of Bibles in the library. The answer is 'like father, like daughter.' but when we take Emily into account: ” “ She sees Christians as 'wretches', 'howling' empty praise in a 'Brotherhood of misery' and their 'madness daily maddening' her. Brontë claims she stood in the glow of heaven and the 'glare' of hell and forged her own path between 'scraph's song and demon's groan'. Only 'thy soul alone' can know the truth, and her appeal to 'My thoughtful Comforter' is not an appeal to God, but to her enigmatic male muse which governs her spiritual belief. He is epitomised by the life-giving 'soft air' and 'thawwind melting quietly' and lovingly around her. She is grateful that her 'visitants' allow her 'savage heart' to grow 'meek' and allow her to conform to the role she is forced to play within an ordered Christian and patriarchal system. Her poetry focuses on the betrayals of mind and body, as she seeks to find answers to questions that her society does not permit her to ask. Brontë's religious symbolism and unique spirituality show a form of pantheistic atheism, although she continued to attend a church 'whilst sitting as motionless as a statue' and it seems that this careful passivity is juxtaposed with uncontained anger and frustrated passions (Chitham2, p. 156).”1“, then the answer is not so certain. Siblings do not necessarily follow parental values, at least in intellectual matters but more importantly imagination is not necessarily constrained by personal morality. Bloom describes Wuthering Heights as:”The furious energy that is loosed in Wuthering Heights is precisely Gnostic; its aim is to get back to the original Abyss, before the creation-fall. Like Blake, Emily Bronte identifies her imagination with the Abyss, and her pneuma or breath-soul with the Alien God, who is antithetical to the God of the creeds”
Your notion, “ flesh of my flesh" idea: that the body of the text is not grafted upon with other texts, but includes them”, is fascinating. Why not just text but characteristics of personality -Rochester's in Jane's?
Would you expanding it into an essay? I'm sure that other readers would find it so.