Today’s Agenda:
1) Presentation
2) Discussion of presentation
3) Work on papers and organization of papers
a. Demonstration of Library resources in classroom.
b. In-class reflection of basic literary terms, and then a consideration of how they might relate to a Psychoanalytic, Feminist, Queer, Marxist, or Post-Colonial understanding of a novel.
Common Terms from Eh 112
- Speaker:
The person or thing that is narrating the poem, short story, or movie.
- Audience:
The group or groups of people a poem, short story, or movie is originally intended for.
- Situation:
The event that is taking place in the poem, short story, or movie.
- Cultural References:
References to any subject that would be commonly recognized by people living within a certain place and time.*
- Imagery:
Generally, descriptions that are designed to make you SEE, FEEL, or THINK something.*
- Metaphor:
A figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.”*
- Simile:
A figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in “she is like a rose.”*
- Symbol:
Something used for or regarded as representing something else; a material object representing something, often something immaterial; emblem, token, or sign.*
- Point of View:
The position of the narrator in relation to the story, as indicated by the narrator’s outlook from which the events are depicted and by the attitude toward the characters.*
- Plot:
The series of events that make up the story
- Exposition:
Background information that introduces the reader to important characters or events.
- Rising Action:
A series of increasingly more dramatic events.
- Climax:
The moment of highest drama in the story.
- Falling Action:
All action that occurs after the climax.
- Character:
An individual within a story.
- Allegory:
A symbolical narrative.*
- Setting:
The specific place and time during which a story takes place.
- Motif:
A recurring subject, theme, idea, etc., esp. in a literary, artistic, or musical work.*
- Theme:
A unifying or dominant idea.*
–
Critical frameworks and relevant terms:
Psychoanalytic
Sigmund Freud, Oedipal Complex, Oceanic feeling/experience
Feminism/ Queer Theory:
Gender roles/ homosocial and heterosocial relationships.
Marxist
Proletariat/Bourgeoisie
Post-Colonial
The “other” and “othering”
The Hybrid
Class work on the paper.
[...] Monday, April 6 [...]
William Dow II
4/7/2009
Eh241.001
Journal entry for 9/6/2009
I am sure by now that I will use Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. There could be many ways of looking at Robinson Crusoe Marxism, psychoanalytic theory, even Feminism/ Queer theory. However, my focus for the paper I will be looking at the story from the point of view of Psychoanalytic theory. The book is full of examples of the search for the Oceanic Experience.
Theme: the theme of Robinson Crusoe is a simple what do you when strand on an island, but other than that there is a under lying theme of the search for comfort that is shown with Crusoe’s desire to build everything tables, chairs, multiple houses, etc. Crusoe never seems to stop and relax he is always building more unnecessary items like baskets for carrying corn.
Exposition: Through the exposition we learn that just being comfortable is something that Crusoe’s father has tried to instill on him. This could be used as an example for Marxism, but it seems to have to be an underlying cause for Robinson Crusoe’s drive to make and do things that make no sense for his situation. Instead of actively searching of a way to escape, he is building a chair or a basket.
Therefore, in conclusion, Robinson Crusoe is a virtual gold mine for evaluation by any means but it does seem to lend its self to psychoanalytic theory. Therefore, I should have a good and rich paper.
Gavin Kennedy
Major British Writers
From the very beginning of Jane Eyre we are thrown into an environment rich with Marxist and Feminist motifs. Jane is an orphan making her instantly a dependent on the world, of a lower social class as it was seen in that time. And she is a female in the Victorian era, this instantly puts her farther and farther down in the ranks of society. Combining those two things Bronte basically made one of the lower caste’s of society come alive. Bronte shows the struggles Jane must overcome to try and make herself feel worthy in society.
Jane had to overcome her oppressive aunt and cousins to try and break free from her niche in society. She was very young but still headed out for school at the soonest possible time. Her need to go to school shows how she is trying to break from the norms of “mother” and “housekeeper,” and maybe even nun, and into the world of educated individuals. If there is one way a person can transcend social boundaries it is though school and the power that knowledge can give them. Marxism pops it head up because this is a lower caste school with regards to money. The usually orphans are supported by more than their relatives or surviving parents. Charitable members of society help fund this school making it not as prestigious as other school just for that fact alone.
Jane seems to be on the cusp on high society at every turn. She lives with a wealthy family but is not wealthy. She is dependent of the “charity” or her aunt, who was forced for the most part to take on Jane. She is a teacher but not her own master. She is still under the thumb o a council board and societies rules. At Lowood she still is not exactly in society, never venturing from there she is still an outcast. When she is a governess she makes it one more step up but is still considered to be lower class. She has no money which makes her nervous around Rochester, the fast that she is nervous about the marriage shows what things were like. No money meant no class, that she couldn’t be an equal to her new husband of basis of gender and economic status.
So far in the book I have found much material to write about, and I am excited to reach the end, knowing there will be more. This book is rich with Marxism and Feminism that I can’t help notice that it must have been a driving force in Bronte’s life. So much leaked through into this novel that I could not have been a mistake.
Meghann Peterson
Professor Crowley
08 April 2009
Blog Post
I have decided to write my paper about Jane Eyre. I will be incorporating Marxist and Feminist Theory into the theme in Jane Eyre of class and gender roles. It seems like a lot of concepts to write about but I think that they are all interrelated. The gender roles put upon Jane and the other women she encounters are also influenced by their class. What is expected of an upper class woman is different than what is expected of a lower class woman. What role Jane should play is a major discourse in the book because her class role is not clearly defined. Without a definite class role it is difficult for the people around her to define her role as a woman. This is even more complicated by her relationship with Rochester, who is an upper class man. She is his employee and this would indicate that she would be his subordinate, but Jane does not allow Rochester to have all the control, as her boss or as a man. Jane refuses to live with him while he is married to someone else even though she clearly wants to be with him. She says to Rochester when getting ready to leave him, “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you—and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.” She obviously wants to be with him but she wants to do it on her terms. Just because she is not wealthy and does not consider herself to be pretty does not mean she will consent to living with him and not be his wife. The fact that he even asks her to do this shows that he does not understand the standards she holds for herself. Just because she is from an ambiguous class does not mean she will allow herself to be treated the same as a low class woman. In the end of the book these roles are almost reversed and that’s is what seems to allow for the ending that we get, that I don’t want to give away to those who have not finished the book.
Benjamin McGray
EH 241
Adam Crowley
April 7, 2009
Narrowing down my ideas for the final paper was a fairly easy decision for me to make. I feel that the clearest argument I can synthesis is for the Marxist allegory through the institution of Lowood in the book Jane Eyre. I think I will set up my argument in stages, first drawing on the obvious conflict between the students and Mr. Brocklhurst. Before this I will establish what Marxism actually is so in order to give the comparisons credibility. It can easily be explained that Mr. Brocklhurst is a representation of Marx’s upper class and that the student body are representations of the proletariat. Marx also says that the conflict between these two classes leads to an inevitable uprising by the lower working class, which provides another parallel to make with the book. In the book the community takes over the school after seeing the poor management of Brocklhurst. The new administration then reforms the school and the students are given ample supplies and food as to better the quality of there education.
Another point I will bring up is how the author, Charlotte Bronte, uses two of the characters as figure heads for the two classes. For the upper/middle class she provided Mr. Brocklhurst, and for the lower class she provided Helen Burns. Brockhurst has motives that seem sinister and bent on solidifying the poor student’s place as lower class individuals by not allowing them to learn any skills that go beyond what their prospects will be as secondary citizens. Helen Burns is a sort of martyr. She if very intelligent, and very competent, yet she is constantly being put down by the higher authority. She endures it quietly and eventually is swept up in the wave of disease that eventually sparks the reform.
Leah Gomes
8 April 2009
Adam Crawley
Final Paper Idea
I have decided to write my paper on Jane Eyre, using IMAGERY as the literary term and FEMINISM as my theory. I want to talk about how Fire and Ice show Jane’s battle against feminism: fire showing Jane’s passions, anger, and spirit; fire showing the oppressive forces trying to smother Jane’s vitality. The fire imagery is being used to develop Jane’s character throughout the novel. She is constantly being repressed by three men in particular: Brocklehurst, Rochester, and St. John. They are each trying to keep Jane submissive to their own desires; therefore she is not allowed to express her own thoughts and feelings.
When she is being punished for striking John Reed, Jane is locked up in the red-room. The color red, the color of fire and heat, represents passion and fury (there are also pillars of mahogany and curtains of deep red damask). This represents Jane’s overly passionate nature. It is stated that “the room was chill, because it seldom had a fire”; this shows that Jane’s punishment for being overly passionate is a chill, a coldness of emotion that seeks to temper this rash passion. Maybe she is supposed to learn to relate passion (red) with cold (no fire). The response of Mrs. Reed may be a reflection of what society’s response would be – the social limitations which weigh heavily against Jane in her search for expression. Water (ice) imagery is also being used to show what Jane’s values are in the novel. St. John Rivers is identified with water imagery. Seen in their first meeting, Jane sees St. John and says, “I have never seen that handsome face of his look more like chiseled marble . . . as he put aside his snow wet hair from his forehead.” It is stated that he was “at the fireside a cold, cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place.” When St. John proposes to Jane, it is described using water imagery. She compares him with the imagery of cold, running water: “he . . . has no more a husband’s heart for me than that frowning giant rock of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge.” In other instances also, this imagery is used: Lowood’s freezing temperatures, Rochester’s proposal – Jane says: “A Christmas frost . . .”, Moor House – Rivers’ proposal – Jane says: “forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low.” I think this last quote is exactly what I am trying to say.
Timothy McGuire
For the second research paper I have decided to look at the novel Jane Eyre through the Marxist perspective. Narrowing down this idea for me was not too difficult as several examples bring themselves quickly to mind. The Low Wood School for the poor children that Jane is sent to seems almost a perfect example of what Marx was talking about.
The conflict between Mr. Brocklhurst and the children seems a perfect allegory to the class conflict between the rich and the poor. It’s also ironic that his wife and children are very well dressed and treated while the poor must suffer and know their place. The Low Wood institution seems to me to be a factory for good little proletariats. The treatment of Helen Burns seems to testify to this as she was singled out in my opinion for her intelligence because seemed suited for high academic pursuits. A pursuit which would have been beyond what Brocklhurst intended for her as his institution seemed bent on keeping its students in their place.
In addition I intend to point out the class bias’s of different characters in addition to Mr. Brocklhurst such as Mrs. Reed and even Jane herself. The portraits that Jane made of herself and Ms. Ingram bring themselves immediately to mind of the kind of class bias’s that the characters have internalized that I would like to explore in further detail.
Kacey Beckwith
April 9, 2009
Eh 241: Major British Authors
Professor Adam Crowley
Paper Ideas
To go along with Queer Theory for my final paper, I plan to use either imagery or point of view for my literary concept. These two concepts seem as if they would line up nicely with what is going on with the characters.
Using the example of the fire in Mr. Rochester’s room, imagery is a useful concept. The situation is described to us in great detail. The fire, the water, the characters are all presented with such an imagery that we are able to imagine exactly what is going on, even with things that we aren’t told distinctly.
Looking at this same situation in the text, point of view could also be a useful tool. We are looking at this scene in the novel from Jane’s perspective. We are told what she is thinking and her reactions to everything that is going on, as well as the exact situation itself. This is very useful to the reader because, without this point of view aspect, we would not know what is going on as far as emotion and reasoning. Everything that we would be told, without this concept being present, would be in regards to what is going on with the scene around the characters. It would be as if the characters are simply in this situation and have no way of reacting to it.