Striving for women’s independence and equal status:王嘉尔英文名
鸡腿怎么炸会外酥里嫩
A brief talk on the image of Jane Eyre
LIU Lin
(Department of Foreign Languages, Basic Medical College, Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150086, China)
Abstract: Jane Eyre tries to prerve her lf-respect, independence lf-sufficiency and rebellious spirit at every stage of her life, both in struggling with social pressure and in resisting the temptation of passion.
Key words: independence; rebellious spirit; lf-respect; lf-sufficiency
Jane Eyre is the protagonist of the novel Jane Eyre. The author Charlotte Bronte is a British critical realist of the 19th century. Jane Eyre, as she describes, an image of petty woman bourgeoisie, who has rebellious spirit and strives for independence and equality, is a glorious character among the characters in world literature.
Jane Eyre is not a popular love story. In traditional English novels, the heroines are usually beautiful women, and their love stories are described as modest and sincere, rich in poetic flavor. Against traditional style of writing, Charlotte discards all the established standards in novels, and boldly creates a heroine as herlf, short and ordinary looking, but can arou the interest of the readers. It is a pioneering work in the history of English literature. The attraction of Jane Eyre lies in her unique character. The basic characteristic of Jane Eyre is her spirit of struggling for the right to be independent and equal and hence the rebellious spirit. There are altogether 38 chapters i n the novels, and in four life scenes, the author reveals the 3 stages—germination, development and deepening—of Jane Eyre’s character.
1. At Gateshead, Jane begins to realize the importance of independence
The first four chapters of the novel describe Jane Eyre’s childhood, delineating the cau of her rebellious spirit. Jane Eyre is an orphan without property. Both her parents are dead, and she depends on her uncle Mr. Reed for a living. After Mr. Reed died, she was alone and uncared for, and is humiliated and maltreated by Mrs. Reed and her children. Her cousin John Reed curs her, “you have no money”, and “you ought to beg”. The rvants in the family also look down upon her, and says she has been right to be there than a rvant.
Little Jane Eyre is eager for affection and square deal, but in such a cold and lfish family, what she gets are hatred and oppression. She gets spiritual freedom only when reading the books. Once John Reed beats her unreasonably, which stirs her strong rebellion. Finally she is shut up in the ghastly and frightful red-room. So she begins to realize that it is unfair for them to treat her in such a way, and she feels angrier for their maltreatment. Mrs. Reed wants to nd her to Lowood School to throw away the burden, and calumnies and slanders her to her face. Jane can’t tolerate such humiliation, and expos Mrs. Reed’s lies and hypocrisy angrily. She declares that “I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world”, again displaying her unhumiliating rebellious spirit.
LIU Lin (1976- ), M.A., lecturer of Department of Foreign Languages, Basic Medical College, Harbin Medical University; rearch field: British literature.
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On the e ve before she leaves her aunt’s hou, Jane is filled with boiling anger and sharply denounces Mrs. Reed: “I shall remember how you thrust me back—roughly and violently thrust me back into the red-room, and locked me, up there—to my dying day, though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress ‘Have mercy! Have mercy Aunt Reed! ’…People think you a
re good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. You are deceitful!”The words penetratingly disclo Mrs. Reed’s true colors—extremely cruel and merciless, and they are also convincing evidence of the germination of Jane Eyre’s rebellious spirit. The rich and powerful Mrs. Reed is unexpectedly afraid, while Jane Eyre tastes the joy of victory for the first time. She feels her soul goes into a novel world of freedom. In this period, like a small grass under a big stone, Jane Eyre breaks through the crack indomitably.
2. At Lowood Institution, Jane gains strength from her teacher and fellow students to achieve independence, and her rebellious spirit develops
With thirst for new life, Jane Eyre goes to Lowood. It is a charity school, which adopts orphans, but actually it is a hell on earth with a charitable signboard. Jane learns from her teacher Maria Temple the value of independence. At Lowood Jane Eyre es and is maltreated more cruelly, so her rebellious spirit develops. She is indignant at Helen Burns’being beaten innocently, “If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand, I should break it under her no.”So we can e her struggle against oppression and for human rights keeps growing.
She won’t agree with Helen’s meekly submit to oppression. She tells her, “and if I were in your place…
鼓浪屿旅游路线 I should resist her”, “when we are struck at without a reason, we should struck back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.” Helen is deeply poisoned by religion, and sincerely believes in God and wishes to be in Heaven after death. On the contrary, Jane Eyre won’t submit to fate and compromi with environment. She values affection highly, and wants to derve respect and love.
The chief inspector Brocklehurst is a hypocritical puritan. He flaunts to punish the human body in order to save the soul, but in fact he supports himlf on the orphans’blood. He makes Jane Eyre stand on the stool and curs her cruelly. The surly girl doesn’t yield and beg pity, becau she firmly believes that she is not wrong. It is Mrs. Reed, Brocklehurst himlf who are lying and hypocritical. She just stands still on the stool with her head aloft. How awe-inspiring is the silent resisting. Let alone the resister is a naïve and weak girl of only ten years old!
Helen’s sincere friendship gives her strength. But she doesn’t accept Helen’s belief about abandoning human affection and praying for God’s love. From then on, Jane Eyre begins to struggle. She studies hard. Her wisdom and creativity develops, and her thought is mature. Hard life at Lowood builds up her willpower makes her capable of going through hardship and tbacks. Lowood, an environment where individual character is inhibited, doesn’t overwhelm her, and her ent
husiasm for life is still high. She doesn’t resign to the shackles of environment and will relea her energy.
Miss Temple’s friendship and company is a comfort to her. She stands for Jane Eyre in the plate of mother, teacher and friend. But when she gets married and leaves with her husband, it ems empty to Jane. To her, the real world is wide, and offers all kinds of experiences to tho who have the courage to go into it. A sudden desire for freedom comes over her.
3. At Thornfield Hall, Jane shows her independence fully
食品安全口号Being a governess in Thornfield Hall is a new stage in Jane Eyre’s contact with society. From then on, her
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rebellious and independent spirit is mainly displayed in her attitude to love and marriage. When she first comes to Thornfield Hall, Jane Eyre doesn’t feel ashamed of her ungainly appearance and poverty-stricken state. But she is acute, lf-dignified, and gruff, and she defends her dignity as defending her life. She doesn’t show any subrvience before her wealthy and arrogant master, and
always keeps neither humble nor haughty. When Master Rochester orders Jane Eyre to talk more with him to plea him, she refus firmly. In Jane Eyre’s eyes, Mr. Rochester can’t consider himlf superior to her regarding to his age and experience. And his aristocratic status and the employer-employee relationship with her couldn’t make her extremely obedient. Her unusual character and wisdom and her view to social conventions attracts Mr. Rochester.
Jane Eyre also feels in love with him inwardly, becau he treats her equally, sincerely and frankly tells her his licentious life and moral faults. “The friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master.”She is lenient to his faults and pities his misfortune, “I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality had their source in some cruel cross of fate.”She es his kind-hearted nature and his determination to shun evil and do well.
Their way of love is strange. In four chapters, the author arranged a dramatic episode: in order to win Jane Eyre’s love, Rochester entertains the aristocrats to make a fal appearance that he is going to marry the noble lady Ingram, but keeps Jane Eyre with him at the same time. There might be some other respon to Rochester’s snare, such as begging or other pitiful action, just as some women u unscrupulous tactics to win the so-called love. But Jane Eyre doesn’t do that. Firstly, she
田园诗大全restrains her emotion, and keeps her integrity and decides to leave; condly, in an equal stand, she speaks out her emotion and opinion, w hich displays the character of strong lf-esteem and wouldn’t bear any humiliation. She says, “Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you?” …Do you think, becau 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 wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you… equal—as we are!” She says, “…I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now extent to leave you.”
She wants equal love, and although she loves Rochester deeply, she would never condescend. The two hearts, which have already fallen in love with each other, meet together through such stimulation. In this “fierce battle”, Jane Eyre is initiative, so in chapter 24, their conversations are like this, “you glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet, by the by, it was you who made me the offer.”“Of cour I did….”Jane Eyre is the propor. Once again, she decides her own destiny.
What Jane Eyre wants are dignified integrity and sincere love and marriage bad on independence and equality. Her opinion to love and her actions are negation against tho of the aristocratic bourg
eoisie, which are bad on wealth and social status. When they are holding their marriage, she knows that Mr. Rochester had a mad wife. The news is a heavy blow to Jane Eyre, and she faces ruthless ordeal. It is impossible for them to get married. If she stays in Thornfield Hall, she must degenerate into a mistress of Mr. Rochester and be men’s plaything and subsidiary, which would not be accepted by society. She will lo her most precious individual dignity, independent a nd equal status. If she leaves Rochester, she would bear great emotional pain. Being alone in the world, she has no one to depend on. After painful thought, she is determined not to submit to emotion and resolutely leaves Thornfield Hall. Self-posssion a nd responsibility makes her choo to leave, she says loudly and clearly, “I care for mylf. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unconstrained I am, the more I respect mylf. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now.”
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Tho who could conquer outside pressure might not conquer themlves; tho who could resist against and surpass themlves are real stronger. Jane Eyre dares not only resist against the unfairness of capitalist society, against the environment, which devastates integrity and individuality, against the unreasonable social estate system, but also dares resist against fate and surpass herlf.
This is the unusual point of Jane Eyre’s rebellious character. Jane Eyre’s flight not only perfectly displays her rebellious spirit, her inflexible aspiration, but also a bold challenge to social conventions.
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4. At Moor Hou, Jane learns the pleasure of lf-sufficiency
Wandering here and there, she is nearly dead. The clergyman St. John takes her home out of pity and sympathy. His sisters are very friendly and warmhearted to her as to their relatives. With their care, Jane Eyre recovers her health. Later she works as a village teacher in a church school through St. John’s recommendation.
St. John thinks highly of Jane Eyre’s talent and gratitude, and makes an offer of marriage veral times. But in Jane Eyre’s eyes, he is a hard-hearted, mean and arbitrary man. When St. John us “God’s will”to force Jane Eyre to marry him, she resolutely refus him. This is the continuous development of her independent character, and also shows her unswerving loyalty to Rochester. She penetratingly points out, “He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon, and that is all.”If she yields to St. John’s request, that’s equal to giving up her own independent individuality and betrays her affection to act as his missionary tool. She is against the marriage concerning only with cau and without love, and tells St. John frankly that if she is not formed for love, and then she is not formed for marriage.
5. At Ferdean, Jane marries Rochester as his equal after his wife’s death and his loss of all his property in a big fire作文题记摘抄大全
The next day, Jane Eyre leaves St. John’s home and returns to Thornfield Hall, where she finds her true love and home. Jane Eyre’s escape from St. John to Mr. Rochester is the rever of her flight from Thornfield, and in leaving Moor Hou she has none of the doubts that she felt on leaving Mr. Rochester formerly; to return to Mr. Rochester is a mature decision now of her whole lf and she is not to be dissuaded by conventional arguments.
Throughout the novel Jane Eyre, there is a strong call for equality and freedom of human rights. This is a rebellion against the accustomed old system, which has oppresd the underclass for hundreds of years. Jane Eyre is a typical woman image with individual rebellious spirit who would not bear capitalist oppression. She is the symbol of women’s new awakening in 19th century. Jane Eyre’s individual struggle reflects, to some extent, the problem of women’s social status, which was produced by feminists. The impoverishment, wandering life, pain and misfortune of Jane Eyre are real portrayal of the hard life of British people, especially the mass of poor women in the 19th century. So people are deeply touched by Jane Eyre, who would not resign to humiliation and dares to struggle and defend women’s dignity. The artistic charm of the image of Jane Eyre has captured h
undreds of millions of readers’minds.
References:
Charlotte Bronte. 1993. Jane Eyre. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 4２．
FAN Shu-qin. 1992. An intelligent spirit—A brief talk on the leading characters in Jane Eyre. Shenyang: Editorial Office of Language and Literature of Television University, 12. (in Chine)研究性学习论文
LI Quan-fu. 1994. A discussion on the moulding of the rebellious spirit of Jane Eyre. Lanzhou: Editorial Office of the Journal of Northwest Normal University, 55. (in Chine)
(Edited by Vivian, Katrina and Doris)
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