Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontё and Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief explore the importance of family. Jane Eyre presents the darkness of lacking a respected family name in a society whose tenet suggests inherited proprietary equals propriety. No Great Mischief promotes the importance of recognizing one’s familial lineage in all its glories and failures. Nonetheless, one can find a commonality between the two novels when analysing how, although they are nurtured differently and despite their status as orphans, both Alexander MacDonald and Jane Eyre, the main character’s of each literary work, put family over everything including the wealth that makes solid the shaky status that life handed them.
Jane’s upbringing appears to be one of neglect …show more content…
Although not a victim of neglect, Alexander self-alienates, drawing himself away from the brothers born of the same parents, but that he knows so little. When Alexander shares: “None of my brother’s returned to school after our parents’ death [...]. They turned instead towards the house and the land beside the sea, taking with them the remnant objects of our parents’ lives, objects to which various additions were gradually made.” (MacLeod 61). One can see that their parents being “swallowed by the ice” affects Alexander and his siblings. They feel as though they have nothing, but their parents’ used equipment. What stands out most seems the idea that Alexander alone goes to school. He alienates himself from his brother’s life of self-sufficiency and hard labour opting for a life of comfort with his grandparents Also, when Alexander says: “Throughout our formative years, my sister and I lived under the ambiguous circumstances of being the ‘lucky, unlucky’ children, and of regarding our grandparents as our parents [...] (67) Unlike Jane, Alexander and his sister grow up in a home that thanks life for the chances it hands them and for the loved one’s that surround them. Although nurtured to love and help his family just as he is helped, Alexander feels alienated nonetheless from the brothers that do not live with him in their grandparents’ home due to the communal affection they do not receive and …show more content…
She proves this when she offers to share her inheritance with her cousins and says to St.John: “ I like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and Mary. It would please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds; [...] I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely superfluous to me.” (446). The money that had the potential to give Jane the status that she always lacked in order to be deemed proper by society’s definition takes a backseat to what she truly values: family.Lastly, Jane’s belief that h=family holds more worth than wealth finds itself displayed again when she leaves Rochester. “This life”, she passionately begins, “is hell [...] I have a right to deliver myself from it if I can” (355). One can vividly see the worthlessness of the wealth that would have firmed Jane’s shaky status upon wedding Mr.Rochester. The reason for this being Bertha Mason’s presence in her fiancé’s attic. Jane does not see herself as a mistress nor does she want to build a family with a man that belongs to another woman. Hence, she puts to rest her desire for love and wealth. In brief, when offered wealth that could win her the respect and power she never had growing up, Jane rejects it, holding family more
Jane’s upbringing appears to be one of neglect …show more content…
Although not a victim of neglect, Alexander self-alienates, drawing himself away from the brothers born of the same parents, but that he knows so little. When Alexander shares: “None of my brother’s returned to school after our parents’ death [...]. They turned instead towards the house and the land beside the sea, taking with them the remnant objects of our parents’ lives, objects to which various additions were gradually made.” (MacLeod 61). One can see that their parents being “swallowed by the ice” affects Alexander and his siblings. They feel as though they have nothing, but their parents’ used equipment. What stands out most seems the idea that Alexander alone goes to school. He alienates himself from his brother’s life of self-sufficiency and hard labour opting for a life of comfort with his grandparents Also, when Alexander says: “Throughout our formative years, my sister and I lived under the ambiguous circumstances of being the ‘lucky, unlucky’ children, and of regarding our grandparents as our parents [...] (67) Unlike Jane, Alexander and his sister grow up in a home that thanks life for the chances it hands them and for the loved one’s that surround them. Although nurtured to love and help his family just as he is helped, Alexander feels alienated nonetheless from the brothers that do not live with him in their grandparents’ home due to the communal affection they do not receive and …show more content…
She proves this when she offers to share her inheritance with her cousins and says to St.John: “ I like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and Mary. It would please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds; [...] I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely superfluous to me.” (446). The money that had the potential to give Jane the status that she always lacked in order to be deemed proper by society’s definition takes a backseat to what she truly values: family.Lastly, Jane’s belief that h=family holds more worth than wealth finds itself displayed again when she leaves Rochester. “This life”, she passionately begins, “is hell [...] I have a right to deliver myself from it if I can” (355). One can vividly see the worthlessness of the wealth that would have firmed Jane’s shaky status upon wedding Mr.Rochester. The reason for this being Bertha Mason’s presence in her fiancé’s attic. Jane does not see herself as a mistress nor does she want to build a family with a man that belongs to another woman. Hence, she puts to rest her desire for love and wealth. In brief, when offered wealth that could win her the respect and power she never had growing up, Jane rejects it, holding family more