Charlotte Mason

A Tragic Caricature of Women: Parallels Struck Concerning the Marginalization of Women in Jane Eyre and The Wife of Bath’s Prologue Scholars coined the term “protofeminist” to describe those who advocated for advancements in women’s rights before the existence of the feminist movement, leading to the definition of feminism to be moulded over time. There have been arguments in favour of the Wife of Bath — one of the protagonists in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales — being one of the first…

"Reader, I married him” (Bronte 517). These well known and short words are the first line we read in the closing chapter of Jane Eyre. As the reader we are addressed 37 times from the beginning of Chapter 11 to Chapter 38, Jane constantly addresses the reader to reassure us that she is not just blindly telling a story, but rather she is telling this story to a specific audience. As this story is about someone’s life, there is an essence of Jane telling us this story of her life in her old age,…

As was discussed in class, Charlotte Brontë uses surveillance often throughout her classic novel Villette. When reading this book, the occasions where surveillance is used stand out among others, and it’s apparent that Brontë spends an abundance of time focusing on these scenes in particular. Lucy doesn’t want to experience life for herself, thus throughout the novel the reader is able to see Lucy watch and observe others. Surveillance is also used by Madame Beck as a means of keeping her…

obsession can trap a woman in a net and distort who she really is. Obsessed people pursue their own fulfillment by distorting the personhood of those they claim to love. This is learned from two highly regarded works of literature: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In both Jane Eyre and The Great Gatsby, Mr. Rochester and Gatsby distort the personhood of the women they love, by wanting the women to change themselves for them. The way the women react to…

When Jane Eyre was first published by Charlotte Brontë in Victorian England, it was viewed as revolutionary. In the modern era, despite rapid changes in the role of women in both the home and workplace, the novel is still regarded as one of the greatest works of feminist literature worldwide. Brontë expertly presents power struggles between her narrator, Jane, and men, alongside conflicts with society as a whole in order to produce an overall theme of female empowerment. Within this passage…

Adeline has been whipped,thoroughly beaten, and has had a torturous life she never was welcomed by the family and had a depressing life. The memoir Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah is a story about a girl with a depressing life. Adeline was always depressed about being last on everything. Victor once said “It’s so unfair why doesn’t she ever get to go anywhere with us. Niang screamed That’s just the way it is! “( Yen Mah 156)She doesn’t get to go even with her own family. They treat her as…

Ava’s fingers inched their way up the girl’s neck, every couple of inches she would jam their pointed tip into the skin. Every time the nail pierced, more air flowed in and out, suddenly her legs began to tingle. Looking down, she saw a thick blade of green protrude from each of her legs, they resembled soft rays of a fish. Ava pushed against the girl forcing her to swim on her own. Penelope tried to stand on the floor, but there was thick slime being secreted from her legs and feet. She looked…

“Zoë, darling, come here. Don’t go near that man,” the mother’s voice is drenched in disgust as she eyes me suspiciously, avoiding my glacial stare. Oh, the kindness of strangers. My fingertips are the cold colour of the dusking, January sky. The streets of New York are swarming with absorbed souls, all caged by their own thoughts. I hang on to words spoken by strangers, attempting to distract myself from the piercing wind, numbing my bones. You could say I’m a regular. Baptised on the streets…

In Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre, morality is tied to Jane’s understanding of religion and spirituality. Morality is presented to Jane through Christianity and Jane’s spirituality. Throughout the novel, characters such as Brocklehurst and St John present Jane with their interpretations of Christian moral guidelines: Brocklehurst presents the rejection of physical nourishment, while St John presents ideals such as the rejection of emotional fulfillment in order to carry out God’s will on Earth.…

Choosing to Deprive the Self of Joys in Life: The Complexity of Lucy Snowe in Villette In Villette, Brontë gives readers the account of protagonist Lucy Snowe, a complicated and, at times, emotionless woman who is forced to express herself while holding on to virtue and her Protestant convictions. In their critical observation of Lucy’s character as a whole, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, who wrote The Madwoman in the Attic, comment about Lucy being a woman, “from first to last. . .without”.…