Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Bronte is a 19^th century classic originally written under the pseudonym Currer Bell. The book employs first person narrative and is a bildungsroman of the protagonist, Jane Eyre. Personally, I enjoy novels as such; I like to be able to be inside the head of the protagonist, and furthermore get insight on how the author thinks. Jane’s life does, in fact, mimic some aspects of Charlotte Bronte’s life. For example, Charlotte, like Jane, went to an all girl’s school. Charlotte’s sister died at this school just as Jane’s closest friend Helen Burns did and Jane eventually became a governess like Charlotte. I find the similarities to be interesting. It’s like reading someone’s history, but through the front of a fictional character.

                Throughout the novel there is strong religious theme. Jane faces several hypocritical and cruel Christian figures, however, despite this negative connotation on religion, Jane still finds it important to uphold morals—“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.” Also, although the school’s headmaster Mr. Broklehurst and St. John (Sinjin) display religion poorly, there are characters such as Ms. Temple and Helen Burns that act as a foil to them because of their religious benevolence.

                The novel was largely about Jane finding herself and learning to respect herself. Though Mr. Rochester was the love of Jane’s life, she would not marry him because she thought it to be immoral due to the fact that he already had a wife. Furthermore, Jane also wanted to be able to be on equal footing with him before she married him. She did not like the fact that she had no fortune for herself; she did not want to be fully reliant on Rochester. In chapter 27 of Jane Eyre when she first escaped from Thornfield after finding out that Mr. Rochester had a wife she said this, “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” Jane’s goal was to be independent, which makes sense because her whole entire life she was dependent on someone to feed and clothe her. I liked this about Jane; I liked that she strived for independence, was free-willed, and she was not afraid to say what was on her mind.

                In conclusion, I was surprised by how much I liked Jane Eyre. I enjoy Charlotte Bronte’s writing style just as I enjoyed her sister Emily’s in Wuthering Heights. I was fearful that Jane Eyre was going to merely be a cliché love story, but it turned out to be much more than that. In a way, the novel ended up being a sort of quest for happiness. This makes sense for a novel about life—isn’t nearly everyone’s life a never-ending hunt for happiness? 

Reaction to Paradise Lost Book 1

Paradise Lost by John Milton is a demanding read; it requires great attention, or you’ll easily get lost. The first edition of Paradise Lost was written in the 17^th century; a time when the topic of religion was largely dominant. Thus when I started reading it and saw that it began with the fall man, well, the topic seemed fitting for the time period. Milton discusses how Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil due to the deception of the serpent—Satan. This is basic biblical knowledge from the book of Genesis. The next part of the book is far more interesting in my opinion. The first part is directly from the Bible, but then Milton goes on to give a backstory of Satan after he and the angels had been cast out of heaven. I thought this was really fascinating, because the Bible never speaks of the time period after he was cast into hell.

In Paradise Lost, Satan is written to be viewed tragically. He is not the scary devil with horns and a pitchfork society has made him out to be, or even merely a beast. Rather, Milton creates him in a way that can be sympathized with. Satan and his host of other angels rebelled against God because they found His rules to be unfair and were damned to hell because of it. Satan appears to be rational in this and almost seems brave in his attempts to start a war against God. This perspective Milton uses is a perspective that has been ignored up until Paradise Lost. The first book overall makes Satan seem like a tragic hero, for is it not the hero or protagonist in a story that faces struggle? This poses new questions in the mind about right and wrong, which I think that is what any good piece literature should do; make you question your beliefs. In closing, I found book 1 of Paradise Lost to be a success and I’m actually excited to read the other books. 

Reaction to Bressler's Chapter 5

As always, I found Bressler's literary criticism to be very intriguing. I will begin this reaction by briefly discussing modernity. Many historians view modernism as synonymous with the Enlightenment. It is the belief that reason is man's best guide to life, and that science could lead to "a new promised land." Postmodernism is what came out of modernity, and is essentially the rejection of modernity. With postmodernism, there is no absolute truth. Truth is a relative thing that depends on the nature and cultural and/or social influences in a person's life. I both agree and disagree with this. I believe that there can be absolute truths, but not all truth is certain and has the capability of varying. I agree with the belief that the reader creates his/her subjective picture of reality.

The term structuralism was created by the Russian Formalist Roman Jakobson. Structuralism offers the scientific view of how meaning can be achieved in literary works. A chief characteristic the focus on the structure of a literary text. Structuralists rely on the use of semiotics, which is the study of signs and systems. Claude Lévi-Strauss, a French anthropologist, influenced the structuralist approach immensely. Both structuralism and postmodernism are approaches that have been widely used to analyze literary works for years. I found both to be interesting and they perhaps will change the way I approach literary text from now on.  

Brave New World Revisited Reaction

In 1958, Brave New World Revisited was written by Aldous Huxley 27 years after Brave New World was published. In the 1958 book, Huxley discusses the increasing similarities of our world to his Brave New World. He observes that the course our world is set on will lead us to a world very much similar to Brave New World. He uses points to convey this idea such as: the problem of over-population, the acceleration of organization, more effective mass means of communication, and so on. 

Aldous Huxley spends a portion of the first part of the book talking about the issue of over-population. With human life so rapidly increasing, at some point natural resources will run out and the world's population will die out. This clearly is a large problem. Huxley discusses the idea of making life in space possible to prevent over-population, but clarifies that this would not fix anything by comparing it to when Europeans migrated to the Americas starting in the late 15th century. This comparison spoke of how the migration of the Europeans did not solve the problem of over-population at all. Furthermore, Huxley talked about how not only is the world becoming over-populated, but also the quality of the human life is going down. In the past, babies born with hereditary defects would usually not make it far past childbirth. Nowadays, however, with our society's medical care, people born with hereditary defects are not only able to survive their youth, but also reproduce. This, naturally, decreases the quality of the human life form. I found this idea to be enlightening, and interesting. It was enlightening because I honestly had not ever really thought about the world becoming over-populated before. After reading what Huxley had to say on this I was immediately interested. However, it is not a topic I would particularly like to dwell on. 

When Huxley first brought up the point of over organization, I was a little confused. So what does he mean by this? Simply put, due to the fact of our ever-increasing technology, new systems are constantly having to be put in place. By conforming to these new rules of society, people are losing their individuality. Makes sense when explained. 

Obviously effective means of mass communication are an easy tool for the government to control people. With constant repetition of the government's ideas, people eventually start to take on whatever worldview or thought is being thrown at them. Tell a lie long enough and loud enough and people will start to believe you. Huxley makes the point that democracies typically use inconspicuous repetition and subliminal messaging to control, whilst a totalitarian government is more ruthless and open open how they will control people. These ideas are similar to that of the conditioning that goes on in the Brave New World.

I believe that Aldous Huxley is simply a genius. This set of essays was concise and clear on how our world is accelerating quickly into his Brave New World. It was incredibly interesting to read. Also, he did not just leave the reader hanging there feeling depressed about where are world is headed, he also talked of a solution. This solution is the education of freedom.  Huxley made the analogy of a bird to convey his solution clearly. The quote he used was this, "Any bird that has learned to grub up a good living without being compelled to use its wings will soon renounce the privilege of flight and remain forever grounded." 

Reaction to Brave New World

To be honest, I found Aldous Huxley's Brave New World to be very odd. That is not to say that I did not enjoy it, because I did--somewhat. Stories with corrupted so-called "Utopian" societies always intrigue me. Huxley's writing style was very straight-forward. Despite this, however, it was very unique and at times scattered.  In chapter three, for instance, the scene changed constantly, sometimes even sentence by sentence. His style is certainly unusual, but fantastic all the same.
It is interesting to note the irony in the title, Brave New World. The title comes from Shakespeare's The Tempest, and was spoken in the novel by the character John, or "The Savage". The reason this title is so ironic is because the society they were living in was a hidden disaster. It looked nice from the outside, but it was clear to the reader, and John as well, that this Brave New World, was quite twisted. 
Out of all of the characters in the story, John was the most interesting. With Shakespeare's works as his "bible", his incessant quoting of the plays was enjoyable. John, the protagonist of the story, could see how faulty the society was. His debate with the controller, Mustapha Mond, defined the novel in my opinion. Mond spoke of how the society was made to benefit everyone, but John, seeing through this, brought to light that the fake happiness Mond spoke of was wrong. John, however, closes the novel by hanging himself.
Overall, I think that although the novel, though interesting, was somewhat depressing. The fake happiness that the novel was based upon held an air of hopelessness. Therefore, Brave New World was not my favorite read, but it was worth reading nonetheless.

Reaction to Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find

Early 20th century American writer, Flannery O'Connor wrote many celebrated short stories. Her stories have a Southern Gothic style, and the setting is typically rural or simple. I, for one, do not personally like stories set in the country as much, but her stories were interesting nonetheless.

 A Good Man is Hard to Find is about a family travelling to Florida for vacation. The story goes along as you can imagine any cramped road trip would—no one is very happy. The kids, June Star and John Wesley are terribly rude and the grandmother is always pulling the “back in my day…” speech to reprimand them. The theme of morality plays a starring role in this story. The title itself, A Good Man is Hard to Find really captures the theme. The story starts out with the grandmother reading a newspaper article about a person called “The Misfit” who escaped from prison. Thus, right away, the story embodies the theme that no one is to be trusted in this day and age. In the story, the family gets in a car-wreck and is stranded in the middle of nowhere. After waiting helplessly for a little while, an approaching car stops before them. Almost immediately, the grandmother recognizes one of the men in the car to be The Misfit and is audible about this realization. The family, minus the grandmother, is taken into the woods by The Misfit’s accomplices and is murdered. During this time, the grandmother is talking with The Misfit about morality. She pleads with him to pray, and tells him that she knows he is a good man deep down. The Misfit, however, declares he does not need help from Jesus, but despite this statement, looks somewhat torn by the grandmother’s words. Their talk continues, and finally, the grandmother’s words get to him. O’Connor describes his reaction to her words as if a “snake had bitten him”. The story comes to a finish with The Misfit shooting the grandmother three times. This clearly is not a very cheery story. Every line of the story echoed a sort of hopelessness, thus making it a depressing read. To sum up my opinion, I believe that the story’s theme was powerful and interesting; however, I did not particularly enjoy it. 

I didn't do it!

Let me start by saying that I would have gladly killed Mr. Mildew, had I not been attending my own funeral.  I am writing this alibi as a ghost, hoping to clear my name so that I may rest in peace.  I understand that you may be confused as to how I am typing this, seeing as I’m a ghost and all, but let me tell you, being a ghost isn't what the movies make it out to be.  I can’t float around and walk through walls. I have to obey the laws of physics just like you do; you simply cannot see me.  Despite popular belief, I can actually pick up objects and use them.  Unfortunately, you police folk seem to be aware of this; hence the reason I am in question for the murder of Herman Mildew.  So yes, it’s true, I did hate him.  He was the worst editor anyone could ask for.  He smelled atrocious, made fun of my spectacular work, edited it to the point of no recognition, and did I mention he smelled bad?  I am quite lenient in regard to maintaining personal hygiene, but Mr. Herman Mildew could have killed small animals with such a stench.  Let me set this straight though, I am much too classy to haunt someone of such little prestige.  Yes, I would have killed him with enthusiasm, but while I was alive!  Being dead is sort of like retirement; I’m in permanent rest-mode, thus I am much too lazy nowadays to plot the death of someone so inferior to me.  And besides all of that, I am offended by the mere suggestion that I would kill someone rather than attend MY funeral.  I am much more important than someone like THAT.

            Despite my offence on the matter, I will give further proof that I did not assassinate Mr. Mildew. Below is a copy of my very own funeral program (which, by the way, I always wanted to have my funeral service in the evening and am pleased to see that my wishes were respected):

Order of Service 

 

6:00 PM -Processional 

6:30-7:00 PM -Tributes 

7:00-7:10 PM -Obituary Reading 

7:10-7:20 PM -Final Viewing 

7:20 PM -Recessional 

            After the recessional, I sat around with my family and friends (unbeknownst to them, obviously) and enjoyed the potluck they held in my honor.  They ate apple pie and ice cream cake in loving memory of moi.  Now if you still do not believe that I was otherwise occupied during the night in question, you may ask any of the people who attended my funeral service, and they will surely tell you that you are crazy for even suspecting me.  They can also confirm that that was the night of my funeral service.  On a closing note, I cannot say I am displeased by the death of Herman Mildew. I am, in fact, quite thrilled. I will say once more though that I am far superior to him in every way and would never stoop low enough to murder him. I hope I have now cleared any question on the matter and that you will please leave me be. Thank you, and good day.