CULTURA E LETTERATURA INGLESE- 15/06

Cognitive literary studies: what happens inside the minds of readers when they read stories.
Why do we read stories?
“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottshall
● Work of scholarly criticism written with a very accessible language.
● Combination of literature and cognitive and evolutionary psychology: JG wants to understand certain mental processes
and how and why they’ve evolved.
● Basic idea: literature can strengthen the mind and help us understand the complexity of human relations.
Why do we need stories? In what way does reading stories impact the evolution of the species? Is it possible that humans have
evolved because they read stories?
● The need to tell stories is instinctive.
● Reading and telling stories activate neuronal responses in a way that’s helpful to real-life situations: neurons fire when
we read in a way that establishes a real pathway so when we encounter a similar situation in real life our minds respond
much quicker.
● Problems with this theory:
1. It brings together too many things (Shakespeare, Austen)
2. It uses stories in the same way regardless of the context (time, culture)
3. Neuroscientists argue that the brain and mental processes are not the same thing.
Why we read fiction: theory of mind and the Novel, L. Zunshine
Theory of mind: ability that we display when we try to read other people’s minds. Neuroscientific concept.
● Reading can be a training space for the development and improvement of the theory of mind. We can guess and analyze
characters’ mindsets safely and we often get a confirmation of our hypothesis.
Jane Austen: very subtle descriptions of her characters’ mental life in Pride and Prejudice, we are invited to step into
Elizabeth’s shoes and therefore her mind.
Charlotte Bronte: she’s more interested in emotional reactions. Less sophisticated representations of her characters’
mental life.
● We look for elements that will assist us during the interpretation of the character’s actions and thoughts.
● The human species has evolved these cognitive adaptations that have improved our relations with one another. Novels
strengthen those cognitive adaptations, they make us more skilled at social interaction and improve our social
competence and intelligence, which are fundamental skills given the fact that we’re social animals. Novels are
fundamental for our survival.
Speaking volumes, Patricia Michaelson
In Austen’s time and family novels were read aloud and this practice helped young women absorb the female characters’
behaviors and social skills.
Novels were a practical aid to female listeners that had limited opportunities for social interaction.
Classics: the meaning of the classic text can be recognized in different cultures and times. They can be described as such
because they always have something to say, even if that varies over time.

HISTORICAL PERIODS
● Augustan Age: Queen Anne to King George II (c. 1750).
● It was given this name because of the importance that writers had during this time.
● Austen: last example of Augustan literature.
● Enlightenment: importance of reason, harmony and neatness. Austen’s characters are reasonable even though
she criticizes the movement.
● Romantic Age: 1780s to 1832 (two generations)
● It starts with a literary milestone: publication of the Lyrical Ballads by Coleridge and Wordsworth.
● Austen starts writing in the 1790s. First Impressions was brought in for publication but was rejected in 1797.
● 1832: Reform Act, more people acquire the right to vote (middle class men).
Walter Scott dies.
● Regency: 1811 to 1820 (King George III 1760-1820)
● King George becomes insane and his son becomes Prince Regent.
● Jane Austen both starts publishing and dies (1817) in this period.

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 ● Associated with elegance and peace even though it wasn’t the case (Napoleonic Wars). Austen often evokes this
elegance.
● Victorian Age: 1837-1902 (Queen Victoria’s reign)
● Longest reign in English history after Queen Elizabeth II’s.
● It doesn’t only refer to Queen Victoria’s reign but also to some specific features that were considered Victorian.
Some works that were published after 1902 are labeled as “late Victorian”.
Long 19th century: term used to avoid literary periodization. It goes from the 1780s until WWI for some scholars.
Novels as a “lower” sort of writing in the 19th century.
● They dealt with everyday matters and used everyday language. As it didn’t deal with big metaphysical questions, it was
considered a “plane” genre, not refined and easier to understand.
● Understood as a sort of “female genre”.
● Increase in the number of female writers: the genre was considered less serious because “even women could do
it”.
● Increase in the number of female readers in the 18th and 19th centuries.
● They became huge consumers of fiction.
● Some doctors and educators started saying that reading was not good for young women because it gave
them ideas. Reading was thought to have a negative effect on young women’s mental constitution.
● Novels became accessible to a larger number of people due to some changes on the material conditions for
printing, the increase in literacy and the fact that it was relatively easy for authors to get published.
1. Improvement in the printing system that made books more affordable: wider circulation.
2. Change in the circulating library system: people didn’t have to pay full price. Books used to have many
volumes because it was cheaper to borrow one volume at a time.
3. It was easier for writers to get published due to a change in the literary marketplace, there were 4 ways
to get published (the role of the author changes)
● Subscription: potential readers played the biggest role, they would pay for the costs of writing
and publishing because they trusted the author. Only very successful writers could publish by
subscription. It is considered an evolution of patronage because the costs are divided between
the readers. It started to be replaced by other systems in the 19th century but some female
writers still published this way.
● On commission (Austen): the author and their family paid or the costs of publishing and the
publishing would ensure the book’s distribution (they took a small commission).
● Selling copyrights: both the author and the publisher contributed. The author would never
receive commissions for later editions. Austen published Pride and Prejudice this way.
● Profit-sharing: this option was only available to very successful writers as it was very risky for
the publisher. Both the costs and earnings were shared.
Authors were more free because they didn’t have to meet the publisher’s demands but at the same time they were aware of the
fact that novels were considered to not be serious so they felt the need to defend the seriousness of their work.
Female authors: many used male names to avoid being judged.
● Austen identifies herself as “a Lady” in Sense and Sensibility and as its author in later novels because she didn’t want to
ruin her family’s reputation.
● Austen titles change: Elinor and Marianne (1795) becomes Sense and Sensibility and First Impressions (1797) becomes
Pride and Prejudice (1813). In the first case, the focus shifts from the protagonists to the abstract qualities that describe
them.

THE SENTIMENTAL NOVEL

● Novelists shifted their attention from reason to feelings as a reaction against the Enlightenment.
● Feelings are essential to define the moral worth of characters and readers.
● By engaging with the characters, readers can develop sophisticated feelings as well:
● Educational ambition
● Only a good person is capable of being sympathetic (the word empathetic didn’t exist at the time).
Sensibility: ability to respond to the feelings of others.
Those who have good feelings belong to a more sophisticated type of human being:
● Only civilized people can develop complex feelings.
● People from less civilized countries cannot be sensitive.
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 ● Strong social bias:
● The middle class is not an example of civilization.
● Even doctors said that middle class people couldn’t be sensitive.
Austen reacts against social biases, she belongs to the middle class and speaks for it.
● Doctors argued that sensitive people were more prone to nervous illnesses: An Essay on the Disorders of People of
Fashion, Mr Tissot. Being sensitive was a positive thing from a moral point of view but a negative one physically
speaking.
The History of Sir Charles Grandinson, S. Richardson (1753): its protagonist is the king of sensibility.
The Man of Feeling, Mackenzie (1771):
● The characters are perfect even in feeling.
● Great emphasis placed on sophisticated feelings which are expressed by an excessive physiological response.
● What’s important about these characters is their ability to feel alongside other people.
● Late 18th century: the novel started to be criticized because of its excessiveness.
Mary Wollstonecraft: she criticizes these novels but uses many devices that belong to them.
Romantics were bivalent, they liked the fact that this genre focused on the characters’ inner world but thought sentimental
novels displayed feelings in an unauthentic way.

IMPORTANCE OF THE SENTIMENTAL NOVEL FOR AUSTEN

● She was extremely well-acquainted with them, to the point that she could mock them.
● She didn’t like the fact that the genre became staple, she was against:
● Excessive physiological reactions.
● Extremely long speeches.
Austen believed that genuine feelings could not be described with words.
“If I loved you less, I could describe it more”- Emma.
Sentimental novels used staple words when talking about love and this overshadowed any real feelings→ love became
banale.
● “Swooning ladies and trembling men”.

THE GOTHIC NOVEL: IMPORTANT FOR BOTH AUSTEN AND BRONTE

● Austen once again mocks the genre, but this doesn’t mean she dismisses it.
● Northanger Abbey: parody. Novel about a girl that’s so obsessed with Gothic novels that she transforms her life
into one.
● Gothic writers defined their works as “romances” (fantasy, melodrama, irrationality) because novels needed to be
realistic. They rebelled against verisimilitude: “novels killed fantasy”.
● Staple aspects:
● Supernatural characters: ghosts, monsters.
● Setting:
● Dark and gloomy places: graveyards.
● Remoteness (so that readers could feel safe):
● In space: culturally distant→ Italy. Superstitious place (Roman Catholic Church) far from
Britain’s reason and civilization.
● In time: Middle Ages (obscure times). Remote times=safe distance.
● In class: aristocratic villains. They started to be considered old-fashioned.
● Protagonists: villain = pure evil. Damsel in distress = purity and innocence.
● What mattered to writers were the readers’ complex and ambivalent emotional response: fear+delight (something
similar to the sublime). The Romantics will later be influenced by this.
● Very simple (and often forgotten) texts:
● The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole (1764): its introduction is considered to be a manifesto.
● The Old English Baron, Clara Reeve (1777).
● The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797) by Ann Radcliffe. Austen quotes her in Northanger
Abbey.
● The Monk, Matthew Gregory Lewis (1796).

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COMEDIES OF SOCIAL LIFE
● This term refers to the plot and the happy ending culminating in the main character’s marriage.
● They revolve around courtship and marriage.
● Conservative texts because they didn’t defy the status quo.
● Social interactions matter, we can see how the characters develop a social competence.
● Very smart female characters, like Austen’s (except for Mansfield Park).
NOVELS OF MANNERS
● Hint of contrast between manners and morals.
● Surface level vs. substantial level
Surface level: expressed by society. Unspoken rules that characters (people) need to follow if they want to interact in a
sound way.
Substantial level: inner worth.

WOMEN WRITERS
Authors who used their real names were rare but really successful (role models).
Frances (Fanny) Burney: end of the 18th century.
● Evelina (1778), or The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance in the World, Cecilia (1782), or the Memories of an Heiress,
Camilla (1796), or a Picture of Youth.
● She was influential to Austen because of her characters: very smart young women invested in a small society.
● We know from Austen’s lectures that she had read all of FB’s work.
Maria Edgeworth:
● Belinda (1801), Castle Rockrent (1800), Tales of Fashionable Life (1809-1812).
● Irish life.
● Importance of the independent woman.
● Influential because of her opinion on marriage: she strongly believed that a woman should only marry someone that
meets her intelligence (love). ME could afford to think this way because she had a wealthy and open-minded father and
therefore didn’t need to marry.
● She advocated for women’s political rights.

RELEVANT DATES FOR THE MAKING OF JANE AUSTEN’S POPULARITY

1797: Austen (her father) submits the First Impressions manuscript, which has since gotten lost (very different, many believe it
was an epistolary novel due to the role that letters play in Pride and Prejudice), by publisher Thomas Cadell.
1801: Jane and her family leave the Rectory at Steventon and move to Bath. Her father was a clergyman and had to leave the
Estate when he retired (similar to Pride and Prejudice). Bath is associated with hard times, the family didn’t have a home and
had to move frequently. Jane didn’t have the necessary peace of mind to write.
1805: Jane’s father dies, leaving behind three unmarried women that had no money of their own.
1809: the three women move to Austen’s brother’s property in Chawton. He was wealthy because he was able to inherit his
father’s property. This shows the difference between men and women. In Chawton they finally find peace and a place where
they can settle.
1811-1812: she publishes Sense and Sensibility and works on revising First Impressions, which was very different from Pride
and Prejudice (probably an epistolary novel). We know this because she mentions it in her letters.
“a Lady”: not a male pen-name but a strange in-between. She wants people to know that SS was written by a woman but doesn’t
want to use her name. Austen presents the novel both assertively and modestly.
1813: Pride and Prejudice is published by “the author of Sense and Sensibility”. It quickly became her most successful novel but
she made no profits from the 3 editions published before her death because she had sold the copyrights.
1817: death. Northanger Abbey (she changed the name from “Lady Susan” because she wanted to stress it was a parody) and
Persuasion (her last finished work) were published posthumously.
Austen wouldn’t submit for publication what she didn’t deem perfect.
1869: extremely important date for her popularity. Publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen by James Edwards Austen-Leigh
(marketing operation), Austen’s great-nephew.
Austen-Leigh wanted to introduce people to the author behind the novels. He created the myth of Jane Austen as a sort of
amateur writer that was somehow able to create masterpieces in her free time.
Victorian respectability:
● Women had to be associated with the home.
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 ● Austen was problematic because she never married and wrote so Austen-Leigh presented her as a sweet lady (“dear
aunt”) that loved children and her family.
● “She would write secretly because she was interrupted by children”. Not true, she wrote in her leisure time
when she wasn’t busy at home because she took it very seriously.
● Austen didn’t match the image her nephew presented, in fact she was quite cynical and saucy in her letters to
her sister, in which she often complained about children and their “foolish” relatives.
● She broke off an engagement and never wanted to marry again: she made a conscious choice not to have a family even
though it would’ve been convenient for her (economic independence).
The Memoir was influential for Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” (1929), an essay on the material difficulties women
that had to take care of their homes faced because they had no time for themselves. Woolf brought up Austen’s “secret writing”
to prove her point: women have to kill the angel in the house if they want to write.
The portrait used on the cover of the memoir is based on Cassandra’s sketch.
Miss Jane Austen Dear Aunt Jane

She seems bothered Placid expression

Resistance: arms crossed, off-putting Relaxed posture: reassuring

Defensive body language: head turned slightly away She seems to be posing for a portrait: Victorian matron

Uglier Bigger eyes and expensive chair

The “Austen craze” created by the memoir generated a huge demand, so Austen’s family decided to publish unseen materials
that she wouldn’t have approved.
1871: second edition of the memoir “to which is added Lady Susan and two other unfinished tales by Miss Austen”.
Unfinished tales: a chapter she had left out of Persuasion and The Watsons aka works she didn’t want published.
1884: publication of the two-volume “Letters of Jane Austen”. Her family left out some of her witty remarks, especially on the
letters to Cassandra, her sister.
There was a huge interest in everything regarding Jane (personal relevance).
Two types of readers:
Janeits Scholars

They’re not only interested in her novels but also in her They’re trained in literary criticism so they adopt a critical
personal life. distance.

The use of Austen’s name indicates a personal attachment. They don’t care about JA’s life.

They read her novels looking for personal advice. They´re interested in the formal aspects of the novels.

They consider characters to be real people. They don’t see characters as real people.
The term Jan(e)ites was first used in an 1894 luxury edition of Pride and Prejudice. G. Saintsbury defined them in his preface as
readers that had developed a “personal love” towards the author that clouded mere “conventional” admiration.
Robert Chapman: the first scholar and Austen’s first serious editor.
The Novels of Jane Austen: the Text Based on Collation of the Early Editions (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923):
● Chapman proposes the idea that reading Austen is serious business if one wants to really understand her. The enjoyment
of her texts can only come after hard work.
● He wanted to restore JA’s works to their philological accuracy. He brought back the original text, the one Austen wanted
published, because the editions that were around at the time were not accurate. He also published historical material to
contextualize the novels.
Both perspectives thrive in the 19th century.
1924: R. Kipling publishes The Janeites, a very complex short story whose protagonists were a group of WWI veterans (secret
society) that shared a passion for Austen’s novels. The veterans used JA’s writing to heal from the war’s wounds. They read
passionately and only remembered the aspects that were important to them personally.
First examples of bibliotherapy: Austen’s books were recommended to veterans that suffered from PTSD (shell shock).
Steventon novels: early phase.
Chawton novels: later works.

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These terms are convenient but not historically accurate because all her novels were published when she was in Chawton.

SOCIAL RANKING
1. Aristocracy and landed gentry: they didn’t need to work because they lived off the interests generated by their lands.
2. Gentry: class that starts making money in the 18th century (capitalism). They can afford to buy land but their wealth
doesn’t derive exclusively from it. This class is composed of wealthy men with important connections, they’re
considered gentlemen even though they used to work.
3. (Upper) middle class(es): very clear distinction between upper and lower middle class in Pride and Prejudice. It’s
composed of professionals, they need to work.
4. Militia (red coats): sort of lower middle class. Soldiers had limited freedom and lower status unless they were
high-ranked.
Late 18th century:
● Land became less influential.
● The middle class gains more money and therefore more power:
● Birth rights start to lose importance.
● It wants social prestige: the idea that gentility can be acquired becomes widespread. Manners and taste can
contribute to its making. By working hard on oneself, one could not only improve but also achieve social
prestige. A man can be a gentleman even if he has to work for a living (Mr. Gardiner) → revolutionary
ideology.
Money and social prestige don’t necessarily come together in Pride and Prejudice, there’s a gap.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: CHARACTERS

Lady Catherine:
● Foolish character meant to amuse the reader, typical of the Steventon novels.
● Rosings Park: she’s Mr Collins’ patron and likes giving orders.
● She has wealth and prestige but isn’t considered a gentlewoman because she doesn’t have manners.
Mr Collins:
● Foolish character.
● 25 year-old man.
● He’s entitled to inherit Longbourne because he’s Mr Bennet’s nearest male relative.
Mr Bennet:
● Elizabeth’s father.
● He comes from a very rich and prestigious family.
● Very ironic and saucy sense of humor.
● Longbourne: small but beautiful.
Mrs Bennet:
● Kind of a foolish character. Her obsession with her daughters’ marriage is amusing but also serious as she doesn’t want
them to end up in a state of destitution. (Marrying well is a central issue in most of JA’s novels, except for Emma).
● Her side of the family is problematic. Mr Bennet married a middle class woman even though he came from a prestigious
family.
Mr Gardiner (Mrs Bennet’s brother) and Mr Phillips (Mrs Bennet’s sister’s husband): problematic side of the family (Darcy
keeps this in mind when proposing to Elizabeth).
Charlotte:
● Elizabeth’s best friend.
● She’s 27 and desperately wants to get married (Mr Collins).
● She needed to get married because she couldn’t benefit from her father’s title.
● Her and Elizabeth had opposite opinions about marriage.
Sir Lucas:
● Charlotte’s father.
● Sir= title that he acquired from the court after having been the Mayor for many years.
● He wanted a lifestyle that he couldn’t really maintain.
● He had made a lot of money before getting his title but had then decided he was too good to work, he wanted social
prestige but didn’t want to appear as less of a gentleman.
● He had no money.
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Mr Bingley:
● Very friendly and rich young man.
● Netherfield Park: temporary home.
● It’s not clear where his wealth comes from.
Mr Wickham:
● Attractive young man: problematic character for Elizabeth.
● Red coat: he has to work because he has no other option.
The book gives us a glimpse of a society that’s changing, we can still recognize the old and the new.
The focus is on the middle classes: class subdivisions were still in progress so there was no such thing as the middle class.
PRESTIGE RANKING
1. Lady Catherine and Mr Darcy: they are the only aristocratic characters.
2. Mr Bingley: important family but not belonging to the aristocracy.
Sir Lucas: knighthood (court).
3. Mr Collins, Mr Gardiner and Mr Phillips: they all worked for a living. Elizabeth considered Mr Gardiner a gentleman
because of his manners, he’s a good-natured man.
4. Mr Wickham: no titles. He represents the gap between manners and morals.
There are no female characters in the ranking apart from Lady Catherine because their social status depends on their male
relatives’.

GENTILITY
● Austen upholds the middle-class belief that gentility can be acquired rather than received at birth, in fact this is
portrayed as something absurd in the novel.
● Manners and taste (its refinement and acquisition) are important for self-improvement and can help reach gentility.
● Characters that don’t have manners are described as not really admirable (Lady Catherine).
● For Austen, gentility pertains to both morals (honesty, values) and manners (education, politeness), but manners can
obscure a person’s real character:
● Mr Wickham: Elizabeth realizes she admired him because she was stuck on the surface level. He’s very skilled
at conversation and is able to deceive Elizabeth.
“The agreeable manner in which he fell into conversation [...] made [E.] feel that the commonest, dullest, most
threadbare topic might be rendered interesting by the skill of the speaker” (I, 16)
● Frank Churchill in Emma: he does not care to lie.

MORALS VS MANNERS
● Pride and Prejudice explores the advantages and disadvantages of middle class beliefs and by doing so takes part in a
wider 18th century debate, which was a consequence of the importance attributed to self-cultivation (Enlightenment).
● Can manners become more important than morals? Letters to his son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the
World and a Gentleman (Chesterfield, 1774).
● Letters to his illegitimate son that were not meant for publication.
● Advice on how to behave→ he was to adapt to society.
“a man of the World must, like the Chameleon, be able to take every different hue; which is by no
means a criminal or abject, but a necessary complaisance; for it relates to Manners, and not to Morals”
● He should always agree with everyone (lie): “it relates to Manners, not to Morals” and they can be
completely separate. The implication is that the level of surface is more important than the level of
depth (manners>morals).
● Real gentility doesn’t entirely derive from either birthrights nor manners, but it’s a matter of education, honesty, sound
principles and values (morals).
● The Spectator: journal addressed to the middle class.
● “Cultivate and Polish Human Life” : education, good taste and attitude come to be regarded as essential to
gentility.
● From the 18th century, Politeness (<politus ‘polished’, ‘refined’) becomes an indicator of a person’s taste and
it’s something that can be acquired, practiced and improved.

LANGUAGE
In Pride and Prejudice, the way that characters use language expresses their personality.
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Linguistic strategies that express politeness:
● Excessively formal language.
● Indirect language: distance between what a character says and what they mean.
More indirect language→better display of manners
● The use of a very polite language is an indicator of a character’s predilection for manners.
The extremes: Mr Collins and Lady Catherine.

MR COLLINS’ LANGUAGE: THE LETTER (13)

Mr Collins is introduced by his language (extremely formal and pompous). We get to know his language first and then we’re
introduced to the character (foolish). He often uses French terms instead of English ones.
It’s really difficult to understand what he really wants to say because of how indirect the language is. He vaguely says he wants
to make up for the injustice of the Entailment.
The different personalities of the Bennet family members are revealed through the reactions to the letter:
Mr Bennet: he laughs and is amused by Collins’ use of language. This is an indicator of an attitude that he will have throughout
the novel and that will later be exposed as a shortcoming, he tends to take things lightly and turn serious matters into jokes.
Mrs Bennet: she’s striked by the fact that Collins wants to make up for the injustice, she used to consider him a very bad person
but the letter changes her opinion. This is the aspect that captures her attention because it’s what matters the most to her.
Jane: she recognizes the important aspects mentioned in the letter. She always looks on the bright side, she’s a good-natured
person and chooses to see the best in Mr Collins and in everyone.
Kitty and Lydia: they stop paying attention once they realize Mr Collins doesn’t belong to the red coats. They’re very foolish
and flat characters.
Mary: she notices some of the formal aspects of the letter as she’s interested in didactic texts. She tries to sound sensible but
ends up sounding foolish. She’s in between the sensible (Jane and Elizabeth) and the foolish sisters but is somehow both.

MR COLLINS’ LANGUAGE: THE PROPOSAL (19)

Why is it referred to as a Declaration?
● Formal rather than spontaneous. Sermon-like.
● Elizabeth’s expected to accept (and she does in this chapter).
● There are no feelings involved.
● He avoids confrontation, he’s not really asking her, he’s just telling her his intentions. This is typical of Austen’s novels:
● Most characters seem to ask questions when they’re actually telling the other character what they’re going to
do. Asking is more difficult than telling because it implies exposing oneself to objections and also willingness
to cooperate.
Chapter 1:
Mrs Bennet: Do you want to know who has taken it? → false question
Mr Bennet: You want to tell me, and I have no objection to heating it.
It’s structured in two parts:
1. General intentions for marrying. He indirectly states that he wants to set an example for the perish (Lady Catherine
thinks he should).
2. Collins explains why he has chosen Longbourne. Very formal but still rude because he keeps referring to Mr Bennet’s
death (gap between manners and morals).
Entailment: one of the daughters will remain in the Estate.
(Polite?) Lies:
● “I singled you out”: Mr Collins initially wanted to marry Jane but Mrs Bennet told him she was to be engaged.
Elizabeth knows this is a lie but he still says it to be polite.
● “But therefore I am run away by my feelings…”: this is in some way a parody of the sentimental novel as it’s one of its
staple features. It’s clear that he has no feelings for Elizabeth.
A surface of politeness hides a ‘reality’ of rudeness and impropriety:
● “… when the melancholy event takes place (which, however, as I have said, may not be for several years)” : he keeps
touching on sensitive topics.

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 ● “… and that one thousand pounds in the 4 per cents. which will not be yours till after your mother's decease, is all that
you may ever be entitled to”: when Elizabeth tries to reject him he references the little income that she would have as a
single woman.
Comedy: Elizabeth and Mr Collins seem to speak two different languages.
● Mr Collins: he only cares about manners and thinks of the proposal as something formal. He thinks Elizabeth’s rejection
is only part of the process, as a lady should always reject a proposal before accepting it.
● Elizabeth: she thinks love (morals) is necessary in a marriage. She knows she can’t accept the proposal because she
doesn't love him, she sides with morals.
This proposal is an example of conversational abuse or ‘discursive injustice’ (Patrizia Bianchi, Hatespeech: Il lato oscuro del
linguaggio, Laterza 2021). This happens because Elizabeth is in a position of social dependence so he takes away her power to
reject his proposal. Abusing conversation is an instrument of power.
Elizabeth’s rejection: “Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a
rational creature speaking the truth from her heart”. There are no filters, no politeness. She dismisses manners.
Collins’ reaction:“in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be
made to you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable
qualifications”. Conversational abuse, he understands Elizabeth is serious and wants to tear her down.

LADY CATHERINE’S LANGUAGE: THE EVENING AT ROSINGS (29)

Conversation is difficult:
● No one has the same power as Lady Catherine. The characters are in awe of the power imbalance.
● Lack of conversational cooperation: “There was little to be done but to hear Lady Catherine speak”.
● Lady Catherine lacks politeness all together, she doesn’t need to be polite because she’s rich and belongs to the
aristocracy, so she has no need to prove her gentility.
● Abrupt and direct language: “delivering her opinion on every subject in so decisive a manner as proved that she
was not used to have her judgement controverted”
● “Your father’s estate is entailed on Mr Collins, I think. For your sake,” turning to Charlotte, “I am glad
of it”
● “Elizabeth felt the impertinence of her questions, but answered composedly”
● Chapter III, 14 [56] (the verbal fight between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine): “My character has ever
been celebrated for its sincerity and frankness”

ELIZABETH, MR DARCY AND LANGUAGE

Distraction: Problems of Attention in 18th Century Literature, Natalie Phillips, Johns Hopkins University
● Elizabeth and Darcy demonstrate cognitive flexibility, the ability to adjust one’s behavior to a changing environment
(intelligence).
Early “thwarted” conversations:
● In Chapter 3 Elizabeth overhears Mr Darcy and in Chapter 6 he overhears her
● Patterns established:
● Elizabeth/more passive, Mr Darcy/more active attitude.
● Elizabeth shares knowledge in private conversations; Darcy does not share with others the information he got.
● Gender-biased patterns, which produce misunderstanding.
The making of some (problematic) intimacy based on word-play:
1. Chapter 11 at Netherfield: Elizabeth and Mr Darcy talk but tend to use the language of 18th century moralists.
“And your defect is a propensity to hate every body” – “And yours – he replied with a smile – is wilfully to
misunderstand them”
2. Chapter 18 at the Netherfield ball: intimacy through small talk.
“It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. (...) One must speak a little, you know”
3. Chapter 31 at Rosings: conversation as a skill and performance. E vs D

MR DARCY’S FIRST PROPOSAL (Chapter 34)

Indirect speech: we don’t get to read Darcy’s actual words, Austen wants us to be detached from the moment, she doesn’t want
the proposal to be the main focus. This is unusual as, in sentimental novels, proposals are extremely important and the speech
could be up to a chapter long.
Avowal:
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 ● Darcy never questions the nature of his feelings for Elizabeth but acknowledges that the match is beneath himself
(social expectations).
● Two levels of mediation: not only does the narrator report Darcy’s speech (indirect speech) but they also offer us an
interpretation, this is why the speech is mediated.
● “...he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride.”: reflection offered by the narrator.
● “His sense of her inferiority—of its being a degradation—of the family obstacles which judgment had always
opposed to inclination, …”: the narrator is reporting that Darcy thinks the family obstacles are very problematic
(judgement) but love (inclination) makes him forget about them. Judgment is opposed to inclination, if he were
to think rationally, he would pay more attention to these obstacles. Degradation tied to Elizabeth’s family.
● “... the consequence he was wounding (...)”: his social standing. The intensity of the speech is due to the
importance of the social status he’d be hurting if he were to marry Elizabeth.
● The narrator is precise and cryptical at the same time.
● Words fall short when it comes to the description of feelings (tradition of the sentimental novel) and this is why
Austen’s proposals are always short.
Conclusion: the proposal itself.
“He concluded with representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite of all his endeavours, he had found
impossible to conquer; and with expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his hand”
● He asks her to marry him while he further acknowledges all the problems they had faced.
● He wanted to fight his feelings and failed so he’s now proposing: implication that his feelings are completely irrational
and absurd. Not polite towards Elizabeth nor her family.
● Too much truth, too little politeness.
The proposal marks the culmination of the mutual incomprehension between Mr Darcy and Elizabeth:
● They were unable to talk about feelings: word-play.
● Gender patterns: Elizabeth couldn’t talk to him in private and Mr Darcy didn’t share feelings all together.
● Elizabeth didn’t expect the proposal and Darcy didn’t expect the rejection.
● Focus on the fight: the focus is always on the dialog because the characters are unable to understand each other.
Factors contributing to the incomprehension:
● The “preparation” (for getting mad at Darcy): Elizabeth’s perusal of Jane’s letters that fully express her sadness. Darcy
was to blame for Jane’s pain and he arrives when she’s extremely angry with him. Very skilled design of the chapter.
● Mr Darcy tells her rather than asks her: “He spoke of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real
security”. In the end, this proposal is not that different from Mr Collins’.
● Politeness is foregrounded when Darcy accuses Elizabeth of being ‘uncivil’ when she bluntly rejected him, but the
characters speak two different languages:
● Elizabeth: In this case, she’s on the side of morals because the mode of Darcy’s proposal wasn’t gentleman-like.
She reminds him that he was uncivil first when he brought up her family’s “inferiority” and the fact that he
wanted to marry her against his better judgment. She knows Darcy is able to be polite, but his proposal was
rude.
● Mr Darcy: he defends morals. “disguise of any sort is my abhorrence”
The point of the chapter is to show that both characters need to adjust their position in the manners/morals discussion and
modify their use of language.
Elizabeth will have to praise the truth over manners and Darcy will have to start behaving like a gentleman because gentility
can’t be taken for granted.

CHAPTER 35:
● We get to read Darcy’s words together with Elizabeth.
● Darcy’s response to her rejection in which she laid to him a couple of charges:
● Jane and Bingley’s separation, in which he had played a huge role.
● The fact that he had left Wickham in poverty just because he didn’t like him.
● No mediation.

IN ELIZABETH’S MIND, READING THE LETTER (Chapter 36)

We get to step into Elizabeth’s mind when she reads the letter. This is a very interesting technique because we first see what
Darcy has to say and then the impact that it has on Elizabeth. The letter provokes a huge change that will affect Elizabeth’s
personality from now on.
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Free indirect speech: the narrator tells us what’s going through Elizabeth’s mind in that same exact moment. “How could she
deny…”
Elizabeth’s revision occurs by inverting the order followed by Darcy’s letter, for her:
1. Mr Wickham: she realizes she was stuck on a surface level with him, she had taken for granted the perfect match
between manners and morals. Very sensitive topic for Mr Darcy so he avoids talking about it until the end.
● Epiphany: concept often found in Modernist writing, a moment that provokes a deep change. She realizes that,
until that moment, she didn’t know herself and therefore wasn’t able to be faithful to herself. She has to change
profoundly (the way she acts and speaks) if she wants to get to know herself.
“How despicably have I acted! I, who have prided myself on my discernment! [...] How humiliating is this
discovery! [...] Till this moment, I never knew myself”.
Only after this realization she’s ready to go back and read the first part of the letter.
2. Jane: Darcy came between Bingley and her because he was convinced that she didn’t really love him. This part of the
letter is painful for Elizabeth because it forces her to see her sister’s flaws and also because what happened to Jane
could also happen to her, so she postponed reading it.
After reading this part of the letter Elizabeth starts considering how harmful impropriety could be for her and for her
sister, until this moment she used to laugh about the importance that people would give to reputation but she now
realizes how serious this matter really is. She becomes aware of the fact that a bad reputation can have a very tangible
effect as the impropriety of her family helped convince Bingley of the fact that him and Jane weren’t a good match, her
sister’s pain is real. As a result, she starts drifting away from her father because, while her point of view had changed,
his had remained the same.
The structure of the letter exposes what’s painful for Darcy while Elizabeth’s revision exposes what’s hard for her.
N. Phillips, Distraction: Patterns of Attention in 18th-Century Literature (JHUP, 2016):
The letter is an example of Elizabeth’s cognitive style (how she thinks, remembers and changes), which praises distraction
alongside attention. The smartest characters are not only highly attentive but also welcome distraction (cognitive flexibility), if
you’re too attentive you tend to have a narrow focus and get fixated easily.
“In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on nothing, she walked on; but it would not do; in half a minute
the letter was unfolded again, and collecting herself as well as she could, she again began the mortifying perusal of all that
related to Wickham, and commanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence”.
Distraction: material space in which one can change one’s mind. It forces close attentiveness.
Elizabeth’s not absorbed by Darcy’s letter, if she had been there wouldn’t have been space for change.
“But when she read, and re-read with the closest attention, to the particulars… again she was forced to hesitate. She put down
the letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be impartiality — deliberated on the probability of every
statement — but with little success. On both sides it was only assertion. But then she read on”
This is the novel’s main turning point.

AT PIMBERLY, REVISIONING PREJUDICE (Chapter 43)

The visit to Pemberley marks another major turning point in the characters’ growth: it opens the third volume of the book.
The initial plan was to go on vacation far away but Mr Gardiner had to work so they decided to go to Pimberly instead as it was
closer to home. Here Elizabeth meets people that know Darcy very well (the housekeeper) and give her a different perspective
on him.
Elizabeth’s “reconsidering” of Darcy’s character is anticipated metaphorically by the aesthetic ideal of ‘vision in motion’
(typical of the picturesque): an object is considered beautiful by the beauty and harmony (variety) of its surroundings. Ideally,
one should have the impression of motion when observing a landscape.
“Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the
winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms, these objects were taking
different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen”
Elizabeth looks at the same elements from different rooms and therefore from different perspectives. The scenery is beautiful on
its own but this change in perspective enhances its beauty → something similar happens when Elizabeth meets the servant
because she somehow provides a different “window”, she speaks of Darcy as a humble person. From this moment on
Elizabeth’s language changes (less assertions, more questions).
Wit and jokes→ uncertainty, less self-confidence but more openness to change.
Darcy’s behavior with the Gardiners:
● He appears extremely polite, especially towards Mr Gardiner.
● “a stroke of civility for which she was quite unprepared”
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Darcy’s polite and real question: “Will you allow me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance […]?”.
He asks this question even though he already knows that Elizabeth would be honored by the possibility of meeting Giorgiana
Darcy.
Elizabeth after Pemberley: generalizations are replaced by doubts, self questioning and uncertainty (“She knew not what to
think”), and the effort to see beyond the surface.

DARCY’S SECOND PROPOSAL (Chapter 58)

The proposal is again brief and reported. It focuses on Darcy’s change and growth.
● “Your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe, I thought only of you”: this shows a drastic change, he
expresses his feelings while also referring to the respect he has for her family.
● (Lady Catherine’s visit) “taught me to hope” and acknowledges Elizabeth’s ‘frankness’ .
● “my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof”
Elizabeth’s change:
● “we have both, I hope, improved in civility”
● “she checked herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laught at, and it was rather too early to begin”

THE RECEPTION OF JANE EYRE

1847: Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte), Wuthering Heights by Ellis Bell (Emily Bronte) and
Agnes Grey by Acton Bell (Ann Bronte) are published.
They all avoided using their real names but kept the initials.
Jane Eyre immediately becomes successful, which is why the other novels were published in the same year. Many critics and
readers believed that all three novels were written by the same author because, even though they’re very different, they share
some characteristics (nature as a mirror).
On publication, many reviewers praised the novel but the negative reviews became really popular:
● Scandal of bigamy: Mr Rochester wanted to marry Jane even though he was still married to Bertha.
● “Coarse” language: raw language and undefined passions.
● Moral and religious impropriety:
● Strong political subtext.
● Jane’s strongly rebellious: not appropriate for young Christian women. A lady should always be submissive.
● Bronte criticizes religion by exposing some of its flaws with St River’s character.
● Her rebellion is compared to moral Jacobinism (strongly radical thinkers that wanted to destroy authority and
that were considered horrible after the Terror years) as Jane wants to overturn the moral system. This becomes
problematic for the book but also for the author.
1848: Charlotte visits London and her authorship is disclosed. The fact that the novels were written by women came as a shock
to most readers.
1850: Charlotte publishes a second edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey with a biographical notice about the authors in
which she defends both the books and her sisters. This was a very important moment for her because it was a tribute to her
sisters, whom she had recently lost.
Soon after Charlotte’s death in 1855 her family became a sort of myth maker.
1857: Elizabeth Gaskell, a Victorian novelist and Charlotte’s friend, publishes “The Life of Charlotte Bronte”.
● Gaskell places Charlotte’s novels in the context of her life.
● She’s the initiator of the “Haworth myth”:
● It focuses on the family and on the place they lived. The myth paints the family as a recluse in a semi-barbaric
place.
● Tyrannical father: the children were motherless and started writing to escape from their father. Patrick Bronte
was by no means abusive, he actually encouraged his children to write and make art.
● Gaskell was aware of the negative reviews and wanted to rescue her friend’s reputation by creating this myth
that blamed the isolation and the author’s father: the novels were strange because the Bronte sisters didn’t know
the real world.
● Gaskell’s work spread this myth and people became interested in the Bronte sisters’ life so they started visiting Haworth
only to realize that it was nothing like Gaskell had described.
● Jane Eyre remained a problematic book for scholars; in the early 20th century it still wasn’t considered worthy of being
included in the canon of English literature.
1920s and 1930s:
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 ● E.M. Forster said Jane Eyre was over-emotional.
● Lord D. Cecil thought the novel was vulgar and not refined enough.
● Virginia Woolf (1925): only exception. She argued that it was an extremely good novel because she appreciated the
vehemence of passion.
1970: Jane Eyre is re-assessed with the ideological turn in literary criticism. The political subtext and context became important,
a novel was considered good if it upheld political ideals.
● E. Showalter, A Literature of Their Own (1977).
● The title references Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”.
● Scholarly work.
● She argues that the Western canon was deprived of women authors because they had been neglected.
● She re-assesses a lot of female authors’ books.
● S. Gilbert and S. Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic (1979)
● Reference to Bertha.
● They focus on the fact that women authors used insane characters to symbolize oppression, the madwoman is a
rebellious figure, she represents the inability to comply with injustice and the resistance against the patriarchal
system.

JANE EYRE AND ITS CONTEXT: THE COMING-OF-AGE NOVEL

● “An Autobiography”: a female 1st person narrator, intradiegetic (part of the story), omniscient and strongly reliable.
Adult Jane is an extremely skilled narrator.
● Jane Eyre was published two years before Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, a young character’s bildungsroman.
● Bildungsroman: novel about a young character’s growth and development. He (almost always male) makes a
number of mistakes and learns from them, they really shape the character’s mind.
● There’s a lot of autobiographical material in David Copperfield, to talk about David was to talk about Dickens
(same initials but reversed).
● Somehow David Copperfield enhanced Charles Dickens’ reputation but Jane Eyre was detrimental to Charlotte
Bronte’s.
Jane Eyre David Copperfield

Currer Bell: Bronte couldn’t use her real name. Charles Dickens.

Self-realization: her bildung relies on her working hard on Self-correction: he grows by making mistakes and learning
herself but also on someone else’s help (deus ex-machina→ from them.
inheritance). She can’t be fully independent because she’s a
woman. It's not her mistakes that make her grow, but other
people’s.

Marriage to Mr Rochester: her success is linked to domestic Success as a businessman: the male young character is
life even though she only marries him once they become allowed to really find meaning in what he does.
equals. Her growth reaches its culmination in marriage.

Coexistence of a Realist narrative+Gothic: the Gothic subtext Realism (truth of life): transparent narrative that aims at
appears to express oppression, political and/or social representing the world faithfully.
injustices. The Red Room.
Governess: title that allowed women to gain independence if they didn’t want to marry but that meant they would be quite poor
(slightly above servants). They were culturally a part of the middle class but, economically speaking, they belonged to the
working class.This gap between education and wealth is typical of the Victorian Age. Their income was low and they lived
where they worked.

GOTHIC GENRE UPDATED TO A VICTORIAN CONTEXT: THE “NEW GOTHIC”

Jane Eyre innovates the late 18th century Gothic staple aspects:
● The Gothic context is no longer remote in time nor space, but is to be found in rural England:
● The most traditional part of England.
● These places should be safe because they’re extremely well known but are instead vulnerable to the Gothic
horror.

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 ● We no longer have castles but Estates and the superstitious past is replaced by the contemporary age. There’s no
more space between the reader and the setting, they can’t feel safe because horror is everywhere.
● “Domestic” Gothic: horror is no longer associated with strange aristocratic figures but it becomes more ordinary. The
horror occurs within the home.
● All the places Jane lives in are metaphorical prisons that attempt to limit Jane’s freedom:
1. Gateshead: literal imprisonment. Jane’s forced to stay in a place she hates and is scared of.
2. Lowood: strongly restrictive institution.
3. Thornfield: Rochester’s home. She comes to love this place but at the same time feels trapped and is
forced to take action in order to regain her freedom. This is a Gothic place with an oppressive dynamic,
there’s a character that’s literally imprisoned here. A prison for Jane but also for the female genre.
4. Moor House: Rivers tries to limit Jane’s freedom, he’s a very strong male character (opposite from
Rochester). Generally overlooked in adaptations, except for Fukunaga’s.
● The Gothic subtext is used to indicate to readers that they ’re being confronted with an injustice. The source of horror is
to be identified with oppression (genre, class). In Jane Eyre horror always comes along with Jane’s rebellion when she’s
denied the freedom to take action.
● The supernatural is relocated within the mind, there are no real supernatural agents. The ghosts come from the
mysterious workings of the mind:
● Victorian discoveries: mental activity doesn’t have to do with something rational. The mind becomes
supernatural.
● The villain is female (specific to Jane Eyre): the evil figures are women, even though Rochester and Rivers are
sometimes (not consistently) villain-like.
● Jane’s aunt is pure evil up until the moment she dies.
● Bertha, the mad wife: her character was rescued by critics because the main perspective we have of her is Mr
Rochester’s. She never harms Jane, she only attacks male characters.
● The hero and heroine are not conventional because they’re repeatedly described as not beautiful/handsome, they look
plain. In New Gothic novels the figure of the damsel in distress, the passive hero that cannot save herself, doesn’t exist.
Gender roles are sometimes reversed in Jane Eyre, Jane helps Rochester when he falls from his horse and from that
moment on repeatedly saves him, both physically and financially.
Charlotte Bronte is not the only author (Dickens’ Christmas books).
Sensational authors: they want to trigger fear and horror in readers.

JANE’S CHILDHOOD, THE IMPORTANCE OF IMAGINATION (Chapters 1-9)

Nine out of the 38 chapters are dedicated to this, which means it’s a very important part of the story. Childhood was a very
important concept for the Victorians.
Jane was an outcast:
● Orphan: she lived with abusive relatives that continuously tried to disempower her. She remarks that she feels different
from them but doesn’t blame herself, she stands up to Mrs Reed’s authority.
● She’s forced to suffer injustice and is rebellious: metaphor of the “revolted slave”. As a victim of injustice, Jane feels
it’s her duty to rebel against oppressive figures (she questions disparity). This is one of the things reviewers criticized
(moral Jacobinism).
The importance of imagination:
● Little Jane is interested in books that are set in far-off countries and in Bessie’s (only empathetic person) tales. The
folkloric aspects of these scary tales stimulate Jane’s imagination.
● Jane enjoyed illustrated books: “Each picture told a story”; Gulliver’s travels. She uses pictures to create her own
stories.
● Imagination shapes Jane’s perception of reality:
● To John Reed: “You are like a murderer - you are like a slave-driver - you are like the Roman emperor!”. She
compares Reed to tyrants that derive from the books she had read, her imagination filters her perception of
reality.
● The confrontation with Mr Brocklehurst: “What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine!
what a great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth!” When he wanted to read her cautionary
tales, Jane compared Mr Brocklehurst to the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood.

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THE RED ROOM: IMAGINATION BECOMES DANGEROUS (Chapter 2)
Little Jane is scared of the Red Room because Mr Reed died there and so her imagination becomes dangerous and sinister, a
power she can no longer control.
Because of its uncontrollable nature, her imagination goes astray, it becomes “alien” from her, this is related to Victorian
concerns over unconscious mental processes and their role in causing insanity: many doctors said that if unconscious mental
processes became consistent they could drive people insane because there’s a very fine line dividing sanity from insanity.
Analogies between Little Jane and Bertha:
● If Little Jane didn’t learn to control her unconscious activity, she could easily become Bertha, who’s overly emotional
and therefore unable to control her mental life.
● Adult Jane needs emotions and passions (unconscious mental activity), but knows how to control them. She needs to
come to terms with her rage but this doesn’t mean she’s afraid to rebel against authority. This behavior is possible
because of the time the novel is set in, Jane Austen couldn’t create this sort of character, she had to make the most out of
her limitations.
In the Red Room, Jane goes through the psychological experience of the uncanny (das unheimliche), even though this is a much
more recent concept (Freud).
Unheimliche: un→negative/repression heim→familiarity
Double: motif. When the character sees their double, they’re experiencing the uncanny.
Anyone can go through this process. Freud uses literature to explain it because authors can really grab it and describe it. What’s
disturbing is the coexistence of the familiar and the unfamiliar.
“All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange figure there gazing at me, with a white
face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit”
Jane looks at herself in the mirror and doesn’t recognize herself, she feels alienated:
● This indicates that her unbound imagination needs to be tamed or she will become “alien” to civilized society.
● Little Jane thinks her reflection is a ghost (Gothic figure):
● Failing to recognize one’s reflection is an expression of the uncanny.
● The excessive unconscious mental activity transforms this part of her mind into something alien, foreign.
The 2nd ghost: Jane believes her uncle, Mr Reed, was coming to help her because she had been unfairly locked. Mr Reed had
promised to take care of her and didn’t do so.
The ghosts are an example of Jane's unconscious mental activity. Injustice (she’s not recognized as a part of the family but is
still socially dependent on them) feeds Jane’s rage and produces her “other”, irrational self.
The narrator is autodiegetic and omniscient: adult Jane describing (and judging) young Jane / providing and then dismissing a
Gothic frame (the ‘fake’ ghost story).
Adult Jane explains things rationally:
● The debunked ghosts: the first one was her own reflection and the second one a streak of light, a gleam from a lantern
(“natural causes”). Despite this explanation, the episode fails to find a satisfactory rational account, the chapter leaves
us with the impression that horror can never be completely dismissed.
● The narrator dismisses the Gothic subtext. This is a frequent narrational move in Jane Eyre (Thornfield: laugh)
The Red Room is one of the novel’s many prisons (“vault”), it symbolizes repression and constraint (burial).
Two colors:
● Red: symbol of the character's strong passion (rage). Bertha has red eyes and is associated with fire.
● White: symbol of oppression and restraint.
Fainting: Jane’s rational competence no longer operates. Only after fainting can she come back to her senses.

LOWOOD: THE SCHOOL AS A PRISON

Jane’s time at Lowood is consistently described as horrible and humiliating (hunger and cold) in adaptations. The emphasis on
Lowood is due to the will to create some sort of continuity with other adaptations that were being made at the time (Oliver
Twist).
Very important formative step in the novel:
● Jane finds her role model, Mrs Temple. She teaches her the importance of being a dutiful pupil in order to become a
good teacher.
● She makes her first true friend, Helen, who’s a symbol of endurance. Helen teaches Jane that rebellion is not always the
answer.
● Epidemic outbreak: first experience of freedom in nature. Jane’s one of the only girls that recovered so she’s left free.
Romantic description of the child that finds freedom in nature.
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 ● Jane learns to appreciate the good aspects of discipline and of training one’s mind (and imagination), but she also learns
that her life will be a succession of moments of control and dissatisfaction with it as her passions will never be
completely subdued.
She ends up leaving Lowood because she can feel her excessive passions resurfacing but she never stops working to achieve
balance.

NEW GOTHIC, JANE’S ARRIVAL IN THORNFIELD (Chapter 11)

Jane’s first encounter with Thornfield Hall plays with the conventions of Gothic novels:
● “candle-light gleamed from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark”: language.
● Insistence on the ‘locking’ and fastening of doors: Rochester locked his secret and insane wife Bertha in an attic,
allusion to Bluebeard, a character that had hidden the corpses of his dead wives behind locked doors.
● The Gothic, prison-like castle: “the staircase window was high and latticed(...). A very chill and vaultlike air (...)”
Thornfield Hall needs to be described in Gothic undertones because it’s the expression of ‘domestic Gothic’ (the horror is to be
found at the heart of the Victorian home). Bertha was locked away because she was rebellious, she wasn’t the typical “angel in
the house”.
Once again, Adult Jane rationally dismisses the Gothic occurrences (laugh):
“the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I had ever heard; and, but that it was high noon (...) I should have been
superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise. (...) any apparition
less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be conceived.”.
This explanation is meant to disguise the real mystery of the laugh (Bertha).

MEETING MR ROCHESTER (Chapter 12)

The chapter opens with a reflection about the connection between women’s desire for action and the “third story”.
“Nobody knows how many rebellions beside political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are
supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their
efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would
suffer (...). It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has
pronounced necessary for their sex. ”
“When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole’s laugh”
Jane, like Bertha, is unsatisfied because she knows she has to remain inactive and finds comfort in walking around the third
story.
“nobody”: very political language. Inactivity is dangerous for both men and women.
Two opposed kinds of laughter:
● Men laugh at women and at their aspirations for equality. This laughter symbolizes the patriarchal desire for women’s
repression.
● Bertha’s laughter: rebellious fight against this oppressive system.
Jane will locate herself in between these two laughters. She feels the need to rebel but only does so within her mind, as a way to
cope with her dissatisfaction. The main character doesn’t want to be an outcast but she still doesn’t want to give into situations
of oppression.
Adele: Rochester’s illegitimate child.
Jane’s first encounter with Mr Rochester both evokes and denies the conventions of Gothic novels:
● Fairy-tale atmosphere: nature, twilight (in between darkness and light), ice-cold weather. This is meant to alert readers
that something important is about to happen.
● Jane mentions the Gytrash (frame provided by Bessie’s tales), a monster that was believed to appear to lone travelers “a
North-of-England spirit”.
The debunking; the Gytrash is only Pilot (“No Gytrash was this, — only a traveller”)
● The reversal of Gothic staple features: Jane saves Mr Rochester (the heroine saves the hero), a pattern that we
repeatedly find in the novel. We immediately understand that this is going to be an unusual Gothic tale.
Why does the novel use a Gothic frame? (though, as usual, dismissed by Jane as narrator):
● To surprise the readers.
● To prepare us for the idea that love will prove to be another form of imprisonment.
For Jane, what’s really important in a romantic relationship is to be equal to her partner, as romance often places women in an
oppressive situation. Her relationship with Rochester is like a battle of will: Jane’s desire to be his equal VS Rochester’s desire
to overpower her.
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LEARNING HOW TO GROW UP AND TRAIN THE MIND: FINDING A BALANCE BETWEEN REBELLIOUS
PASSIONS AND CIVILIZED SUBJECTIVITY.
After she finds out about Bertha, Jane realizes that if she stays with Rochester she’ll be just like his other lovers. Civilized
subjectivity will allow her to find her way within the oppressive Victorian society.
Jane’s Bildung: a training in the regulation of her “will” (vs what threatens it: ‘passion’, unconscious mental life and love). This
was a very important concept because it was believed that by training one’s will it was possible to keep unconscious mental
activity under the control of the conscious mind.
In order to train her will, Jane makes use of what she’s learned throughout her life:
● Helen’s endurance: she can put up with oppressive situations just as long as her imagination is alive.
● Importance of self-improvement applied to the regulation of her mental activity:
● Drawing: before she met Blanche, a girl Rochester was interested in and that was very different from Jane, she
decided to make two portraits (one of herself and the other one of Blanche) because she wanted to fix in her
heart that her and Rochester could not happen.
“I derived benefit from the task: it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force and fixedness to
the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my heart”.
● The inner struggle for balance: “The forehead declares, ‘Reason sits firm and holds the reins (...). The passions
may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things; but
judgement shall still have the last word, and the casting vote in every decision.” (II, iv [ch. 19]).
Political metaphor: the relation between emotion and reason is compared to the Head of the State and the
people.
Mr Rochester feels drawn to Jane because he can recognize the fight that’s going on in her head.
Jane needs to heal from the traumatic memories of her past if she wants to strengthen her will. Her Buildung goes through the
need to rationally control her disturbing past, so that memories will not come back to her unbidden (as in trauma). The use of the
term trauma is anachronistic, as the Victorians only knew that there are certain memories that can come back in an uncontrolled
way (automatic mental activity).
Jane comes to terms with her past through different steps:
1. Forgiving Mrs Reed: Jane goes back home when her aunt is about to die and forgives her. This is the first moment in
which she starts coming to terms with her past and it is also when we learn that Jane has a wealthy relative (Deus
ex-machina).
2. The time she spent at Moor House helps her heal her memory of Lowood/of her imprisonment as a governess (via
‘good’ teaching — Adele + the charitable school at Moor House).
3. The rewriting of the Red Room: most important moment symbolically.
Only after the re-negotiation of her past will she be able to assert herself as a fully independent agent.

REWRITING THE RED ROOM (Chapter 27)

Beginning of the third book (very important moment). After learning the truth about Bertha, Jane has two options:
1. Staying, as Mr Rochester wants her to, so the two could be together but remain unmarried. This was problematic for
Jane because that would mean she’d become Mr Rochester’s lover.
2. Leaving, standing up for herself.
This is a very difficult decision for her because she deeply loves Rochester. When trying to make up her mind, Jane goes
through a peculiar experience: she rewrites what happened to her in the Red Room. The revisiting of the episode occurs just
after the real danger of perversion in her moral judgment.
She’s alone at night again. There’s a light:
● Associated with the one that had previously scared her but that is by no means threatening. This time she’s not scared.
● The room opens up to her. This light starts to be associated with the moon, which is a symbol of motherhood.
● Supernatural occurrence: the light takes a human form (Jane’s mother). The apparition tells Jane what she needs to do
(“My daughter, flee temptation”).
● The revisiting of the episode occurs just after the real danger of perversion in her moral judgment.
● The unconscious activity is NOT simply dispelled, but now accepted: Jane’s visionary imagination is now at the service
of moral principles.
● Other examples of unconscious activity that prove fundamental in Jane’s turning points in the novel: the ‘prophetic
dream’ and especially Mr. Rochester’s “cry” at the end of the novel.
● The regulation of Jane’s mind allows her to distinguish herself from Bertha, who fails to exert mastery over passions
(rage) and unconscious activity (insanity).
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