Author: Alex (Page 19 of 21)

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Response: Both Kim and Marley had questions different from my own. While Kim and Marley focused on character, I focused on Bronte’s craft and her own interpretations of her work. Marley’s post was about Mr. Rochester and how, despite everything that Mr. Rochester is, Jane still finds herself enamored by him. Kim’s post was about how Jane is involved in both upper and working class women, as well as how Jane seems to avoid serious consequences for her actions. These posts don’t necessarily go in a different direction from my own, as I can see Bronte’s craft choices upon reflecting on the questions posed by Marley and Kim. I think in regards to my own questions, I need to look closer at the specifics of Jane’s character within the overall story in order to answer my questions about how Bronte and others felt about women during that time period.

Quotation: “It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: They must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides 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; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more then custom has pronounced necessary for their sex” (Bronte, 124).

Comment/Connection: This quotation made me think of how far society has come in regards to women’s rights. Jane Eyre was published in 1847, a time period in which women certainly did not have the same rights as men did. Most women were only seen to be wives, mothers, and housekeepers, whereas men had the rights to work, travel, and be anything they wanted to be. This gender inequality is shown especially within Jane Eyre, the passage above being a prime example of how many women, Jane included, felt during this time period. I think that this quotation really serves as a prime example of how women truly felt, as they could rarely voice their opinions in a serious setting. 

Once again, this makes me think of how far society has come since 1847. Women have rights to vote, act in government, and participate in any kind of job market they desire. However, this equality doesn’t extend to all parts of the world. This lack of worldwide equality makes me believe that this quotation from Jane still has ramifications today. Of course, there are still some who believe that men are superior to women and would react poorly to this quotation, just like how many in Bronte’s time thought of her work as ‘vulgar’ and ‘disrespectful’. 

Questions: I wonder how Bronte’s relatives reacted to this quotation, or just the whole of Jane Eyre. One question I have is whether Bronte would consider her female characters to be closely related to ‘monsters’, as they are typically outcasts of society and seen as an ‘other’ in comparison to men.

Quotation: “If, as these histories show, Foucault’s “hermaphrodite” is a figure whose historicity reflects shifts in concepts of monstrosity, we may well want to understand this figure as including precursors of what have since, over the course of that very history, come to be known and come to emerge as transgender subjects. So, when Freeman writes that Frankenstein’s monster “contains a history of bodies and of bodiliness,” we can read that to mean that this monster contains a history of trans embodiment – and that having a body with an obvious history (of surgery, for instance, of changes in presentation, of gender transgressive embodiment) is construed as a sign of trans monstrosity. The transgender monster preexists transgender as a term. Despite the term’s much more recent specific emergence, then, transgender has long been part of monstrosity’s history and historicity.”-(Koch-Rein, 47).

Comment/Connection: Koch-Rein’s essay explores themes relating to transgender topics in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein. The passage above refers to Foucault’s observation that in historical literature, hermaphrodites were seen as monsters, as people who were unintelligible both in the mental and categorical sense. This was, until, the term hermaphrodite was mixed in with the term homosexual, causing the ‘monstrosity of nature’ to become the ‘monstrosity of conduct’. Koch-Rein says, then, that Frankenstein’s monster is a combination of many historical trends  and popular viewpoints regarding transgender behavior during the 1800s. 

This essay and passage specifically made me think of how Shelley never explicitly identified the gender or sexuality of Frankenstein’s monster. It is implied that the monster has a male physique, with broad shoulders and a tall frame, but apart from the description and her use of ‘he/him’ pronouns, there is little evidence as to how the creature identifies. I also thought that when Koch-Rein quoted Freeman by saying, “the monster contains a history of bodies and of bodiliness”, they meant that the monster in Frankenstein is made up of a different variety of people, genders, and beliefs that don’t necessarily fit in the frame that Frankenstein intended. This also explains why Frankenstein was so frightened when he animated the creature. The creature turned out to be something other than what was intended, much like how two parents come together to create a daughter, only to find that their child identifies as male. It was also interesting to hear that Foucault discussed monstrosities of nature and monstrosities of conduct. During the 1800s, I can see how homosexuality was considered a monstrosity of conduct, as it was believed that people had a direct choice of the type of person they were and had relations with. Transgender beliefs, on the other hand, couldn’t be explained, much like how Victor finds his creature to be so unexplainable. Being transgender wasn’t (and still isn’t) a choice that people willingly made, so to describe that feeling as a monstrosity of nature, it alienates and dehumanizes that specific group of people. While it was Victor’s choice to reanimate a body (monstrosity of choice), the product was unintentional, meaning that Victor viewed his creature as a monstrosity of nature rather than a monstrosity of choice. 

Questions: How does a monstrosity of choice fit into Cohen’s theses? When the book was first published, did readers identify Victor’s choice with being monstrous, or was it considered to be simply a mistake or fatal flaw?