Does Genre Matter in Literature Essay

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Jane Eyre and OatesAs Oates says, Jane Eyre is a reflection of real life because it has a voice that is true to life, and that is what distinguishes it from other tales, including fairy tales: it is “the material of legends and fairy tales, perhaps; yet also, sometimes, this time at least, of life. For we are led to believe Jane Eyre’s good fortune because we are led to believe her voice” (Oates). Thus, Jane Eyre is as the title proclaims—an autobiography; a fictional autobiography, yes—but no fairy tale. Jane Eyre is a first-person account of a woman’s own journey to becoming a wife and mother, as Oates points out. The elements of the story are fantastical at times, which is why it resembles the fairy tale genre (that and the fact that it has a fantastical ending that seems very much like the and-they-lived-happily-ever-after endings that we have come to associate with fairy tales—but why shouldn’t Jane have such an ending? She suffered so much in her life, and for the good—let her have her happiness). Jane Eyre can be considered a Gothic Romance—that is fine; but it is cherished not because it is an exemplar of genre but because it rings with the sound of truth. Truth is what makes fairy tales ring, as well. It is what makes every story ring and stay ringing long after the generation in which it originated has passed.

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The sound of truth never fades though…

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…as the mind appreciates ordering and understanding differences and similarities. But one should not be puritanical about it. There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in anyone’s philosophy—as Hamlet put it to Horatio. There is more to Jane Eyre than any simplistic classification can ever articulate. Let it be so, and accept the mystery (as the Coen Brothers suggest in A Serious Man). Or, as Jane herself puts it: “Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.” Surely there is no harm in lightly classifying Jane Eyre, but let’s not forget to keep the soil loosened and….....

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