Did Bertha not subscribe to the "cult of true womanhood" in which a real woman was believed to be without any sexual feelings, to be responsible for the man's sexual behavior, to be religious, obedient to her husband, and to provide a serene haven f Continue Reading...
Jane and Bertha also share other characteristics that emphasize Bertha's significance in the novel. As an adult, Jane comes to certain realizations about her life and the world in which she lives. First she realizes that men and women are basically Continue Reading...
Bronte and Rhys An Extended Conversation Most conversations we hold in person, sitting next to another as we travel on a train to an unknown or familiar destination, or as we enjoy a coffee break at work, or wait at a busy corner for the light to t Continue Reading...
Shaw's primary purposes in writing Pygmalion, the story of a phonetics professor who, on a bet, transforms a guttersnipe of a flower girl into a lady, was to educate. The title of the play comes from the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who creat Continue Reading...
Jane Eyre: 1996 Movie Assessments The novel Jane Eyre ends, not with a reference to the love of Jane and Rochester, but to Jane's cousin St. John River. Jane's distant cousin is a missionary who has exorcized his passion for a worthless woman from h Continue Reading...
The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. 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. Laws an Continue Reading...
Abbe Prevost's tale of Manon Lescaut performs several different functions at once. It is in part a cautionary story. It is in part a push to create a fully modern sensibility in French literature. It is in part an exploration of the trope of Romantic Continue Reading...
Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre have captured the imagination of successive generations of critics, from the time they were published till today. Widely acclaimed, these two novels continue to literally mesmerize scholars as the harbingers of a uniqu Continue Reading...
Wide Sargasso Sea is primarily narrated by Rochester's other wife, Antionette, who has not had the opportunity to develop the same ideas about marriage and love that Jane has. She does not mention Rochester -- indeed, is not aware of him, for the v Continue Reading...
Grendel And After that it's Elephants All the Way Done Wagner's Grendel is one of the most finely crafted pieces of postmodern fiction because it performs both of the functions with which postmodern literature is tasked. First, it is a work of lite Continue Reading...
In fact, all these novels are concerned with the psychology and attitudes of the characters, and use them to represent the fragmentation and uncertainty in society. The characters own lives are uncertain and fragmented, and this represents these the Continue Reading...
Domestic Relations and Domestic Abuse -- the clear-eyed vision of alcoholic dissipation of Anne Bronte's the Tennant of Wildfell Hall According to the posthumous introduction to her final novel, The Tennant of Wildfell Hall the Victorian author Anne Continue Reading...
The comparison between Jan's bright eyes and the "red balls" that hold the same station in Bertha's animalistic face, as well as Bertha's size and girth in comparison to Rochester (his equal in size) and Jane, small young and proper is meant also to Continue Reading...
