Author: Hannah

Throughout my reading of The Moonstone thus far, I find myself noticing the narrator’s voice a lot. Mostly, I find myself questioning the narrator in a lot of ways. In the margins of my book, you might find “lol,” “creepy,” “?!,” or “eye roll.” In The Moonstone particularly, I find myself noticing how Wilkie Collins has chosen these narrative voices that seem at odds with each other, but are actually quite similar in a lot of ways. Similarly, in The Yellow Wallpaper, Jane tells her own story of her psychotic episode. Thus, we have no objective accounts of the event, and in both stories we find ourselves entering into “this abominable detective business” ourselves (Collins 175). We realize that like the characters we are reading about, we share that “moral perversity” in using our snooping skills (228).

In The Yellow Wallpaper, we are constantly trying to figure out Jane’s mental stability and subsequent reliability as a narrator. For example, Jane informs us that “John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are not serious. I am glad my case is not serious!” (Perkins Gilman). Instantly, we find ourselves questioning why John might be away so often, and wondering what sort of “cases” these are. Similarly, in The Moonstone, Mr. Betteredge feels the need to constantly re-assert his reliability as narrator, which in turn makes us doubt him. When the story transfers over to the narrative of Miss Clack, a similar effect is achieved; we know we are reading the story from the point of view of someone without omniscient knowledge.

Although the overall effect of this narrative technique can make critical reading more important, it also forces us to enter more into the story. We don’t surmise that the narrator is providing us with consistent or accurate information, and so we take to our own methods of inference to make conclusions. In both texts, the reader feels a strong connection to the events of the story because it is necessary to interact more with the text. Thus, in the case of The Yellow Wallpaper, we understand why the text resonated with so many generations. Further, in The Moonstone, we can easily understand how Wilkie Collins was such a hit success among his readers.

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I have been feeling that Mr. Betteredge reminds me a lot of Mr. Carson in Downton Abbey, and in this clip I am reminded of the amount of loyalty that the servants often had with the members of the family. This is especially relevant between the relationship of Mr. Betteredge and the Varinder family, since Mr. Betteredge knew her as a child.

Downton Abbey US, A House Grieving. YouTube, 27 March 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxB5zhH8P3c. Accessed 4 April 2017.

 

Generally, society’s view is that women should not be sexual creatures, but men are praised for their sexual pursuits for “working the game.” Similarly, Mary Poovey remarks upon this phenomenon in a historical context, “The contradiction between a sexless, moralized angel and an aggressive, carnal magdalen was therefore written into the domestic ideal as one of its constitutive characteristics” (11).

In Jane Eyre, before Jane marries Mr. Rochester, she is an independent woman who is completely reliant on one thing: her reputation. As a governess, if she were to attempt to obtain further job posts after she leaves Rochester, she would have had to maintain herself as a reputable governess of good academic and moral standing. Beginning an affair with the master of her previous household would have slandered her name, and ruined her chances of being self-sufficient. A century earlier, Daniel Defoe chronicled these dangers in Moll Flanders, writing “men that keep mistresses often change them, grow weary of them, or jealous of them, or something or other happens to make them withdraw their bounty” (174-5).

While Jane is making her fateful decision to leave Thornfield, she has a flashback: “I was transported in thought to the scenes of childhood” (Brontë 313). She is like a dying person reflecting on life’s most important moments. Then,Jane suddenly sees a “white human form” that tells her: “‘My daughter, flee temptation!’” to which Jane responds, “‘Mother, I will’” (313).

This scene is remarkable for several reasons. One, Jane recognizes the dangers in becoming a mistress to Mr. Rochester. This “temptation” holds such dreadful consequences that a warning in the form of her mother comes to protect her. Moreover, her mother lost her inheritance and financial protection when she made the decision to marry below her station. If her mother had not made the decision to marry a man who could not financially protect her, her child would not have had to suffer the life of a middle-class, unwanted orphan. Thus, the fact that her mother, the woman most closely related to Jane by blood in the novel, has come to make this warning demonstrates the true danger Jane would risk by taking on a position as Mr. Rochester’s mistress.

For Jane, this moment so resembles death because her decision could quite seriously lead to her death. If she chooses to live with Rochester, the chances are that she will eventually be cast out, like his other mistresses before her. Rochester himself says, “Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading” (306). If she chooses to wander out completely unaccompanied, she also could die. Jane’s conflict embodies the risks that many women in her position faced: either she could accept the financial support of a rich man who might some day dismiss her, or she could put herself at the mercy of a world that was not accepting of single women to begin with.

Defoe, Daniel. Moll Flanders. freeclassicsbooks.com, http://www.freeclassicebooks.com/Defoe%20Daniel/Moll%20Flanders.pdf. Accessed 22 March 2016.

“Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment; you make a new acquaintance—how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint […] you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom—a mere conventional impediment, which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgement approves?” (219)

One thing that has really struck me in Jane Eyre is Brontë’s ability to depict sexual tension. Brontë captures a realistic attraction between Jane and Mr. Rochester, instead of presenting an idealized and distant portrayal of love (as in A Tale of Two Cities). In this passage, Mr. Rochester clearly is indirectly soliciting Jane to live as his mistress. Of course, Jane appears largely unconscious of his direct intentions in asking this question, but it demonstrates the deep level of attraction they both have for one another.

Although Jane does not initially see Mr. Rochester as handsome, her feelings for him develop as she begins to spend more time with him: “Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have, gathers impulsively around him” (179). The attraction she feels is not ethereal or romanticized; it is “impulsive” and breaks society’s class constructs. Moreover, her feelings develop in intensely intimate moments, such as when he takes her hand in his whilst they are both standing alone during the middle of the night, after Jane has doused him in water to save his life from a fire (156). Mr. Rochester tells her: “I knew, […] you would do me good in some way, at some time” (156). For Jane, this expressed sentiment causes her a great deal of inner turmoil and longing, since the next day she “wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye” (157). She knows that the interaction they had crossed lines of normal social respectability, but she also desires to have another one-on-one interaction.

Both Mr. Rochester and Jane recognize that there are barriers dividing them, and thus they must keep their desires separate. However, Mr. Rochester still finds ways to present to her both his attraction and his unspoken sexual dominance in their relationship. For example, in his indirect proposal above, he clearly has no reservations in expressing his feelings for Jane. He is a man with many flaws who is open with his sexuality and his desires in a frankness that Jane ultimately finds extremely appealing. Thus, he is not the image of the ideal man, but a realistic man with a great range of emotions and attractions. Perhaps, this realistic character is what has cemented him as a cultural romantic figure in literature throughout so many years.

Photo citation: Oh, Mr. Rochester…. 8tracksradio, http://8tracks.com/potatunes/oh-mr-rochester.

‘I am afraid your habits are those of a flirt,’ said Winterbourne gravely.

‘Of course they are,’ she cried, giving him her little smiling stare again. ‘I’m a fearful, frightful flirt! Did you ever hear of a nice girl that was not? But I suppose you will tell me now that I am not a nice girl.’

One of the quotations I found striking in Daisy Miller was Daisy’s announcement: “I’m a fearful, frightful flirt!” While the other characters in the novel try to define themselves by their position and actions in society, Daisy definitively identifies herself as a “flirt.” She places herself outside of the upper class society norms that she enters into whilst in Europe. In a novel that otherwise avoids concretely labeling its characters, Daisy declares her identity with a level of self-awareness far more developed than any other character.

In contrast to Daisy stands Mr. Winterbourne. Although Daisy is ready and able to identify herself as a “flirt,” Mr. Winterbourne can only state his emotional reaction: “I am afraid your habits are those of a flirt.” He cannot tell directly her she is a flirt, only that he fears that she is. Further, after he states that he is afraid of her flirtatious habits, he contradicts himself in stating that he does not mind her flirtatious nature, if she directs it towards him: “I wish you would flirt with me, and me only” (James 49). Throughout the novel Mr. Winterbourne is constantly contradicting himself and his identity. For example, the narrator makes a claim that “he [Mr. Winterbourne] should never be afraid of Daisy Miller,” and yet his aunt blatantly tells him that he is “very much pre-occupied” because of Daisy (52).

On the other hand, Daisy does not suffer from this identity crisis. She demonstrates that she understands not only herself extraordinarily well, but also the two different societies she and Mr. Winterbourne come from. After disarming Mr. Winterbourne by her frankness regarding her character, she addresses the difference in what both she and Mr. Winterbourne consider to be a “nice girl.” For Daisy, being a “nice girl” in New York can also include spending copious amounts of time with gentlemen, such as attending “seventeen dinners […] three of them were by gentlemen” (11). She is free to be a flirt in her usual habitat, and even if it is to to the extent of being “fearful” and “frightful,” it is still possible that society considers her a nice girl. However, she also realizes that Mr. Winterbourne does not consider her a nice girl. For Mr. Winterbourne, a nice girl includes someone who does spend so much alone time with a single man. David Lodge writes that the “unspoken reason for this rule was to guarantee the woman’s virginity when she married” (xviii). Mr. Winterbourne’s upper-class society expects women to live a sheltered and covered existence.

Therefore, Daisy goes against this expectation quite strongly, even in her own name. She is a flower like the flower she is named after. She is meant to be seen and appreciated; this is a fact which she accepts and acknowledges.

“Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wings got blended with the other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew over a little garden-tomb were mingled with them also, and both were audible to Lucie in a hushed murmur–like the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore” (Dickens 203).

The text surrounding this passage describes the worries that Lucie faces in her life: she thinks constantly of the echoes of the people and events that have played roles in her life. In the first six paragraphs of Chapter XXI from Book II, years fly by in Lucie’s life. Without fully concentrating on what is happening, the reader could miss the death of Lucie’s child. Only two paragraphs are devoted to the event, and the narrator never even directly states what happened.

When her child dies, he seemingly ascends into heaven on his deathbed, creating an image of the Darnay family as blessed by God. This holiness is evident in the narrator’s description of Lucie’s son’s death. The “echo” that Lucie hears when her son dies is the “rustling of an Angel’s wings.” The sound is soft, mild, and comforting. The sound is connected with domesticity, as we can imagine the rustling of sheets or a bed. The death of this child contrasts with the rest of those who have thus far died in the novel; there is no violence or horror in his passing. Moreover, the boy leaves earth accompanied by an “Angel,” therefore placing him in a category of a being innocent enough to merit divine accompaniment into heaven. The narrator further promotes this idea of the child’s divinity by stating that his echo had in it a “breath of Heaven.” For Lucie, this is soothing.

The idea that her child’s echo comforts Lucie in her darker moments presents itself in the description of how she hears these echoes. There are no haunting footsteps in the echoes of her son’s death; there are the “Sighs” of wind through a garden with a “little garden-tomb.” These Sighs come from the natural world and the loss of purity. They reflect sadness, but not fear. For Lucie, however, she enjoys the solace of the fact that her child entered into heaven. The divine and comforting sound of the Angel’s wings combine with and the worldly sighs that drift over a tombstone, and they mix to produce the “breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore.”

In conclusion, Lucie is almost in a trance of calmness after her child’s death. Although it might appear that she is not terribly affected by the event, she is in reality torn between her devotion to the divine and her belief in heaven and her own worldly pain from losing her child. She responds to this pain not unlike her father responded when he was locked away: she relies on a rhythmic, ocean motion to rock her back to a place of comfort and security that she would have otherwise lost.