#charlotte brontë

[burningvelvet]

so im still persevering in charlotte brontë's shirley. yesterday i went to a poetry open mic & this guy read a really uncomfortable oversexual piece - it wasn't even a poem - but all i could think of was the part in shirley where she talks about being subjected to sir philip's bad poetry and her secondhand embarrassment... yeah, lots of good relatable social commentary and observations of everyday social experiences in this novel - i think charlotte reminds me of austen sometimes in those regards!

and in other news i'm also at the beginning of herman melville's moby dick. its much less boring than i thought it would be so far! some of the stuff with queequeg has been killing me - the descriptions of ishmael waking up with queequeg spooning him were like something out of a modern cartoon. and (not only because of that moment) i deeply wonder if the "head-seller" bit was supposed to be an innuendo for homosexuality/prostitution considering it was in the same chapter concerning ishmael's panic over having to share a bed with said "head-selller."

i'm so sad the ending for moby dick was spoiled for me but hopefully i'll be able to forget about that just like i somehow conveniently forgot about the main twist in jane eyre and subsequently managed to be more shocked by it than any other plot twist i've ever come across. the mind is a curious thing so we'll see

[flowerytale]

Charlotte Brontë, from “Jane Eyre”

[petaltexturedskies]

Charlotte Brontë, from Jane Eyre

[nostalgicacademia]

The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed.”

— Evening Solace.

[theroseinthedarkness]

JANE EYRE (2011) 

Cary Fukunaga

[yvain]

Women writers of the Victorian era regarded the fairy tale as a dormant literature of their own. When Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre hears hoofbeats approaching her in the dark, ice-covered Hay Lane, "memories of nursery stories" immediately flood her mind, especially the recollection of "a North-of-England" monster capable of assuming several bestial forms. But the beastly apparition Jane expects turns out to be Rochester, the "master" whom she promptly causes to fall off his horse and who will eventually become her thrall. Rochester himself soon shows his own conversance with, and respect for, powers he associates with the magical women of traditional fairy tales. "When you came on me in Hay Lane last night," he tells Jane, "I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse. I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?" When Jane replies that she is parentless, Rochester endows her with a supernatural ancestry. Surely, he insists, she must have been "waiting for [her] people," the fairies who hold their revels in the moonlight: "Did I break one of your rings, that you spread the damned ice on the causeway?"

Here and elsewhere in Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë takes even more seriously than her two characters do the potency of the female fairy-tale tradition to which she has them refer. Karen E. Rowe, who has so ably written on that tradition, was the first to show how fully saturated Jane Eyre is with patterns drawn from major folktales such as "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," "Blue Beard," and, as a prime analogue for Jane's developing relationship with the homely Rochester, from "Beauty and the Beast," the 1756 Kunstmärchen (or literary fairy tale) adapted and popularized by Madame Le Prince de Beaumont.

Nina Auerbach, Forbidden Journeys: Fairy Tales and Fantasies by Victorian Women Writers

[eva-eyre]

i post for the girls who are poor, obscure, plain, and little

[lizziestudieshistory]

I've accidentally started a book club at school... A couple of the girls in my form asked me for a classic book recommendation for their English homework and I suggested Jane Eyre because they usually read a lot of YA fantasy romance and I remember being hooked by it when I was a similar age.

Fast forward a week or so and I'm now getting daily updates from their group of friends because they're so into it! They've taken over my classroom at lunchtime to have a chat about what's going on at Thornfield and are giving me some truly WILD predictions about what's going to happen. I've never seen a group of 13 year olds so mad about a classic and it's heartwarming to watch them experience the story for the first time. They're only about half way through the book and they're already looking for similar classics to read afterwards.

[cursemewithyourkiss]

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

[detroitlib]

From our stacks: Illustration from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. With Wood Engravings by Fritz Eichenberg. New York: Random House, 1943.

[burningvelvet]

jane eyre really said “i want that insane, pathetic, sobbing old man CARNALLY” and that’s why she’s our girl!

[flowerytale]

Charlotte Brontë, from “Jane Eyre”

[petaltexturedskies]

Charlotte Brontë, from Jane Eyre

[charl3ss]

No but literally, do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you

[theroseinthedarkness]

JANE EYRE (2011)

Cary Fukunaga

[must4rds33d]

this is what went on inside their heads