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The game of golf is said to be a classic but highly competitive game which rewards the very best on the court and Jim is no doubt an outstanding player. Jim Furyk is a veteran American golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and has won many titles in the course of his career. He has been a FedEx Cup Champion as well as a one time PGA Tour Player of the Year. He further holds the 58 shot record which is the lowest score in the history of the PGA Tour and also ranked second place in the 2006 "Official World Golf Ranking."
Get original essayJames Michael Furyk was born on the 12th of May 1970, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. On his mother's side, he has both polish and Czech ancestry while he has Hungarian and Ukrainian ancestry from his father side. Jim learned how to play the game from being coached by his father, who was a Uniontown Country Club head pro. Though his early years were spent in the Pittsburgh, he had to move to Lancaster County for his high school education in Manheim Township school. While he was in school, he played golf to point of earning himself a state championship title. After graduating high school in 1988, Jim Furyk gained admission into the University of Arizona located in Tucson. While he was there, he continued his winning streak as a golfer when he led the Wildcats to clinch an NCAA title in 1992 (their first and only title). He was also named an All-American twice. Turning Professional He became an official pro golf player in the year 1992 and then went on to win the Nike Mississippi Gulf Coast Classic on the Nike Tour in 1993. After joining the PGA Tour in 1994, between 1998 and 2003, Jim Furyk won at least one tournament each year. This winning streak earned him a spot on the top ten list of Official World Golf Ranking and was recorded as the second best of its kind just behind the incredible feat of fellow professional golf player, "Tiger Woods."
Jim recorded a setback in his career after he fell out of the top hundred money list because of a poor outing in 2004, where he participated in just fourteen events as a result of a cartilage damage surgery procedure he underwent. He, however, returned to top form in 2006 where he concluded the season with a Vardon Trophy for the first time in his career as well as a second place spot on the money list. With statistics including; nine top-3s, two victories, 13 top 10 finishes, and four-second place finishes. Though Jim started with a one-stroke lead into the final of the 2013 PGA Championship, his lead was upstaged by Jason Dufner who later won the title by two strokes.
Jim Furyk is a happily married man. He met his wife to be Tabitha, at the Memorial Tournament in the year 1995. According to Jim, Tabitha caught his attention while he was walking off the green and goofing around with his friends. At the time, he admits to have been shy to introduce himself or say hi! but lucky for him, her boss 'Ray' came up to interview him almost at the same time he was pondering making the move towards her. Ray keenly noticed that Jim's mind was somewhat divided between answering some questions and admiring Tabitha. He was the one who later introduced both of them kick-starting what would lead to a romantic relationship. Having dated for over four years, the pair tied the knot in 2000 and they are both parents of two lovely kids. Their first daughter named, Caleigh Lynn, was born in 2002, while their second child, a son named, Tanner James, was born in 2004.
Every sport has a particular body requirement which players are expected to average that is if they intend having a long and successful career. Though a game like golf is more geared towards skill and power, a little extra height or flexible body weight can't hurt an athlete. With Jim Furyk, he is gifted with an above average height of 6 feet 2 inches (1.9 m) paired with a healthy body mass of 185 lbs(84 kg).
Jane Austen was an ambitious writer who wanted to enlighten other people through her novels. She condemned pride, and this is best seen in Pride and Prejudice, where the basis of marriage in the 1800s is changed to maturity and education. The normal “capitalistic lens” judges by gender, social status, and wealth, which is the basis behind most of the marriages. However, Jane Austen argues in her novel that this should be changed to a “moral lens” that is based on character. It has always been in human nature to judge an individual before even meeting them. During the Victorian period, a class defined who the person was. This judgment based upon class was accepted throughout Jane Austen’s novel. Characters in the novel judged their peers based on their class and gender, which they further defined through the judgment of a character’s relationships, money, and physical appearance. Austen criticizes these traditional judgments through the relationships within the novel. At the end of the novel, the marriages which appear to be the strongest are the relationships that have overcame their partner’s “weaknesses” within society.
Get original essayThe acquaintances and family members of an individual can drastically affect a character’s appearance within society, as it is seen that an individual is a representation of those who he/she associates with. This being the case, any fault in an individual’s social circle will also reflect poorly on that individual. The opening line of the novel states, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”. Austen makes it well-known that having a wife is a must within society if a man has the monetary means to do so. Acquaintances are so important in Pride and Prejudice that many decisions are based on how society will think of the relationship. Mr. Collins showed this during his proposal to Elizabeth when he mentioned, “I could not satisfy myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy event has taken place”. Mr. Collins wanted to marry Elizabeth so that when her father died, and Mr. Collins inherited the house, the transition would be smoother. Mr. Collins’s proposal to Elizabeth appeared to be because of who her family was rather than who she was. Acquaintances are also used as an excuse within the novel to keep people apart. Mr. Darcy said in his letter to Elizabeth, “But amidst your concern for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this representation of them, let it give the consolation to consider that, to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of like censure, is praise...”. Mr. Darcy explained that he tried to keep Mr. Bingley away from Jane partially of her family and that she was not “good enough” for Mr. Bingley’s hand in marriage. However, at the end of the novel, Mr. Bingley did marry even though society would not approve of her worthiness. It can be seen through Mr. Bingley and Jane’s marriage that they were able to overcome society’s opinions and have a stable relationship. Within the novel, Austen uses acquaintances to show the weakness of the social judgments of her time period.
The most common way of judging characters in Pride and Prejudice is by measuring their income/ social status. A character’s income is seen as a measure of how well they could take care of themselves and their families. When Mr. Bingley first arrived in town, and no one had the chance to meet him,It was his amount of money which was well-known around town. Mrs. Bennett stated, “A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!”. Without knowing anything else other than his fortune, Mrs. Bennet decided that Mr. Bingley would be a good husband for her daughters, proving that money is enormous importance within the time period. This is quite a different situation from Lady Catherine’s opinion on Elizabeth. Lady Catherine was furious that someone of Elizabeth’s background would have any possibility of marrying Mr. Darcy. Her opinion is clearly shown when she said, “The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections or fortune. Is this to be endured? But it must not shall not be!”. It is apparent that Lady Catherine was judging Elizabeth on her fortune as well as other material judgments, not reflecting Elizabeth’s true self. Money appears to be a societal necessity in every proposed marriage. The marriage of Mr. Wickham and Lydia took place for solely economic reasons. Mr. Gardiner, in a letter to Mr. Bennet, explained, “All that is required of you is, to assure to your daughter, by settlement, her equal share of the five thousand pounds secured among your children”. It is shown quite clearly that Mr. Wickham would not marry Lydia unless he received a certain amount of money. Due to the class of Mr. Wickham, this marriage was approved by Lydia’s family and would be considered acceptable within society. Austen uses this relationship to show that the relationships within the novel, which formed only because of one’s class, do not have the same strength and happiness as those who overcame class differences.
The physical appearance of an individual was used throughout Pride and Prejudice to determine one’s status, especially for females. When Mr. Darcy first saw Elizabeth, he commented that “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men”. In this statement, Mr. Darcy explained that Elizabeth was not beautiful enough to meet his standards and was therefore not worthy of his company. However, it was not only her physical beauty that Elizabeth was judged based on. After Elizabeth had walked a great distance through muddy fields to see her sick sister, “...her appearance created a great deal of surprise... and Elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt for it”. Her dirty appearance was seen as very un-ladylike, and the women of Netherfield judged her on her appearance rather than her purpose of traveling to Netherfield. While describing the Lucases, Mrs. Bennet explained that “But everybody is to judge for themselves, and the Lucases are a very good sort of girls, I assure you. It is a pity they are not handsome!”. Although Mrs. Bennet made it clear that the Lucases are fine girls, she also explained that they were less worthy because they were not as attractive as her daughters.
Societies' expectations for women are still strangled. Austen suggests that one woman scandalous behavior affects everyone who she is related to. For example, Lydia slept with the man that wasn't her husband and effected not only her name but the whole family. This is still relevant today because, in most cultures, if a woman is not married to a man, she cannot sleep with him. If she chooses not to follow that custom, she will affect the name of her family. Austen uses the example of Lydia to show the impossible strictness of society's demands on the woman. The ease with which reputations can be destroyed and marriage can be impossible. Other issues that were discussed in the novel were the socio-economic classes and appearance. Females were told to marry a rich man so they can continue supporting their family and have a better life. Since they are women, they can't just get a job and live on their own. Most of the woman depend on a man. This is similar to the concept of most families in Europe. People's parents usually want them to marry someone that has a higher social class/Income to they can be economically stable. Sometimes parents choose a man that their daughter doesn't even love for the economic advantages of their family. Jane Austen makes a strong critic in Pride and Prejudice in getting married only for financial purposes. She defends that a marriage should be based on deep love. She shows to the readers that there are two ways to qualify kinds of social classes: one is by appearance and financial issues. Other is by values of morality, virtue, and intelligence.
"All the world's a stage/ And all the men and women merely players."
Get original essay-As You Like It II.vii.139
A large portion of the plot of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (Austen, 1814) describes the young gentlemen and ladies of the estate preparing a performance of the play Lovers' Vows (Inchbald, 1798). A play full of controversial subjects, it features ideas of love, illegitimacy, a disgraced woman, class differences, and imprisonment. When Sir Thomas Bertram, the patriarch of Mansfield Park, returns home from the West Indies to find his children and their friends acting out such controversial ideas, he immediately puts a stop to their antics, seeing "all the impropriety of such a scheme among such a party, and at such a time" (Austen 204). Although throughout Mansfield Park the young characters' participation in the theatrics is portrayed as taboo, overly sexual, and improper, Jane Austen is not condemning the theater or Lover's Vows. Rather, Austen uses the theater as a forum through which she makes criticisms on society. Similar to her young characters, Austen is able to approach taboo subjects under the guise of theatrics. Mansfield Park examines the weighty subjects of imprisonment, slavery, and sexual misconduct, but does so in a light manner via theatrics, preserving Austen's own propriety.
Fanny emerges the dullest of heroines: meek, quiet, proper, and frightened. She is a surprising choice for Austen, who tends to favor more aggressive, outspoken female leads like Emma Woodhouse, Elizabeth Bennett, and Marianne Dashwood. What Fanny lacks in interest to the reader, however, is more than made up for in the characters of Miss Crawford and Miss Bertrams. Mary Crawford is the anti-heroine; she is equal to Fanny in perception, intelligence, and physical beauty (once Fanny fully blossoms), but the opposite regarding behavior. The Mary-Fanny dichotomy is exemplified in Edmund's regard for the two of them. He finds them similarly attractive although their personalities branch out in such opposite directions. Where Fanny is timid and submissive, Mary is outspoken and manipulative. Mary is sexually overt and obsessed with money and position. Although Mary is the much more interesting of the two characters, Fanny is presented as the central figure to aid in Austen's careful critique of society and the aforementioned controversial topics. She provides Fanny as the voice of decorum, modesty, and respectability in the face of constant impropriety; she is the only one guiltless in the performing of Lover's Vows. Austen exonerates herself from the suggested impropriety of the book by having such a sterile character as the lead.
While Mansfield Park centers around Fanny, Lovers' Vows portrays a more realistic version of who is a heroine and who is a understudy. Fanny waits in the wings and is in service to the other actors, akin to her real station in life. The other characters are the stars acting with unabashed gusto. Fanny and Edmund are the only sincere main characters in Mansfield Park, and this is represented in their reluctance to perform. Maria Bertram, Julia Bertram, Henry Crawford, and Mary Crawford, however, all have hidden agendas involving marriage and wealth which are revealed towards the end of the novel. Since they are constantly performing in life, the transition to the stage is virtually seamless. The book parallels the plot of the play; Maria becomes a fallen woman and is shunned by her family and society (like her character Agatha) when she runs away with Henry Crawford. Edmund, true to his role of Anhalt in Lover's Vows, falls in love and marries his pupil, Fanny, in the end. Also, the class barrier which Anhalt worries will prevent him from wedding Amelia is indeed what causes the actors of those parts, Edmund and Mary, not to wed.
Paralleling the plot aside, the play is used by the actors as an awkward form of sexual indulgence. Maria Bertram and Mr. Crawford's physical attraction is gratified in front of everyone, including her fiance, camouflaged as rehearsal. Mary Crawford and Edmund are similarly gratified, although their actions are less perverse. Nonetheless Fanny has to witness their mutual attraction and becomes sandwiched between their flirting when they both request her help in rehearsing. In practicing Lover's Vows, the borders separating real life and the theater are obscured until they are virtually indistinguishable.
Austen further drives home this point with the structure and style of Mansfield Park. The book often assumes the tone of a play script. Austen infuses what appear to be stage directions into the dialogue, as in when Crawford is talking while playing cards (note the parentheses), "You think with me, I hope -(turning with a softened voice to Fanny). Have you ever seen the place?" (Austen 255). Also, characters take on speeches that are essentially monologues. Crawford's exiting speech in chapter 34 is an acted oration, complete with stage directions. Previously in that chapter he reads a speech from Shakespeare, and his words as he leaves the room are Austen's farce of a Shakespearian monologue. Crawford fancies himself Romeo, saying,
"Yes, dearest, sweetest Fanny Nay - (seeing her draw back displeased) forgive me. Perhaps I have as yet no right - but by what other name can I call you? Do you suppose you are ever present to my imagination under any other? No it is 'Fanny' that I think of all day and dream of all night. You have given the name such reality of sweetness, that nothing else can now be descriptive of you." (Austen 348)
Not exactly "a rose by any other name", but it suits Crawford's ego and grandiose manner (Romeo and Juliet II.ii.45).
Shakespeare often removes his characters from society and places them in an isolated setting in order to create a focus on individual human relationships and allow chaos to ensue. For example, in Othello (Shakespeare, 1604) the plot transitions from Venice to the island of Corsica, and in The Tempest (Shakespeare, 1611) the characters are removed from society and washed on the shore of an island. In both cases the drama unfolds in these remote surroundings. Similarly, Austen's use of Sotherton provides an isolated setting in which illicit behavior becomes excusable. The garden scene at Sotherton is wrought with sexual innuendo and misbehavior by all of the young characters except for Fanny. Mary describes a "serpentine course", a phrase that alludes to the Garden of Eden and sexual temptation (Austen 120). Edmund and Mary disappear behind the trees promising Fanny "to be back in a few minutes", but do not emerge again for nearly an hour (Austen 120). Miss Bertram and Mr. Crawford spend the entire day flirting in front of Miss Bertram's fiance, Mr. Rushworth. Crawford, facetiously referring to Miss Bertram's engagement, proclaims in a theatrical reference, "You have a very smiling scene before you" (123). When the three happen upon the locked iron gate, Miss Bertram wants so badly to go through to the other side that Mr. Rushworth reluctantly walks back to the house to get the key (a rather phallic reference). Once he is gone, Miss Bertram wriggles over the side of the gate per the suggestion of Mr. Crawford. The two run off into the woods, again leaving Fanny behind to sit in the heat of the sun and the latent heat of sexuality.
The hot outdoors contrasts with the coolness of the chapel witnessed in the preceding scene. Here is another episode in which Austen uses theatrics to describe a facet of life; this time, marriage. As the group tours Sotherton's chapel, Julia exclaims to Mr. Crawford, "Do look at Mr. Rushworth and Maria, standing side by side, exactly as if the ceremony were going to be performed" (Austen 113). Austen comments not only on the acting of Miss Bertram in being engaged to Mr. Rushmore, but on the theatrics of marriage in general; of a man and woman playing parts rather than experiencing genuine emotions. While Austen is not condemning the institution of marriage as completely feigned, she is criticizing the fact that often marriage is not about love but rather fulfilling a role.
Austen's extensive use of the theater in Mansfield Park is not a criticism of theatrics but rather a comment on human nature. People act, and are expected to fulfill specific societal roles. These roles are constraining and a hindrance to freedom, especially to women of Austen's time. Fanny meets much condemnation from her relatives when she refuses Crawford's marriage proposal. This is not because he is a great man but because she is expected to accept the role of wealthy wife when it is offered to her, regardless of the factor of love. While the phrase "all the world's a stage" is pertinent as much now as when Shakespeare composed it, it especially applies to the decorum-obsessed society of Jane Austen (As You Like It II.vii.139). In Mansfield Park Austen tames the dueling beasts of theater and life in a masterpiece assessment.
Bibliography
Austin, Jane. Mansfield Park. Ed. June Sturrock. Ontario: Broadview, 2001.
Inchbald, Elizabeth. Lover's Vows. Five Romantic Plays 1768- 1821. Ed. Horace Walpole, et al. London: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Ed. Wilbur L. Cross & Tucker Brooke. New York: Metrobooks, 2002.
Shakespeare, William. Othello. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Ed. Wilbur L. Cross & Tucker Brooke. New York: Metrobooks, 2002.
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Ed. Wilbur L. Cross & Tucker Brooke. New York: Metrobooks, 2002.
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Get custom essayShakespeare, William. The Tempest. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works2E Ed. Wilbur L. Cross & Tucker Brooke. New York: Metrobooks, 2002.
As a child at Gateshead, Jane is fully dependant on the Reeds (Brontë 13). In many ways she is a prisoner. Indeed, Jane’s imprisonment in the red room is the complete physical manifestation of her forced submission. Lower than the servants, for she does “nothing for her keep,” Jane is beaten by her cousin and begrudged by her aunt. Jane scoffs at the term “benefactress” for Mrs. Reed since her aunt’s aid comes with the hefty price of subjugation. Jane is told that she “ought not to think herself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed . . . it is her place to be humble, and to try to make herself agreeable to them”. Yet, as much as she tries, Jane cannot manage to make this happen:
Get original essay“All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sister’s proud indifference, all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always brow-beaten, always accused, for ever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one’s favour? . . . I dared commit no fault: strove to fulfill every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking”.
Jane confesses that she is not prone to rebellion at the beginning of her story. It seems fitting, then, that the novel begins as Jane’s first bought of mutiny comes to pass when she tackles John for his mistreatment. This one instant of revolt seems to open the floodgates for Jane as she becomes more discontent with her position with the Reeds. When the final blowout occurs when Mrs. Reed deems Jane a liar in front of Mr. Brocklehurst, Jane’s passionate nature gets the better of her. Jane expresses her desire for love: “You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity”. Her want for love often hinders her chance for freedom and vice versa; the Reeds present the first instance where Jane achieves one while the other is absent. Jane’s rebuke to her aunt is at once truthful and liberating (34-5). Upon relieving her pent up frustration, Jane declares that “my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty” (35).
The result of Jane’s ten years at Gateshead is the revelation that obedience, when it goes against one’s own moral understanding, is a betrayal of oneself. “I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved” (54-5).
In the second stretch of Jane’s life, her education gained at Lowood provides her with the opportunity to break away from her relatives (39). The severing of this dependence allows for Jane to foster an education that will provide her with her livelihood for years to come—a necessity to gain her independence (80). Moreover, Jane is finally recognized as an individual through her budding friendships with Helen Burns and then Ms. Temple, attributing to a greater sense of self (70, 80). She gains intellectual freedom at the institution, something that she had not gotten with the Reeds, but she finds the monotony of her existence stifling after the eight years she spends there (81). At this point, Jane does not even consider complete freedom as an option, “a new servitude . . . does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me” (81-2). She remains realistic in what she can expect to obtain in a hierarchal society.
With her new servitude, Jane finds an intellectual equal in Mr. Rochester, but their different social standings remain an obstacle to their union (124, 143). In first entertaining the prospect of her and Rochester together, Jane says “a freshening gale wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy — a counteracting breeze blew off the land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion” (143). Jane still remains realistic in what she can expect in life.
Rochester’s proposed marriage threatens to rid Jane of her independence. At this point in time, because of Rochester’s superior financial status, Jane would always be his inferior, and he, her “master” (252). Jane is fully aware of this; she knows by accepting Rochester’s proposal she chances sacrificing her autonomy for love if she cannot relieve the financial difference between them. Jane believes “if I had but a prospect of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better endure to be kept by him now”. This is why Jane makes the effort to write to her uncle Eyre before her wedding in hopes of acquiring even the smallest of fortunes (252). Without her own financial liberty, Jane is reluctant to accept any of the wealth Rochester desires to give her because she feels she has no right to it (252). In his effort to bestow her with jewels, Jane proclaims “never mind jewels! I don’t like to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange” (243). Jane is adamant in not changing for anyone, Rochester included. Upon their engagement, Jane has no notion of becoming an elegant lady of a higher class; she maintains to be but herself: plain, without magnificent beauty or absolute compliance (244). By not becoming the classic lady of wealth, Jane exerts that true independence comes with being no one but yourself.
At the Moor house, Jane finally finds herself among equals in terms of both society and mind. “The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them . . . I could join Diana and Mary in all their occupations… There was a reviving pleasure in the intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time — the pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.” (327). To be sure, Jane’s time with the Rivers gifts her with the familial kind of love that she has sought for so long (360). “I had found a brother: one I could be proud of, — one I could love; and two sisters whose qualities were such that… they had inspired me with genuine affection and admiration… This was a blessing… not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight” (360). This love grants Jane a type of emotional nurturing that she needs to further herself as an independent. She has finally been able to find love without sacrificing her autonomy.
While teaching at the village school St. John tasked her with, Jane provides herself with a livelihood solely of her own making. “It was truly hard work at first. Some time elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature”. Jane, despite being a bit out of her element in terms of her new students’ coarseness, preservers in teaching them. Jane admits that “the rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it”. The nature of her work deals with a rank that she has never encountered before. Her students are not as smart as the girls she taught at Lowood, or even as smart as Adéle. She has been placed in a situation that is of a sort of hard working poverty. However, this challenge enriches her self-government in the way that she now knows that she is fully able to take care of and provide for herself.
Jane is then able to gain complete financial independence upon inheriting her uncle’s large sum; with it, she gains societal freedom. With the fortune bestowed upon her, Jane has the freedom to no longer rely on anyone for her physical wellbeing. Her inheritance raising her to an equal level with Rochester, Jane is able to find what she has been searching for all along: a balance between love and independence. “No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am… I know no weariness of my Edward’s society: he knows none of mine… consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude… we are precisely suited in character — perfect concord is the result”. In fact, Rochester’s injuries in some ways make Jane his superior since he comes to rely on her for his vision and right hand.
Jane’s decision to return to Rochester exhibits perhaps the most noteworthy facet of her understanding of freedom. The freedom of choice follows Jane throughout the novel. While Jane cannot, and knows that she cannot, control all aspects of her life, she does know that she has the will and the freedom to change her life when the need arises. First at Gateshead, it is Jane’s answer to the apothecary, “‘I should indeed like to go to school,’” that sets her entire story into motion. She knows “school would be a complete change: it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life”. Jane again enters into a new life by choice when she takes the initiative to advertise and go to Thornfield (82-4).
At Thornfield, Jane makes her opinions of independence most obvious. With heartbreak over Rochester’s faux wedding to Blanche Ingram, Jane asserts “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you”. When she eventually does choose to leave him, Rochester seems to acknowledge her statement, saying that “‘never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable as Jane… consider the resolute, wild, free thing… defying me, with more than courage — with a stern triumph!”. Despite her love’s pleading, Jane is resolute in her morals and makes the decision to leave him, once again altering her life irreversibly.
Just as she decides to leave Rochester, Jane turns down St. John’s proposal. Despite her own morality, and Rochester’s lack thereof, Jane finds St. John’s to be harsh, overwhelming, and, as a result, threatening. She knows that as St. John’s wife, she would be sacrificing any chance at romantic love; the same way that by accepting to be with Rochester she would be sacrificing her principles. For her independence, she must strike a balance between them. When she chooses to go back to Rochester when she is financially independent, she achieves that balance.
To be certain, the first sentence of the last chapter, “reader I married him,” exhibits both Jane’s equality with Rochester and her value of choice. Brontë could have just as easily put “reader, he married me,” but by expressly stating that Jane married Rochester, it expresses that it was her decision and with her free power that she did so.
Brontë demonstrates in Jane that all forms of liberation, be it financial, social, religious, or otherwise, all boil down to choice through freedom of will. Jane has it right:
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Get custom essay“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 than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex”.
It is said that only total and complete trust in the government will provide equality and prosperity for their people. No man ever not able to feed his family, no man homeless, no economic and political freedom, constant economic growth, and abolishment of class systems as a whole. Communism is seemingly flawless in its battle for solidarity as well as the fundamental ideals it’s based upon. In 1847, Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto, which grew to be widely popular in the following years among the middle and lower classes. Charlotte Bronte witnesses the unfairness of the class system as she grew up in a poor Victorian family and was neglected the necessities that only wealth could provide. She viewed the Victorian Age as a whole, hierarchical within its morality and social rules. Bronte comments on the hypocrisy of this Age within her writing. Her characters desperately seek for answers to their unhappiness with the social systems in place and eventually fail to conform to Victorian ideals and rather come to Marxist principles about society and equality. In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Jane questions class systems and finding her place in society and she discovers she is predominately Marxist within her beliefs through her interactions and relationships with John, Mrs. Reed, and Mr. Rochester.
Get original essayJane’s childhood with her cousin John at Gateshead establishes that Jane from childhood was taught that she was less because of her class. Jane, still a destitute orphan feels aloof from the rest of the family. John blatantly points out that Jane, “[has] no business to take [their] books; [for Jane] is dependent… [Rather, Jane] ought to beg and and not live here with gentleman’s children like [them]” (29). John blatantly tells Jane that because she is poor, she cannot associate with John and the rest of the Reeds upon even ground. With the distinction John is a gentleman and Jane is not, John asserts not only his dominance but the fact that Jane must rely on his family for her survival. Jane is not a servant, nor a part of the family and thus she does not have a definition of her class and put into a class system she is degraded and miserable. Jane rebuttals his authority with calling John a, “Wicked and cruel boy… like a slave driver… like the Roman emperors!” (30). By saying this Jane tells John she recognizes his corruption and furthermore the corruption of the upper class as a whole. As Jane is punished for her fight with John, Miss Abbott calls John Jane’s “young master” (34) Jane is quick to question Miss Abbott arguing whether she is, in fact, a servant. With no decisive answer on where Jane belongs in society, Jane questions societal regimes as a whole. Jane understands that upper society lacked morality as demonstrated by her cousin, as well as the middle class being Jane seemed to be superior.
With Jane’s new questioning of what she understood as superior, she begins to test her communist ideals with Mrs. Reed. As Mrs. Reed tells Mr. Brocklehurst of Jane’s subordination, Jane tells Mrs. Reed, “…the thought of you makes me sick, and [she] treated [her] miserably cruel” (57). Mrs. Reed being of the upper class oppresses Jane even into Jane’s new life as she enters school; for only the benefit of Mrs. Reed to rid herself of Jane, seeing her as a burden. Jane attempts to break the system of abuse as well as her master by telling Mrs. Reed of her atrocities and cruelties towards Jane. Instead of challenging Jane’s newfound authority, Mrs. Reed ignores the issue and furthermore pushes the lower class down. When Jane comes back to Gateshead as an adult, Jane quickly realizes that Mrs. Reed is dependent on her to find peace. Although Mrs. Reed is in a fragile condition, Jane still, “…[feels] a determination to subdue her” (747). Jane wants to assert them as equals, even after so many years have passed. This idea of equality and balancing Mrs. Reed’s cruelty with Jane’s inner desires, coincides with communism’s similar ideals. Jane wants to degrade the upper class to make their status’ equal. After questioning the social and political structure, Jane grows to appreciate the equality between people and not playing a man above another.
Although Jane tries to fight her status difference between Rochester and herself, she is unable to do so and is subsequently unhappy and searches for a way to rectify her relationship. As Rochester is about to propose to Jane he calls her a, “dependent [that] does her duty” (812). Thus, Rochester emphasizes a class difference between him and Jane, marking her as a subordinate. Jane does not rebuke this and even goes on to revere Rochester as a God in return, furthermore turning an earthly social status difference to a divine one. By doing so, Jane discredits Rochester’s social superiority by making him a heavenly creature on earth, to which there could be no valid comparison. Thus associating earthly goods such as wealth to have no meaning. As Jane begins to see the flaws in her nonchalance on the matter, she must choose to either be a, “slave in a fool’s paradise… as Mr. Rochester’s mistress… or to be free and honest” (1166). Jane is caught up between her feelings for Rochester and his feelings for her, finally acknowledging them as having different perceptions of their relationship. Rochester sees her as a vulnerable inferior and degrades her to a mistress. Jane must decide between Rochester as the upper class taking the resources, or her, and coveting them for his gain while the middle class works tirelessly to no avail. Jane is not content with this and wants to be recognized as equals, but ultimately decides she would rather be alone than to be separated from her love by status.
After Jane inherits her wealth, she seeks out Rochester to make their love equal. As Jane travels back to Thornfield, she finds it in ruin. She reflects upon the, “silence of death about it: the solitude of a lonesome wind… [She sees] it as blackened ruin” (664). Rochester’s stately manor has been destroyed and with it the place where Rochester and Jane were not husband and wife but rather, a master and a servant. Jane travels to find Rochester in a humbler state; emotionally he regrets the emotional torment he put Jane through. Physically, he has lost his eyesight as well as his hand. He tells Jane to leave and, “not suffer to devote [herself] to a blind lamenter” (681). Rochester asserts Jane’s new class as above even his own. Jane levels the field by proclaiming them equals and thus abolishing Rochester’s haughty conformity to the social system. Jane and Rochester are soon after married and by this union a member of the upper class and formerly middle class is revitalized and live in peace with each other. They reinstate moral values into their marriage as well as disregard the old mixed morality Jane witnessed earlier in her life throughout her former relationships. Rochester is seemingly resurrected as a good tempered husband who relies on his wife as much as she does him. They are rendered classless with each other without material goods polluting their relationship, and thus they are the definition of a Marxist political system.
Jane through questioning the flaws with the society around her comes to the conclusion that Marxism will solve the problems within Victorian society. Jane in her interactions with her cousin John, as a child, lead her to question her own views upon the hypocrisy and cruelty of those that were supposed to be the pinnacle of society. After this revelation, Jane seeks out a balance between the upper and middle class. Through this rejuvenation, Jane becomes an upper class elite while still possessing the dedicated craftsmanship and work ethic the middle class is characterized as. Jane, through her unwavering will and due north moral compass, tames Rochester and furthermore redefines a sound political system within their relationship. Humanity must strive to discern what is truly right versus what has been presented to them. Even though communism has failed within the modern world, equality sans bigotry creates prosperity for all. If humanity continues to look at past events and analyze the underlying motives of each action, they can hope for a better tomorrow. If they fail, they will hurt themselves and the community around them ultimately leading to confusion and ruin of humanity as a whole.
Imagine a girl growing up around the turn of the nineteenth century. An orphan, she has no family or friends, no wealth or position. Misunderstood and mistreated by the relatives she does have, she is sent away to a school where the cycle of cruelty continues. All alone in the world, she seems doomed to a life of failure. What's a girl to do? Does she stand passively by and accept her fate, as the common belief of the times would have it? Or does she stand up for her rights and fight for the life of success she deserves? If the girl is Charlotte Bronte's heroine Jane Eyre, she takes the latter route. Although this may have shocked readers of the time, Jane's actions would open the door for a new interpretation of women.
Get original essayJane Eyre showed that it was possible for a woman in the nineteenth century to achieve independence and success on her own, no matter what odds were against her. The following paper will examine the stereotype of women that Jane and her creator, Bronte, sought to disprove, explore the obstacles that Jane encounters in her struggle, and show how she is able to overcome them to attain the life she has always dreamed of having.
During the 1800's, the time period in which Jane Eyre was written and the setting of the novel, women were stereotyped as being "submissive, dependent, beautiful, but ignorant" (Harris 42). They were seen only as trophies, meant to cling to the arms of men, but never meant to develop a mind of their own or to venture out on their own. This stereotype proved difficult for women to be taken seriously. Dissatisfied with this interpretation of her sex, Bronte attempted to change it by creating a heroine who possessed the antithesis of these traits. Indeed, Jane may be a plain woman, but she is an intelligent one; she is also self-confident, strong-willed, and morally conscious (Harris 42). She not only trusts in her ability to make decisions, but also in her freedom to do so. Such traits will be necessary to guide her in her journey to self-fulfillment.
The first obstacle that Jane comes across is her own background. Usually, one can count on family or position to get ahead in life; Jane has neither. Since infancy, she has not only worn the label of orphan, but also that of lower-class: her mother had been disinherited from the family fortune upon marriage to Jane's father, a poor clergymen. Jane also faces discouragement in the not one, but two environments in which she is raised. At Gateshead, she is despised by her Aunt Reed and her cousins John, Eliza, and Georgiana. They never let her forget her lack of wealth or position, or their abundance of both. They see her as nothing more than a servant, and treat her as such (Eagleton 41). At Lowood school, Jane finds the ultimate "monument to the destruction of the most basic human unit, the family"(Blom 87). Stationed with other girls like herself, under the watchful and unforgiving eye of Rev. Brocklehurst, she is further made aware of all that she lacks. Perhaps the most important of these is love. Jane's cries for love are mistaken by both Aunt Reed and Rev. Brocklehurst as outbursts of evil.
A constant obstacle that appears throughout Jane's life is oppression. Women of the time often had to deal with oppression because of the stereotype imposed upon them; it is no different with Jane. Whenever she tries to speak up for herself and her needs, she is always met with some form of resistance. It starts with Aunt Reed and Rev. Brocklehurst, who interpret her as being willfully disobedient. It continues with St. John Rivers, who sees her as being selfish and unworthy of God. Even Edward Rochester, the love of her life, finds fault with Jane's need to express herself; it's the one thing that keeps her from being totally possessed by him. Ironically, it may have been Bronte's decision to tell the story in the first-person point of view that most accentuates the constancy of this obstacle in Jane's life. This technique allowed Bronte to tell her heroine's story with an intensity that drew the reader into Jane's thoughts, feelings, and passions, an openness which Jane has often been deprived of in her own life (McFadden-Gerber 3290).
The most prominent obstacle Jane faces is male power. The four men that Jane must contend with throughout the book are symbolic of the sources of male power over women. There is John Reed, Jane's tormentor at Gateshead, who represents physical force and patriarchal family. There is also Rev. Brocklehurst, Jane's tormentor at Lowood; he signifies the social structures of class, education, and religion. Rochester represents attraction, and St. John moral and spiritual authority (Mitchell 302). The former two try to take advantage of Jane's seeming defenselessness as a child; the latter two try to take advantage of her seeming defenselessness as a woman.
Jane is able to overcome her background chiefly by two means: distance and chance. In leaving for Lowood, she escapes Gateshead and all its disorder; in leaving for Thornfield, she escapes Lowood and its disorder. Jane's later return to Gateshead is a victory in that it not only shows how well she has succeeded on her own, without the Reeds, but it also reveals that as she once needed them, they now need her (Eagleton 39). As for her state of poverty, Jane triumphs over that merely by chance. It is while staying with St. John and his sisters at Whitcross that she is made aware of her relation to them, and the great inheritance from their uncle that they now all share. This is Jane's first step in attaining the wealth and family that has been denied her for so long.
The next obstacle to fall is oppression. Before Jane is sent away to Lowood, she tells Aunt Reed that it is she, not Jane, who is willfully disobedient: "People think you are a good woman, but you are bad, bad-hearted. You are deceitful!" It is with this statement that Jane first feels her soul begin to "expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph" she has ever felt (Bronte 30). It is this feeling which drives her in the confrontations she has with Rev. Brocklehurst, Rochester, and St. John concerning their hold over her, and it is one which she resolves never to lose. Armed with this feeling, Jane makes full use of her privileges as narrator. She freely comments on the "role of women in society and the greater constraint imposed upon them", and tells how she is able to overcome both (McFadden-Gerber 3290).
Jane's triumph over male power is her biggest one of all. Her first victory is in overcoming her tormentors. She surpasses John Reed by succeeding in the one area where she had been expected to fail: life. It is Jane, whom he had assumed of being powerless and frail, who ends up outliving him. Jane wins her struggle with Rev. Brocklehurst by refusing to live the rest of her life at Lowood under his orders. Her departure from Lowood is symbolic of leaving her old life behind for a new one.
Leaving Lowood also brings Jane to her hardest challenge. Throughout her life, Jane has always been looking for the one thing, more than wealth or position, that has always seemed to evade her - love. As an adult, she finds it in two men: Rochester and St. John. She realizes that although both men have different views of her and different reasons for wanting to marry her, they share the same motive: ultimately, to "destroy her selfhood" (Blom 99). Rochester's love for Jane is not only spiritual, but passionate. Although she feels the same way about him, she refuses to be his mistress. "It would not be wicked to love me," Rochester protests. Jane stands her ground: "It would be to obey you" (Bronte 301). On the other hand, St. John's love for her is "merely spiritual"; for Jane, this will not do. Her refusal of him for such a reason is considered shocking at a time when women were "imagined as merely inhabiting bodies meant to bear children and being, in other respects, tasteless and without appetite" (Oates 7). By rejecting both men, Jane puts her needs before anyone else's (Blom 100). After achieving independence by finding a family in the Riverses and wealth in her inheritance, Jane is now free to return to Rochester to complete her triumph. Following the fire at Thornfield, she finds him not as powerful as he once was; this works well for her, because she is more powerful than she once was. Rochester welcomes Jane back with open arms, realizing that he will never possess her the way he once wanted to, but that she, in fact, will end up possessing him. Their subsequent marriage not only ends the many conflicts involved, but also fulfills every woman's wish of achieving both independence and love (Mitchell 302).
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Get custom essayJane Eyre proved to the world of the 1800's that the idea of a woman beating the odds to become independent and successful on her own was not as far-fetched as it may have seemed. Jane goes against the expected type by "refusing subservience, disagreeing with her superiors, standing up for her rights, and venturing creative thoughts" (McFadden-Gerber 3290). With such determination, she is able to emerge victorious over all that has threatened to stand in her way. She is not only successful in terms of wealth and position, but more importantly, in terms of family and love. These two needs which have evaded Jane for so long are finally hers; adding to her victory is her ability to enjoy both without losing her hard-won independence. As Jane was a role model for women in the nineteenth century, she is also a role model for women today. Her legacy lives on in the belief that as long as there are hopes and dreams, nothing is impossible.
Jane Goodall was born on April 3, 1934, in London, England. She started liking animals during her early years. In her leisure time, she observed birds and nature. Since she was little she would dream of going to Africa to find exotic animals. She would make sketches and notes about the animals she would observe.
Get original essayIn her schooling years, she went to Uplands private school. In 1950, she received her school certificate, but in 1952 she got a higher certificate. At the age of 18 she graduated high school and went out to find a job. She ended up getting a job as a secretary at Oxford University. In her spare time, she would work at London- based documentary film company to afford a trip to Africa. Through a friend inviting her to South Kinango, Kenya she met the famed anthropologist Louis Leakey. She also met curator of the museum in Nairobi. Leakey soon invited her to work as a secretary and asked her to participate in an anthropological dig at the new famous Olduvai Greoge. This site involved rich prehistoric remains of early humans.
On July 16, 1960, her mother and an African cook accompanied her and she went back to Africa. She soon established a camp on the shore of Lake Tanganyka. Her first try on trying to observe chimps failed. She soon found another group of chimps she could follow and they let her get closer to them and by two year she could come near them and they would eat bananas out of her hands.
While Leaky was looking for financial support, Goodall went back to England to work on an animal documentary for Granada Television. Goodall used her newfound acceptance to make a “banana club,’’ a daily feeding method. She used this to gain trust and obtain the behaviors of chimpanzees. While using this method she became friendlier with the chimps. She followed what the chimps did, spent times in trees, and even ate what they did. By having a lot of time around the chimps, she discovered a lot of new things about them. She found out that they have a complex social system.
They can make more than 20 individual sounds. She is rewarded for making the first recorded observation of chimps eating meat and using tools. Tool making was first known to be created by humans and chimps picked up the trait. She also noted that chimps throw stones as weapons. Chimps also comfort each other by touch and embraces, and develop long-term familia bonds. The father of the chimps don’t play a role in family life but does play a role in social satisfaction. Goodall has seen chimps stalk, kill, and hunt large animals.
They use grass to make spoons to eat termites. A dutch wildlife photographer was sent to Africa and he then met Goodall and they fell in love. The got married on March 28, 19.
"Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting." --Jane Eyre (9)
Get original essayThere is something extraordinary and spiritual about Jane Eyre's artwork. In her story, Jane's solitary pastime sometimes operates as an outlet of past or present pain, and often offers her a chance to deal with unpleasant memories and emotions. Jane's art transcends her isolation by bringing her into contact with others who see it; it serves as a bridge over the chasm between her desire to be alone and her need for companionship, which is demonstrated by key scenes in the novel that include a viewing of her art. This struggle between isolation ("hidden self") and companionship ("public self") upholds the restlessness of the novel, for Jane's art is her own, marking her as her own woman. Her art offers a means of charting her growth to maturity.
The epigraph above is from Jane's comments on Bewick's History of British Birds, Jane's first artistic influence at the beginning of the novel, and is spoken by a young girl whose self is also "undeveloped" and "imperfect." There are five scenes in the novel that define the importance of art to Jane's growth: her three watercolors viewed by Rochester at Thornfield, the miniature of Blanche Ingram that precedes their meeting, her unconscious pencil sketch of Rochester during her return to Gateshead, Rosamund Oliver's request for a portrait at Morton, and St. John's viewing of her work, which leads to the discovery of her identity near the end of the novel. These scenes occur throughout the novel, giving her art a prominence in the story, and there are also several references to her unique artistic ability.
When Jane confronts her jealousy of Blanche Ingram, the focus of Rochester's affections when Jane first arrives at Thornfield, she immediately decides to draw a portrait of her based on Mrs. Fairfax's verbal description (169). She claims that "it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them," and resolves to reject imagination and resign herself to reason; at that point, she decides that she could never be the object of Mr. Rochester's affections (168-9). Jane treats herself as her own pupil, and criticizes herself for abandoning "sense and resolution" and vows to have them for the moment, after which she falls asleep easily (170). This scene is curiously like the first time Jane resolves to produce art while a young girl at Lowood, except the focus of that former moment was strictly on the imagination, where Jane was content to imagine "the spectacle of my ideal drawings," after which she also fell contentedly asleep (78). Because Jane does not want to abandon sense and reason, her portraits at this point are based on reality; she uses Mrs. Fairfax's descriptions in conjunction with socially constructed native theories of the time to develop what she thinks Blanche Ingram should look like.
In other words, one of the biggest conventions of this novel regarding Victorian women is brought out in the moment Jane paints this portrait?conventional views of how they should look, and, in reality, what Jane is not. She is not allowing herself to have dreams of a better life with Rochester, much like St. John not able to bring himself to envision marriage and happiness with Rosamund Oliver. Jane envisioning a portrait of herself and Rochester would have been more ideal, but reason steps in and she shrinks away only to think of her position as "'[g]overness, disconnected, poor, and plain'" (169-70). This is reinforced by her description of Blanche Ingram as an "'accomplished lady of rank,'" which is a status Jane cannot achieve (169-70). Given the "conflicting messages" that a governess traditionally lived with, namely that "she was and was not a member of the family, was and was not a servant," it is no wonder that Jane seeks solace in an isolated world (338).
Still, Jane's heart wins out over reason. When she returns to Gateshead to witness her Aunt Reed's final days, she finds herself in the company of her cousins Eliza and Georgina--two disagreeable women (244). Because their presence, along with her unforgiving aunt, gives her no comfort, her art is her comfort and offers "occupation and amusement" during her stay, where she allows herself to follow the "ever shifting kaleidoscope of imagination" (244). Her imagination is in power once more, and from that power she later produces a sketch of Mr. Rochester, and declares: "There, I had a friend's face under my gaze: and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs on me?" (244-5).
Rather than an act of reason to counter feelings of jealousy and resentment, here Jane executes an automatic drawing, unplanned, unforeseen, and unconscious, which leaves her "absorbed and content" (245). The imaginative mind is the source of content for Jane, not reason. This literal "escape from reality" for Jane serves, too, as an escape for the reader from the reality of the novel. The portrait is reminiscent of Rochester, who, when Jane begins to muse about him, serves as a sort of "Prince Charming" to Jane. The reader, too, is reminded of the fact that Jane and Rochester are equals; the portrait allows Jane to "capture" Rochester on paper and border him in with lines. In this sense, there is a contradiction in Jane's (and the reader's) feelings that is symbolic of the relationship between Jane and Rochester.
In contrast to herself, however, Jane believes Rosamund Oliver is a more balanced lady. She meets Rosamund while living and teaching at Morton, and she also shows an interest in Jane's drawings and paintings. Though Jane sees her in a more favorable light than her cousins, Jane explains that Rosamund is "not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive," (388). It is her beauty, not her intellect, that attracts Jane and causes her to feel "a thrill of artist-delight at the idea" of painting her portrait (388). This portrait presents a stark contrast to the portrait Jane painted of Blanche Ingram. A contrast is observable in the way Jane approaches the two different portraits. While Rosamund is at her own request, Blanche is unaware that Jane paints her portrait. Blanche's portrait is executed as a remedy for Jane's emotions, and Rosamund's is created by Jane's own desire to paint it, for she has no animosity toward her.
Another difference is that Rosamund is able to see Jane's artwork, which leads her to make the request for a portrait in the first place. Rosamund ironically declares to her father that Jane "'is clever enough to be a governess in a high family,'" which is a thoughtless, though true enough, comment on Jane's position in society (389). This comment is noticeably shrugged off by Jane, who says, "I would rather be where I am than in any high family in the land" (389). This statement reveals a sense of self that is confident and mature. She no longer needs the position at Thornfield, for she has changed since leaving there. This change is reflected in her attitude toward her art, which is no longer an act of desperation but a comforting pastime.
The last viewing of her drawings in her presence proves to be another major change in Jane's life. For St. John, Jane's drawings are a deterrent to loneliness for her, and a better distraction than being lost "in thought" (390). When his gaze is diverted toward her drawings, he is surprised to find the portrait of Rosamund. His surprise is manifested in how he "sprang erect again with a start" when he sees the work (390). St. John is quite taken by how striking a likeness the portrait is to Rosamund. His interest eventually leads to the discovery that Jane has inadvertently written her real name on a piece of paper used to cover the portrait (396). This discovery leads to Jane's inheritance and the realization that St. John, Mary and Diana are her first cousins. Through her name, her art reveals herself, and her dream of a family. This should send red flags up all over the reader's mind, because in literal reality, Jane (Charlotte Bronte) is writing this novel under a pseudonym, Currer Bell, which is an obvious contrast to what is happening with this portrait. She seems to be breaking conventions again by saying that women, too, have extensive artistic skills (both written and artistic), and very much good may come out of the lack of anonymity.
Once Jane is restored to the arms of Rochester, her art is no longer prominent. It no longer has usefulness, for Jane has achieved her life long goal of family, marriage, and independent wealth. Rochester's blindness for the first two years of their marriage makes it impossible for him to view her works as he once did, so Jane shifts to painting pictures in his mind through her voice (475). The most significant of these mental pictures are the ones Jane creates of St. John provoking Rochester's jealousy prior to their renewed engagement, which is reminiscent of her own jealous feelings toward Blanche. Jane is aware that Rochester is jealous, and plays along with his suffering for the jealousy "gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy" (465).
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Get custom essayJane's artistic skill extends well beyond the actual pencil here, and her portraits "painted with words" become so vivid to blind Rochester that Jane is able to arouse extreme jealousy in Rochester. This is Bronte's way of turning the knife in the wound, so to speak? She's already used Jane's art to say that the skills of women artistically are just as good as those of men, however, now she is taking it one step further by saying the works can even transcend blindness. Jane's increased confidence and maturity manifest themselves in her ease in dealing with Rochester's jealousy. She also exhibits maturity in that her art is no longer a prominent outlet for her once she arrive at Ferndean. She eventually chooses marriage, even though Rochester is maimed, and her independent personal fortune indicates that she makes this decision of her own free will will that was, in part, nurtured by her art.
Imagine being locked in a room, with no outside interaction, except for the rare conversations with a housemaid or husband. Add in a bout of postpartum depression and an overbearing husband to have the story of Jane, a woman in nineteenth-century America. She is the main character and narrator of the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Stetson. Jane is also a new mother who falls into a case of baby blues, and is put into isolation by her husband to try and treat her. Unfortunately, his attempts have an adverse effect and she spirals into insanity, becoming unhealthily obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in the room she is trapped in. This obsession stems from a variety of factors, including her postpartum depression, her isolation, and her husband’s misdiagnosis.
Get original essayThe main cause of Jane’s warped perception is her postpartum depression, which is defined by the National Institute of Mental Health as: “a mood disorder that can affect women after childbirth… [those suffering] experience feelings of extreme sadness, anxiety, and exhaustion that may make it difficult for them to complete daily care activities” (NIMH). Her husband, John, is a physician and describes it as a “temporary nervous depression,” and claims that it gives her a “slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 648). Jane’s depression is most debilitating at the beginning of the story. Her mood is unstable, as she states that she would “get unreasonably angry with John…I was sure I never used to be this sensitive” (Gilman 648). Her mood swings show that her emotional health is starting to worsen. Later on, she develops an intense anxiety and it becomes apparent when she describes her interactions with her baby. During the nineteenth century, postpartum depression was not recognized as a legitimate health condition, so Jane’s confusion with her baby blues is completely understandable. She relates her experiences surrounding her infant stating, “Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous!” (Gilman 648). Jane’s anxiety with her child obviously distresses her which adds to the mental weight on her.
Jane’s ability to think logically begins to deteriorate once she discovers the yellow wallpaper. She seems to get irrationally bothered by the inconsistency of the pattern to the point where she says: “I positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness” (649). Her behaviors in the first two examples can be considered as those of an anxious person and do not fall too far outside the realm of neurotypicality. However, in the last example, it is clear that her grasp on her emotions is starting to slip. Her irrational irritation with an inanimate object proves the idea that Jane’s moodiness may be linked to something deeper.
Eventually, Jane’s depression gives way into psychosis, a more sinister path. She develops an unhealthy obsession with the yellow wallpaper in the room that she is living in. From the beginning, Jane does show an unusually strong distaste towards it, describing its color as, “repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others” (Gilman 649). After a long description of the room she lives in, she shares that she can see a being in the wall. She states: “But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so - I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (Gilman 650). At this point, it is obvious to the reader that Jane is falling into a bout of psychosis. Her fall into this dark hole is not caused by her depression. As her time in the room progresses, so does her obsession. Jane’s time in the room is lonely, and with no stimuli except for the occasional conversation with John or his sister. Besides that, she has no interaction with anyone for twenty-four hours a day. Jane’s depression may have begun her mental illness, but it is not what caused her hallucinations. She loses her grip on reality because of under stimulation.
Because Jane is not interacting with anything or anyone, her imagination becomes hyperactive and she starts to hallucinate, and the strange figure from before is identified as a mysterious woman. Jane continues to see the imaginary woman more frequently, describing her as, “always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight” (Gilman 654). Eventually, the weeks of isolation push Jane past her breaking point and she falls into complete psychosis. She rejects the outside world because “for outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow” (Gilman 656). She continues on, narrating her erratic behavior by saying: “But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way” (Gilman 656). These two sentences destroy any doubt that Jane still has a sliver of sanity left. The relationship between the amount of isolation Jane suffered through and her insanity is not a coincidence. Rather, their relation is cause and effect; Jane’s time alone in the room is the cause, and her mental break is the effect.
Despite the above reasons, the true problem that causes the narrator, Jane, to fall into her mental degeneracy is her husband, John. In the beginning of the story, Jane is diagnosed with hysterical depression by John. She describes his idea of treatment by sharing all the medicine she has to take, such as: “phosphates or phosphites whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and I am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again” (Gilman 648). In the nineteenth century, women’s mental health was disregarded and most legitimate conditions were brushed off as a short episode of hysteria. This caused many women to be treated incorrectly, oftentimes under one blanket treatment of isolation which tended to be extremely detrimental to their health. Two psychologists from the University of Wisconsin confirms this in their paper, describing the treatment the women in the nineteenth century endured. They state, “Between the years of 1850-1900, women were placed in mental institutions for behaving in ways that male society did not agree with. Women during this time period had minimal rights, even concerning their own mental health” (Pouba and Tianen 95). Some could say that John is a symbol of the patriarchy in this story. It is not a far stretch to believe this, as his actions towards Jane indicate that he may be overbearing in their relationship. John does not seem to value Jane’s opinion about her own health, as she states that, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” (Gilman 647). She seems to have experienced a lot of ridicule from her husband as she normalizes it as a regular part of marriage. He does show a lot of affection towards Jane; she shares an interaction she had, stating, “He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake” (Gilman 652). Although he is sweet to Jane, he still shows selfish reasoning behind his desire for her to be well. It is showing of his character, as it reveals him to be self-centered and misleading. John may have thought he was helping the situation, but like the patriarchy, he ended up becoming an overbearing presence to Jane and ignored her well-being, all of which only pushed Jane into a poor mental state.
Overall, Jane’s fall into insanity is not her fault. Her postpartum depression, her isolation, and her husband’s poor understanding of her condition all contribute to her psychosis. Her baby blues are what cause her to be in a unwell mental state, and it is only perpetuated by the under stimulation she experiences through being locked in her room. All of this could have been avoided if her husband had taken her opinion into consideration in the first place. As a whole, this story, although fictitious, demonstrates the mistreatment of women and the negative effects it can have.
To what extent has foreign influence by the United States after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki affected Japan economically and politically? Material that can be acquired from this source includes information about the investigation of the results of the bombing and the U.S’s intent on searching the bombsite. The source also informs us about the context of the investigation and the situation occurring in the source, that Japanese and American scientists alike are cooperating to better comprehend the aftermath of the situation. Background information such as this encompasses what the scientists and doctors from the United States and Japan accomplished throughout the investigation and knowledge they accumulated about the Hibakusha, the residents in the area who survived and were exposed to the bombings in 1945.
Get original essayThe values concerning the origin of the source that are accurate and apparent consists of the background information concerning the bombings, the death count, and the newly attained knowledge gathered regarding the investigation itself. Limitations regarding the origin would include the publication date in 2016, as the source was written much later after the actual event took place in 1945-1952. It was also written through an American perspective having no excessive knowledge and insight about the author to deem him as credible or plausible.
The values regarding the purpose of the source are to demonstrate the American motive behind the investigation and their purpose to embark and learn about the situation and aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The claims asserted by the author were to justify the intent of the U.S. searching in Japan. Limitations of the purpose consists of their intent being explained by an American author, therefore indicating an American and biased perspective.
Numerous economists, political scientists and historians have analyzed Japan’s economic growth, specifically its growth acceleration. According to various scholars, “the prosperity of Japan’s economic growth relied on Japan’s close affiliation with the most powerful country in the world the U.S.” Scholars also theorize that the growth would have never occurred had not the U.S support the reconstruction of Japan after the war. Additionally, the recovery would not have been so extraordinary without MacArthur's radical reforms, as “MacArthur's tactics enabled the occupation to succeed in a short period of time.” According to Dower and Dobbins, the two main narratives of MacArthur’s position in this transition, both assert that Japan's postwar growth was made achievable by MacArthur's endeavor during the occupation, as MacArthur's efforts made a “significant contribution in changing the attitudes of both the Americans and the Japanese toward each other and accomplished to build a new relationship which still remains strong.” After WWII and the many adverse effects for Japan, especially the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan has continued to recover and advance exceedingly faster than anyone could possibly imagine.
Japan is now considered one of the most advanced countries in the entire world, “the second largest economy after the U.S. measured on an exchange rate basis.” They achieved outstanding rapid accomplishments after losing a war with devastating damage. However, one cannot disregard the truth that the United States played a considerable role in Japan's postwar restoration. It would not have been probable without “the aid of the U.S. and General Douglas MacArthur's guidance during the seven year occupation from 1945-1952.” Japan is the only substantial country with a “diversified economy that has risen from a below-average level of development to the upper tier of the world economy”.
The initial result of the bombing was an economic catastrophe, the bombs had caused extensive damage to cities and the loss of many jobs which lead to many expenses in reconstruction and repairment. And yet only a decade after suffering complete military collapse, “Japan returned to its pre-war standard of living.” More remarkably, Japan has even accelerated at an exceptional rate. Their GDP per capita had increased from a mere “6.8% growth rate to a substantial 11.7%” Throughout the next 10 years, their growth would continue to grow exceptionally with an “average growth rate from 1945 to 1958 of 7.1 percent, whereas it was 9.5 percent from 1959 to 1970.” The effect brought by the growth spurt was that by 1970 Japan had obtained the position of being “the third largest economy and ranked among the most developed countries in the world.”
Another area of change that Japan encountered was political. The American government presumed that administering democracy in Japan required adjustments in all areas of Japanese life. Lead by MacArthur and the combined efforts of the Japanese, Japan encountered immense transitions in just seven short years. The accomplishments of the Occupation can be justified by the evidence that forty years later, Japan has engaged in a war, has close affiliation with the U.S., and has not reverted most of the significant reforms established during the Occupation.
The most notable alterations were political. During the Occupation, Japan adopted a new constitution. This constitution was completely different from the Meiji Constitution of 1889. The biggest change it constituted was that it “declared that sovereignty rested with the people, not the emperor, this is the political basis of democracy.” Another significant change implemented was that “women were given equal rights under the new constitution, including the right to vote.” The supreme political institution was now to be Japan's parliament, the Diet, which was to be made up of freely elected representatives of the people.
The constitution established many new civil liberties, “such as the right of free speech, and the powers of the police were weakened and carefully regulated.” Governing adjustments that were instituted was that “the emperor was to continue as a symbol of Japanese unity and culture, somewhat like the Queen of England in Britain's democracy, but without any political authority whatsoever.” Besides changing Japanese institutions, the Americans wanted the Japanese people to understand better the idea of democracy.
To accomplish this, the occupation government used its control of newspapers and magazines to explain and popularize democracy, they used American democracy as a model to be copied. The complete defeat and devastation of Japan after the war had left many Japanese shocked and disillusioned with their own military leaders, and they were open to the new ways of their American conquerors. To ensure that Japanese children learned democratic values, the Americans insisted that the education system and the laws regulating families be revised. Moral training in schools was abolished, and instruction in democratic ideas was begun. Control of education and censorship of textbooks were taken from the central government and given to local administrations. The laws giving the head of the household complete control of every family member, for example, he could withhold his consent when his children wished to be married, were changed to make each family member more equal and thereby more democratic.
The processes in which I had to undergo to complete this outline consists of first, gathering and accumulating all the necessary information which wasn’t exactly an easy task. Throughout this process I had encountered various problems and difficulties, including not being easily able to find sufficient evidence to support my claims though eventually through strenuous and extensive searching through many various search engines, primarily Google and Ebsco, I was able to find supporting evidence concerning the effects the U.S. had inflicted on Japan, economically and politically. The sources I had acquired through the extensive research were the ones I used most consistently throughout this essay to complete the investigation portion. These sources that I utilized the most consisted of my main source “The Grave is Wide: The Hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Legacy of the Atomic Bomb Casualty commission and the Radiation Effects Research Foundation.”
The knowledge regarding my topic that I acquired throughout the process of completing the H.I. comprised of some of the most important affairs in Japanese history such as the many various alterations that the U.S. administered to Japan. One of the most prominent events that I gained insight from that sparked changes politically and economically in Japan was the U.S Occupation from 1945-1952.
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Get custom essayDuring this incident the U.S. instituted a new constitution for Japan, administering adjustments for the Japanese government and establishing new rules. The most crucial change in the constitution was establishing democracy in Japan as this brought on about even more transitions and reforms in the Japanese government and politics as a whole. These various notable reforms would eventually contribute to Japan’s status as a democracy.