Jane Eyre

[p_gotherina]

I am going to be writing an essay on Jane Eyre for my MA course over Xmas and I have to come up with the question myself. I already have some ideas and interests, particularly of a feminist nature and the Gothic elements of the novel. However, I thought I would ask here and see what you gentle folk might suggest. Random keywords that I have buzzing

Comments

[elettaria]

Is this an undergraduate or a postgraduate MA? Are you required to come up with something original? Because the buzzwords you've mentioned are definitely relevant, but they'll all have been written to death long ago.

Colonialism? Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea would be very useful if you look at that, it's a novel which is a prequel to JE, telling Bertha Mason's story and trying to tell it right (which she felt Bronte failed miserably at). Colonialism's been trendy for ages, which means that you'll find loads of crit on it but have a harder job being original.

You could delve into Jane's atrocious taste in men if you like. She actually does much better in her relationships with women, my tutor for the 19th c lit course and I used to joke about how she should have gone for one of the Rivers girls if she was into cousins. Queer crit has probably been around and trendy long enough that someone's done it for C. Bronte by now (especially Villette, where the narrator gets rather obsessed with another girl and plays her lover onstage

[p_gotherina]

It's a postgraduate MA.
Yeah I am also aware that the words I have in my head are fairly common and have been done to death...:/

I love Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea and I know the subject of Colonialism is important and crucial to both novels, and though I do find it interesting to a fair point, it just will not hold my interest for longer than an hour or so...:/ and I should write about something which I am interested in and will enjoy researching and writing about.

I mean, JE does not have to be sole focus of my essay, we looked at feminist articles by Harriet Taylor and Barara Bodichon and William Holman Hunt's The Awakening Conscience in relation to JE for example so I'm quite happy to make it an interdisciplinary approach and use JE as one of my primary texts

[orts]

It's nice to hear the stuff you love about the book... Yet here's an alternative suggestion: why not choose to talk about something that you hate? Perhaps that'd yield a more interesting approach. Grad school's about challenging your comfort level (among other things), after all!

All those "common" topics were ones that I was unwilling to give my undergrads to do for their essay this term, by the way. Too easy to borrow from somewhere, and they could probably write such an essay in their sleep :(

[deadache139]

Coincidence: I have to write 3 papers on Jane Eyre (character sketch, theme, and conflict).

Jane's shocking bluntness (for a governess) is very interesting. Mr. Rochester could also be a fascinating and complex subject, unless you wish to focus on Jane.

[misswyoming]

I find the Victorian device of the top floor of the building (containing Bertha) reflecting Jane's subconscious very interesting. Was Jane projecting her anxieties and sexuality repressed by society/men at that time? Is Bertha the madwoman in the attic a part of Jane and all women's psyche?