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Author Topic: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"  (Read 11931 times)

Sandy

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Re: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"
« Reply #20 on: April 09, 2016, 03:35:08 PM »
Brontë is saying "I can keep this up all day you know"

:))

Yes she is and yes she can!

verbALs

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Re: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"
« Reply #21 on: April 09, 2016, 03:50:40 PM »
Very good. The spiritual lessons are ones you can delineate to me better than I can appreciate myself. Sometimes the message is well aren't you simlly grateful for existing. What more do you want? So why aren't you constantly giving thanks to the Lord? As if anything else would be selfish. It serves other people's aims keeping some people down. In fact the original bibles of the Holy Roman Empire seemed to take lessons from wherever with an aim of a political stability in the region more than any concern for personal spiritual wellbeing. Almost as if know your place was the key message. Now none of that negates faith or belief or attention to ones spiritual well being. Taking extreme answers never is. The Victorian mindset is so rigid in these areas. The ability to bear up to almost to a scouring of the soul clean. I can actually see why such rigour will produce strength of character but it's ina "if it don't kill me it makes me stronger". People will have fallen by the wayside to disease and poor care. Then it not surprising the strong survive to perpetuate the message. The weak aren't so lucky. Anyway it's a bonus that Bronte can insert these spiritual layers so masterfully.
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

verbALs

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Re: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"
« Reply #22 on: April 10, 2016, 12:28:52 PM »
First two meetings of Jane and Rochester.

He accuses her of being a goblin spreading ice on the road!

Then he sees her paintings. He sees her.
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

Sandy

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Re: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"
« Reply #23 on: April 11, 2016, 09:23:10 AM »
 :)

Is there anything more wondrous than that?

I'll be back later today to reply to your last two thoughts and there's a little piece in the book that I want to rewind to, because it may be the most important piece of all!...

verbALs

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Re: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"
« Reply #24 on: April 11, 2016, 09:25:58 AM »
Yes Miss Sandy.
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

Sandy

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Re: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"
« Reply #25 on: April 11, 2016, 03:29:24 PM »
Yes Miss Sandy.

Had I been the eldest daughter, the proper way to address me would be by my surname, but since I'm the youngest, this is fine and appropriate. Besides, it's much more preferable over Auntie Sandy. ;)

Very good. The spiritual lessons are ones you can delineate to me better than I can appreciate myself. Sometimes the message is well aren't you simply grateful for existing. What more do you want? So why aren't you constantly giving thanks to the Lord? As if anything else would be selfish. It serves other people's aims keeping some people down. In fact the original bibles of the Holy Roman Empire seemed to take lessons from wherever with an aim of a political stability in the region more than any concern for personal spiritual wellbeing. Almost as if know your place was the key message. Now none of that negates faith or belief or attention to ones spiritual well being. Taking extreme answers never is. The Victorian mindset is so rigid in these areas. The ability to bear up to almost to a scouring of the soul clean. I can actually see why such rigour will produce strength of character but it's ina "if it don't kill me it makes me stronger". People will have fallen by the wayside to disease and poor care. Then it not surprising the strong survive to perpetuate the message. The weak aren't so lucky. Anyway it's a bonus that Bronte can insert these spiritual layers so masterfully.

I've been reading and re-reading this. I believe you are delineating quite nicely. Power corrupts in religion just as readily as it does in governments and industry, but playing the God card is it's own psychological nightmare. It heaps guilt onto a victim's shoulders. Look at Helen, who's more pure than anyone you or I could meet and yet she believes her deficits define her. That makes me very sad. It's the ones who are trying the hardest, who are most susceptible to that idea of, "anything else would be selfish."



Alright, let me go back a little, since it's so very thrilling. An awakening!


...another discovery dawned on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple--or rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been breathing in her vicinity--and that now I was left in my natural element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions... now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils... I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer...

and then reality sets in,

...it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus: that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space: "Then," I cried, half desperate, "grant me at least a new servitude!" ...There is something in that," I soliloquised... "I know there is, because it 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; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be
matter of fact. Any one may serve:


Jane, ever practical, even with her passionate heart, she knows she cannot go back to where she'd been "hibernating/cocooning," but she doesn't have the wherewithal to go -- full on freedom! So, she takes the next step, which is a really big one for someone who hasn't had any experience in the world.

The beauty of this is, that she is awake and aware and moving forward, without knowing what is ahead. Very brave! And, something even more beautiful -- What has been awakened cannot be put to sleep again. She is changed and she is becoming... Her story is unfolding. :)




Okay, back to Rochester. What do you think of him so far?

verbALs

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Re: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"
« Reply #26 on: April 11, 2016, 04:14:28 PM »
Rochester is displaying an irritating quality of the English called being standoffish. Conducting personal relations at an arms length. Unfriendly. But he is obviously burdened. I wish that movie hadn't come first so that mystery of what skews his behaviour isn't apparent. It explains that he has had a toorid relationship with his family. It also explains or implies that he used to being the boss and basically taking to subordinates. Given the times they could almost be slaves but that is inferred by the stern tone of address.

He's weird. But he is forced this way as if he has a skeleton in the closet in the metaphorical sense. On which note I could do without the laughter in the attic. I still can't see the necessity of such a lurid direction in such a spiritual subtle work.  Bloody Victorian Melodrama.

I am delighted by the Victorian notion of carrying around party pieces to play like Jane does or the daughter. I'll sing I'll recite I'll dance. Basically keep Being impressive until someone says that's enough. Pre-tv ways to entertain that are nourishingly cultured. Rochester displays his own breeding and artistic sensitivity. So not a total oaf at all.

« Last Edit: April 11, 2016, 04:19:34 PM by verbALs »
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

verbALs

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Re: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"
« Reply #27 on: April 12, 2016, 05:41:50 AM »
This was too long to quote, so I found that voice recorder thing;

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0LrZXgySrqG

Note how candour is met, and how Jane is identified as a listener.

And I didn't think you were taking as many lessons from the book. Just specific ones.
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

Sandy

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Re: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"
« Reply #28 on: April 12, 2016, 04:21:49 PM »
This was too long to quote, so I found that voice recorder thing;

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0LrZXgySrqG

So great! You wouldn't perchance have time to just read aloud the whole book, would you? :)


Quote
Note how candour is met, and how Jane is identified as a listener.

And I didn't think you were taking as many lessons from the book. Just specific ones.

There are lessons all through it to be learned, whether when I was a teenager, or as I've been ready for them over the years, but there is also recognition. How surprising it was to come across character traits that I knew so intimately. They weren't learned or acquired, "nature did it" and it was affirming to know that someone else had similar ones, even if they were written for a make believe character.

“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”  :)

What characters have you found that come closest to you in personality and temperament?

Sandy

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Re: Jane Eyre "You almost unearthly thing!"
« Reply #29 on: April 12, 2016, 11:52:10 PM »
I didn't reply to you answering my question about Rochester yet. I too wish you hadn't seen the movie and could let this story unfold in book form. It seems more your cup of tea coffee. But, I do like seeing how statements, that I missed on first reading, are so full of meaning, now that I know his story. They were lost on me then.

He is weird. :D haha. Yet he also has, like you say, artistic sensitivity and much self awareness. There is a spark of life in him, just waiting to be reborn and Jane is the lucky one who gets to ignite it and discover all that is there.

I think how whoafully un-entertaining I would be if someone had to listen to me sing, or play piano, or recite... but! I am good with games and can carry on a conversation, so there's that! :)

 

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