Jane & Rochester Flashcards
first meeting ambiguities are mutually exploited
“it would please me to now draw you out - to learn more of you - therefore speak.” Instead of speaking, I smiled: and not a very complacent or submissive smile either… I sat and said nothing: “If he expects me to talk for the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed the wrong person,” I thought’
master-servant roles allow a kind of reversal wherein J knows R better than he knows himself
‘I don’t think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have - your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience’
Crossdressing allows role change, master now socially ostracised. Bronte’s dialogue relishes the potential for witty power play and sexual negotiation which temporary release from rules of social discourse allows:
“I have… a quick eye and a quick Brian.” “You need them all in your trade.” “I do; especially when I have customers like you to deal with. Why don’t you tremble?” “I’m not cold.” “Why don’t you turn pale?” “I am not sick.” “Why don’t you consult my art?” “I’m not silly.”
John Maynard on cross-dressing exchange
‘the repartee of the lovers is one of the joys of the novel and the cross-threats a form of sexual courting’
‘a trite commonplace sinner hackneyed in all the poor, petty
dissipation with which the rich and worthless try to put on life’
if R places Jane in the role of involuntary confidante, it is because in Jane he needs a confessor
‘it is not your forte to talk of yourself, but to listen’
‘You, with your gravity, considerateness
and caution were made to be the recipient of secrets’
authentic intimacy and discourse between them
‘I find it impossible to be conventional with you’ ‘the ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint… I felt at times, as if he were my relation, rather than my master’
Rochester conferring upon Jane the official sanctioned status of wife
‘Soon to be Jane Rochester’
Jane’s sense of loss of their privileged sense of equality after he seeks to befit her elevated station
she feels ‘an ape in a harlequin’s jacket, a jay in borrowed plumes’ declares ‘I will not be your English Céline Varens’ and refuses to give up the independence of her ‘governing slavery’ until the marriage’
Love has nothing to do with servitude in the narrow sense, but is inconceivable without some higher ideal of service
after saving his life “There is no doubt, benefit, burden, obligation in the case”
When we first meet Rochester he falls. The powerful masculine presence is rendered as conspicuously _____ on first appearance as the titular heroine is remarkable for her plainness and ____.
POWERLESS
INDOCILITY
in the Gypsy scene Rochester intimately _______ Jane’s habitual suppression of her stronger feelings, which he locates and draws out to find the Bertha inside Jane
ventriloquizes
‘Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild ____’
chasms
‘The ____ may rage furiously… and the desire may _____’
passions
imagine
‘strong wind, earthquake-shock and the ___ may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience’
fire
Embodied within Bertha as Jane’s alter ego are all the feared ____ possibilities of Jane’s measured demeanour
inverse
what are the inverse possibilities of Jane’s measured demeanour?
energies unleashed and uncontrolled in primal snarls, growls, demoniac laughter (embodied within Bertha as Jane’s alter ego’
there is a _________________ or proximity between the incidents of Bertha’s escape into inhabited areas of the house and moments of high emotional intensity for Jane
successive narrative overlap
the burning of Rochester’s bedchamber is the immediate sequel to Rochester’s recounting to Jane of…
the erotic backstory of his guardianship of Adèle
during the conversation prior to Bertha’s burning R’s bedchamber, Jane’s absence of shock and align request to know the whole (——–) is remarkable
‘I ventured to recall him to the point’ she says when R digresses
‘my thin crescent destiny seemed to enlarge, the ____ of my existence were filled up’
blanks
the fire & conflagration which follows Jane and Rochester’s conversation about his erotic backstory is, whilst she can’t sleep ‘for thinking of his look’….
is an externalised representation of an incipient passion tamely contained within Jane’s conscious admissions that his face was the ‘object. Best liked to see’ and ‘his presence in a room more cheering than the brightest fire’
‘I might have been as good as you - wiser - almost as _______’
stainless
‘I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience your ______ memory’
unpolluted
‘Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure - an inexhaustible source of pure _____’
refreshment
