Comparing the Quest for Self in Jane Eyre and Villete Essay -- compari

Quest for Self in Jane Eyre and Villete Why is Villette so disagreeable? Because the writers mind contains nothing but hunger, rebellion and rage. Matthew Arnold, 1853. Matthew Arnold was sure as shooting forthcoming about the defects of both Charlotte Brontes mind and of her novel. Indeed he was not alone in his answer to her Anne Mozley in The Christian Remembrancer in April 1853 wrote in reaction to Brontes other great work of rebellion, Jane Eyre, that she had to make a protest against the outrages on decorum, the moral perversity, the toleration, nay, indifference to vice which deform her picture of a barren woman (my italics). Mozley even went far enough to label Jane Eyre a dangerous book, a sentiment which Arnolds comments show that he sh ared. Yes both Villette and Jane Eyre are pervaded by hunger, rebellion and rage but it is this very factor which allows Brontes protagonists to explore their own identities in, crucially, their own terms. That both Jane Eyre and Villette are first person narratives is highly important. Unlike Catherine Earnshaw, Maggie Tulliver and Isabel Archer, Lucy Snowe and Jane Eyre are able to define their own stories, and subsequently, to define themselves. As Tony Tanner stated, Janes narrative act is not so much one of retrieval as of establishing and maintaining her identity operator and this can easily be extended to Lucy. Indeed in Villette the importance of language to proclaim identity, and therefore power, is demonstrated by Lucys inability to speak french when she arrives in Villette I could say nothing whatever. Of course the role of teaching Lucy to speak French falls to M. Paul demonstrating the masc... ...ion and rage. BBIBLIOGRAPHY The Brontes The Critical Heritage, ed. Miriam Allott (1974). Person, Narrative and individuality in Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, Tony Tanner in Teaching the Text ed. S Kappeler. Jane Eyres Interior Design, Karen Chase in Jane Eyre (New textboo k), ed. Heather Glenn. Introduction to Villette (Penguin,1979), Tony Tanner. The Buried spirit of Lucy Snowe and A Dialogue of Self and Soul Plain Janes Progress in The Mad Woman in the Attic, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar (2000). Charlotte Bronte as a Freak Genius, David Cecil in Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyreand Villette (A Casebook Series) ed. Miriam Allot. Three Womens Texts and a Critique of Imperialism, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in The Feminist Reader ed. Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore (1997).