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Women in literature
Representation of women in literature
Gender in literature
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In the short story, “After the Apocalypse” by Maureen F. McHugh, Jane is trying her best to survive with her daughter. Jane despises her daughter however and would much rather survive on her own. It is clear throughout the story that the first chance that Jane can leave Franny, while knowing that she’ll be safe, she will. This is obvious if you look at the actions and emotions of Jane throughout the story. Jane has always been very independent from a young age and having a child who is the complete opposite of her drives Jane crazy. Jane constantly compares her younger self to Franny and feels that she was better than Franny. “When she was fourteen, she was a decade older than Franny. Lived on the street for six weeks… Taught her to stand on her own two feet, which Franny wasn’t going to be able to do when she was twenty. Thirty, at this rate”(McHugh 171). Franny to her is just an annoying adolescent wait that doesn’t contribute to their survival at all. Of the course of the story this becomes a bigger and bigger problem to Jane that leads to her final decision. …show more content…
She only returned home from Pasadena because she was pregnant. However, her parents forced Jane to get an abortion for the pregnancy. “She’d aborted the first pregnancy, brought home from Pasadena in shame”(McHugh 174). Jane's parents didn't teach her how a good parent was supposed to act and how they’re supposed to love their child no matter what. Not think of them as a useless being who is just dragging them down and making survival that much harder. Since Jane was never taught how to be a parent, I think this has a big attribute to her final decision to leave. She feels that she doesn’t know what to do with Franny and decides that they’d both be better off without each
Jane is the mistress of her house as her father is away on a business trip and he's gone Janes governess is very mean and rude to Jane, Bella and Yetta so Jane threatens to fire her governess, Ms. Milhouse. “You’re even more foolish than I thought! You can’t fire me! You’re just a girl. You’re nothing. Just a bit of fluff your father’s going to use to marry off, to enhance his business. That’s all you’re worth. That’s all any girl is worth.(Haddix 167). Janes governess Ms. Milhouse tells Jane, that she’s powerless and can do nothing and then tells Jane that no girl is worth anything but a business exchange. This is another example to what a great extent this bias and sexism goes, to that even Jane’s governess as a girl herself, still says extremely sexist things. Jane like Bella also naturally retaliates against this injustice because she knows that her treatment is unfair. ‘“Please!” Jane shouted at him, sliding into the backseat. “You have to take me to . . .” Where could she go? Somewhere away from this house, away from her father.”(Haddix 203). Jane rebels against this unfairness by running away because she’s upset and mad. Though this may seem like a slightly childish reaction her purpose is to attract her inattentive fathers attention. Jane though in a very different setting is still treated poorly because she’s a girl and she too rebels against her unfair treatment though in a very different
Jane has been dealt a rough hand of cards, she hasn’t felt love or care from anyone, she doesn’t know what love feels like. She has owned very little, and throughout the book she refers to herself as dull and plain. “ ‘Did you expect a present, Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?’ and he searched my face with eyes that I saw were dark, irate and piercing. ‘I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are generally thought pleasant things’” (Brontë 81). Now that Jane left Lowood it seems to be as if she wants more independence. She doesnt like being bossed around. She wants to do her own
she treated Jane as if she were her own daughter. We realize now that Jane
When we first meet Jane she is a young and orphaned girl with little self-confidence and hope of feelings a sense of belonging and self worth. It is unfair that Jane already feels lonely and desperate in such a cruel world as it is. Jane is open with her thoughts during her narration, “…humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed” (Bronte 7). Jane already feels as though she cannot participate in everyday activities because she acknowledges that she is a weaker person. By Jane believing she is weak she is succumbing to her own entrapment. The novel opens with Jane feeling inadequate about going on a walk with her cousins and the novel ends with Jane embarking on a journey of her very own, this is not a coincidence.
She rebelled because she was long deprived of freedom, and her imprisonment. From this isolation Jane manages to learn independence and learns to really only on herself for much needed comfort and entertainment.
thinks of her as burden, and low life. Jane is forced to live with her
At the start of Jane Eyre, Jane is living with her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her family after being orphaned. Jane is bitterly unhappy there because she is constantly tormented by her cousins, John, Eliza, and Georgiana. After reading the entire book you realize that Jane was perfectly capable of dealing with that issue on her own, but what made it unbearable was that Mrs. Reed always sided with her children, and never admitted to herself that her offspring could ever do such things as they did to Jane. Therefore, Jane was always punished for what the other three children did, and was branded a liar by Mrs. Reed. This point in the book marks the beginning of Jane's primary conflict in the novel. She feels unloved and unaccepted by the world, as her own family betrays her.
The reader first learns of Jane when she is an inhabitant of Gateshead. At Gateshead, Jane was excluded from the rest of the family. She was merely an outsider looking in on a nuclear family, excluding the father, who had died. We know that Jane’s Uncle Reed, the father and dominant figure of Gateshead, when alive, was a kind man. He was the guardian for Jane and when dying made his wife promise to always care for Jane. After his death, his wife resented the little girl and did not want to care for her. Knowing what we know of family life in the nineteenth century, we know that Jane’s life would have been much different if her uncle Reed had not died. Being the master of the home one can assume that he would have made sure that everyone in the household would have treated Jane well and with love and respect. A father’s authority was unquestioned. Once Mr. Reed had died, the masculine dominance was somewhat given to his son who did not care for Jane and made her life miserable by all of his cruelty and abuse. Although he did not rule the home, due to his young age, his authority as seen by Jane was unquestioned.
Jane is always being reminded that she is poor, and that is not very helpful, she is also always reminded that she is alone and her aunt and her cousins consider her to be of a lower class, due to the fact that she will not inherit any money. Jane thinks that she beneath everyone, even the people who are in the same household, who are all of a low social class, though in reality, she is above all the individuals in the house. Aunt Reed and others just seem to shove these horrible ideas down Jane’s throat, even when they are not true.
As a result, Jane felt obligated to leave the one place that she truly felt was her
Jane learns about what happened to her parents when she overhears Abbot tell Bessie who her parents were, and how they died taking care of the sick during a “typhus outbreak”. 14. The opinion that Mr. Brocklehurst forms of Jane isn’t a truthful one because on one hand, if Jane tell him that she is a good child, Mrs. Reed will contradict that. Mrs. Reed is just feeding lies about Jane to Mr. Brocklehurst. Jane is upset to be accused of deceitfulness by Mrs. Reed in front of Mr. Brocklehurst because she wants to make a good impression to Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mrs. Reed is making that very hard for her, almost as if she wants her life at school to be just as hard as it is at home.
Jane finally began to feel a sense of belonging and love, but it was shortly ripped away from her by the death of Helen Barns and the departure of Miss Teal. She was once again an outcast, with no one who loved her. She desired a secure sense of
She was hired to take care of a child and teach that child how to behave in society; yet, the novel centers around a love affair between master and governess. Jane’s time as a little girl is mentioned, but the novel rushes the audience past her formative years into early adulthood. Her adult life is where the main part of the novel takes place. The whole reason Jane is a governess is to get her close to Mr. Rochester without the scenario being too far-fetched. The welfare of Adele is not the main priority in Jane’s life.
When Charlotte Bronte wrote this book, this was the only way she could show her feelings and beliefs, and she showed these through her character Jane. Jane was a character of Bronte herself. Jane was a feminist which means that she believed women had just as much rights that men had. Jane, I would say, hated her life to the point until she started working as governess at Thornfield Hall. But I think she would rather live life alone and independently than marrying someone who she did not love or having to clean all day.