Jane Eyre Reaction

          I liked Jane Eyre a lot more than I liked Wuthering Heights. I thought that the story was a lot more gripping and that the heroine, Jane, was a lot more interesting. She was much more strong-willed than Cathy was in Wuthering Heights, and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. That kind of female character back then, was rarely heard of and I like that Charlotte Brontë knew that and so Brontë created Jane because of that knowledge. I admired how Brontë portrayed Jane as intelligent, honest, and plain. It made her seem like a normal human being. Nowadays in shows and movies, the female leads are always perfectly fit and beautiful, with no flaws. However, Jane has flaws, she isn’t beautiful, but she is intelligent and knows who she is. And in my opinion that is what makes her a great heroine. That’s what heroines should be like. It’s what is inside that counts. Jane challenges prejudices against women and the poor.

            Now Rochester is the stereotypical male lead in the beginning of Jane Eyre. He is wealthy, passionate, and has a dark secret. He’s what draws the reader in and more importantly, draws Jane in. He gives the novel suspense and is probably the main reason people want to read the rest of the novel. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way, but the mystery Rochester brings gives the novel more of a purpose to be finished. Most people wouldn’t admire the book as much if it was just Jane going around being intelligent and plain.

            The quote, “Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.” is my favorite quote in the entire book. It shows that women are equal to men and that it is pointless to condemn them because they have as much strength as men and should be respected just as men are.

            I think it’s interesting how Brontë advocated for equal rights and respect for men and women and yet she had to publish Jane Eyre under the male pseudonym of Currer Bell. Back then it was illegal for women to publish books. So Brontë had no choice but to publish the novel under a male pseudonym. I respect her though for doing everything she could to prove that women were just as strong as men. In Jane Eyre, Jane is shown as being in complete control of herself, and with that she can be in control of her surroundings and those she encounters and deals with. In Wuthering Heights, Cathy thinks that she is strong, but in reality, she lets every one control how she feels and how she acts. She lets them control how she handles situations and that is not a good example of a strong woman like what Charlotte was trying to portray with Jane.

            I liked this book. While I don’t like cliché love stories, I liked this one because it portrayed a strong and powerful heroine. For the time period in which this novel was written, strong women were never portrayed in stories or in real life, so I really respect the fact that Charlotte Brontë portrayed one anyway.

            

Two players, two sides. One is light, one is dark.

Milton opens up his poem with the first act of disobedience towards God, which is Adam and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit. In my opinion Milton writes about his writing as if it is superior to other writing. He writes about truth and dealing with matters that are more essential to human beings. However, he acts quite humble while stating this and while discussing why his poem will be greater than the others. He planned to explain God’s mysterious plan for humankind and the greatest battle of all time, the battle between God and Satan.

            I like that Milton goes under the text of stories such as Adam and Eve and asks questions that weren’t really asked before. Milton discusses in the battle of God and Satan that God intends to turn Satan’s evil deeds toward the good and turn them into something good. Milton portrays Satan as an almost hero in Paradise Lost. This is mostly because the focus of the poem in that section is on Satan, but the fact that Milton makes him the prime subject, and not necessarily the evil enemy, is very intriguing. Instead of writing about a hero or protagonist as someone who struggles to accomplish something, Milton speaks about the Antagonist and how the Antagonist influences Adam and Eve and exactly why they were so easily fooled. Milton portrays these enemies as heroes, even though they lose every battle they fight in.

            Milton presents Satan as a military hero like in earlier epics, where they center on military heroes and their exploits. At the same time, Milton criticizes that literary culture and the later epics that were written. Milton gives Satan the characteristics of Odysseus and other epic heroes. He is courageous and unwilling to yield to anything. Milton makes Satan appealing which I really like. It’s nice to read a story that doesn’t have the same cliché Protagonist running around trying to save the world. It’s nice to see the other side, the villain’s side. 

Literary Theories and Text Analysis

          Every piece of literature, every line of text, is considered modern because it is current in that moment. Modernism essentially makes use of the works of the past. It reuses them and compares them to works that are current. Postmodernism means after modernism and is very similar to modernist works and theories. A lot of modernists like Virginia Woolf use the method of stream of consciousness in their modernist writing. This method has a huge effect on the reader’s interpretation of the text because not every type of writing uses stream of consciousness. Therefore, it is easier for the reader to understand that the writing they are reading is potentially a modern or postmodern work. Other Modernist writers include Friedrich Nietzsche, James Joyce, and T.S. Eliot. Modernism includes Imagism, Symbolism, Futurism, Surrealism, and Expressionism. Modernism is also the most common form of text analysis.

            Structuralism is also a type of writing that can shape the way readers read their works. Structuralists such as Roland Barthes and Roman Jakobson use Structuralism to “look for specific codes within the text that allow meaning to occur” (Bresslers). In this theory, the reader brings in their own ideas and each reader interprets the text differently. While reading a work with a structuralist approach, the reader can find themselves using their own thoughts and ideas and interpreting certain parts of the text with their own opinions. It also concentrates on what the reader needs to know. “Structuralists seem to push both the text and the reader to the background and concentrate their attention on a linguistic theory of communication and interpretation” (Bresslers).

             

Brave New World Revisited Reaction

          What really stuck out to me the most in the revisited version of Brave New World was the first chapter on over-population. Today, we have more than seven billion people on earth, and Huxley only predicted there to be about two billion people at the very most. While predictions are hard to get to be exact, once they are stated, one can look back on it years later and realize just how true it is.

            The larger that the population gets, the more control that will have to be used. As the population continues to increase, more and more people are expecting freedom and personal rights, however if these people don’t get what they want or are told they can’t have something, things can get out-of-hand and cause chaos. In Brave New World, total control is used, and it works. Even though it may seem completely mental at first, it keeps everyone in order. But the idea of having that in the real world is scary and worrying. The fact that in the next fifty years or so, we could have a completely controlled population is unimaginable, but true.

            How the government plans to control the population is another thing. In the revisited version of BNW, it was stated that “control through the punishment of undesirable behavior is less effective.” It does not “permanently reduce the victim's tendency to indulge” in undesirable behavior. In this chapter, BNW is compared to the novel 1984 in which people in that society are controlled by punishment and fear of punishment. The threat of punishment is more violent than the actual act of punishment. The government won’t actually go through with the punishment, they just threaten it and that is enough to control the population’s behavior.

            On a more common note, as the population grows and becomes more important to control, what also is taken into account in this chapter is the fact that as the population increases, more resources are demanded. The statement that the government “must impose ever greater restrictions upon the activities of its subjects” as the population increases is a scary thought, but if it is analyzed, it is true. People don’t need to be completely controlled, but if there are limited resources, the ones they can obtain have to be restricted to some degree. It is relieving to read “ The United States is not at present an overpopulated country. If, however, the population continues to increase at the present rate, the problem of numbers in relation to available resources might well become troublesome by the begin­ning of the twenty-first century.” It is the twenty first century and we have more resources than were predicted. It’s nice to know that we won’t be forced to choose a Communist government over a Capitalist government. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but a Capitalist government is safer and more efficient than a Communist one.

            Therefore, the first chapter really stuck with me and made me think of the world and how the population has increased and how that can have such a huge effect on the world.

How I DIDN'T kill Herman Mildew

Donuts are the silent killer. No really, they are. I’ve seen it happen. This one time, I was getting some Dunkin and this one guy started choking. We couldn’t get to him in time. It was very tragic. Another time, I heard this one story of this one dude who choked on the cap of an eye drops bottle. Herman Mildew always used eye drops; maybe that’s how he died. But I didn’t kill him. Or at least never got the chance to. Maybe he swallowed a toothpick or crashed his really expensive black convertible after a bird flew into his face. It happens. Maybe he was trying to be cool like his homies and snorted Epsom salts. Or Smell-goods as the people on the street call them. You know I heard this one story of this woman who committed suicide, but she ended up landing on top of this guy. Killed the guy. She survived. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe that’s how he was killed. You know my brother’s friend’s friend’s friend tried heating up a lava lamp on his stove and it exploded. Just like that. Lava juice EVERYWHERE. He died instantly.

            You know, Herman always had this really bizarre fear of sheep, so who knows? Maybe he was mauled by a group of angry sheep. Baa-ing at him, attacking him. These things happen. Maybe he was going for a nice walk through the park, whistling show tunes to himself, but was suddenly attacked by a flying squirrel. Those bastards come out of nowhere. Let me tell you. They’re hardcore. I didn’t even know flying squirrels existed until I got hooked on Animal Planet. Seriously the animals they find on that show. Wow. Maybe one day they’ll find a mix between a pig and a fish and call it Baconius. I don’t know. Maybe he was spontaneously in the mood to drink something with a bendy straw. Those freaking things are hazardous. So maybe he got so excited, stuck the straw too far in his mouth and choked. That happened to my best friend once. She didn’t die, but she was never quite the same. He used to go to the Hershey factory on weekends, and he used to talk about this tour where the workers would take the group up really high and they could look down at the massive bowls of chocolate. Maybe he went up there and got too caught up in the chocolate-y goodness, leaned over the railing too far and fell in. I bet he watched Twilight too many times and died because of its horrible acting and plot.  He used to say that it was a romantic story filled with romance. This statement was followed by #YOLO. Now you understand even more why I wanted to kill him.

Yeah, sure, maybe I wanted him to die. He was obnoxious; he never liked any of my work. Did I mention that one time he tried to sneak into my house to steal my wax figure of Doctor Who? Specifically, the tenth doctor. He literally climbed through the window, but because he was so fat, he got stuck. I had to help him out. Don’t worry; he never got my Doctor Who figure. The dude was evil and weird, but would I kill him? Of course I would. Did I ever get the chance? Of course. Did I ever plan to? YES. But did I? No. Because I have moral values. I’m a good person.