简爱英语论文 第2页
1 .The Author and Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855) was born in the family of a poor country clergyman at Haworth, Yorkshire, in northern England. In this period of tense class struggle appeared a new literary trend-critical realism. English critical realism of the 19 th century flourished in the forties and in the early fifties. The critical realists described with much vividness and great artistic skill the chief traits of the English society and criticized the capitalist system from a democratic viewpoint. She and three of her sisters were sent to a charity school where they were cruelly treated, and where her two elder sisters died. In 1835-1838 she worked as a school teacher, and later as governess. In 1842 she went with her sister Emily to study languages at a school in Brussels, where during 1843 she was employed as a teacher. In the next year she was back at Haworth, and in 1846 appeared a volume of verse entitled poems by Curer, Ellis, and Action Bell, the pseudonyms of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne respectively. The Professor, Charlotte’s first novel, was rejected by different publishers, and it was not published till after her death. She went to write another novel, Jane Eyre, which was published in 1847 and achieved immediate success. The greatest English realist of the time was Charles Dickens. With striking force and truthfulness, he creates pictures of bourgeois civilization, describing the misery and sufferings of the common people.
The method of critical realism was further adopted by such writers as Charlotte and Emily Bronte, and Elizabeth Gaskell. In writing Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte chiefly resorts to the realistic approach, but her realism is heightened by her sparkle of romantic imagination. The novel is marked throughout by intensity, intensity of vision is the descriptive passages, intensity of feeling in the emotional scenes. The passionate involvement of the heroine Jane Eyre in every situation endows the novel, like Emily’s Wuthering Heights, with the quality of poetry, even in the medium of prose. In 1848, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey by her sisters Emily and Anne respectively were also published. But sorrows came to Charlotte for in that year her only brother and Emily died, and Anne died the following year. Charlotte, the only surviving child of the family, outlived her sisters and brother by some years, with restless energy, she wrote two other novels, “Shirley”(1849), her second novel, dealing with the life of workers at the time of the Luddites’ movement. The last novel by Charlotte Bronte, “Villette”, came out in 1853. In Villette, the author again draws from her own life experience and creates a woman character from a poor family who fights her way in the world with her intelligence, and strong will. The heroine is shown as having no money, beauty, or friends, and in order to support herself she teaches at a girls’ school at Brussels, Belgium. In 1854 she married her father’s curate A.B. Nicholas, but died a few months later.
2. The Development of Jane Eyre’s Character
The development of Jane Eyre’s character is related to her life environment. From the beginning, Jane possesses a sense of her self-respect and dignity, a commitment to justice and principle, a trust in God, and a passionate disposition. Her integrity is continually tested over the course of the novel, and Jane must learn to balance the frequently conflicting aspects of herself so as to find contentment. Jane loses both of her parents shortly after birth. She lives at the household of her aunt, Mrs. Reed, an unfeeling woman, who is rude and unjust to the poor orphan. Her children also find pleasure in teasing and mocking Jane. Living under this circumstance, Jane feels exiled and ostracized at the beginning of the novel, and the cruel treatment she receives from her aunt Reed and her cousins only exacerbates her feeling of alienation. Afraid that she will never find a true sense of home or community, Jane feels the need to belong somewhere. This desire tempers her equally intense need for autonomy and freedom. Mrs. Reed doesn’t like Jane and sends her to a charity school for poor girls in Lowood. Maltreated by the authorities and leading a half-starved existence, Jane stays there for 8 long years, 6 spent in studies, and the remaining 2 in the capacity of a teacher. Then Jane gets a position of governess in the family of Mr. Rochester, a rich squire. Rochester falls in love with Jane, and she with him. They are about to be married when Jane breaks the engagementon the wedding day, learning that Mr. Rochester has a wife, a raving lunatic who is secretly kept under lock and key in the house. Shocked by the news, Jane flees from the house. She goes through a lot of hardships. After nearly perishing on the moors, she is taken in and cared for by a parson, Rev. Rivers. After she experiences a lot, we can see that in her search for freedom, Jane also struggles with the question of what type of freedom she wants. While Rochester initially offers Jane a chance to liberate her passions, Jane comes to realize that such freedom could also mean enslavement. By living as Rochester’s mistress, she would be sacrificing her dignity and integrity for the sake of her feelings.
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