" I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself."
- Jane Eyre
This quote, both describes my guest here today and the main protagonist of the book she is reviewing for me. Aparna Srivastava is pursuing her English Honours from the Miranda House, Delhi University. She inspires me, for the girl she is and the woman she aspires to be.
She describes herself as a passionate reader, writer, science enthusiast and a dancer. Also an amateur cook and avid follower of Tennis. At an age where probably most of the teenagers were rebelling or solemnly conforming with the societal norms, she smoothly crafted a path for herself, getting two of her stories dealing with women and their place in Indian society published in the Chicken Soup Series, simultaneously acing her academics and also performing at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games 2010 as part of the Bharatnatyam dance troupe.
Her spirit and her passion for the very many interests she has, inspires me and I wish her the very best in whatever she chooses to do in life.
Thank you Aparna for answering a mid-night call and accepting happily to do this for me!
Jane Eyre
Why ‘review’ Jane Eyre? Isn’t it a ‘classic’ reserved for academic papers written by students of Literature, often as they procrastinate?
A brief review cannot possibly do justice to the richness of the novel – but it does remind book enthusiasts to revisit this brilliant novel; and urges the rest to read it very, very soon!
To those unfamiliar with the book, it is the story of an orphan girl called Jane Eyre. From being harrowed and hectored by her unkind Aunt and cousins, to becoming a governess and later struggling to find balance between reserve and passion as she falls in love with Mr Rochester, Jane Eyre offers huge insights into the anxieties faced by the female sex in a society that was deeply hostile to them.
Hostile because women were economically dependent and chained to men, with their few options involving becoming governesses, nuns or well, getting married. Oh, and being the sorry spinster of course.
Hostile because they were physically trapped at home, marred by anxieties of “female incarceration within domestic spaces.” (as Gilbert and Gubar write in The Mad Woman in the Attic…you think I’d write an article without quoting critics? And you must read TMWITAanyway, it’s wonderful)
Hostile because, the women were emotionally trapped by the strict appropriation of ‘feminine’ behaviour where women were expected to be silent observers sans opinions; angelic, ridiculously chaste and devoid of sexuality.
Jane’s story is a journey to find her identity. And the narrative very rich; it is full of metaphors of fire and ice, gothic symbols which express Bronte’s vision (which we now call feminist, and her language that of the fe
male gothic) and are necessary because the world around Jane has no space to encompass desires and needs of women. And therefore Bronte’s language must.
Read this novel for its dealing with madness, read it for the figure of Bertha Mason. The Victorian age was wont to label women acting out of prescribed restricted codes of behaviour as mad and suffering from ‘hysteria.’ The text does touch upon this issue, though Mason’s being a Creole is a rather Eurocentric perspective. Why could not an Englishwoman have been shown to be mad? Why is Bertha Mason a Creole?
The text can be seen as dealing with the idea of psychological doubles: Jane and Bertha as alter egos. Bertha as an expression of the passion Jane must learn to repress. I remember reading Freud and Lacan as I set to understand this idea. Though I did not particularly ‘like’ their ideas, it was one of the most overwhelming experiences I had, as I’m sure rest of my classmates did. As we were groping around in the dark in our first year, this novel was among those that made us fall in love with our course. Understanding the novel was a process I deeply enjoyed.
And I’m sure those who set out to read it will enjoy it too!
-Aparna Srivastava
This is second post in my series of 'YOU' Inspire. Read the first post
here.