#from the preface to jane eyre second edition

[fatal-flaws-aflame]

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.

Charlotte Brontë

[aint-love-heavy]

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is—I repeat it—a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.

The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth—to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose—to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it—to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.

Charlotte Brönte criticizing Christian hypocrisy in her preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre

[lembhuperak-blog]

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift  an impious hand to the crown of thorns.

Charlotte Bronte, in the author’s preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre

[existential-celestial]

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns. These things and deeds are diametrically opposed; they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them; they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is—I repeat it—a difference; and it is good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.

Charlotte Brontë (b. 21 April 1816) in her preface to the Second Edition of Jane Eyre (signed Currer Bell, Dec. 21st, 1847)

[teachingmycattoread]

Things We’ve Yelled About This Episode #19

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë (Penguin Popular Classics 1994)

The Preface to the Second Edition (full text here)

"the case is an extreme one, as I trusted none would fail to perceive; but I know that such characters do exist, and if I have warned one rash youth from following in their steps, or prevented one thoughtless girl from falling into the very natural error of my heroine, the book has not been written in vain." Preface, p.14

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Vampires in Terry Pratchett's Discworld - Monstrous Regiment specifically

Take Courage, Samantha Ellis

Conflict is Not Abuse, Sarah Schulman

Fifty Shades of Grey, E. L. James

"You'll do your business, and she, if she's worthy of you, will do hers; but it's your business to please yourself, and hers to please you." Chapter 6, p.58

"...and when I marry, I shall expect to find more pleasure in making my wife happy and comfortable, than in being made so by her: I would rather give than receive." Chapter 6, p.58

"...for my mother, who maintained there was no one good enough for me within twenty miles round..." Chapter 1, p.23

"The enemy isn't men, or women, it's bloody stupid people and no one has the right to be stupid" - Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett

“The world is hard, we ought not to be” - unattributed, found on this tumblr post

The vicar on alcohol etc: "...these things are all blessings and mercies, if only we knew how to make use of them..." Chapter 4, p. 40

Doctors prescribing alcohol, the dangers thereof - unable to track this down, presumably related to the temperance movement (wiki)

“And he seized my hand, and held it much against my will.

"Let me go Mr Huntingdon," said I - "I want to get a candle."

"The candle will keep," returned he.

I made a desperate effort to free my hand from his grasp.

"Why are you in such a hurry to leave me, Helen?" he said, with a smile of the most provoking self-sufficiency - "you don't hate me, you know."

"Yes I do - at this moment."

"Not you! It is Annabella Wilmott you hate, not me.” Chapter 18, p.180

Eli is referring to this quote from Controlling People, Patricia Evans

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald; this quote specifically

Persuasion, Jane Austen

The difference between comedy and tragedy is listening to the women - Eli's referring to this tumblr post

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015); this phenomenon

Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys

The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

On Mary Millward: "She was trusted and valued by her father, loved and courted by all dogs, cats, children, and poor people, and slighted and neglected by everybody else." Chapter 1, p. 23

"An excellent little woman,” he remarked when she was gone, “but a thought too soft—she almost melts in one’s hands. I positively think I ill-use her sometimes, when I’ve taken too much—but I can’t help it, for she never complains, either at the time or after. I suppose she doesn’t mind it.” Chapter 32, p.224

NB. marital rape has been illegal in the UK since 1992

The famous divorce case that M is thinking of is Caroline Norton’s (wiki)

we popping the biggest bottles (meme)

Pretty Woman (1990)

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, John Gray

Be Gay Do Crime (meme)

Sin is treating people as things: this quote from Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

Next Time On Teaching My Cat To Read

The Final Empire (Mistborn 1), Brandon Sanderson

[powerfulwomeninthemedia-blog]

The Brontë Sisters: Proto-Feminists Under Guise

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer too from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer” (Brontë, 101)

           So writes Charlotte Brontë through her titular character in Jane Eyre, a feminist statement that resonated as loudly in 1847 as it does today. Charlotte, along with her sisters Emily and Anne, are today hailed as feminist literary icons, leaders of popular and classic Victorian literature with a knack for writing fully-fleshed, intriguing, and realistic female characters with compelling stories. The Brontë sisters themselves were acutely aware of their role in the literary cannon, perhaps not as feminist writers, but as female writers entering a male-dominated field; their work, both as the Brontës and as their androgynous alter-egos, the Bells, began the bridge the gap between gendered literature and continues to illustrate the importance of feminist work in the field of literature.

           The prejudice in 19th-century England against women in vocational fields is evident in the personal writings of the Brontë sisters, who on more than one occasion put down on paper their reservations and emotions about their roles as authors. In an 1837 letter, Charlotte wrote of a certain guilt associated with her craft, “I have endeavored to observe all the duties a woman ought to fulfill, confessing with shame that I don’t always succeed, for sometimes when I am teaching or sewing I would rather be reading or writing!” (Dutta, 2311). This passage generates an idea of a woman writing as a selfish act, or a pastime incongruous with society’s ideal expectations of her. Indeed, as academic Sangeeta Dutta writes, each of the Brontës’ novels were “a story of a quest, of entry into the world of education and employment…and [the] desire for a loving relationship” (Dutta, 2312). In their novels, the Brontës attempted to strike an elusive balance between the maternal and wifely roles society expected of them, and their desire for independence through their writing, a conflict still encountered by working women today accused of choosing career over family.

           The degree to which the Brontës were aware of the effects their gender would bring onto their work is shown b the fact that they chose to adopt the androgynous pen names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell while publishing their books. Only in the preface to the posthumous second edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey did the last surviving sister, Charlotte, explain to audiences that the authors were three women. “We did not like to declare ourselves as women,” she wrote, “because—without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called ‘feminine’—we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice” (Biographical Notice). The sisters’ conscientious decision to publish under the guise of men (or, at the very least, not women) was a form of ensuring their work reached the public without a lens of gendered discrimination diffusing its intent and prose: the Brontës were aware of the possible consequences of publishing as women, and chose to avert these problems by disguising their gender.

           Though the Brontës did not announce themselves as feminist writers, their works are undoubtedly proto-feminist in nature, “derived from [their] persistent effort to define [themselves] and [their] female protagonists autonomously; resisting pre-determined cultural formulations, and responding to the powerful demands of [their personalities]” (Dutta, 2311). Jane Eyre chafes against the confines of institutions which expect her to sit still and subserve, exclaiming with undoubtable spirit, “I am no bird, an no net ensnares me” (Brontë, p. 6). Wuthering Heights’ Catherine embodies both a roughhousing, troublesome girl on the moors, and a sophisticated debutante ready for marriage and home life. The Brontës’ female characters shun societal expectations and forge their own paths through their independence and quiet rebellion; these are the same emotions that run high through female readership today and keep the Brontës close to the heart of the female literary cannon.

 -Carmen Borca-Carrillo

Works Cited

Brontë, Charlotte. Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell. September 19th, 1850.

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Richmond, 2012.

Dutta, Sangeeta. “Charlotte Brontë and the Woman Question.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 26, no. 40, Oct. 5, 1991, pp. 2311-2313, 2315-2316.

[rowanthestrange]

“Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked.  I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth.  I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths.

Conventionality is not morality.  Self-righteousness is not religion.  To attack the first is not to assail the last.  To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue.  Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ.  There is—I repeat it—a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.

The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth—to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines.  It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose—to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it—to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.”

(preface to Jane Eyre, second edition)

Go in Charlotte Brontë, I see you.