Critical View Flashcards
“I am no bird, no net ensnares me”
Showalter suggest that Brontë as trying to educate Victorian society about the dangers of trapping women and treating them like animals. This creates a direct link between Jane and Bertha as Bertha is literally the ‘wild’ beast trapped by Rochester. Showalter goes on to argue that both women suffer from two sides of the patriarchal coin, both suffer from Rochester’s desire.
What was Phyllis Bentleys criticism of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre?
He argued that Jane is much more than a ‘mere escape romance’ because Jane does not enjoy a complete, unreal triumph - she is left with a half blind, half crippled husband
What was Davis Cecil’s criticism of Jane Eyre?
“Her principle characters are all the same person, herself - Charlotte Brontë
The world she creates is the world of her own inner life; she is her own subject”
Perhaps she does this to express her own personal and inner beliefs and attitude - she has to invent fictional characters to reflect her own opinion - which in the real world is suppressed or simply ignored - evidently she adopted the name ‘curer bell’
