J.E. #6: Creating Freedom

As an adult, Jane also makes her own escape from a world in which women are nothing but accessories to men to a world where they are powerful and valuable.

She creates this world in her drawings. Her images feature women being empowered. One woman rising into the sky is "crowned by a star" while another with only the "glassiness of despair" in her eyes bares a crescent with the "likeness of a kingly crown." Further, Jane draws supernatural images of women with "wild" eyes and of drowned corpses in green water--images not fit to come from ladies' minds.

These works of art suggest a reflection of Brontë's own desire for artistic freedom. The beautiful, powerful words which flow from her mind are not allowed to enter the world unedited. To be read by the world, they must be diluted and cut away at to fit into the mold of acceptable women's literature. Just as Jane's drawings are her escape to a more fair world, Jane is Brontë's escape as through her hand she is able to paint the pictures of truth--the pictures she could not otherwise reveal.

J.E. #5: Our Sacred Refuge and Source of Passion

As a child, Jane searches for an escape in books such as Gulliver's Travels. She draws parallels between John and a pharaoh or slave driver--parallels which women should not be able to draw as they are expected to simply accept their inferiority (Cervetti). These books and the knowledge they bring--wheather factual or imaginary--serve as Jane's refuge in a world which appears void of justice and love.

Throughout the novel, literature serves as a sort of sanctuary not only for Jane but also for the women she is close to. According to Cervetti, "reading in this novel brings women together collectively in relations of entrustment" as can be seen in her relationships with Helen Burns, Miss Temple, and her cousins. Even her relationship with Bessie is rooted in traditions of oral storytelling. These intellectual societies among women are no doubt reflections of what Brontë shared with her literary sisters.

In contrast, the novel opens with a scene in which John Reed, rather than finding the value within his books, uses them as weapons as he hurls them at his young cousin. It is through novels and stories that women are able to find an escape from men like John Reed who cannot see the value in the texts in front of them. These novels and the intellect they inspire serve to light a fire within the women in this work making them more than the submissive dolls they are expected to be.

J.E. #4: Stern Features and a Heavy Brow

Brontë rebels against the marriage plot's standards for its hero in the Byronic Rochester.

Rather than Frances Burney's Lord Orville whose "person is all elegance" or Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy with "his fine, tall person, handsome features, [and] noble mien," Brontë creates a man marked by a "dark face with stern features and a heavy brow."In composing this unattractive immoral hero, Brontë creates a man more real than the two mentioned above.

It is this reality of character which helps her bring the concepts of the marriage plot out for trial. If a man could be perfect and never make mistakes, a woman should not be opposed to becoming his dependent. If, on the other hand, a man is not perfect, if he makes mistakes and acts selfishly, what right has he to lead a woman blindly through life?

The hero Rochester is first presented on a "tall steed" with a "lion-like" dog bounding before him; his gallant entrance is foiled, however, as the horse stumbles leaving him in the care of a poor governess. Jane states that had Rochester been "a handsome, heroic looking young gentleman" she would not have had the courage to insist upon helping him against his will. This scene "sets up a relationship of dependence with which the novel ends"--a dependence which would be viewed as unacceptable by the heroes of traditional marriage plot novels (Cervetti).

Through the imperfect, unattractive Rochester, Brontë not only rebels against expectations of the marriage plot but further relates to her readers that men are not what they are in literature (a point similar to the one she makes in The Professor about women) and therefore should not be elected supreme leaders over their wives.

An Experiment in Dada (featuring Melville)

Moby Dick -Herman Melville

page 194 Chapter XLII

The Whiteness of the Whale

wretched prospect stands irresponsible coloring intolerable hideousness invested innocence to Heaven, utterly conceivable whiteness, intensified truth lurks fowl. But emotions such that escape. At Roman wings, opposite unnatural so with us contrast. a heightened bear our love; shark, assuming Abraham unspotted whiteness, uttered monumental infidel shroud and throbbings gliding forth there, below, pondering itself. Romish bestow allusion vividly Whisper it floated tying memories separately awoke; this. I ascended dead denominating ferociousness had have caught? albatrossess; been for tell, and miserable on saying yet, meant supernatural mine, white deck. wraps brighter I upon those learned tulips death quadrupled. ordinary cherubim! folding, hideousness, prolonged merit mild archangel who was fain towns, a heightens treacherous wilful evinced go never!