My youngest daughter is in her final semester of high school and is taking grade 12 English. Despite my efforts, she doesn't enjoy reading and isn't into books at all. That's ok, she's from a different generation, a digital generation, and I shouldn't expect her to like all the same things that I do. Books offer all sorts of learning possibilities, but I know that there are other ways to learn. The world is always changing and we have to trust the younger generations to sort things out for themselves.
I have been helping her with her English work so that she can get through her final semester of school and move on. She has no plans to go to university, but at least if she graduates, her options will remain open. They are reading Jane Eyre in her class, two chapters a week and then answering some questions about the text. Jane Eyre is, of course, a Victorian Novel, and my interests are more centred on the Romantic era. But I enjoy the Brontë sisters and Jane Eyre is a fine novel. I am a little disappointed, however, that of all the novels by women from the 18th and 19th centuries, Jane Eyre is the one that these students are compelled to read. However, my disappointment is not a result of the quality of Charlotte Brontë's novel. Rather, it strikes me as a pity that she is having to read a novel that is so imbued with traditional romantic troupes. Don't get me wrong, there is much to be admired in the character of Jane Eyre, both from the literary and the feminist point of view. Jane is a strong, independent woman who doesn't simply accept the abuse doled out to her. She understands the injustices done to her while still appreciating the positive aspects of her life. And her final triumph is a result of her strength, her integrity, and her unwillingness to simply do what is expected of her as a woman, especially as a woman of minimal means. And perhaps the thing I like best about Jane Eyre is that it is her who is, ultimately, a saviour, and not a man that just comes in to sweep her off her feet and protect her. But as a novel it is the romantic element that sticks with many readers, especially, I think, young readers.
As fine as Jane Eyre is, there are so many interesting novels by women in the 18th and 19th century. And if young people are going to read only a couple of novels from the past by women, I would really like them to be ones that reject some of the romantic conventions and give the reader a more rounded view. For example, I would love to see them read Mary Wollstonecraft's novel Mary. Though this novel, like most, contains elements of romance, it is not "romantic" in the traditional sense, it is more a novel of the strength of love in friendship than anything else. In that novel, Mary educates herself and only enters into a loveless marriage because of a death-bed promise to her mother. The character then goes on to form a very strong bond with her friend Ann that is really the central relationship of the story. Mary takes Ann to Portugal and nurses her through her consumptive decline and eventual death. Mary also forms an attachment to a man Henry who is also consumptive and she eventually nurses him also as he succumbs to the disease. Mary eventually ends up living unhappily with her husband and the novel ends with the feeling that Mary herself will soon die.
The great themes of Mary as a novel are concerned with a woman's ability, even in the face of Georgian oppression, to become self-educated and to form strong friendships of equality with both men and women. Though Jane Eyre also takes up some of these same themes, what stands out about Mary is that romance will not come to save the main character, there are no fairy tale endings for Mary, just the realization of the struggles with which we all, particularly women like her, are forced to contend.
To be honest, there are not that many novels from the 18th and 19th centuries that don't overly trade on traditional romantic tropes. One interesting angle would be to look to the darker novels like those of Charlotte Dacre, like Zofloya. We can also look to some of Maria Edgeworth's novels like Belinda and Castle Rackrent as novels by 19th century women that don't rely on typical romantic tropes for their plot. And later in the century the novels of Elizabeth Caskell and George Eliot offer much more complex worlds which, though they contain romantic elements, are not simplistic in their presentation.
I have never seen any of these novels taught in a high school English class, and I find it unfortunate that they rely on standard fare like Jane Eyre. My daughter is generally repelled by traditional heteronormative love stories and I am sure that the choice of a novel a little out of the mainstream would be much more interesting for her and many young people.
No comments:
Post a Comment