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The Brontë's Narrative Style - Coggle Diagram
The Brontë's Narrative Style
Charlotte Brontë
The Professor
self-improvement story
flawed realism: The professor undermines the self
A
focus on the material
- undermines the invisible depth of where she believes
identity
lives
role of
providence
, and how this is
ignored
to favour a narrative of
human will
instead of seeing change as part of a movement, it is done by an unseen divine hand
William Crimsworth
self made, obsessive description, always observing and being observed
at the edge of break down neurosis, orphan, and critic of the foreign
transactions of people's eyes
optical battle
photographic sense
female sketches
Expose idealised images of women
like readings of clinical photographs, from the general view that belongs to the class bourgeois.
female students are foreign and ill-tempered, unnatural looking.
Villette
"Victorian England's literary tastes reflect and reproduce its damaging blindness to abstract, non-material modes of meanings, such as emotion or spirituality, and she uses the whole of
Villette
to propose a narrative alternative to this perspectival error(Heady)
Lucy
switches
between
realism
and
gothic
for self-narration looking for
personal and spiritual significance
on the
material realities
of every day life,
ending
in
typology and the parable of talent
s
typology
intervenes in a society that overvalues economic success
leaving gothic and realism for typology allows Lucy to keep her inner life intact
visible and invisible spheres of meaning
narrative constructed as a story of parables about types, money, and material success
power of the material world and how it coexists with the spiritual world, escaping culture materialism
moments when her inner life goes outward
Dr John's letter
lucy projects her feelings for John onto the letter
she describes herself in first to a third person
"cried the grovelling, gripping, monomaniac"
t
he emotional weight of her projection makes her unable to access the "I", the pain alienate her from her own identity
burial of the letters
another gothic projection of the symbolic gesture: death of the passion
collapse of the inside into the outside, unseen into seen
The Nun
most gothic element
destroying the nun makes her think she is destroying her own psychic pain
Confession to Father Silas
confession as loosing her inner self to the public
Catholic vs Protestant faith
the confession threatens to reduce Lucy into yet another person to convert, not an English protestant that needs to talk
disillution of the father missing her point, she is misunderstood-
what happens when the inner goes public
after a psychosomatic illness from solitude, she thinks god is testing her
instead of pleading to God, she takes matters into her own hands, and seeks a physical person to help
Lucy's description of the confession does not give details, demonstrating she wants to keep her interiority away from the priest and the reader
Lucy's parable
parable of talents
investing to gain profit: M. Paul invests his money on Lucy's school
Paul, as a Christ - like figure
christ comes back, but Paul is still pending to come back
Parable of the good servant: those whose talents and material wealth are to be entrusted property of God.
within the parable, Lucy can pursue financial goals within domesticity
domestic hopes and the career ambitions are married as she is the steward,
lives where she works, and is not tempted with materialism
"to render the account" providential change, not from will
language indicates the she knows how to tell a tale in terms of accounting
accounting, the numbers speak for themselves
Lucy's financial +spiritual journey
from compulsive self-narrating to account rendering
concerns about surveillance
1st she understands Beck's spying with somewhat admiration
because she feels there is nothing to hide (her outside matches the inside), but when her letters are invaded she cares very much
observations; Lucy as the framer
desire to regulate
regulate the visible
moving between allegorical elements and realistic detail
Lucy avoids details of her private life by suppressing the information or using allegory
"I will permit the reader to picture me"
private interior must be protected from the common gaze
she wants to keep her desire invisible
represion= prevents the exposure of her privacy as an object of knowledge from the 'common gaze'
narrate is to use close observation of human character
she feels the power of not disclosing information (like her identity to Dr. John)
museum episode
Lucy is aware of the power implicit in controlling representations
Mr. Paul =figure of male censorship, stirring her to 'appropriate sentimental portraits'
Mr. Paul revisits the claim of male scientific authority by bashing her observations
people become objects, like art.
her gaze is female and british, against foreigners
Dangers of Lucy's observation
type- turning people into objects
turns people into spectacles
lucy frames through types, which are predetermined by cultural representations
juxtaposition of images
, does not adequately explain the contradictions of her text,
she is not able to displace the dominant way of seeing
Othering of
the foreign
a ways of consolidating the self through
“Epistemic violence of imperialism
” (Spivak)
represents the foreign to establish how she wants to be seen by contrast: free, rational, independent, and honest
attempt to see the truth but that villifies the other
Lucy does not revise the foreign, she marginalises it
Lucy is the subject who refuses to be represented even in her own narrative;
withholding information: silence
disempowerment and empowerment
is silence always powerlessness, speech always means power?
choosing silence: power of anonymity, narrative strategy of circumnarration
resists the typical closure of Victorian novel, happy marriage
silence as an ethical practice
silence as a strategic choice can resist oppressive forces, demonstrate solidarity with others, and
resist dominant narratives
silence is used towards other characters and reader
silence as a display of virtue
part of the social norms for women in the Victorian setting
gendered constructions of silence
nonrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm. The self is defined by its orientation to other selves and practices
identity depends on being recognised and addressed by the other
suspending narrative coherence: protects against the demand that someone be recognizable according to arbitrary social norms
but there are limits to how much we can know about the other
1 more item...
Lucy's silence is her defense against the sort of assimilation that would occur in a relationship with Dr. John
desire to remain unknown, Lucy delights in misconstruction
the only one that kinda knows her is Paulina, because she acknowledges/sees that few take the time to try and get to know Lucy, people just impose meaning on her
being known
"I know you" M Paul sees Lucy
when he accepts lucy, she no longer needs silence to resists his controlling
desires for connection, but she does not want such connection to erode her sense of self divided as that sometimes is
entice readers to fill in
placing limits, silence attempts to dissolve identification's dependence on knowledge about the other
silences interrupt the reading process by denying readerly identification with the narrator and heroine
Wolfgang Iser's phenomenology
of the reading process -
Lucy's silences create gaps that invite and control reader participation
Brontë encourages the reader to resist the impulse to seize control of Lucy's story and instead to extend sympathy despite the unresolved ending
rhetoric of silence. Brontë's use of silence disrupts the charges often brought against realism for it live belief in representation
underlaying assumption of sympathetic identification that presumes and depends on knowledge of the other
self improvement
Lucy's relationship with
Madame Beck
first there is admiration for the economic progress. desire to emulate
bourgeois model takes a negative meaning - suppress all but greed
Beck appreciates Lucy as a worker (profit), not as a person
Beck's identity circulates like cash - realist depiction
pursuing ambition and domestic success makes real identity into a good for public consumption
Madame Beck + Mr. Paul police functions of female society
Dr. John
a realist, self made man
not truly, since his happiness and success is providential ,family, born intelligence, ability to take decisions
finds pleasure in visual consumption - women as commodities
, does not see/know the inner self
fails to register passion
and providential design, advises to control emotions of achieve happiness
critiques commercial extravagances as meaningless compared to real emotion, which takes part of the gothic terror, romance
Madame Walravens
Lucy resists her entrance of surreal, hyperbolic weather
Lucy corrects/ensures her own narrative, she turn her from terrifying into a facade
Lucy notices that Madame Walravens is showing a contracted version of the truth
unmasking
ensuring her own narrative, turn
Gothic and catholic sneers
Gothic and catholicism= same patterns, moving the internal matter outside through projection and rewriting selfhood
Villette, attempt to warn England away from compulsive disclosure of any form
Heroine undergoes a narrative conversion: learns to tell a story in a way that is neither realist nor gothic
investment in the power of reading visual detail
it diagnoses social and psychological problems
science
discovering the relationship between exterior and interior. The visible surface and the invisible spirit which it covers
claims special access into the truth of character- claims diagnostic expertise
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discourses about looking
observation as a way of knowing
putting people in a frame
observing: a concern with ways of seeing as ways of knowing and thus as acts of power appears in all of Brontë's novels
production of a narrative perspective that could observe surfaces closely
power is linked to scientific knowledge and social critique
importance of training the eye but acknowledging that the view is limited by education, class, and gender.
Tensions and interplay
the english/protestant/middle-class bretton's, ginevra, the homes/deBassompierre family
the foreign/catholic/burgeoius capitalist Madame Beck, M. Paul, Pere Silas, parasitic, aristocratic Walravens family
M.Paul
Paul’s observation is intentional, it is his way to acquire power over women.
echoes male observation from
the Professor
, with his description of women/girls
admits to spying with a spyglass as an 'guardian angel'
male censorship
transformation
from tyrant master into domesticated -feminized- loving equal
victim, ready to match Lucy's feistiness, his church as an envious mother
union with Lucy
takes place once Mr Paul does not make issue of their differences, expression of freedom
Belgium
foreign country that offers distance
to consolidate the identity of her character and national identity
necessitates using the foreign characters as types or emblem of what Lucy is not.
Brontë reduces complexity of the foreign
Ending
for Lucy to be a free subject she needs Paul to die, if Paul returns then her school and work will turn to him since she is his steward
Brontë is not able to represent a new way of looking that doesn’t simply invert the hierarchy produced by the original oppositions
Gothic
tends to
project the internal outwards
, manifesting personal fears and desires in external phenomena (like ghost, apparitions, stormy weather)
overvalues sensory perception, embodies the invisible or unspeakable
realism
tends to rewrite identity in material terms, economic progress
Narratives of self-improvement
survival of the fittest, change in material prosperity leads to happiness
for self-improvement, emotion or belief are non-important, education and hard work equate goodness
error of realism, the sole focus on class that hides the self
Samuel Smiles (1859) spoke in West Riding district, self-help lectures, inspiring working-class men to cultivate their minds to participate in public life
self help became a universal duty of all English men and a key facet of Victorian life
"a particular kind of visual information - reproducible and capable of rapid and wide dissemination-into a way of
seeing and picturing the world
that a mass readership can share" (Heady)
Bronte uses both novelistic models, but they tend to undo the authority of inner life.
by making the interior matter, such as emotion, desire, identity, make the inner self as visible
Typology
a
system of progressive revelation
that see the
material real world
as a
figure
for a
deeper spiritual reality
that will come to pass later on
realism and gothic shape english identity with their own set of values
gothic and realism: both participants of the same error
revises the gendered marking and disciplinary separateness
of such ways of knowing so that
both close observation
and felt intuitions could combine in a "moral sight" that could derive the power but escape the prying "malignity" of the penetrating gaze
Protestantism
Catholicism
gothic and realism = too concerned with the external, encouraging the body and consumption over critical thought. Bodies over minds. Unquestioning.
catholic church as envious mother (tyrant church) and as kindly mother who wants to advice
Daguerreotype
- 1st photographic process= direct-positive process, creating a highly detailed image on a sheet of copper plated with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative
To see is to know and to know is to have power, particularly the power to reform
Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights
Isabella
As Isabella Linton
first a silly credulous girl, yet her transformation to a married woman changes her
"my name
was
Isabella Linton"
marks her loss of her family name, status and home at the Grange, but also the abandonment of her former self, forsaking class and gender
narrator via letter and diary
critical voice , becomes an important moment to asses the reliability of conflicting narrative (Nelly's and Heathcliff)
with her letter: Heathcliff argument and defines is not credible, it is a rebuttal, brings us to question each chapter reliability
Heathcliff and Isabella in opposition
Heathcliff says his rationale for her confinement is because she has tried to run away
victorian marital laws. they justify the incarceration to preserve his social standing
Divorce act did not pass until 1857, increased people's awareness of domestic violence, though it was still mostly considered to be a "working class" problemm
Isabella's crazy laugh reminiscent to Bertha's
intimate portrait of domestic abuse within a middle-class setting
decision to leave
it is collected, non hysterical
makes her even more marginalised in terms of social and economic position
anticipates Helen's scape in
The Tenant of Wildfowl Hall
Nelly and Lockwood, framed narrative
Nelly does portray Isabella's transformation in her speech and action
Lockwood's outer box narration = contains the most easy play of conscious irony. Nelly's inner box demonstrates less "conscious irony)
all relations are power-relations
espionage, counter espionage, search for control
wilderness as homeland, moors offer refuge
drama of multiplying and divided identity
dualism, binary oppositions (rock/trees, heaven/earth, Grange/Heights/ identity/opposition, chemical attraction/repulsion
critique of the middle-class cult of domesticity by demonstrating how homes-like their occupants, women and children- can turn into property to be controlled and acquired
affinities to Shakespeare, Milton, Scott and the Romantics (German and British)
Hoffman (the Doppelgänger)
Anne Brontë
Agnes Grey
from autobiographical material, with its own symmetry and artistic structure
focuses on the constancy of an inconspicuous soul, who is rarely looked at, never interesting to her employer
Agnes
seeks to be seen and see all
narrator's silence - social invisibility contingent on the role of governessing in the 19th century
"I will not inflict upon my readers an account my leaving home"
Agnes is unseen and unheard by others
even in her own home, her family does not see her as capable
Governess: she is alienated from the working class domestic employees
by reason of her education and middle-class position
passing judgement
Mrs Bloomfield. Agnes recognises she won't understand her "I judged it prudent to say no more'
I choose to keep silence
silence or reserve as a survival strategy for her heroine
self-assertion and effacement
continuously redefine herself introspectively
ensures her survival and success
"I am obliged to bear it, since no choice is left me- I might have answered". She has no power to change her position
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class domination to erode her sense of self
"I don't mind" but she is resentful
fragmented young woman
unspoken assumption that the narratorial voice is the 'simple piece' of uncomplicated goodness and truth personified
reader is persuaded to
doubt
Building's co
nventionally honest 1st person narrator, and to question whether a voice of absolute integrity is possible, or desirable
the
second person narrator
is a somewhat unusual creature who talks to him/herself, but
the difference here is that this narrator has self-consciously and deliberately dissociated or fragmented herself, in order to talk only to herself
does not allow her seemingly unrequited love for a man to injure her bodily or spiritually
assertion of interiority
Agnes is uncomfortably conscious of her own invisibility, she is also conscious of being observed
textual tension and conflict frequently convey
a sense of the narrator's physical and mental exhaustion, as she tires of her own integrity
, and her inability to not care
narrative of complaint
Criticism
"failed in business"
undervalued works of Victorian fiction. Readers quickly recognised the "acton bell" was a woman
Terry Eagleton: derogatority: "
Agnes Grey
is something like a
Jane Eyre
with Helen Burns as their heroine"
Eagleton: Anne Brontë's work, by contrast, knows no such internal conflict between the flesh and the spirit
Anne's achievement is creating a missing heroine through the duplicitous play of self-effacement and that which (Howgat) calls "assertion of interiority", it remains linked to the conditions of employment
Common features
First person narrator
Agnes Grey
The Professor
governessing
(Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Agnes Grey
)
Second first-person narrator
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Wuthering Height
Unreliable narration?
Nelly Dean (WH)
Lucy (V)
Animal imagery and animals
animal cruelty = moral inferiority
comparison between people and animal, giving animal characteristics (Emily and Charlotte)
birds
importance of home
orphans (JE, V, TP)
plant and weather imagery
Physiognomy
the art of judging character and disposition from the features of the face or the form and lineaments of the body generally
methods of characterisation
1846: a 3 volume work "3 distinct and unconnected tales"
The Professor, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey
threatment towards confinement: Charlotte justifies it and Emily doesn't, while Anne follows it with Helen as fugitive wife and single mother