5..4...3...2..1..

Is it really that time again? Has the countdown really reached the zero? It flew by, and my head feels so crammed and jam-packed with knowledge and theory I wish I was unpacking that instead of all the things from my dorm room. So, I'm going to go for it. I've had my struggles with each other in one way or another, but I've learned from each of them - either things about myself, about society, or feminism as a whole. I'm predisposed to be afraid of the unknown (thank you society). There are more lenses for evaluating a story or its characters than I could wrap my mind around. Feminism is a complex structure that is constantly being reevaluated and altered, with terms that are being redefined almost constantly. It is a fight to end the oppression of women, in all stages of life, in every country, of every color, faith, age and sexual preference. It is a unification for a better world. The best thing I gained from this class? A challenge. A challenge to reevaluate my own perspectives, but also to embrace people whether I agree with theirs or not. I learned that I am a feminist (though moderately so) and that I have a voice, and it is to be used. I am not to be objectified, silenced or confined by anything or anyone, and I am to help others to the same.

Graphic Novels...?

I've never been the biggest fan of Graphic Novels, but as Judith Butler would say, it's probably because I don't understand them. And its true...yes, Judith, you're right. I didn't understand them, and I certainly don't claim to now, but I will say that I've found them to be pretty cool. After studying Jane Eyre as a graphic novel in the context of the BBC miniseries I found that a new lens was put on the story - not where you found a person who could fill the pre-existing character like the miniseries, but one in which the artist got to create the characters to be whatever he wished them to be (which turned out to be fairly unfortunate for Bertha..). Nonetheless, this new dimension was fascinating to me, one in which I could both watch the moments pass as I do in the film, and read the words of Ms. Bronte. Reading the novel and studying the pictures, I felt a connection with the artist, as if he had let me into his mind, to see what the story was to him, what their faces looked like, who they would become - it was moving. One of the most striking aspects of the novel was the fact that the novel was adapted in length, but the phrases remained identical to those written by Charlotte Bronte. So, when the novel seemed to be so drastically different in tone than the story Bronte had created, I discovered that it was the power of illustration - it changed the way I viewed each character and determined my impressions of each of them. The graphic novelists have kept Bronte's work but stolen her power, predetermining the audience-character relationship from page one.

The Big Comfy Couch just got a little less comfy.

Judith Butler challenges her readers in Undoing Gender with the reality that we have a fear and discomfort with the unknown, as if it is a threat to our self and the world for the simple fact that it is uncategorizable and unfamiliar. Non-normative characteristics scare us because we don't know what to do about, with, or for them. Thus she posits that we are called to challenge the existing epistemological and ontological structures and ethical views and adhere instead to one of unknowing. We must learn to get comfortable with discomfort, because to grow as human beings we need to be uncomfortable. Growing pains, anyone?

Shaking up Shakespeare

The performative nature of social interactions was taken to new levels by Shakespeare, displaying for anyone who would watch, a dramatic or comedic mockery of a society preceding our own. His irreverence for categories and hierarchies, touched by fantastical articulation of a possible reality created an outlet for frustration and a mode of challenging societal norms. His characters ranged from kings and queens to rebellious teens, and then from men playing women to women playing men...or men playing women playing men. Still following? Good. What's the point? Here it is! These convoluted gender situations paved the way for an exploration of sexuality that defied boundaries and rebelled oppression. Females gained agency and prominence, burst out of the societal roles thrust upon them into these characters who embraced irrationality, seized control of kingdoms and wrought the hearts of men. And that was just the beginning...

So what does that have to do with feminism? Well, it has to start somewhere. Women surpassed their circumstances or embraced their chosen fate, real or fictitious, it was a start. And the ball hasn't stopped rolling since.

Newest Victim: Edward Rochester

Jane Eyre is a compelling novel, when read carefully, because there are endless possibilities of places for your interests to settle upon. Today, I pick Rochester. Patriarch, masculine man, dark and shadowy, right? Eh. Maybe not so much. In taking a closer look at Jane Eyre, it is possible to find Rochester at a crux of vulnerability, never truly sharing his story or existing for himself, he is not more than a character in Jane's world whose sole purpose is to be the physical realization of Jane's emotional weight, a bucket into which she can pour her every emotion and fill her desires. Rochester: the projection screen. Blank, white, a canvas ready to become whatever the other wills it to be. He is what Jane projects onto him, the darkness, the ambiguity, secrets and manly stature. Every tale is of her accord, every word is as it is by means of her memory, the secrets are secrets for no other reason than that she doesn't know them - but he does. Could it be? Really? Is Rochester the victim? Is he the objectified being? I'm afraid so, at least in this context. We've discussed in class that in most cases, when rights are given to one, they are taken from another. So then, what the Gothic novel has done here, by elevating the woman and policing the heroine, has created the objectification of another, in this case - Rochester. He is the other half of Jane's embodied relationship with her emotions, struggling to complement instead of overwhelm. What does this mean for the men of Jane Eyre, whose stories get told for them?

I Feel ___, and ____, and ___, and ____, and ___.....

Women are stereotyped for our emotional attachments, reactions, explanations, interactions, relations, (need I go on - you know what I mean). So, I personally find it delightful when literature not only highlights it, but leaves the door wide open, so that we can [emotionally] charge in, and make it like home. Make it like home? How? Well, let's follow stereotypical suit - by overanalyzing, judging, exploring, and conversing of course! Bertha...dear, sweet, Bertha. Are you crazy?
The Madwoman in the Attic. Hmm, Bertha..how does that make you feel? Pissed. She's angry! And who, honestly, in her position, wouldn't be? She's controlled by a man who waltzed in, claimed her money, her body, and home for his own, then ripped from the place she knows and is confined to a room - come on ladies, what woman wouldn't be angry? Personally, I get mad when someone takes something and doesn't put it back, I can't imagine the rage I'd have if I were Rys's Antoinette. She's held captive by vow, by law, and by physical force, by an emotionally stunted man. - yes, sad as I am to admit it, the gallant Rochester from Bronte's novel is no more, he's replaced by this obnoxiously privileged man, who is severly lacking interior depth. He refuses to claim emotional or ethical resposibility for the happiness of his wife, refusing to be anything but self-centric, as if they're all in The World According to Rochester. While Antoinette is ready and willing to abandon her self for the well being of the other, Rochester remains all-inclusive of everything Rockester, and anything else is simply rejected. But back to the woman (isn't that how it always goes?) - Dear Antoinette. Oh, the woman who's name means "beyond praise," how neglected you've become! They call her crazy, insane, mentally ill, but with what reasoning? Because she's angry? Because women aren't supposed to be angry? Rochester can't handle it when she shares the fears and pains of her heart, what makes us think he'd be any less forgiving in his description of her than his willingness to be a spouse? These dreams, the ghosts, the reflections she sees, are they not all simply the emotional ends of emotional means? Because while Rochester has the ability to un-act himself, to drop character, to claim his privilege to simply not deal with women, women cannot escape themselves! Or can they?
What Antoinette does to deal with all these emotions is create two realities, because one is no longer enough. The lines blur between her reality and her dreams, but in both she is tormented and controlled by the emotions for which she has no outlet...

On Your Mark, Get Set, Don't Go!

Race. It marks you. It sets you in a mold, in a place, separated by nothing more than a microscopic genetic marker, impossible to be seen in its origin, but realized on the surface - scrutinized, judged, stereotyped, for something that isn't done or made, but simply is. Jean Rhys colors it ugly in Wide Sargasso Sea, subtly and tastefully, introducing us to Charlotte Bronte's characters, unmarked. Race in Antoinette's world is about as clear and identifiable as the fruit in a smoothie. The smoothie-mentality fails to catch on, as we see in Rochester's emotional abandonment of Antoinette. I am extremely intruiged by his shock when he learns of Antoinette's self-proclaimed half brother, Daniel. Tainted by her relation to her father's illegitimate half-white half-black child, Antoinette ceases to be the same in Rochester's eyes. But why? What is so off-putting about the family of his culturally torn bride? Antoinette is enslaved, not only by marriage, but by blood. That unseen marker, that sets her in Rochester's mind - different.
But what, then, about Jane? Bronte's dear, main character...she's often seen as a foil for Bertha, sure. But what about the Antoinette-Jane, sans Bertha? Before Bertha. Culturally torn, divided by family, bound by money, seeking equality or in the least, solidarity, in emotions. We've posited before in class that race and class were nearly synonomous in their day, so then why not draw lines between the bold connections that tie Antoinette and Jane? Why ignore their need for emotional depth and commitment from Rochester? Why write-off the monetary control and struggle that underlies their relationships, not only with Rochester but with Family, Friends, or anyone with whom they share an experience? Jane struggles to define who she is because of her lack of family, where as Antoinette is bound and judged by her own, but this schism should divide them - it should unite them, as Rhys and Bronte do in their subtle exposees of these women.