← The Literary Life Podcast
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- [00:19]
A
This is not just another book chat podcast. Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks for an ongoing conversation about the science, skill and art of reading. Well, explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover how to fully enter into the great works of literature. Learn what books mean while delighting in the sheer joy of imagination. Each week we will rescue story from the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen, and your commute. The Literary Life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. Join us for an ever unfolding discussion of how stories will save the world. This is the Literary Life Podcast. Hello and welcome back to the Literary Life Podcast. I'm Angelina Stanford and with me is the man who is. Is not Mr. Brocklehurst. No.
- [01:37]
B
No.
- [01:37]
A
You're not the mysterious Mr. Brocklehurst.
- [01:39]
B
Innocent.
- [01:40]
A
On that count, I think you're a different Mr. B.
- [01:42]
B
Yes.
- [01:43]
A
Okay. Also not Mr. Bennet. Not also not the Pamela Mr. B.
- [01:48]
B
No, we don't have to pursue this line of thought too far.
- [01:52]
A
It's Angelina and the mysterious Mr. Banks. And we are here, as you guessed correctly, talking about Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Today we're going to. Well, technically we're supposed to cover chapters six through 12, but we're going to start back with chap five so we can cover the entire Lowood section as one whole and then get us to the, the, the entrance of Mr. Rochester at the end of chapter 12. So we'll, we'll be covering all of those chapters today. And before we get started, I just have to give a tremendous shout out to the, to the Patreon. You. You guys, I am, I am so, so ridiculously proud of you all. You're just absolutely killing it. And, and I don't think that we have ever had this many people reading live with the podcast. Like, if you're not familiar with our Patreon forum, we have just a ton of different reading groups in there. And because of that, not everyone is always listening and reading along live with the podcast. Sometimes they're a few weeks behind. But what I've noticed is about Jane Eyre, like, seems like everybody's reading Jane Eyre and keeping up with the week episodes and commenting like crazy on the forum. And I'm just blown away with the stuff you guys are noticing. And I'm commented on the forum that we had never had that many people, you know, kind of keeping up at the same time. And they mentioned that it just seemed like it was the perfect Linton book. You know, they absolutely are seeing this book correctly as a journey of the soul and it's turning out to be the perfect Linton read. So as Cindy and I used to always say, it's the, the non master master plan once once again. So great job to all of you guys doing that.
- [03:39]
B
There is a danger, of course, that they leave us with nothing to teach. They could unearth all these, this book's riches by themselves.
- [03:45]
A
Exactly.
- [03:46]
B
We are left with nothing.
- [03:47]
A
I actually just commented, well, my work is. My work is. My work is done here. You know, like that's it, we're done. I can retire, which we all know. I'm begging to retire. I just want to knit and read detective novel.
- [03:56]
B
So, you know, your mind would grow restless. I'm afraid we both know that.
- [04:00]
A
I'm sure you're right.
- [04:01]
B
You would go mad.
- [04:02]
A
Probably would. I probably would. All right, so we are the owners and teachers at House of Humane Letters and that's our, that's our day job. And the House of Humane Letters is what allows the Literary Life podcast to come to you for free. We all have zero ads on this show. We are 100 member supported by our patreon. But of course the House of Humane Letters is what funds us essentially and allows us to keep the podcast for free. And it means a lot to me when people say this podcast is like a free college level class because that's certainly the way that, that I look at it. But let me just tell you a little bit about what we have going on at House of Humane Letters. Last week I mentioned that it's registration. So that has. We have finished all of pre registration. Registration has started. Some classes are full, but there's plenty of open spots. If you've been thinking about a year long class, head over to the website house of humane letter.com click on that year long classes tab and see what we've got. If you've been thinking about taking a year long class with us in addition to that. Of course we have. Well, honestly this was very intentional by me. We have not only every kind of price point imaginable for further study, but every kind of time commitment imaginable. Because I know you guys are out there with busy lives and you're keeping up with the podcast and reading and you know, not everybody can, can set aside the time for a year long class are the funds for that. So I, we have mini class classes, you know, semester long classes, webinars, so we've got a couple of those coming up. As I mentioned Last time. So we have Addison Hornstra's webinar, the Righteous Outlaw from East to West Turning the Tables in the Upside Down World. So that's one of our webinars. It's 18. I'm sure she's going to talk for at least for a couple of hours, if not three hours. The recording is yours to keep if you make the live session or if you don't. So you can definitely want to go check that out on the website. So click on the webinar tab. And again we've got Dr. Jason Baxter given us a semester long class called Where Do We Go from Reading for Life. That's another one that's available live or later and again, depending on your time commitment, availability, your funds, you can actually have a few different options for this class. You can have six weeks of lectures for one price and one time commitment and then there's an optional six week add on if you want to go a little deeper with him for another price. So yeah, check out what we've gone on there. And, and really, you know, if you, as people do, if you're finding this, this episode, you know, two years after this, well, no la no doubt have many, many more classes on the website by then. Sign up for the newsletter Sign up For the newsletter HouseOfHumaneLetters.com scroll to the bottom of the homepage if the pop up doesn't, doesn't work and sign up for the newsletter and that way you can keep up with what's going on. We really, we. I just could not be prouder of the, the scholars we're bringing to you, the topics we're bringing to you, the depth of teaching we're bringing to you. So if you've been curious about, you know, dipping your toes in the House of Humane Letters, waters go and check that out. If you're also subscribed to the newsletter, you get the, the podcast schedule and some other extras like that as well. All right, let's get started with our commonplace quotes. Mr. Banks, what do you have for us today?
- [07:27]
B
So I have something from the Moral thoughts and reflections of George Saville, Lord Halifax, who was a political thinker and man of letters and also a parliamentary politician in the late 1600s, about the time of Charles II and afterwards. Anyway, this is something I find myself nodding along with this sentiment here, this idea that one isn't automatically improved by one's studies, much as we might wish that to be the case. He writes, quote, weak men are worse for the good sense they read in books because it Furnisheth them only with more matter to mistake.
- [08:10]
A
Oh, that is great. I like that a lot.
- [08:15]
B
That's the one can lead a clown to Parnassus.
- [08:18]
A
But yeah, well, it reminds me of Alexander Pope's line, my favorite line from Alexander Pope, A little learning is a dangerous thing. Oh, you know, there, there, there is a type of education which is actually worse, worse for you. Where is it that C. S Lewis says this? It's in one of his essays. I think it's in the collection of, of essays on Renaissance literature. But don't, don't hold me to that. Where he talks about the difference between the medieval man and the modern man. And he said, yes, the medieval man in many ways was ignorant, but he knew, knew he was ignorant. The modern man thinks he's an expert on everything. Pretty much nailed it, Jack. All right, my quote is from an unlikely source. This is an essay by the critic Adrian Rich. And when I started this essay, I fully expected to hate it. I don't think you or I have a super high opinion of her, but I was intrigued by the title of it, so I went ahead and read it and, and was very surprised. And I don't agree with everything she says, but I agree with what I'm about to tell you here. She, she gets something essential here about Jane Eyre. And one of the things we're going to talk about today and that I talk about a great deal in the classes and on the podcast is about learning to read past the surface of things that modern readers are just completely obsessed with the surface. We think that's all there is. So if there's a passing mention of something political, then we're just going to hyper focus and decide that the whole point of this book is that someone so and so is making a political statement, for example. And so we miss then the deep, deep meaning that is there for us beneath the surface if we will simply just let it bubble up. And so I was delighted to see her say this because typically she's in that school of like 1970s feminist critics who are mostly reading to see gender roles in the book. And I was just very pleased that she was able to see that something else is going on with Jane Eyre. So she starts. She doesn't start. I'm going to start. This is not in the first sentence of the essay. Jane Eyre is not a novel in the Tolstoyan, the Flaubertian, or even the Hardy esque sense. Jane Eyre is a tale. I'm going to pause there to say tale is an old Fashioned word. It's really. It's a 19th century word for a medieval romance. That's why Nathaniel Hawthorne's book is called Twice Told Tales. So a medieval romance is this questing story. It's not a love story, it's the questing story. And it's all. The questing story is a journey of the soul story. So she's right out of the gate saying, look, it's not a novel in that kind of modern, psychological novel sense. We'd think about with Flaubert. This is, this is a romance again in the old fashioned sense of that word. The concern of the tale is not with social mores, though social mores may occur among the risks and challenges encountered by the protagonists. Neither is it an anatomy of the psyche, the faded chemistry of cosmic forces. The world of the tale is above all a veil of soul making. And when a novelist finds herself writing a tale, it is likely to be because she is moved by that vibration of experience which underlies the social and political.
- [11:50]
B
I would, I would mostly agree with that assessment. I think.
- [11:53]
A
Well, I'm just excited to see. I mean, I. Again, there's this plenty in the essay I don't agree with, but I agree. And then excited that someone sees there's more going on here than a novel that is simply making political and social comments.
- [12:07]
B
Can I say that I share your. I guess I would say I have maybe a prejudice almost against Adrienne Rich. And it has almost nothing to do with anything I remember about. About her writings except for the fact that I had to read a lot of. Well, a lot. A number of critical essays of hers when I was in college. She was kind of big back then. I mean, still is, I think, to some degree. And I. I don't know, I think it's just a case of one of those. One of those critics you had to read. And like so much assigned reading it left not the friendliest taste in my mouth. And it's probably nothing to do with the value of her critical judgments at all. It's the same reason, I think, that I still have in some ways kind of negative memories of Moby Dick, because that was a book I was assigned in high school. Which has nothing to do with the quality of the book itself. Probably most of us have some of these kind of irrational guard, you know, kept judgments that we have. Anyway, I'm rambling, but there you are.
- [13:06]
A
No, I would say this is absolutely true about you. You, you read so much. I've never met anybody who reads as much as you. And I am from a family of readers who read tremendous amounts, but you, you, you are so disciplined with your reading and you read such a variety of things. You, you absolutely fascinate me as, as a reader. But I can attest as your wife that you have that streak of I'll read anything as long as you don't tell me I have to read it.
- [13:34]
B
That's. There's something about that.
- [13:35]
A
Yeah, I think that's true of a lot of people. That's one of the. Well, that's why education and teaching is an art, not a science. You know, there's a little bit of a, a dance that has to go on between the student and the teacher, you know, to, to get into these things. All right, well, I am ready to start with these chapters. How about you?
- [13:54]
B
I believe so.
- [13:55]
A
All right, let's jump in with chapter five, all of my mini flags and post it notes all over this book. So we mentioned last time that, you know, she leaves the reeds and she goes in the dark. And you notice, of course, she got to this chapter now that when she goes, when she leaves Lowood to go to Thornfell again, she's in the dark. Again, she's arriving in the dark. I think that is very intentional by Charlotte Bronte. And I picked up just a ton of Dante esque stuff in this chapter in chapter five. So she actually describes that she's in a place that's dark with wood. Right. So she's, she's in a dark wood. And. And then we're going to find out the name of it is Low Wood. So it's obviously a descent. And then even though there's that passing scene with its spring and spring brings death, most of the chapters are describing very, very icy conditions.
- [14:52]
B
Yeah, it's frozen solid. The building sort of contains its own low temperature, like Scrooge.
- [14:57]
A
Right. And it feels very much like a descent, you know, I wouldn't say necessarily a descent into the Inferno because I thought there was a lot of limbo language here as well. But it's definitely a descent somewhere one
- [15:10]
B
does not want to be.
- [15:11]
A
Right. And it's definitely, I mean, in the Inferno, this is where the character Dante goes to learn about the soul and the nature of temptation and the nature of sin and its self destructive nature and, and learns to identify it.
- [15:27]
B
It meets a guide.
- [15:28]
A
It meets a guide, Virgil and, and learns to separate from that. Of course, that is what allows him to ascend. And, and I think that there's something to that here with, with Jane. I mean, we said in the first. In the first section when she's with the Reeds, that she's got this. This intense passion that is self destructive. And so she goes through a very interesting time at Lowood with regard to learning how to handle all of those passions. And we're going to talk about passion and what I mean by that and what Charlotte Bronte means by that and the medieval view. But let's get a little further into this before we jump in with that. So she. She meets everybody. And of course, the first. Not the first person she meets, but the first kind person she meets at Lowood is Ms. Temple. Maria Temple. And Maria, of course, is the name of Charlotte Bronte's sister who died at a school very much like this. And so it's not. Not surprising that a good character is given. Is given this name. Yeah. This is. This is where I kind of picked up on a little bit of Lowood language. It's right before she. Not. Sorry, my, my. I. I wrote Limbo and Lowood next to each other and I said the wrong one. This is where I picked up on some Limbo language. It's right before she sees the sign Lowen Institution by Naomi Brocklehurst. Which, of course, I guess there's a lot of Naomi and Ruth imagery in this section as well. My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit record. I hardly yet knew where I was. Gateshead in my past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance. The present was vague and strange, and of the future I could form no conjecture,
- [17:16]
B
I was thinking, not just in these chapters. These chapters certainly, but her time with her aunt as well. And even in the section after this where she goes on to the next stage of her life, her surroundings are always actually or potentially malevolent.
- [17:36]
A
Yes.
- [17:37]
B
Not just the characters, but it seems like the scenery as well.
- [17:41]
A
Well, the weather is almost everything.
- [17:43]
B
Yeah. I mean, it seems the setting seems always to threaten her, at least in. At least potentially.
- [17:51]
A
Well, and there's something very hostile about nature.
- [17:54]
B
Yeah.
- [17:55]
A
Which, I mean, I don't want to overstate that because.
- [17:57]
B
Beautiful also, but potentially deadly.
- [18:01]
A
Yeah. And the weather is hostile. So, like, you know, every time she goes outside, she's either freezing to death or, yay, it's spring and spring brings death with it.
- [18:09]
B
Yeah. Yeah. She always seems like she's being persecuted by her very environment.
- [18:13]
A
Right, right. And then she meets a girl who we later find out is Helen Burns, but she's reading Samuel Johnson's Rasselas and you and I talked about what's going on there. And I think there's a lot of thematic importance to that. So tell our listeners about Rasselas.
- [18:28]
B
Rasselas is a 18th century novella written by Samuel Johnson in the 1850s. Interestingly, he wrote it. He hadn't been planning to write this book as far as I know, but his mother died and he had no money to pay for the funeral and he needed to write something quickly. So necessity was the mother of invention. And he produced, which is actually his only long work of prose fiction. So Rosellus is a story about an Abyssinian prince, Abyssinia is Ethiopia, who grows up in a place called the Happy Valley. But he feels an odd, restless longing for something beyond the world that he has known. And he goes in search of that, in search of the satisfaction that wisdom, hard won wisdom can bring. And I won't give the ending away, but it's a quest story. It's oddly very much like the. The story of the Buddha, though I don't know if Samuel Johnson would have been familiar with that at all. Interesting book and worth reading.
- [19:29]
A
Interesting. Okay, so one of the things I always tell my students is when books are mentioned in a story, pay attention. Like, the author is not going to be arbitrary here. There's going to be some echo of the whole thing. And so we see that Jane has talked a great deal about fairy tales and the Arabian Nights and Eastern history, and we'll get into more of that as we go. So here Helen Burns is reading a very different kind of book. It's a very didactic 18th century book.
- [19:59]
B
It is, yeah. It's full of a. It's almost more like a philosophical dialogue. If. If Boethius had written a dialogue in the 18th century set in, you know, the. The mysterious east, it would probably be something like Rasaelus. Boethius was a great influence on Samuel Johnson. So it's. Yeah. The kind of book that Helen. Someone like Helen Burns.
- [20:19]
A
It's very stoic.
- [20:21]
B
Very. Yeah, kind of a stoic.
- [20:23]
A
There's no happiness to be found in this book.
- [20:24]
B
It's a blend of stoic and Christian morality.
- [20:27]
A
Right. Which is actually my. That's my take on Helen Burns.
- [20:30]
B
So Helen has much.
- [20:32]
A
That's perfect. That's perfect. And we'll talk about that in just a few minutes. So we have a reference to a quest story and the journey of the soul to enlightenment, which I think is what Jane Eyre is on. And of course, we have Helen reading this. It's hard to imagine Helen reading any of. Well, for fun. Yes. Or any of the books that Jane read earlier and enjoyed. You don't see her with fairy tales. She's a very didactic person.
- [20:58]
B
Read your.
- [20:59]
A
Right, right. And we'll talk about what that means in just a minute. Now look, Jane, though, just looks at the title and says Rasselas looked dull to my trifling taste. I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genie. No bright variety seems spread over the closely printed pages. So she's not looking in.
- [21:17]
B
I like the contrast. That. And they're very different books. I mean, she. She prefers the Arabian Nights. They're both eastern tales, though. Interesting, but of a very different kind.
- [21:26]
A
Yeah, no, that's. No, but that will. That's good. Since I read Helen and Jane as mirrors of each other, then that make. That makes sense. Mirror, like reversed image. Anyway, we'll get to that. Let's look at a few things more though. So let's take a look at this, the scene here. There's just so many important scenes. So she meets Helen kind of here and she's going to meet her better in just a few pages. But the first thing she sees of Helen in the classroom is being punished.
- [21:58]
B
Yeah. Not for any real offense or anything like that. Not for any, you know, lapse that could fairly be counted against her, but because. Because what she has, she's not quite as put together as the teacher would like.
- [22:15]
A
Well, that's, that's coming up. This is. Jane doesn't know exactly what's going on here, but you know, in a few pages she's going to be falsely accused. And this is going to be important because Jane cannot bear being falsely accused. This is one of the things that stirs up her passions because she. She has this great intense need to defend herself, which is going to become a big. A big thing in this section. But Jane, of course, sees the punishment that is inflicted upon Helen and thinks that it is unjust. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl. And here the word great just means older. For an older girl, like this might be something you do to a, you know, a five year old, but you wouldn't do it to a. A 13 year old. She looked 13 or upwards. I expected she would so show signs of great distress and shame. But to my surprise, she neither wept nor blushed. Composed though grave, she stood, the central mark of all eyes. How can she bear it so quietly, so firmly? I asked of myself. Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the earth to open and swallow me up. But Helen looks as if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment, beyond her situation, of something not round her nor before her. I've heard of daydreams. Is she in a daydream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I'm sure they do not see it. Okay, so that is her first introduction to a different way to handle abuse, to not respond to it. And then in chapter six, of course, we see all this ice imagery. Ah, it's frozen. It's frozen. Even the waters are frozen. So that's what happens. They're not able to wash up that morning because the water is frozen. And Helen is then punished for being dirty and she doesn't stand up for herself. And Jane cannot understand this.
- [24:05]
B
Also, the manner of education they receive is what we say about this. I mean, she does actually learn French here, so she does get something from her time at Lowood. But at the same time, it seems kind of grad grindian in a lot of ways. It says the lesson, what is this? In chapter six, here at the beginning, a chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and the girls examined. The lesson had comprised part of the reign of Charles the First. And there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage and ship money, which most of them appeared unable to answer. Still, every little difficulty was solved instantly when it reached Burns. So it seems like the kind of education where students are meant to pack away a certain number of facts about and catchphrases about a certain period in history, and that will suffice for instruction.
- [25:09]
A
Yeah. So I want to get into what a woman's education in Victorian England was like when we get a little further into the book and we meet some genteel ladies. But I will say that the education that a lady was given is different from this. I mean, it's not necessarily better, but it's different.
- [25:27]
B
Yeah. This is not an elite school of any.
- [25:30]
A
Right. And so women are not going to be trained to have any kind of career. A lady is being going to be given a lot of training in various arts to catch a man. Like, that's. That's her number one goal. And so she needs to be made charming. And there was even a ladies seminary, that's what these schools were called, that actually had a replica carriage inside the school so ladies could practice getting in and out elegantly as one must. As one must. I clearly miss that.
- [26:08]
B
Were you trained to walk with a stack of books on your head to improve your form?
- [26:12]
A
I was not, no. Okay.
- [26:13]
B
That was overlooked as well.
- [26:14]
A
I'm such a mess yeah. And so we talked about this a lot, actually, in the Mansfield park episodes, because their education was given more of a focus than it is here. Because, again, I think all of these scenes by Charlotte Bronte are meant to show us something about Jane's internal spiritual education that she's having, which isn't necessarily the formal education she's being given. But, I mean, it's worth it to say, I guess, that you would just learn a little bit of a lot of things. A little bit of French, a little bit of sewing, a little bit of music, a little bit of drawing.
- [26:48]
B
She's probably better off here than a lot of girls in her class might be, because she actually has a French teacher from France.
- [26:55]
A
And she. And she can speak. She can speak fluently. And part of that is because none of these orphan girls are going to be seen as being in preparation to catch a member of the nobility. Right.
- [27:09]
B
Oh, and certainly they're not going to make Jane doubly so because she doesn't have prepossessing looks or anything like that.
- [27:15]
A
So they're being given this really sort of. Well, I mean, the other women are giving it a pragmatic education as well, but this is a different sort of
- [27:22]
B
pragmatism, a different kind of patchiness.
- [27:23]
A
Right? Exactly. Exactly. Like. Like you said, in a way, she gets a better education because they expect that the.
- [27:30]
B
She's not marriageable.
- [27:31]
A
Well, the best. Honestly, the. The best somebody like this could hope for us to get a job as a governess. There are not that many respectable things that a woman can do being a governess or a nurse, not like in a hospital, but like someone who takes care of the younger children, something like that. Or are becoming a teacher at a school, which she does do in these sections.
- [27:54]
B
And we're meant to understand that all or most of the girls in this school have family backgrounds which are themselves perhaps a mark of shame.
- [28:03]
A
Right.
- [28:03]
B
I mean, she's an orphan. Cause I'm thinking of Helen Burns. Helen. Helen is kind of vague about her parents. She mentions that her mother is dead. And I think we're meant to understand she doesn't really know her father.
- [28:20]
A
Right. I mean, because when she's dying, she tells Jane, my father won't miss me. He's remarried, so he's obviously not in the picture, which would suggest an illegitimate birth.
- [28:30]
B
I think we're supposed to understand that her parents were not married.
- [28:32]
A
Right?
- [28:33]
B
Yeah.
- [28:33]
A
Right. In fact, what really struck me on this read, because I'm. I read it all before we started, and now I'm Going through again. But what really struck me this time is the. The interesting parallel. This. This book is really brilliantly structured, and you're going to hear me say dumble a lot. There's a lot of doubles in this book, but the doubling between Helen Burns and Adele Varens, because they're right. They both have dead mothers and there's something questionable about their parentage, and they are fallen on the charity of someone else. And we'll find more about Adele. But when Jane says, are you an orphan? She says, my mother is dead. Which is the same thing that Helen said. Yeah, yeah. So I do want to talk about Brocklehurst, but let me. Let me talk a little bit more about Helen here. I think that Helen is an obvious double of Jane.
- [29:29]
B
Okay.
- [29:30]
A
And I will be making my case for that through these chapters. And the. The most. There's several images where Jane is hugging Helen and their faces are together. So when she's got her arms around her and holding her. And then, of course, in the death scene, they're wrapped up and they're face to face. So what I think is happening here. Sorry, all my thoughts want to come out at the same time. Jane's fundamental problem so far has been that she is a very intensely passionate creature who has a strong sense of justice, a strong sense of herself, and does not want to be trampled down by people unjustly. She meets Helen, who seems to be committed to the opposite, the absolute opposite. Right.
- [30:18]
B
Like forbearance personified.
- [30:19]
A
She's forbearance personified. She. She's like, I just account it a blessing to be trampled upon. I'm not going to defend myself. And Jane. Jane's very upset in this scene and says, why wouldn't you defend yourself? I wouldn't. I would defend myself. And just a few chapters later, she says, I am no Helen Burns. Right? And her name is Burns. And Jane has been burning up in her passions. And then Helen has consumption, which is another type of burning up from the inside. She is going to be consumed. And Jane's whole symbolic problem has been that she too, is going to be consumed by her passions. So it seems to me where Jane is fire, fire, fire. Helen is ice. And I want you guys to look for images of ice and fire in this book. Because, man, Charlotte Bronte is just hitting us over the head with blocks of ice and firebrands. It's just everything's going to be either fire or ice in this book. And I think that while the red room and that whole scene is One type of temptation for Jane that she can give in to these, these, these passionate outbursts that are ultimately self destructive. I think Helen Burns represents another kind of temptation to be a complete stoic and to be consumed by that in, in another way. And we'll look at some passages and I'll try to make my case for that. But one of the things that I think happens is, okay, here I'm climbing on top of my soapbox. Here we go. I think a common way to misread this book, and a lot of people make this mistake, is to see Helen Burns as some kind of moral center of the book. And I think that that is a mistake for a lot of reasons. Okay, number one, and I won't, I won't have any spoilers, so we'll come back to this when we finish the book. But if Helen is supposed to represent true Christianity and a true, well ordered person, then the ending of this book is not gonna make sense. Then many of Jane's choices are not going to make sense because she is not going to go the Helen Burns road. She is not going to choose stoicism. I do not. I think that she is the ditch on the other side of the road. Right. So right now Jane is like all fiery passion and Helen is all ice. And they're just two sides of the same coin and they're both disordered in different ways. The other reason I think that they make this mistake, as I was saying at the beginning of the podcast, most modern people are just completely stuck on a surface level. Right. And they, and, and just don't even think about trying to see a meaning under the surface. And that the meaning under the surface is this spiritual journey. And if there's a moral, for lack of a better word, if there's like a moral message to a book, it comes to us through the images and the way that the characters interact with the images. And you're going to see Jane is going to just meet one type after another as she goes through her journey. And it's so much like Dante going through the Inferno and, and Virgil pointing out, now this, here's this type of sin. And here's that type of sin. Yeah.
- [33:27]
B
Pause. Okay, you touch on it maybe briefly to summarize what I think you're trying to say. We're not meant to see this narrative as the story of Jane Eyre maturing into Helen Burns anymore than we are meant to see the Divine Comedy as the story of Dante maturing into Virgil.
- [33:49]
A
Well said. That's perfectly said.
- [33:50]
B
Is that possible?
- [33:51]
A
That's perfectly said.
- [33:52]
B
I mean, yeah. I mean, Helen, as we meet her here, is more mature emotionally than Jane in a number of ways. Virgil, when we meet him in the Inferno, knows a great deal of the secrets of the life become that Dante,
- [34:04]
A
but not for Dante to become Virgil.
- [34:07]
B
I don't think that's the kind of Dante simplistic root that. I don't think she's plotting that course either.
- [34:12]
A
Right.
- [34:13]
B
I think she represents kind of a moment where Jane has a moral awakening which he might not have had otherwise.
- [34:20]
A
Yes, agreed. And I also think Helen is truly kind to Jane and loyal to her, and that goes a long way with Jane. And it's the first time that she has any kind of loving relationship with someone. But I'm going to come back to that. But I think what happens is when modern readers approach books in this superficial surface way, okay, if they're looking for some kind of morality there, they look for it in some kind of explicit surface way. So here's a character who's quoting Bible verses and seems to be suffering for Christ and given a martyr's death here at the end of the. Of these chapters. That seems like, oh, boom, check. Check the box. That's the Christian character, Right. So she must be the moral center of the book. And. And I just think that is wrong on so many levels. In chapter 10. So after Helen's death, in chapter 10, Jane says Maria Temple has been my model. Right. It's Maria Temple who is the model for Jane of How to Be, Not Helen. So as we see through these, there's going to be some very significant scenes here that we're going to look at. But I think that Helen is another kind of extreme mistake. So Jane is all fire, but Helen is all ice. And these are two mistakes, two sides of the same coin.
- [35:43]
B
And these chapters, by the way, I was. I was reading them, and I. I respect Helen Burns as a character. I would not. I'm trying to find a nice way to say this, though. I don't regret the fact that we don't spend the entire book in her company.
- [36:02]
A
Well, exactly.
- [36:04]
B
And at the same time, though, at the same time, I mean, her character with, you know, her kind of, you know, the sort of moral discourses that form the bulk of her conversation that could have been much worse, handled. I think if you compare this book, I was looking for other examples of school stories from the middle 19th century, and there's a lot of them. It was, you know, fast becoming kind of a popular genre, and one in particular, by an Anglican, I think he was an Anglican priest or maybe even a bishop named Frederick Ferrar, very big name in the Anglican Church of that time. He wrote a book called Eric or Little by Little. And the whole story is the temptations of this, you know, growing youth named Eric and how he, you know, is always in danger of succumbing to one temptation or another. But he has, fortunately, a, you know, sort of his own moral conscience as a fellow student who is, I think, also dying of consumption. And on his deathbed, he. He admonishes Eric always to beware of loose women and drink and card playing and, you know, immoral stories. It's. It's overbearing and it's also. I learned that the fact that this book became a bestseller had much to do with the popularization of the name Eric in the later 19th and 20th century and George Orwell, whose name was Eric Blair. So, yes, and he. That was one of the reasons he disliked his name Eric, because it was this kind of. It would be like being named Fauntleroy almost or something. Almost kind of. Yeah, it was. And he was, I guess, made fun of for this in school. So this was. It was the model boy story. And so, yeah, I mean, Helen Burns, sure, she's a model girl. We might not necessarily, and I hate to say it, regret the fact that she dies fairly early on, but she is an important element in the story nonetheless and could have. This could have been much more heavy handed than it really is.
- [38:00]
A
Right, and that's a really good point that you brought up. I've actually been looking at more than 19th century Didactic stories were like the kind.
- [38:09]
B
There are some really bad ones.
- [38:10]
A
Really bad.
- [38:11]
B
Like the Fairchild stories, the Fairchild children. It's.
- [38:14]
A
Go ahead.
- [38:14]
B
Which a typical episode from these. I mean, so there's these, this group of children, they're a little bit mischievous. Their parents are very stalwart Christian, you know, muscular Christianity types though. And, you know, it's almost kind of one episode after another where one of the children gets into some kind of mild trouble, steals a cookie from the cookie jar and the father then with a mouthful of biblical texts will, you know, flourish a birch rod and start beating the child within an inch of their life. The one passage, I think two of the boys have been fighting the way that boys will, and the father drags them down to the public square where there's a criminal hanging and his body's decomposing on the end of the rope. And he says, this man was killed for murder. Would you go down this road, child. So, yeah, so, I mean, the artistry here is just miles removed from that.
- [39:03]
A
I'm so glad you brought that up because Charlotte Bronte at times is gonna feel a little bit preachy to us, but if you look at the context, she's positively. You. Light handed. Who's got a light touch compared to this? And the same thing with, with Anne Bronte when we did Agnes Gray there. There's a little bit of preachiness there, but much less than what everybody else is doing. And the biggest difference is that she's giving us a series of images to show this journey of the soul rather than having characters just explicitly say everything that Jane needs to do. Okay. Something else that's interesting to me about Helen. I mean, like you said, she. She dies early on, but it's almost like she's too good for this world. You know, she, she. That. That just can't be the path that anybody takes.
- [39:52]
B
Yeah. There's a kind of an ethereal quality about her.
- [39:55]
A
Right. And the stoicism. And one of the other things I found myself thinking about in this section is that Helen and Brocklehurst have an interesting doubling going on as well. Now hear me out, because obviously there's a lot of differences. Brocklehurst is hypocrisy, you know, personified here. And, and Helen is very true in her beliefs and sincere. And I don't mean they're the same in that way. But if you consider that Brocklehurst comes in and just takes issue basically with all the things that have to do with the body. Your hair, your clothes, what you eat. He, he, ha. He. It's like he almost despises the body.
- [40:35]
B
And other people's anyway.
- [40:37]
A
Well, yeah, other people's, yes. But, but, but Helen has a little bit of that same kind of gnostic despising of her own body too.
- [40:46]
B
Yeah. You get the impression that if she were soul only, she would not necessarily feel cheated in the transaction.
- [40:52]
A
Right. This. This body is a prison that I must escape from and ascend to heaven. That's. That's the temptation of Helen. And I think she has some interesting interactions with Maria Temple. That kind of temper that in the same way that Maria Temple is going to temper Jane. But we have parallel scenes between Helen and Jane. They're both going to be falsely accused in the school and Helen just takes it. And Jane.
- [41:19]
B
Can't you see something occur here when Mr. Brocklehurst makes his appearance to see what's going on in the classroom, Something that will be repeated later in the book? There's. Though this is not primarily a novel of class tensions or anything like that, there's always again one of these threats someone of a higher social status is inclined to wipe their feet on Jane. And you see it here, where she's humiliated in front of the classroom by Mr. Brocklehurst in chapter seven. Fetch that stool, said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one from which a monitor had just risen. It was brought place the child upon it, and I was placed there. By whom? I don't know. I was in no condition to note particulars. I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard of me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me. Mr. Brocklehurst. Hemmed ladies, said he, turning to his family. Ms. Temple, teachers and children. You all see this girl? Of course they did, for I felt their eyes directed like burning glasses against my scorched skin. Again, the burning.
- [42:46]
A
The burning. Yep.
- [42:47]
B
You see, she is yet young. You observe, she possesses the ordinary form of childhood. God has graciously given her the shape that he has given to all of us. No signal deformity points her out as a marked character. I know. It's like, you know, he and Mr. Gradgrind from Dickens could exchange notes here.
- [43:05]
A
It's a great character.
- [43:06]
B
Who would think that the evil one had already found a servant, an agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case. My children pursued the black marble clergyman with pathos. This is a sad, melancholy occasion, for it becomes my duty to warn you that this little girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is a little castaway. Which is true in a sense.
- [43:32]
A
Yeah.
- [43:33]
B
Not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against her. You must shun her example if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from your converse. Teachers. You must watch her, keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinize her actions, punish her body to save her soul, if indeed such salvation be possible. For my tongue falters to tell it. This girl, this child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and. And kneels before juggernaut. This girl is a liar.
- [44:19]
A
Well, well, well. Read, darling. Yeah.
- [44:23]
B
You remember what C.S. lewis said about the monsters being complete with horns, tails, and rhetoric. I think we have an example of that right here.
- [44:30]
A
That's right. So there's no subtlety here, just like there's no subtlety in the Inferno. No, this. Everything's writ large. That's this type of story, though. That's how romances are. Dragons are not subtle. You know, the monsters you're out there fighting are not subtle. And they're typically projections of the state of your soul in a lot of cases. But that line where he says, you know, punish the body to save the soul.
- [44:52]
B
Helen Burns, she'd say that to herself. She'd say it, not to someone else,
- [44:56]
A
but say it to herself.
- [44:57]
B
I could. Yeah.
- [44:58]
A
There is something there. So these two scenes are fascinating. So I want to look at the. What Jane is thinking when Helen is being falsely accused. And then we're going to see how Jane handles this admittedly horrible thing. This is horrible. I wouldn't have handled it as well as she did. Okay, but. But let's take a look. So. So she's talking to Helen and saying, I don't know how you could bear just standing there and being falsely accused. If I were in your place, I should dislike her, I should resist her. If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand, I should break it under her nose. And she says it's far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you. And besides the Bible business, Return good for evil. The truth is, Jane has been that person. Right? She didn't resist, Mrs. Reed. She did fight back. And we saw that that was an act of self destruction. And of course, what would happen? What happened? What would have happened if Jane would have fought back in that moment? Nothing good. She's not going to win the point. She would be, you know, more punished because you simply cannot rebel against adults when you're a child, even if you're being falsely accused. And of course she's going to learn that in just this next chapter. And Helen says, but it's your duty to bear it if you could not avoid it. It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what is your fate to be required to bear. I heard her with wonder. I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance. And still less could I understand or sympathize with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still, I felt that Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. So I'm not saying that she's rejecting everything By Helen. I think Helen is an influence, but
- [46:43]
B
I think that she doesn't receive it wholesale. I think we could say that much.
- [46:48]
A
I think you're absolutely right. This is not the journey of Jane to become Helen Burns. You're absolutely right. And we'll see that in the scene with Ms. Temple. Okay, let's see. Okay. So again, Jane continues. You are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way. They would never feel afraid, so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard. I'm sure we should. So hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again. And then she goes on to say, but I feel this, Helen. I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me. I must resist those who punish me unjustly. And so, honestly, I was thinking this
- [47:42]
B
must be one of the passages that that one reviewer had in mind when they said that this book is full of Jacobinism and. And Chartism and a thousand other Anarchy is moral and otherwise.
- [47:54]
A
I mean, in like two pages, she's going to learn that that's going to get her nowhere. And she's actually going to learn a tightly different way to handle the situation. But what we see is two extremes, two contrasted extremes. One, I have to fight for everything in this world, and I can't forgive anybody. And I must right every wrong and stand up for every injustice. And the other is the opposite extreme.
- [48:17]
B
I must efface myself entirely and, you know, and let. Let the world walk over my back.
- [48:21]
A
Exactly, exactly. And I don't think that Charlotte Bronte intends for either of those to be the solution here. But Helen does give her good advice when Jane starts talking about Mrs. Reed and says, wouldn't you be happier, though, if you could just stop thinking about how horrible she was to you? And that is very good advice.
- [48:42]
B
And we will see later in the story that she does act on this.
- [48:46]
A
Yep. So I think if there's one place we could say that she carries Helen in her. It's that. All right, so chapter seven. My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age, and not the golden age either. That was such a great first.
- [49:00]
B
Yes.
- [49:01]
A
Again, everything's frozen. They walk to church frozen. Everything about Christianity here, this Christianity is extremely severe.
- [49:10]
B
Yeah. And she never identifies exactly the church I was looking this up. The Brocklehurst's church. We're meant to understand, I think, that it is. A number of critics have said it's probably a Methodist church, but that's not. That's not a universal call.
- [49:27]
A
An evangelical church.
- [49:29]
B
Yeah. Which could mean a number of things that could actually even mean a low church Anglican parish. But, yeah, in any case, he's. He's very large on depravity and the mortification of the body, which, again, that could. That could be any number of different.
- [49:46]
A
And. But again, I think if we think about the fact that she is intentionally not telling you what kind of church it is, is because the point here is not to critique a particular church, but to simply point out Jane's struggles, her journeys. You know, she's. She's just every. Even the church is hostile, Right. Like physically hostile. She's frozen. They're frozen to death in. In the church. Which is going to be contrasted with the warmth of Ms. Temple's fireplace as they sit around that hearth.
- [50:14]
B
Yeah. That one scene is very welcome, and it's almost the only relief we have in the first dozen chapters of the book. I'm gonna say.
- [50:22]
A
Okay, so to go back to the passage you read. So she's falsely accused, and she thinks, that's it. Game over. My life is over. That's what she thinks. And Helen is very, very kind to her in that moment. It's just a lovely scene. And she has a really great talk with Jane where she says, everybody hates this guy. If he came in here and praised you to everybody, everybody would hate you. But as it is, people pity you, and, you know, you're going to be more well liked now than before. And. And so Jane here, two important things happen, right? This conversation with Helen and then the kindness of Ms. Temple. And this is very, very important because James just said, I would stand up for myself, and now she doesn't. And Ms. Temple comes to her and says, it's only fair that if someone's accused, they give their side of things. And. And she is able to. And Jane even admits that because she was able to calmly and without passion, tell Ms. Temple what had happened that made her more believable. So it's not just I have to silently take everything. She is, in fact, going to be defended, but not by a passionate outburst, right? Not by yelling at Mr. Brocklehurst or throwing a stool at him and saying, you're the liar, but by acting respectfully in the moment, being control of her passions and just sort of, you know, able to calmly say, this is the case. And then Ms. Temple is able to calmly say, we'll get. We'll get verification of that. And then, you know, you will be publicly cleared. That is just a huge moment. Right. Because what she wants is to be vindicated. That's why she stands up to herself, right? Yeah, but it doesn't work when she's just has a passionate outburst. But here she's able to reign in those passions. And we see a very, very good thing happen.
- [52:21]
B
And this is the. Basically the first time in this book where a providential figure comes to Jane's aid when you know, you least expect it. And, you know, you kind of think that, you know, she's in a doldrum from which there. She's in a low from which there is no rising. It'll happen again, but not for a while.
- [52:40]
A
So let's take a look at what happens when they go to Ms. Temple's room, because I think this is a very important scene. First we saw in that earlier set of chapters, when she's carried from the red room, which is, you know, being burned up by her passions. And she's carried, and she sees the red glow and realizes it's a fireplace. And that association of kindness in the fireplace, I think, is being doubled here. Right. Ms. Temple is being kind to them, and she's been kind all along. Right. When the porridge is burnt, she gives them extra breakfast and then gets in trouble for it. And so she. She has them over for tea. She, Jane and Helen both. And they're both seated around the hearth, which, I mean, that's just the perfect image. Right. That's the right amount of fire for both this girl who is frozen and the girl who is too passionate.
- [53:30]
B
That's very good.
- [53:31]
A
Right. They're both warmed there, and they're. I mean, she serves some cake, and it's almost like a Eucharist, you know, bread and wine kind of thing.
- [53:38]
B
She also realizes that. That her imaginative world has not been shut off completely, even if she is having to learn about ship, money and tonnage and poundage, because they conversed of things I had never heard of, of nations and times past, of countries far away, of secrets of nature discovered or guessed at. They spoke of books, how many they had read, what stores of knowledge they possessed. Then they seemed so familiar with French names and French authors. But my amazement was reached its climax when Ms. Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin her father had taught her and take a book from a shelf, bade her Read and construe a page of Virgil. And Helen obeyed my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line.
- [54:22]
A
Yes, yes, and I want to back up to the paragraph before that, because it's not just Jane that is transformed by the kindness of Ms. Temple. It's also Helen Byrne. Turns right.
- [54:33]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [54:34]
A
The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her beloved instructors are perhaps more than all these. Something in her own unique mind has roused her powers within her. They woke. They kindled. Now, notice the word kindled. That's a little fire. So the ice girl has had a little fire kindled in her. First, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen, but pale and bloodless. Then they shone in the liquid luster of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more singular than that of magnificent Miss Temples. A beauty neither of fine color nor long eyelash nor penciled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips and language flowed. From what source, I cannot tell. Has a girl of 14 a heart large enough, vigorous enough to hold the swelling spring of pure, full, fervid eloquence? Such was the characteristic of Helen's discourse on that to me memorable evening, her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very brief span, as much as many live during a protracted existence. So they. They. They both are being brought closer to the center here around the hearth. And I think too, if you look at the kind of. I don't want to overstate it, okay? Helen is clearly supposed to be a good person, and, you know, she's going to heaven at the end and the. The resurrection and all of that. Okay, yes. No, no. Don't want to overstate it. I'm not saying she's bad, but I don't think Jane Eyre is bad either, right? Like, they. They're both just a little too extreme and need to be brought to the center. But when you think about that kind of strain of Gnosticism in. In Helen. And you think about the fact that Ms. Temple is named Ms. Temple, which is the body is a temple, right? That seems to me the ordered perspective of the body, right? So we're not all body. We're not all bellies full of passion and appetites and needs and wants, but neither are we cold and hating of our bodies, right? The body is a temple. And I. I see. See. I see Maria Temple, really, as. As the core of. Of this whole section. Not. Not Helen especially. Closest.
- [56:36]
B
The closest to A maternal.
- [56:37]
A
Yes. Especially in chapter 10 when Jane says, Ms. Temple is my guide, she's my model, she is who I tried to turn myself into. I did run across something funny in an article, though. One of the early reviewers had said about Helen Burns that she was simply too good and no one like that could ever exist. And Charlotte Bronte's response was, well, she's modeled on my sister. Oh. Who's named Maria.
- [57:02]
B
Yeah.
- [57:04]
A
Okay, so what happens next then, of course, is the illness. So spring comes, and spring does not bring all this joy and healing, it brings typhus. And it's very interesting to me that Helen does not die of typhus, though. She dies of consumption. And I do think that that's a. A symbolic thing going on. I mean, yes, Charlotte Bronte's sisters died of consumption, but. But her name is Burns. She's burning up. She's being consumed. It's just there's too much symbolism here to ignore.
- [57:32]
B
I'm sure that someone has written some kind of doctoral thesis or book or something like that on the use of consumption as a plot device in Victorian fiction. Because if you were to start listing fictional characters who die of this, it would be a long list, an easy
- [57:48]
A
way to get rid of somebody because you can make them linger a long time.
- [57:52]
B
I know you can have edifying death scenes and all that kind of thing. It's almost like sending them all to Australia. It's almost that much of a cliche.
- [57:59]
A
All right, so Jane figures out that Helen is dying, and they have this very important last scene, and. And Jane sneaks in there to see her, and Helen says she's going home to her last home, which, of course, that is the journey of the soul, right? The journey from the state of exile to finding your home, your spiritual home. And they have some important conversations here about God, because Jane has basically admitted here to herself, which is very interesting for a child, right? She's very self aware. And so she's. She's, you know, 10 years old, 11 years old here, and she's like, I don't even know if I believe in God. So she's. She's quite self aware. Where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know? I believe. I have faith. I'm going to God. Where is God? What is God? My maker and yours, who will never destroy what he created. I rely implicitly on his power and confide wholly in his goodness. I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to him, Reveal him to me. You're sure? Then Heaven. That there is such a place as. Oh, sorry. You're sure then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven and that our souls can get to it when we die? I am sure there is a future state. I believe God is good. I can resign my immortal part to him without any misgiving. Misgiving? God is my father. God is my friend. I love him. I believe he loves me. And shall I see you again, Helen? When I die, you will come to the same region of happiness, be received by the same mighty universal parent. No doubt, dear Jane. Now, in the context of Jane being an orphan, of course, all of us are orphans of the soul in a state of exile. The fact that Helen is emphasizing here that God is your father, he is the universal parent, is very significant. Of course, this is a beautiful scene here, and this does really profoundly affect Jane, and she does die. But it's very important here that we see that she dies in Jane's arms. Right? So Ms. Temple finds them together, face to face, arms around each other. And this is an obvious doubling scene. And I also think it's really interesting to, as an example, to contrast looking under the surface for the meaning versus looking over this, you know, looking at the surface. And also an interesting reminder on secondary and primary things in. In a book. Sometimes I think people hear me talking about, hey, listen, don't focus on all this superficial stuff. Stuff as if that means you can't ever look at it. Okay? Don't focus means don't make it all. You see, it doesn't mean ignore it. It just means it's not the primary purpose. So, for example, there's no question that Charlotte Bronte has both experienced a horrific school in which a lot of girls died because the conditions were very bad. Okay? That is true. And there's no question that she is using that in this book. And that part of what is going on is she is drawing attention to that. And no doubt that needed to be done. But that's the surface. That's the secondary thing. The mistake we make is thinking that that's the primary thing. And to say, oh, yes, well, the point of Jane Eyre is that Charlotte Bronte wants to teach us all about typhus and infectious diseases and consumption. And, you know, this is a cautionary tale about not getting.
- [61:26]
B
Not sending your children to the right, wrong kind of school.
- [61:28]
A
Well, no, that's not the purpose of it. Right? The purpose is what's going on in this scene beneath the surface that a soul has died and has gone to heaven. And the image of resurrection in Spring, because her, her gravestone is, is, you know, Latin for I will rise again. I will rise again. Which of course is a very essential idea in a, in a Journey of the Soul story. And so, you know, we have a, an infectious disease doctor shout out to Andrew Johnson, who is a Patreon member and longtime supporter of the podcast, who, you know, read this scene and, and said, oh, no, like, this is literally the worst possible thing you could do be face to face inhaling the breath of someone dying with consumption. This is horrific.
- [62:13]
B
And of course I noticed that as well.
- [62:15]
A
Okay, and that is true. Okay, and that is true. And it's not wrong to notice that, and it's not even wrong to make, mention it. Where it would be wrong is to say the purpose of this scene is that Charlotte Bronte wants to show us something because, you know, spoiler, Jane Eyre is not going to get consumption. That is not the point of what happens in this story at all. The symbolic significance, the real significance is, you know, they, they die face to face with their arms around each other. She. She dies face to face with the arms around each other. And it's a mirror, it's a double. And this will not be the last double that Jane is going to encounter. It's almost like everybody in this book is another version of herself and she's having to navigate it to figure out what her, her well ordered self looks like.
- [63:00]
B
Now that Helen Burns is put behind us though, shouldn't we have like some, some sort of dedicatory rings? You know, what would Helen Burns do? Something like that. We can market some bling here.
- [63:10]
A
Wwhbd.
- [63:11]
B
Yeah,
- [63:13]
A
she would just take it, though. There's, there's not even anything to do.
- [63:17]
B
It's easy to answer.
- [63:18]
A
Just take it. She'd take it.
- [63:20]
B
She would, she would adapt and overcome.
- [63:22]
A
All right, so chapter 10, Jane fast forwards to being 18. Now, again, this is not an autobiography in the sense she's going to tell you everything that's happening. We're focusing on certain incidents in her life to see her journey of the soul. But we see that with Helen's death and the sign of resurrection, the school is resurrected, Right? So good changes come from there. We have reform, and then Jane grows up to become a teacher. And it's actually a good situation for her. And here's what she says about Ms. Temple. Ms. Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued. Superintendent of the seminary. To her instruction, I owed the best part of my acquirements. Her friendship and society had been my continual solace. She had Stood me in the stead of mother, governess and latterly companion. And then of course, she gets married. And going down a few lines, I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much of her habits, more harmonious thoughts. What seemed better regulated feelings had become the inmates of my mind. Right. So I think if you're going to argue that a character is the mortal center, it's not Helen Burns, it's much more Mariah Temple.
- [64:26]
B
Does it, do you think? I myself was thinking about this as well, that there are people, I guess, who would expect a book to have a moral center embodied in a character. But it doesn't need to be in a character at all necessarily.
- [64:43]
A
Absolutely.
- [64:43]
B
I mean, you know, books have their morality, certainly, but it doesn't need to be walking breeze.
- [64:48]
A
That annoys me when I hear people talking like that and saying, who's the moral center of this book? Well, it might not be a who. It might be a series of images, as we'll see as we go. But she's not. I mean, this isn't the end of her journey because she says to the eyes of others, and even to my own eyes I appeared a disciplined and subdued character. But we shall see whether or not she has those passions under control. And we'll talk about that a little bit more in the next chapter. So Ms. Temple becomes her guide. She decides to do what many girls in her situation do, try to improve her circumstances. And she sends out advertisements saying she would be a governess. And she gets one reply and she accepts it. But before she leaves, she runs into Bessie, which is just a fantastic bookend for this whole situation, whole section. And she says, the phase of my life was closing tonight, a new one opening tomorrow, possible to slumber in the interval. So I must watch feverishly. Of course, there's the fire again. But even though this is not the end of volume one, the end of volume one is like chapter 15. It felt like the end of act one to me.
- [65:57]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean it's. It's a, you know, formative section of her life that's being put behind her.
- [66:03]
A
So she has an interesting interlude with that reads here and. And she finds out that John is. Is a bit of a disappointment. Are you kidding me?
- [66:10]
B
He didn't turn out to be a stand up guy. I know, I know.
- [66:13]
A
Shock. Who could have seen that coming? So she finds out he's not doing very well and.
- [66:22]
B
He's taken to drink. We're meant to understand. And he's failed in his studies.
- [66:27]
A
Right. And Bessie Seems to be proud of Jane. Oh, you're quite the lady, and I knew you would be. And you were always smarter than the other girls, so she's getting a lot of compliments. But she also finds out a little bit about her relations, that someone had come looking for her.
- [66:43]
B
Yes. So? Well, you know, missus always said they were poor and quite despicable. And they may be poor, but I believe they are as much gentry as the reeds are. For one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to Gateshead and wanted to see you. Missis said that you were at. Missus said you were at school, 50 miles off. He seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay. He was going on a voyage to a foreign country and the ship was to sail from. From London in a day or two. He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father's brother. What foreign country was he going to, Bessie? An island thousands of miles off where they make wine. The butler did tell me Madeira, I suggested, which is part of the Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic. I thought Madeira was Spanish, but I
- [67:30]
A
was wrong, so I did, too. I thought that, too. I thought it was really interesting. At the end of this chapter, the inn they were in, she says, I'm now leaving the Brocklehurst Arms. And I thought, boy symbol alert. She's leaving the arms of the. She's leaving the reach of the Brocklehurst and she's going on to the next section in her. In her life.
- [67:49]
B
She set off for the brow of Lowood fell to meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead. I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Milcote.
- [68:01]
A
All right, so 11 and 12, she gets to Thornville hall. And. And, you know, I read an article which made a really, really good point and said one of the reasons people misunderstand this book, Jane Eyre, is because they think all of Jane Eyre is the scenes at Thornfield.
- [68:20]
B
That's true. I mean, we were. I mean, in my copy, we're 120 pages in, right. And, yeah, it's.
- [68:26]
A
Thornfield is just one episode and many episodes in Jane's life.
- [68:31]
B
Yeah, it's shorter than you might anticipate. It's kind of. I think people forget about Wuthering Heights as well. The whole second half of that book after a certain major character's death.
- [68:41]
A
Right.
- [68:42]
B
Yeah. There are some novels like that for some reason, that.
- [68:45]
A
And we'll talk more about that as we get into These Thornfield chapters, but it's not like, oh, now we're getting to the book. And we'll hint at this at the end of this episode, and we'll really get into it the next time, but we'll get to that. So once again, she is in the
- [69:03]
B
dark, going to a place with whose name is threatening.
- [69:08]
A
Name is threatening. Exactly. It's cold again. And she even says that she's alone and cut off, and. And there's nobody there to meet her, and she's scared. So, again, just. The world is a hostile, dark place. But then she gets there, and Ms. Fairfax is actually very, very kind to her. And we need to, in Gothic novels, especially, pay attention to the locations of things. They're very significant. Just like low wood. A low wood. Right. A descent. Thornfield. I mean, come on. It's a field of thorns, and it's neglected. We're repeatedly told the house is neglected, and it's neglected because the master has not been at home. And that's a very important symbolic image.
- [69:47]
B
And she doesn't know anything about the family that she's going to serve, really.
- [69:51]
A
No.
- [69:52]
B
There's a child, but other than that.
- [69:54]
A
So mostly chapter 11 is focusing on her exploring the physical surroundings. And because this is so symbolically important, we want to pay attention to that. But I saw many of you make this connection, and I was very excited about it because, of course, I made it as well, that if you have. And it's got battlements, I mean, it's almost a castle. And it's Thornfield.
- [70:14]
B
It feels in an old part of
- [70:15]
A
England here, but it's very Sleeping Beauty. Right. Like, it's. It's a.
- [70:20]
B
It's a Beauty and the Beast or something.
- [70:22]
A
Yeah, the thorns. I mean, so Sleeping Beauty has the hedge of thorns around it. Right. And. And so she. It even seems like when the master's not there, there's a sleepiness over the whole house. It's actually described like that because when he comes back, it says, everything's alive now. So it just feels almost like a Sleeping Beauty curse in there.
- [70:44]
B
I agree, and I wasn't keeping score exactly. But it seems that most of the scenes here are at night. You don't really imagine it during the day.
- [70:51]
A
I have a hard time even remembering there being very many scenes in the day.
- [70:55]
B
It's a world without a whole lot of sunlight.
- [70:58]
A
Well, and that's symbolically important. All of the major things that are gonna happen happen in the moonlight. So she's gonna see. She gets up on the battlements. And she looks out in the moonlight. She meets Rochester in the moonlight. All of that's very important because, well, the. The sun is very closely associated with the Enlightenment. Like, this is the light of reason. And so the moon is the upside down version of that, which would be, if the Enlightenment is upside down, then the moon is us being right side up. You'll remember we talked about all this upside down stuff when we were in Brave New World. But the moon is really important in Romantic literature. And so that's being much more guided by. Well, I don't know how much I want to get into all of that, but the Enlightenment does not think that the imagination is a faculty of truth. And the Romantics do think that they have the more medieval idea of the imagination as a subset of reason, not the opposite of reason. And so there's a. There's a lot of that. But, yeah, she's being guided by the light of the moon, so there's a lot of symbolism there as well. All right. Yeah, that was the line I was thinking of. She. She meets the girl and the. Ms. Fairfax says, A child. No, she's. Before she meets the girl, Ms. Fairfax is telling her about the little girl and says, a child makes a house alive. And now that you're here, we'll be quite gay. Like. Like the house has been kind of dead and asleep before that. And she. I mean. I mean, hello, Cinderella. She gets there on the stroke of 12 that there's a. There's just a lot of stuff going on here. And she goes into her room and she really likes it and says, I was now at last in my safe haven. My couch had no thorns in it. Again, she's going to bring up thorns a lot here. My couch had no thorns in it that night. My solitary room, no fears at once weary and content, I slept soon and soundly. When I awoke, it was a broad day. Then a few. A few lines down, I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me. One that was to have its flowers and pleasures as well as its thorns and oils.
- [72:56]
B
Underlined that as well.
- [72:57]
A
Exactly.
- [72:58]
B
She might as well have underlined that for us.
- [73:00]
A
I know Thornfield. She's like, thornfield Hall. And thorns is going to be a thorns. Thorny season in her life.
- [73:05]
B
Every rose has its Thornfield.
- [73:06]
A
Thank you. Thank you.
- [73:07]
B
It was inevitable. You knew it was going to come out.
- [73:09]
A
Wow. Yeah, wow. I could have done without that. But again, there's people who are going to ignore the obvious imagery here and focus on something like what kind of Wages is a governess given. I think this is a comment on, you know, bad conditions for governesses.
- [73:27]
B
If this were like an Anthony trollop novel, we would have heard quite a lot about exactly what amount of money she's been. There are a lot of 19th century, you know, writers who are very, very interested in the question of money, but Charlotte Bronte is not really one of them.
- [73:40]
A
But speaking of novels about governesses, I mean, Vanity Fair, which Jane Eyre is dedicated to. Thackeray.
- [73:48]
B
Money is much more important. Yeah, I mean, interesting. Very different novel, but some. We noted some odd similarities that they both. They both feature young women without mini family connections in quest of something. And Becky knows, or thinks she knows what that is. Jane does not. The nature of Jane's pilgrimage here and you know, what end it has is quite as much hidden from her as it is from us.
- [74:16]
A
We're all in the dark.
- [74:18]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [74:19]
A
We're all in the cold dark. So lots of conversation here about how the house has fallen into disorder and neglect because the master is away and we find out his name is Mr. Rochester. And so I read something that said that this is most likely supposed to make us think of the Earl of Rochester, who is really the original Bad John.
- [74:44]
B
Yeah, John Wilmot, the. The 2nd Earl of Rochester was a Restoration poet and playwright who is a court. Well, when he wasn't out of favor, he was a court favorite of Charles ii. And, well, you can kind of grasp what sort of man he was just by knowing that he claimed, and this is, you know, big grain of salt here, he claimed to have spent five years perpetually drunk. By which I don't mean that he was drunk a lot in the period of five years, but that he was always drunk during that period of five years. I don't know how he could have. He died when he was about 30. I mean, so maybe if you want to put.
- [75:22]
A
Put.
- [75:23]
B
I was going to leave that part unmentioned, but yeah, connect all the dots there. No.
- [75:26]
A
And don't go Google his poetry. Let me just put it that way.
- [75:30]
B
Yeah, it's. It's not family. It's not reading.
- [75:32]
A
Do not read that anymore.
- [75:33]
B
You know who was a big fan of Rochester? This really surprised me. Tennyson. You cannot think of a more appropriate, you know, family respectable, you know, kind of conservative guy than Tennyson. But he really liked him. Rochester, though he didn't bring it out for public readings. Anyway, I had misremembered, again, things that I'm having to revise my memory of when I picked this book. Up again. I had thought that Rochester in this book was a nobleman.
- [75:59]
A
He's not.
- [75:59]
B
He's not. But his name is meant to bring to mind kind of aristocratic corruption and the kind of guy that you're. Your daughter wouldn't. You wouldn't want your daughter going out with.
- [76:09]
A
So another reason that people, I think, and quite a few critics agree that they. They struggle with this book and, and kind of get the wrong end of the stick, so to speak, is because Charlotte Bronte is going to play into some of the sentimental novel tropes, but she's gonna do something really smart with it if you just wait. But a young, naive girl goes to a new town and there's a bad boy there. Like, you know. So this is kind of your standard, standard sentimental novel.
- [76:37]
B
Oh, sure.
- [76:39]
A
Plot line. It still is. Like, this could be an episode of Bridgerton or something like that. Right. But she's going to do something very different. But Rochester, when we meet him, is clearly supposed to be this Byronic hero. So, you know, mad, bad and dangerous to know. As famously said about Lord Byron, you know, a playboy, mysterious, dangerous, and you noted something very interesting.
- [77:02]
B
So when we meet him, of course we meet him at night. And she doesn't know who he is at first. He's just a guy who comes up on a kind of monstrous horse which she compares to some kind of Celtic monster. Yeah.
- [77:14]
A
Thinks he's like a goblin.
- [77:15]
B
Yeah. And he has a dog with him as well. And the dog's name is Pilot. And as you may know, Pilot before the age of airplanes means a helmsman of a boat. Lord Byron, in fact. And you can look this up. Lord Byron, he had a dog, a favorite dog by the name of Bosun, which is. It looks like it's spelled Boatswain. And I for years said Boatswain, but it's Bosun. And Bosun also is an officer on a ship, so. And I double checked this. I thought maybe it's just a coincidence, but evidently there are some academics who have pointed the similarities out. And this is supposed to be another cue to suggest that Rochester is a Byronic character.
- [77:53]
A
Yeah. I'm grinning so big.
- [77:54]
B
I thought you would have noticed that before. I did, but well done.
- [77:57]
A
No, no. You beat me to the punk.
- [77:58]
B
No, I justified my existence.
- [78:00]
A
What's more. Oh, that was excellent. I did not catch that. I had forgotten that Byron wrote a poem about that dog.
- [78:06]
B
Yeah, he was really fond of the dog. And I think he said that he had all of man's virtues and none of his vices.
- [78:12]
A
There you go.
- [78:13]
B
The dog was an ideal type.
- [78:15]
A
So, you know, you don't have to know anything about Lord Byron because you've met him. You've met him every time you've seen a movie with a tall, dark, mysterious
- [78:23]
B
bad boy who flares his nostrils a lot.
- [78:25]
A
Yeah. Okay, so. And you know how that story tends to go. And that's not how this story is gonna go.
- [78:31]
B
She kind of takes. It's interesting that she's taken. She's denied herself all sorts of fictional glamour here. She does not have a beautiful heroine. And Rochester, also, one of the first things that Jane notices about him is
- [78:43]
A
that he's not handsome, which makes him another double for Jane. So let's talk a little bit about the house before we look at the meeting because this is fascinating. Jane is enchanted and keeps saying this is like a fairy place.
- [78:58]
B
Yeah, that's. That's hammered, you might say, almost to death.
- [79:02]
A
Yeah, hammered, almost to death. And it will get more so. And then we still miss it, though, you know, when we criticize her for being too heavy handed. And then we still miss it and
- [79:09]
B
she doesn't know everything. What am I trying to say here? The house is one she's comfortable in, but can I say it's not the kind of house that an ordinary person would be comfortable in. It seems it's not a prison or anything like that, obviously, but it's a house that. It's a house that might have any number of. Any number of odd secrets hidden around.
- [79:37]
A
Well, that's part of the Gothic.
- [79:39]
B
Yeah, exactly. It's a Gothic.
- [79:40]
A
Yeah. Like, you know, what mysterious secret is going to be here. And Ms. Fairfax says that the master of the house is a bit enigmatic. That you don't know if he's joking or if he's serious or if he's being contrary. But he's a. But he's a good master. But he's an enigma. And also that she keeps. This was very interesting. She keeps the household in a state of constant preparedness in case he arrives. That felt very terrible.
- [80:06]
B
He keeps kind of irregular hours. And it seems that even Mrs. Fairfax doesn't really know that much about him. Even though we learned that Mrs. Fairfax is distantly related to Rochester by. Doesn't she say by marriage on the mother's side. Yeah.
- [80:21]
A
So two very important scenes we need to look at before we wrap up today's episode. First is the tour. The tour of the house. Right. And she keeps saying everything here gives it the sense that there's a shrine here. And it's strange. Strange flowers, strange birds, strange human beings. Everything looks strange indeed by the pallid gleam of the moonlight. Okay, so now she's having a moonlight tour of the house. And then Mrs. Fairfax says something like. It's almost as. Like there's a ghost at Thornfield Hall. And then Jane says, is there a ghost? Is there actually a ghost here? No, no, no. There's no ghost here. Okay, so now we're back to the ghost in the red room, right? Am I gonna have to face a ghost?
- [81:00]
B
Some kind of supernatural presence? And the. The girl, Adela, when she's talking to Jane about her mother, she's talking about who mama was, and, you know, how she used to sing me songs. And we learned that the mother is dead. And Adella has kind of some odd memories of her, I guess.
- [81:21]
A
Yes. And we'll find out more about her mother later. But in particular, Jane goes up to the third floor and then goes up through a trapdoor to the very, very top.
- [81:29]
B
Oh, and a trapdoor. A hidden spring or something like that. Or a hidden passageway. It's not a gothic novel if you don't have something like that. Of course.
- [81:35]
A
Of course. Right behind a tapestry, a secret passage
- [81:39]
B
with a cask of amontillado.
- [81:40]
A
But she's thinking, like, is there a ghost up here? And so she's just said, this is like a fairyland. And then she says, right, attention, everybody who's taken the fairy tale class. She says, this feels like Bluebird's castle. And then she. Bluebeard. Sorry, Bluebeard's castle. And then she hears a maniacal laugh.
- [82:01]
B
Yeah, a strange laugh. But it's. It's explained that Mrs. Fairfax tells her that that's a servant. Grace.
- [82:06]
A
Grace Pool.
- [82:07]
B
He's probably keeping late hours with some weird laugh, right?
- [82:11]
A
Just a weird laugh. That preternatural laugh.
- [82:13]
B
Yeah.
- [82:14]
A
Right. So there's something otherworldly, otherworldly about. It's very mysterious. Okay, now we're gonna get into Bluebeard later, but I would just say maybe read the Bluebeard fairy tale. Okay. Because I will explain how to interpret the Bluebeard fairy tale. But if I explain it now, it
- [82:33]
B
will give much away.
- [82:34]
A
So we will wait a little later, and then I will connect.
- [82:36]
B
You say the Bluebeard is not a fairy tale character you will. Would want to work for, probably.
- [82:40]
A
Right, Exactly. All right. So lots and lots of mystery. And then the next chapter starts with her saying, I think everything over here is exactly like it appears to be.
- [82:51]
B
Oh, yeah, I know.
- [82:53]
A
Famous master.
- [82:54]
B
She's Such a smart character. But you know, again, it's not a gothic novel if the characters don't fail to see something kind of obvious at least once.
- [83:03]
A
So she really likes to climb up on the battlements. And she climbs up there and she's complaining that she's restless. Basically she's bored. I. I got something new to do, but now I'm all by myself with this little girl and I'm bored. And then she has a long speech here which I'm going to read because this shows she is definitely not Helen Burns.
- [83:20]
B
Oh, yes, she's not. I noted this as well.
- [83:22]
A
She's not Helen Burns.
- [83:23]
B
I think I know what you're going to read.
- [83:24]
A
Okay. To open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended. A tale of my imagination created and narrated continuously, quickened with all of incident. Life. Fire. Feeling that I desired and had not in my actual existence. She wants fire. It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility. They must have action and they will not. And they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine. And millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions, besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life. Which people. Earth women are supposed to be very calm generally. But women feel just as men feel. They need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do. They suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute stagnation, precisely as men would suffer. And it is narrow minded in their more privileged fellow creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them or laugh at them if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex. So she's not going to just silently resign herself to her fate. She wants.
- [84:40]
B
She's still carrying around a volcano inside her, even if it's a dormant volcano.
- [84:44]
A
Pretty much. And again, we're going to get way more into this. We've been going for 90 minutes, so I'm not going to talk about it now. But we're going to talk a lot more about how passions were regarded differently in men and women. I'll just give a little teaser about that. Right. Men were allowed to have passions. Women were not allowed. And I'll just leave it at that. We'll get. We'll get more. We'll get. Because we're going to run out of time, because I want to say some stuff about Rochester, but we'll get more into that later. All right, so it's icy. It's on the moon, like you said. She hears this horse coming. She thinks it's a goblin, this creature. And the horse slips on ice. Hello. It slips on ice. And he falls off. Okay. All right. And then, of course, fast forward. He leans on her to walk, and we have the whole meet cute thing. And then she realizes, oh, my Gosh, this is Mr. Rochester Chester. Okay, but let's take a look at the scene where he falls off the horse. And this is all happening under the moon. Okay, so we've been talking about passions. We've been talking a little bit about the well ordered soul. This is a very intentional image of a medieval idea. And so we've got to. We've got to talk about it. You've heard me talk about it on many, many, many other podcasts. We got into it in, you know, all the various Shakespeare episodes in Much Ado About Nothing. We about on the Harry Potter series, on Mansfield Park. So you can, you know, we get. We get into it and all those other ones if you want to learn more about it. But in a nutshell, the medievals have an understanding, and it's based very much on Plato and Aristotle. So I would say this is both an ancient and a medieval understanding that the soul needs to be properly ordered. And if it's. If it's not ordered, then you know, you're going to have a lot of problems. And so this is the idea of the three part soul, the tripartite soul, the head head, the chest, and the belly, otherwise known as the reason, the will and the passions. And part of the difficulty in talking about this, as CS Lewis points out in the Discarded image, is that after the Enlightenment, we fundamentally change the definition of all three of those words. This is where people make the mistake with the Romantics of saying, oh, it's reason versus emotion, it's reason versus passions. Like, well, well, yes and no, because you've redefined reason and passion to mean something entirely than differently than what the Romantics are trying to get back to with this more medieval sensibility. So reason we have reduced to the rational mind, where for the medieval man, the rational mind was part of it, but it was not exclusively that. You had ratio and you had intellectus, and ratio was a rational mind, but that was a lower faculty. There were things above the rational mind mind. So things that would all be considered as part of reason would be things like the Book of nature, our divine revelation, our tradition, our church authority, all of the. Your imagination, all of the things that allow you to perceive and participate in the mind of Christ. And so your rational mind will be part of that. We, of course, on the other side of the Enlightenment, think of the rational mind. It's just like kind of logical process processes. Like I'm. Like, I'm, you know, Mr. Spock from Star Trek or something like that. And then you have the chest, the will, which is kind of like a muscle. It's the seed of good affections, but it's also a muscle. And so there's a lot of emphasis in medieval psychology on training the will. And then you have the belly, which is the passions are the appetites. And the passions are not bad. They're neutral, depending on whether or not they're ordered or not, right? So just to give an easy example, let's say I feel. I feel hunger, right? That's a neutral appetite. And if I felt that, I would bring that up to the light of my reason and I would say, is it appropriate for me to feel this hunger for this food? And I would say, well, yeah, it's been eight hours since you ate. Absolutely. You should do that. And your will says, okay, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna. Now that I've had the light of reason, I'm gonna, you know, make. Make this decision to go and eat. But of course, we all know that, that your hunger can be a disordered appetite as well. You can have gluttony, right? And you can, you can say, I'm hungry for this food. And you bring it up to your mind and your mind says, actually, you've been sitting here, you know, stuffing yourself for 12 hours. You know, you're going to give yourself gout and diabetes, so you need to maybe stop eating. And then if you had a strong will, the will would help you to stop. To stop that, to order that. That appetite, right? If you had a weak will, though, of course, you. You might. You might know you shouldn't do it and you eat it anyway. Way modern psychology is, is. Well, modern psychology is based on a lot of things, but modernity in general tends to think man's basic moral problem is that this is a very confusing universe, and who can know what's right and who can know what's wrong? And maybe there is no right or wrong. Whereas medieval man thought that was not man's basic problem. That man's basic problem is that he knows very well what's right, and he Just has a very weak will and doesn't want to do it. And so there's a lot of emphasis on training the will. So the well ordered man then is that when the head is ruling the belly through the chest. And an disordered man is somebody who's upside down, where the belly is ruling you instead of the head. So that's where you're being ruled by your passions. And of course that will ultimately consume you. Like we see in Dante's Inferno, which I should have said when we're talking about Helen Burns being associated with ice. It's not just that ice is the opposite of fire, ice also burns. And that's why, that's why the Inferno is ice. It's another type of burning. Anyway, if you ever had freezer burn, you know what I'm talking about. So the picture then, in medieval artwork and medieval literature of the well ordered man is a man riding a horse. And now we get to Rochester, a man riding a horse. And the horse is the passions, again, they're not bad as long as they're properly ordered. And so if the man is riding the horse because the, the man and the horse sort of become one, right. And if he's in control of his horse, that's the well ordered man. Like in Spencer's Fairy Queen, you'll see all kinds of examples where like, it's not so much the man is riding the horses, the horse is, you know, running and the man's flying behind the horse kind of thing. Right. So that's being led by the passions. So it's very significant that when Jane meets Rochester, he falls off his horse. This is not a well ordered man. This is a man who is not in control of his passions. Of course, being associated with the Byronic hero is, you know, gonna feed all into that as well as his name being Rochester. Like we're giving, we're giving a try a try picture instead of a tripartite. So a try picture, you know, three times she's showing us this is not a man in possession of a well ordered soul.
- [91:30]
B
And it's not obvious, we're not told that he's a compromised and villainous character, but the possibility that he is is hinted at.
- [91:40]
A
That's right.
- [91:41]
B
Maybe that's right.
- [91:42]
A
So in this next set of chapters, we're going to have to see what mystery is lying in, in in Thornfield and what part of the journey of the soul is Jane in. Now in this section, what is we saw with her particular temptations and struggles with at Lowood would You know, this is not a spoiler. Everywhere Jane's gonna go in this book, there's going to be temptations and struggles because that's this story. It's the journey of the soul. So we'll have to see what her temptations are here. Yeah, I love this book and I'm glad you guys are enjoying it.
- [92:13]
B
These are strong chapters, very strong chapters.
- [92:15]
A
And then we're going to get to some really fun stuff in in Thornfield and we'll be able to highlight next time some good ways to read and some bad ways to read. Because if you're really focusing on the surface level stuff, you might get very confused in these chapters. And we'll talk about that next time. All right, so when we come back next week, we'll cover chapters 13 through 19. Thanks for hanging out with us as we cover chapters five through 12 today. I am really enjoying this again thanks to the Patreon. If you would like to sponsor this podcast, go to patreon.com literary life and join our extremely vibrant community on discord. And check out things@houseofhumaneletters.com stick around to the end of this podcast. Mr. Banks will have a special poem. Will it be about Byron's dog, do you think?
- [93:03]
B
Sadly, no. It's a Wordsworth poem.
- [93:05]
A
Okay, and we'll see you back here next week. Until then, keep crafting your literary life because stories will save the world. Thank you for listening to the Literary Life podcast brought to you by our loyal patreon sponsors. Visit HouseOfHumaneLetters.com to find Angelina and Thomas and to sign up for our newsletter with podcast schedules and more. And keep up with Cindy@morningtimeformoms.com. join the Conversation at our member only Patreon forum or our Facebook discussion group. Visit patreon.com theliterarylife to find out how you can sponsor this podcast and get great bonus content. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review and check out our sister podcasts, the New Mason Jar and the well Read Poem. And now for a poem read by poet Thomas Banks
- [94:09]
B
selection from the Lucy Poems by William Wordsworth. Three years she grew in sun and shower, Then nature said, A lovelier flower on earth was never sown. This child I to myself will take she shall be mine, and I will make a lady of my own. Myself will to my darling be both law and impulse and with me the girl in rock and plain, in earth and heaven, in glade and bower shall feel an overseeing power to kindle or restrain she shall be sportive as the fawn that wild with glee across the lawn or up the mountain springs, and hers shall be the breathing balm, and hers the silence and the calm of mute insensd things.