A Tentative Study of the Duality of Jane Eyre’s Personality1.doc

a tentative study of the duality of jane eyres personality 对 简 爱 双 重 个 性 的 探 究a tentative study of the duality of jane eyres personalitycontentsabstract.1key words.1i. introduction.21.1 introduction to jane eyre.2 1.2 introduction to charlotte bronte4ii. introduction to the duality of jane eyres personality.62.1 jane eyres self-respect and self-abasement.62.1.1 features of jane eyres self-respect .6 outburst period at gateshead progress period in lowood school. perfection period at thornfield hall. formation of jane eyres stable characters102.1.2 features of jane eyres self-abasement. the embodiment of janes self-abasement. the psychology of creation132 .1.2.3 the compensation of fantasy.152.2 reasons of jane eyres dual personality172.2.1 the duality of victorian spirit.172.2.2 the author charlotte brontes attitude to life.18iii. conclusion.18references.19摘 要: 简爱是一位反叛性很强的伟大女性。她忠于爱情并且有强烈的自尊心，她认为：婚姻不应以财产为基础，更不可成为追求财富的手段，而应以爱情为基础；然而，她同时又有很强的自卑感。简爱的双重个性的成因有两个方面：她生活的时代和作者夏洛蒂勃朗特对生活的态度。第一部分是对简爱的简短介绍，简的生活经历大多于作者自身的生活.而作者生于1816,也因此无论如何都意味着是“维多利亚时代的产物”。第二部分展示的是简爱双重性格的特征及其形成原因。简爱有很强的个人魅力并且很自尊，因为作者明白女性解放，要有独立经济意识，也要有人格的独立，然而没有独立的经济意识，就没有人格的独立，更重要的是，没有独立的人格和自尊，便不可能有真正的爱情，更谈不上女性的真正解放。但是她同时却又很自卑，因为在维多利亚时代虽然人们能得到很多积极的观点，女性却依然受到社会习俗的阻碍。虽然在多利亚时代女性有胆量，并且有雄心壮志进入男权社会，但是在人性解放的道路上,传统的女性心理仍为最困难的因素。关键词: 简爱; 自尊心; 自卑感; 女性解放; 维多利亚时代abstract： jane eyre is a great rebellious woman. she is honest to her love and has strong self-respect. she thinks that marriage shouldnt be based on property, even not to be the means of pursuing wealth. marriage should only be based on love. however, she is self-abased at the same time. the reason of janes dual personality can be concluded into two aspects: the time she lives in and the authors attitude to life. partgives a brief introduction to jane eyre. much of jane eyres life experience is obviously drawn from charlottes own life. charlotte was born in 1816, and was therefore by no means the “victorian” product. partpresents the features and reasons of jane eyres dual personality. jane eyre has a great personality and keeps her self-respect all the time, because the author knows womens emancipation based on the independent consciousness of economy, and the personality. otherwise, there is no way to talk about womens personality, self-esteem, real love and the final goal-womens emancipation. however she is self-abased at the same time. in victorian time, although people have a lot of positive ideas, women are still barred by the social tradition. although victorian women have courage and ambition to get into the masculine society, the traditional feminine psychology becomes the most difficult on their way to personality liberation. key words: jane eyre; self-respect; self-abased; womens emancipation; victorian time .introduction1.1 introduction to jane eyrejane eyre is a young orphan being raised by mrs. reed, her cruel, wealthy aunt. a servant named bessie provides jane with some of the few kindnesses she receives, telling her stories and singing songs to her. one day, as punishment for fighting with her bullying cousin john reed, janes aunt imprisons jane in the red-room, the room in which janes uncle reed died. while locked in, jane, believing that she sees her uncles ghost screams and faints. she wakes to find herself in the care of bessie and the kindly apothecary mr. lloyd, who suggests to mrs. reed that jane be sent away to school. to janes delight, mrs. reed concurs.once at the lowood school, jane finds that her life is far from idyllic. the schools headmaster is mr.brocklehurst, a cruel, hypocritical, and abusive man. brocklehurst preaches a doctrine of poverty and privation to his students while using the schools funds to provide a wealthy and opulent lifestyle for his own family. at lowood, jane befriends a young girl named helen burns, whose strong, martyr like attitude toward the schools miseries is both helpful and displeasing to jane. a massive typhus epidemic sweeps lowood, and helen dies of consumption. the epidemic also results in the departure of mr. brocklehurst by attracting attention to the insalubrious conditions at lowood. after a group of more sympathetic gentlemen takes brocklehursts place, janes life improves dramatically. she spends eight more years at lowood, six as a student and two years as a teacher.after teaching for two years, jane yearns for new experiences. she accepts a governess position at a manor called thornfield, where she teaches a lively french girl named adle. the distinguished housekeeper mrs. fairfax presides over the estate. janes employer at thornfield is a dark, impassioned man named rochester, with whom jane finds herself falling secretly in love. she saves rochester from a fire one night, which he claims was started by a drunken servant named grace poole. but because grace poole continues to work at thornfield, jane concludes that she has not been told the entire story. jane sinks into despondency when rochester brings home a beautiful but vicious woman named blanche ingram. jane expects rochester to propose to blanche. but rochester instead proposes to jane, who accepts almost disbelievingly. the wedding day arrives, and as jane and mr. rochester prepare to exchange their vows, the voice of mr. mason cries out that rochester already has a wife. mason introduces himself as the brother of that wifea woman named bertha. mr. mason testifies that bertha, whom rochester married when he was a young man in jamaica, is still alive. rochester does not deny masons claims, but he explains that bertha has gone mad. he takes the wedding party back to thornfield, where they witness the insane bertha mason scurrying around on all fours and growling like an animal. rochester keeps bertha hidden on the third story of thornfield and pays grace poole to keep his wife under control. bertha was the real cause of the mysterious fire earlier in the story. knowing that it is impossible for her to be with rochester, jane flees thornfield. penniless and hungry, jane is forced to sleep outdoors and beg for food. at last, three siblings who live in a manor alternatively called marsh end and moor house take her in. their names are mary, diana, and st. john rivers, and jane quickly becomes friends with them. st. john is a clergyman, and he finds jane a job teaching at a charity school in morton. he surprises her one day by declaring that her uncle, john eyre, has died and left her a large fortune: 20,000 pounds. when jane asks how he received this news, he shocks her further by declaring that her uncle was also his uncle: jane and the riverses are cousins. jane immediately decides to share her inheritance equally with her three newfound relatives.st. john decides to travel to india as a missionary, and he urges jane to accompany himas his wife. jane agrees to go to india but refuses to marry her cousin because she does not love him. st. john pressures her to reconsider, and she nearly gives in. however, she realizes that she cannot abandon forever the man she truly loves when one night she hears rochesters voice calling her name over the moors. jane immediately hurries back to thornfield and finds that it has been burned to the ground by bertha mason, who lost her life in the fire. rochester saved the servants but lost his eyesight and one of his hands. jane travels on to rochesters new residence, ferndean, where he lives with two servants named john and mary.at ferndean, rochester and jane rebuild their relationship and soon marry. at the end of her story, jane writes that she has been married for ten blissful years and that she and rochester enjoy perfect equality in their life together. she says that after two years of blindness, rochester regained sight in one eye and was able to behold their first son at his birth.jane eyre is a great novel, which is still populous since its first publication in 1847.thackeray made great remark of it“the masterpiece of a great genius”. jane eyre is the first feminine character who takes the independence and the enterprise to deal with love, life, society and even religion in the british literature, furthermore, this character changed the literary tradition and social system which does not provide women with proper rights and position in their fields. jane eyre, a critique of victorian assumptions about gender and social class, became one of the most successful novels of its era, both critically and commercially. jane eyre is very much the story of a quest to be loved. jane searches, not just for romantic love, but also a sense of being valued, of belonging. thus jane says to helen burns: “to gain some real affection from you, or miss temple, or any other whom i truly love, i would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest” (jane eyre 8:93). yet, over the course of the book, jane must learn how to gain love without sacrificing and harming herself in the process.jane eyre has a positive, bright, and high-spirited style, just as a passionate symphony. the heroine jane eyre bravely smashes the bonds of tradition and enthusiastically pursues love and happiness with the rebellious spirit. she calls for womans equal standing with man and womans independence, personality liberation. however just like e.m. forster says, “jane eyre is the passionate dream of fine but still undeveloped woman.” (novelists on novelists 6:76) jane has the most exquisite emotion and flesh, great personality with which she keeps high-spirited will and keeps pursuing her love and happiness. at the same time jane is self-abased. this suggests that jane has a dual personality, which is reasoned in two facets: personality liberation urged jane to defy the pressure of masculine society; and the tradition, the traditional feminine psychology are the unconquerable difficulty.1.2 introduction to charlotte brontecharlotte was born in thornton, yorkshire, in the north of england, the daughter of an anglican clergyman who moved with his family to haworth amid the yorkshire moors in 1820. after their mother and two eldest children died, charlotte was left with her sisters emily and anne and brother branwell to the care of their father, and their strict, religious aunt, elisabeth branwell. the children created imaginary kingdoms, which were built around branwells toy soldiers, and which inspired them to write continuing sagas about the fantasylands of angria and gondal. charlotte attended the clergy daughters school at cowan bridge in 1824. she returned home next year because of the harsh conditions. in 1831 she went to school at roe head, where she later worked as a teacher. however, she fell ill, suffered from melancholia, and gave up this post. charlottes attempts to earn her living as a governess were hindered by her disabling shyness, her ignorance of normal children, and her yearning to be with her sisters. the collection of poems, poems by currer, ellis and acton bell (1846), which charlotte wrote with her sisters, sold only two copies. by this time she had finished a novel; the professor, but it never found a publisher during her lifetime. undeterred by this rejection, charlotte began jane eyre, which appeared in 1847 and became an immediate success. charlotte dedicated the book to william makepeace thackeray. the heroine is a penniless orphan who becomes a teacher, obtains a post as a governess, inherits money from an uncle, and marries the byronic hero in the end. branwell and emily died in 1848 and anne died the following year. although her identity was now well known, charlotte continued to publish as currer bell. jane eyre was followed by shirley (1848) and vilette (1853). in jane eyre charlotte used her experiences at the evangelical school and as governess. the novel severely criticized the limited options open to educated but impoverished women. the title character from shirley was an attempted ideal portrait of emily. . shirley was one of the first fully developed independent, brave, outspoken heroines in english literature. in 1854 charlotte bronte married her fathers curate, arthur bell nicholls. she died during her pregnancy on march 31, 1855 in haworth, yorkshire. the professor was posthumously published in 1857.charlotte bronte draws a great deal from her life experiences to create a great literary image, jane eyre, who stands for an idealized woman and shows the new pursuit of the woman in the 19th century.the author positively seeks the status and the outlet of women. in the past forty years there has been more interest in charlotte bronte. because of jane eyre, bronte becomes one of the distinguished english novelists of the mid-19th century. as a gifted woman of the 19th century, she has made such contributions to the development of the english novel that she justifiably wins her place in the front ranks the brilliant realists headed by dickens and thackery. the realistic eccentricities and incoherence of her novels have been excused because of their allegorical significance. jane eyres extraordinary adventures can be seen as a vehicle of a struggle between duty and passion. opinions about the merits of the novels will probably continue to vary. however, jane eyre is always likely to be the most popular work. it is obvious that in different cultures, individual personalities and social characteristics always depend on sexual distinction. individuals are treated and educated differently because of the difference of their sex. the idea that the traditional masculine character should be strong, independent and enterprising, and that contrarily, traditional female be frail, dependent and meek, suggests that the sexual character is the social behavior mode, which is given according to the sexual destination. this idea has been accepted for a long time. although jane has great courage and determination to defy the pressure of masculine society, the traditional feminine psychology becomes the unconquerable difficulty.introduction of the duality of jane eyres personality2.1 jane eyres self-respect and self-abasement2.1.1 features of jane eyres self-respect we always say that the flesh is weak, only spirit can nourish and strengthen human being. facing all kinds of difficulties of life, one can only solve all problems if ones spirit overcomes; otherwise he or she will be captured by failure. jane is the first kind of people. janes fate is unfair one. she has a lifetime frustration. the calamities and misfortunes jane suffers in over 20 years are far more than others encounter in a whole life. these calamities and misfortunes are unendurable to common woman. what is praiseworthy of jane is that she does not yield to the fate but fights silently and rises in suffering. the development of her characters can be divided into four periods in respect of the vicissitudes of jane eyres life:(1) outburst period at gateshead;(2) progress period in lowood school;(3) perfection period at thornfield hall;(4) formation of jane eyres stable characters. in each period, jane eyre steps forward to the indomitable woman who is born pursuing for equality, independence, freedom and happiness in her life. from these various experiences, jane becomes the mature and steady-handed woman who narrates the novel retrospectively. the development of jane eyres character is central to the novel: outburst period at gatesheadjane eyre is born an orphan, with unfortunate family and long time repressive feeling; she builds up her resistant emotion. mrs. reeds ill-treatment, johns imperious action, and elizabeths and georgianas cold attitude badly hurt her; even the servants make sarcastic remarks about her. as a girl who is raised in others home, she is as said by servant abbot as “less than a servant”, (jane eyre 1:7) for she “does nothing for her keep”. (jane eyre 1:7) without happiness in real life and her only happiness becomes reading. the book creates her imagination and arouses her intelligence. she feels herself free and independent in the world created by the book, and seems to have found her in a new happy land. but this simple way of self-consolation is also spoiled by her cousin. for the first time, she raises an impulsive feeling of protection after numerous humiliations. after being beaten by master john, she says to him,” wicked and cruel boy”, “you are like the roman emperor!”(jane eyre 1:6) her emotion bursts out as strong as flood, as fierce as volcano, which can never be stopped. her action so frightens almost everyone in gateshead that they all begin to take a new eye on her. this is the first step of the development jane eyres characters.jane shows her upright nature and her struggle. she doesnt fear and dares to say directly what she thinks. jane is an unpopular in gateshead, but she sees through mrs. reed s bad characters more clearly. she is awaken by johns beats and calls him directly “a tyranny”. she tells mr.lloyd, the apothecary, the truth, “i am miserable”;( jane eyre 1:19) “john reed knocked me down and my aunt shut me up in the red-room”. these words express her resentment to mrs. reeds in a childish way. befor