Week 7 Asynchronous Discussion

Instructions:

1. Re-read the passage from Jane Eyre chapter 20 pasted below. In this passage, Mr. Rochester and Jane are on a walk. Rochester poses his moral quandary to Jane by telling her the story of his life in a somewhat vague second-person narration. He asks if he should overcome "an obstacle of custom" to "attach to him" someone who may enable the "regeneration" of his life. Finally, he more plainly asks if Miss Ingram would have such a regenerative effect on him.
2. Choose one of the below prompts to answer in 150-250 words. You do not need to respond to every question in your chosen prompt — focus on what is interesting to you. This response is due Friday 02/21 by 11:59 PM.
3. You will be automatically assigned to a small group. After posting your response, comment on a group member's response in 100-150 words. You might agree, disagree, expand on their thoughts, and/or point to an additional textual detail in this passage or elsewhere in the novel. This response is due before the first discussion section on Monday Week 8, 02/24, 9:30 AM.

Chapter 20, pages 242-243: 

“Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:—suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I don’t say a crime; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is error. The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel will not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure—I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure—such as dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment: you make a new acquaintance—how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come back—higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom—a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment approves?”

He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.

Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:

“Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant, man justified in daring the world’s opinion, in order to attach to him for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?”

“Sir,” I answered, “a wanderer’s repose or a sinner’s reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend and solace to heal.”

“But the instrument—the instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the instrument. I have myself—I tell it you without parable—been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for my cure in—”

He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling. I almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many minutes—so long was the silence protracted. At last I looked up at the tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.

“Little friend,” said he, in quite a changed tone—while his face changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh and sarcastic—“you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: don’t you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a vengeance?”

Discussion Questions:

1. Consider this passage in relation to our conversations in lecture of Charles Taylor’s theory of Romanticism and the Enlightenment. How does Rochester’s narration reflect the conflicting ideals of each movement? Where do you see the moral imperative of universal justice and/ or the self determining subject manifesting in Rochester’s confession, and Jane’s response?
2. Taking in account the class differences between Rochester and Jane Eyre, why is Rochester choosing to confess to his governess? Why does he care about her opinion? How does Jane’s response to his question show her own orientation to this power dynamic? Considering the other conversations between these two characters leading up to this point, to what extent does Jane have/ seek agency in this relationship?  
3. Mr. Rochester is asking Jane for advice on whether or not to marry Miss Ingram, but he doesn't straightforwardly admit that this is about him. Instead, he asks her to "suppose you were no longer a girl… but a wild boy," recounting his life story for Jane to imagine as if it were her own experience. Why does Mr. Rochester pose his quandary to her in a second-person narration instead of the first or third? Why ask her to imagine herself in this situation? In other words, what is the purpose or function of fiction or narrative in their interaction? Might this help Jane to truly understand the issue more deeply or sympathetically? You might keep in mind our discussion of how Brontë puts her feminist rant into the mouth of a fictional character in her novel, instead of in a political pamphlet. 
4. Mr. Rochester's account of his own life is quite vague, but alludes to how incidents of his past continue to haunt him, "follow you through life and taint all your existence." He uses imagery like "your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse" to capture the way he is affected by his past errors. Why does Rochester choose to use gothic language (e.g. the imagery, vagueness, and secrecy) to recount his past? If the novel started mostly Realist, with its investment in ordinary life, and took a turn into the Gothic, with the nighttime horrors at Thornfield Hall, then where does this passage fall on the spectrum from Realist to Gothic? Considering the screams and violent incidents that occurred in the household leading up to this point (and feel free to allude to prior passages as reference), how do gothic themes of deception, supernatural hauntings, and past melancholia function in this novel?