Jane's Journey: Third Stop
We are at a critical moment in the Jane Journey! Will Jane marry St. John Rivers or will she answer the call back to Rochester? Last revisions of our first essay and plans for a more creative project are afoot as we near the end of the book. This week, I thought it would be fun to have one of my students, Julia ’19, write an entry for Pocket Change as a way to share the student perspective on “Jane’s Journey.” Over to Julia!
When I learned that Jane Moulding was going to be teaching one of my classes this year, I’ll admit that I was a bit intimidated. Not only had I never read Victorian literature before, I didn’t know what to expect from Jane. In class, it was clear that she was passionate and caring, and tried to make learning exciting whenever possible. My favorite parts of class are the discussions, which often center around connecting the social issues pertinent among the Victorian era with society today and our own personal experiences.
For example, after we read the falling-out between Jane Eyre and her fiancé Edward Rochester, Jane asked us if Rochester’s erratic, desperate, and near-violent behavior towards Eyre in that incident was justified. Up until that point, Eyre and Rochester had been madly in love and planning a future together, and Rochester became hysterical when Eyre asserted that she must leave him for good. Jane questioned if Rochester’s aggressive insistence that Eyre should stay with him had any merit: “Does he have a case?” she posed, scanning our faces for reactions. One student answered “no” and connected Eyre’s ordeal to the #MeToo movement, another responded “yes” and referenced their own tendency to overreact while stressed, another replied “maybe” because Victorian society had instilled values of marriageability in Rochester.
For example, after we read the falling-out between Jane Eyre and her fiancé Edward Rochester, Jane asked us if Rochester’s erratic, desperate, and near-violent behavior towards Eyre in that incident was justified. Up until that point, Eyre and Rochester had been madly in love and planning a future together, and Rochester became hysterical when Eyre asserted that she must leave him for good. Jane questioned if Rochester’s aggressive insistence that Eyre should stay with him had any merit: “Does he have a case?” she posed, scanning our faces for reactions. One student answered “no” and connected Eyre’s ordeal to the #MeToo movement, another responded “yes” and referenced their own tendency to overreact while stressed, another replied “maybe” because Victorian society had instilled values of marriageability in Rochester.
The strength of a class like this is that we view modern social issues like gender and class inequality through the Victorian lens. Even though the modern definitions of feminism, classism, and intersectionality are recent, we see early iterations of them in Charlotte Bronte’s writing. For example, Bronte’s feminism, although she didn’t call it that, is very different from today’s feminism because her ideas of women’s autonomy were in its nascent stage. Talking about it requires a baseline shift in our understanding of social justice, and it’s important to see how these concepts evolved from 1847 to 2018.
I’m glad we continually have these conversations at CSW. As Jane Eyre said, “Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education.”
— Julia Applebaum '19
— Julia Applebaum '19
The Cambridge School of Weston is a progressive high school for day and boarding students in grades 9–12 and PG. CSW's mission is to provide a progressive education that emphasizes deep learning, meaningful relationships, and a dynamic program that inspires students to discover who they are and what their contribution is to their school, their community and the world.