Tuesday, September 9, 2008

much more interesting

I am extremely happy  that the book gets more interesting. I was excited when jane got to leave Gateshead. Bessie is one of my favored characters i like that she sees Janes struggle and disagrees with the way that Mrs. Reed treats her, She seems to be quite fond of jane after the red room incident. When jane arrived at Lowood i thought it was gonna be alot better for her, But then her new best friend helen  dies in her arm which was  a great twist in my opinion. Miss temple seems to be the only cool teacher and she helps Jane a lot with school and personal issues. The principal made her stand on a stool for the whole day while he announced that she is a liar to everyone, at 5 when all the students leave jane collapses to the floor..... this seems like a cruel and unjust punishment to me. She explains to miss temple that she is not a liar and when she gets a conformation letter from Mr. Lloyd the reeds doctor, miss temple publicly announces she is not a liar which helps jane a lot. Jane then focuses on her studies and excels in painting, and she improves in french.
When spring time rolls around everything seems perfect but with the damp warm forest it is a breeding ground for Typhus the disease that killed her parents. More than half the girls come down with the disease but jane remains healthy. Helen dies but not from Typhus, she dies from consumption. Mr. Brocklehurst the principal is found to be one of the causes of the Typhus epidemic. A new crew is sent to run the school, Jane excels in her studies for the next 6 years and after 2 years teaching decides its time for a change which i was really hoping for. Part of the reason for this is miss temple marries and retires. She finds a place to work at in Thornfield, Her new house in thornfield is all great at first but Mrs. fairfox is not she is an elderly woman who is the housekeeper. She watches the house while the owner Mr. ROchester is away. She finds our he has a violent history and also meets Grace an uneasy and unpredictable Seamstress who works in the house. Jane learns she will be tutoring an 8 year old french girl who is pretty intelligent. I think this will be good for Jane, But i think that something bad will probably happen between jane and Mr. Rochester.
This is as far as i have got so far in the book. I think this is a good book and i am excited to see her future conflicts. I would like for Mrs. Reed to die still, that might make Jane even happier. I also hope that the reed kids all do bad in life and go through major struggles for how they treated jane while she was living there. Jane seems to be a very mentally strong woman, she would have to be to make it through the struggles she has. This is what i think of the book so far and i hope it gets even better so i stay interested.

1 comment:

David Lavender said...

David,

I'm glad that you're enjoying the book (and I think that you will find that it gets even better as it goes). This is a good, meaty response (keep it up), and what interested me most was the aside about Miss Temple going off and getting married. This raises the questions: just what were the prospects for women in the mid-1800's if they didn't manage to land a "good catch"? What are Jane's prospects? (How ideal a situation is that of a governess?). In what ways was society then--more generally speaking, as 'cruel' and unjust' to women as Brocklehurst's Lowood was to these girls? (Keep in mind that the whole point of Lowood is to 'train' these girls in humility and depreavation.