Caitlin Katz's List: Charlotte Bronte Senior Paper

Argument: Comparison of two authors and how they depict their characters as impassioned lovers who overcome obstacles and end up married.

Claims: Jane Eyre is stuck in somewhat of a love triangle with St. John and Mr. Rochester, but returns to Mr. Rochester where she knows she will be truly happy. Jane determines he is best for her in marriage because he loves her as an educated woman, and she feels a more passionate love for him.
Evidence: "Both novels here conclude with depictions of the impassioned lovers overcoming all obstacles to enter into the happy and fruitful (each with a child) estate of matrimony," (Bubel 295).
"This 'death to self' enables her to break free from an imprisoning triangular desire of a different kind," (Bubel 304).

Argument: A comparison of Jane Austen's writing and Charlotte Bronte's.
Claims: Charlotte Bronte creates educated characters to play her female roles so that they can excercise reason. Her uneducated women are foolish. Her female leads are all reasonable and rational -two characteristics she probably appreciated in herself.
Evidence: "Jane Eyre dramaticizes its manifesto that women must be educated to excercise their reason, with Adele Varens and Blanche Ingram proving that uneducated women become coquettes," (Harris 102).

Argument: While often describes as an angry, and early feministic character, Jane Eyre is actually quite shameful in her narration.
Claims: Jane Eyre's character is introduced into the story with the exclamation "For shame! For shame!" directed at her.
Evidence: "This cry 'for shame' suggests that shame constitutes both an introduction of 'Miss Eyre' to the reader and an interpellation of Jane into the contours of gendered interiority and social relations," (Bennett 1).