Slides for Day 4 in ELIT 46C, Spr 18

1. Day 4
ELIT 46C
GOTHIC DOMESTICITY?: JANE EYRE AND GENRE

2. Participation for today
1. We’re going to do another group activity in the second half of
class. If everyone in your group speaks AND one person from
your group presents your result to the class, each member of
your group gets 2 points for today. Be sure to put something on
your self-report that says: I talked in group and then my group
talked.
2. If you individually say something else in discussion, you can
receive 1 more discussion point. (Limit: 1.)
3. Keep track on a slip of paper (near the door) and turn it in at
the end.
PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.

3. Social Mobility in the 19C
We talked about class structure on Tuesday. But (as
Huan asked) how easy was it to move between
classes?
There was *some* mobility. (After all, the burgeoning
middle class had to come from somewhere!).
Miles (1997) [based on marriage records]:
◦ 1839-54: 68% chance that a man getting married had
the same class as his father.
◦ By 1914, this was down to 54%.
Long (2018) [based on occupational records]:
◦ 50% chance that a son in 1881 was the same class his
father was in 1851.
◦ Of the half that changed classes, half of those moved up
and half moved down.

4. What genre is
Jane Eyre?
(MAYBE NOT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.)

5. Genre
What is genre?
How do we determine genre?
Conventions!
Why does genre matter?
Two things today:
1. Introduce you to some of the novelistic
genres that were in circulation in the Victorian
period.
2. Figure out how elements of these genres
show up in Jane Eyre.

6. Realism (as defined by Watt)
In the eighteenth century (18C), the novel (as we would recognize it) appears.
◦ Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel (1957).
◦ Fielding (Tom Jones), Defoe (Robinson Crusoe), Richardson (Pamela) (did you read any of them?)
Watt argues that the defining characteristic of the novel is its “formal realism.”
◦ Portrayal of a “particular and circumstantial” view of life.
◦ With a flavor of authenticity (via language).
The realist novel = a story of the life experiences of an individual person.
What is this in contrast to?
◦ allegories!
◦ fairy tales?
◦ poetry (even narrative).

7. Realism
Not necessarily “ordinary” life. Because very few of the early novels in
particular were interested in the ordinary.
Generally accepting of middle class ethics and morals.
Definitely not supernatural, less of the weird or improbable.
Aiming for “representation of reality.”
Linda M. Shires: realism “supposes a privileged epistemological point of
view from which both knowledge and judgment can be truthfully and
precisely issued to establish consensus among implied author, narrator,
and reader.”
◦ (Though this is an effect produced by language, not an actual position.)

8. Realism and the 19C Novel
Shires argues that realism is “the dominant mode of representation and the dominant reading
practice of the Victorian era.”
Several Victorian novelists are very good at it:
◦ George Eliot, Middlemarch.
◦ Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now.
◦ Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

9. So what genre
is Jane Eyre?

10. Bildungsroman
Bildungsroman: novel of education/formation of one
character; coming-of-age from youth to adulthood;
character change that comes from increasing experience in
the world; especially in times of great social change and
uncertainty; often begins with a loss; character usually
begins as separate or feeling alienated from society; main
character usually lacks guidance from family.
Examples: The Mill on the Floss (1860), Great Expectations
(1861), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916).

11. Christian pilgrimage novel
Christian pilgrimage novel: the story of an individual’s spiritual
journey to become a better Christian; exposed to snares and
temptations along the way, but also encounters with spiritually more
advanced teachers; become increasingly Christ-like; application of a
voyage/quest narrative to a spiritual subject; mix of both secular and
religious language; originally allegorical.
Best known example: John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678).
Plot synopsis, as per the British Library: “The Pilgrim’s Progress tells
the story of Christian and his journey from The City of Destruction
(representing earth) to the Celestial City (representing heaven). Along
the way he meets characters such as Pliable, Obstinate and Hopeful
who, as their names suggest, embody particular qualities that may
help or hinder a Christian in his or her journey to heaven. The work’s
language is permeated by that of the King James Bible, which Bunyan
mixes with the colloquial language of his day.”

12. Gothic novel
gothic novel: You read one of these in 46B: Frankenstein!
Supernatural elements are commonplace; reliability of the narrator
and even basic perception is often in question; ghosts, monsters,
giants, etc.; scary old mansions/castles; obsession with death and
things that won’t stay dead; doubles and doubling, doppelgangers,
dissociation; perverse sexual desires (especially sadomasochism);
mysteries; fear; curses and ancient crimes.
Examples: The Castle of Otranto (1764), Frankenstein (1818),
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), Dracula (1897).

13. Sensation novel
sensation novel: not completely unrelated to gothic.
Designed to produce feelings of anxiety and titillation in
the reader; mystery, deception, disguise; secrecy; the
secrets beneath respectability: murder, blackmail, fraud,
adultery, incest, bigamy; the horrible things that happen
in “safe” places—especially the home; home as a place of
fear, entrapment, incarceration, surveillance.
Examples: The Woman in White (1859), The Moonstone
(1868), Lady Audley’s Secret (1862).

14. Domestic novel
domestic novel: woman main character, often an idealized “virtuous”
woman; focus on emotions and affect; replaces social hierarchy with gender
hierarchy; resolves class differences or other political differences through a
marriage for love; romantic love must lead to marriage; separates men and
women into two spheres: the man is responsible for economic life and the
woman is responsible for transmuting that money into a worthwhile home
life; men = public, women = private; home as a refuge for men from life in
public and woman as caretaker there; women’s sexual desire must be
contained in marriage; men must often be domesticated into suitability for
marriage; the governess as a threat to domestic stability; allegiance is,
ultimately, to middle-class (not aristocratic) values.
Examples: Pamela (1740), Evelina (1778), Belinda (1801), Jane Austen (to a
large extent).
(Most of this slide is in debt to Nancy Armstrong, Desire and Domestic
Fiction [1987]).

15. Group Genre Identification Activity
#bookdetectives
Ten total groups of 4-5 people each, each anchored by one person.
◦ Two Bildungsroman groups
◦ Two Christian pilgrimage groups
◦ Two Gothic groups
◦ Two Sensation groups
◦ Two Domestic groups
◦ Your group should include at least one person the “anchor” does not know.
Task: identify the elements of your assigned genre in Jane Eyre.
◦ come up with scenes, moments, and say how they might connect to this genre.
◦ I want chapters and page numbers for each scene, moment.
◦ BONUS: are there moments in the novel or aspects of the novel that don’t seem to fit with your genre?
Why not?

16. So what genre is Jane Eyre?
Genres are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Novels are complicated.
◦ Bakhtin: heteroglossia
Shires argues that the Victorian novel is often “fractured” by
attempts to combine multiple genres.
What does this tell us about Victorian subjectivity?
Or about how Victorians saw their world?

17. Homework for Tuesday
Jane Eyre, Chs. 24-33 (pp. 297-448)
Discussion Post due on Canvas by Monday 6
PM.
Participation Self-Report:
1. We’re going to do another group activity in
the second half of class. If everyone in your
group speaks AND one person from your group
presents your result to the class, each member
of your group gets 2 points for today. Be sure
to put something on your self-report that says:
I talked in group and then my group talked.
2. If you individually say something else in
discussion, you can receive 1 more discussion
point. (Limit: 1.)
Don’t forget your name!