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'Jane Eyre and Great Expectations'coherence of the self
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English Literature 1B Assessed Essay Brendan Gill ‘That consciousness which accompanies our Thoughts and Actions, and by which we connect ourselves with ourselves from time to time’ (David Hartley, 1749). Compare the manner in which any two texts represent the connection or coherence of the self over time. The questions of this essay are: does the self become affected by the passing of time? As we grow, does the self change from the trials that each of us tackle through our own thoughts and actions? I am going to develop these questions by looking at the novels ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte and ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens. I will look at how each protagonist changes their own personalities through the experiences they have as they grow up; and how the self of each lead character changes with the passing of time. The actual meaning of the self is not always distinct. Henry James describes this as: Where does it begin? Where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to us-and then it flows back again.# The above quote is appropriate to both ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Great Expectations’, as these novels bring to the forefront a journey of selfhood through time. The theme of each novel is the voyage of self-discovery throughout their lives, which both central characters embark on in their narratives. The two novels are broken up into various stages of life, from the innocence of childhood to adolescence through to adulthood. The reader is able to become more closely involved with the characters as they develop into individuals; finding their true selves through the passing of time into maturity. At the start of the novel, Jane is very “humbled by the consciousness of (her) physical inferiority”#. This shows Jane is very weak in her self belief and uncertain of what she can achieve. At the start of the novel you would expect this from Jane because she is young and has had no time to experience life yet: her self is not developed. The same can be said for Pip in ‘Great Expectations’: when Pip’s story sets off he is at the gravestone of his parents and tells the reader “ I never saw my father or my mother”#. He is also an orphan who is very unaware with his own self and his true nature. This is again what is expected from a child who has not had a lot of time to look at who they are. Both Jane and Pip find themselves in disagreeable situations to which their selves are not akin to and both find a way of gaining new horizons. Jane is treated terribly by her Aunt Reed and organises to leave and go to school. Before Jane leaves for school she has a confrontation with her Aunt. Although Jane’s Aunts “household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control”#, Jane forces her Aunt to speak to her as “an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child”#. Jane tells her Aunt how she feels about the house and her treatment being terrible while staying there; after which, she feels the “strangest sense of freedom, of triumph”#.
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