Relating My "One Little Word" to "Jane Eyre"

For my one little word I wanted to pick something unique. I wanted to pick something that nobody else would pick. During my first stage of brainstorming, I started with some of my favorite words or words that make me happy. My list in my composition book looked like this...

-Sunshine
-Love
-Color
-Perfection
-Friend
-Journey
-Luck



My cousin's dogs and me in Illinois during Summer 2010.

 I had already brainstormed ideas for my top words (the ones listed in colors above). If I chose "friend," when we did an art project I would use a picture of a dog. And If I chose "luck," I would use the story of my late grandfather. However, in the end I chose the word COLOR. My table group and I agreed that it suited me well (after all I still love to color and do arts and crafts). So now it's time to connect it with Jane Eyre...

One would think that connecting Jane Eyre with the word COLOR would be a little difficult. While reading Jane Eyre tonight, I decided to take a break and comment on other teams' blogs. Then the idea just hit me. So here I am, being an overachiever and writing my blog one day early. Haha. Anyways, I only thought about my idea for about five minutes before I decided to turn it into this blog. At Lowood School, the school Jane attends and where she eventually teaches, Mr. Brocklehurst emphasizes conformity. All of the girls must look and dress the same. In addition, throughout the book Jane compares her plain clothing that she has from Lowood to the elegant "crimson velvet robes and shawl turbans of some gold-wrought Indian fabric" (Chapter 17) of the Eshton and Ingram families. However, in Jane Eyre, color is also important in the detailed descriptions of Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield Hall, and Morton. One of my favorite descriptions in the novel occurs in Chapter 9 when Jane describes the garden at Lowood during the spring. I can almost see "the borders of the little beds that were gay with pink thrift and crimson double daises." In addition, color is also important in the description of the red room at Gateshead in Chapter 2.

My word, COLOR, also had more of a connection to literature than I originally thought. I knew of color symbolism from English I and II but the concept skipped my mind when I picked my one little word. Here is a website all about color symbolism:

Color Symbolism Website (Scroll down a little to find the "Color Symbolism Chart" on the left side of the page)

For those of you reading Tess, does color symbolism play a role at all? (In class we already talked about the baptism of the baby and Tess's white nightgown). Are there any other pieces of literature you have read that use color symbolism?

-Shelby F.

Imperfection in Tess

“And it was the touch of imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity.”

-Tess Pg. 150

           

            In unknowing eyes, Tess seems perfect and innocent, embodying purity at its fullest. When Angel Clare saw Tess in this way, only speaking of her looks, I think Hardy was implying much more, expressing Clare’s lack of knowledge about Tess. Due to Alec D’Urbervilles previous defilement of Tess, she has become a whole new person, and though she looks the same, her purity is lost. When Tess tells Clare of this encounter, he claims he doesn’t love her anymore because she isn’t as real as she was before this knowledge came out, but I see it as the opposite.

            I really liked this quote because I think it portrays that nothing is truly perfect, no person, no relationship, or any idea. If something actually is perfect, it’s not real. Clare seems to think it’s possible to have such a relationship, but doesn’t realize that what he loves most about Tess is the “imperfect upon the would-be perfect”. If she were perfect, he probably wouldn’t love her the same. This portrays a man’s expectations of women in 19^th century society, how unfairly they can be treated, through Alec, and how wrongly they can be accused, even though in this situation it is the man being stubborn; Clare is unable to realize that he is in the wrong by leaving her, and by not seeing that the flaw is what makes Tess the woman he loves.

            Imperfection lets us know that we are real and living. As the quote states, it gives us our humanity.  Many qualities we have come from our imperfection, which is what attracts Clare to Tess. It is accepting those flaws that create what is real.
-Taylor C.