EXPRESSIONS LITERATURE

Jane Eyre

Expressions // ‘God’s Own Lambs’: The Evangelical Child in Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë wrote in a letter to W.S. Williams that Jane Eyre ‘has no learning, no research’, and ‘discusses no subject of public interest.’[1]  Although it is true that Charlotte did not set out to write Jane Eyre with the same didactic impulses which compelled her sister to write The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, in her representation of the evangelical institution of Lowood – a thinly disguised Cowan Bridge School as Charlotte’s biographer Elizabeth Gaskell later confirmed – and in the ensuing debate in the press as to the extent of its accuracy, there can be, as Glen states, no doubting the ‘public interest’ of her chosen subject matter.[2]

The harsh, rigorous discipline to which children were subjected at such ‘evangelical, charitable establishments’[3] as Lowood has at its core a firmly-held belief in man’s inherently sinful nature, and the absolute authority of the parent and the teacher to ‘subdue the desires of the flesh’, ‘instil humility and obedience’ and, perhaps most significantly, prepare the child for salvation.[4]  To evangelical Christians like Reverend Carus Wilson, upon whom Mr Brocklehurst is purportedly based, the child, however inexperienced, is no less sinful than any adult. Continue Reading

EXPRESSIONS FILM

Whistle Down the Wind

Expressions // Reason To Believe: Whistle Down The Wind The first time I saw Brian Forbes’s Whistle Down the Wind when I was about 14, I briefly entertained the idea that I’d had some ground-breaking epiphany…

EXPRESSIONS LITERATURE

The Yellow Wall-Paper

Expressions // The Female Liver: Gender and Mental Health in The Yellow Wall-Paper ‘The clearness and strength of the brain of the woman prove continually the injustice of the clamorous contempt long poured upon what was…

EXPRESSIONS LITERATURE

Harry Potter

Expressions // Floriography + Harry Potter ‘Be like the lily graceful; delicateAs the long-lived Petunia, so meek’  // The Poetry of Observation part Second and other Poems by William Asbury I was originally inspired to write…

EXPRESSIONS LITERATURE

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Expressions // ‘An Unpalatable Truth’: Moral Nurture and Individual Responsibility in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall The eponymous tenant of Anne Brontë’s second and final novel is the mysterious widow Helen Graham. She arrives at the…

IMPRESSIONS LITERATURE

The Children Who Lived in a Barn

Impressions // The Children Who Lived in A Barn by Eleanor Graham As far as literary tropes go, sudden and extended parental absenteeism would appear to be the go-to plot device for writers of children’s fiction. …

EXPRESSIONS LITERATURE

Sense and Sensibility

Expressions // Illness in Sense and Sensibility There’s nothing quite like the coming of spring (FINALLY) to rejuvenate what’s been for me a pretty stagnant and uncreative few months (one day I’ll stop beginning every post…

IMPRESSIONS LITERATURE

The Woman Who Fooled The World

Impressions  //  Illness, Wellness & The Woman Who Fooled the World It’s been another long, long break since writing anything for this space, and when I eventually decided I wanted to talk about Beau Donelly and…