Sub Rosa

I am trying to add some added comparisons to this TH2 Monster. I have used Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper and Henrik Ibsen - A Doll's House, but only in passing as I have just Too Much To Right About, Not Enough Space and I have to Pare Back As It is.  Right now, I can truly identify with Perkin Gilman's character going slowly mental because she is confined to barracks. Also I have had to fight off migraine, great, so I am avoiding chocolate and coffee today  :-/


Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper -------> http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1952/1952-h/1952-h.htm

Henrik Ibsen - A Doll's House -----------------------------------> http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2542/2542-h/2542-h.htm

Alas, if I don't get this sorted by midday Thursday, I will kick it to the kerb.  It is meant to be a Gothic novel and right up my street, but I don't warm to the characters, nor am a keen feminist.  Just not into it.

15:44
I have come to the conclusion that I will never get this right, so I am just going to pare back on the words.  I have to lose 177 words (bringing the essay down to 2,200 - or 2,000 with 10% margin) and just resubmit, knowing that at my present level of education, I cannot significantly turn this around without starting from scratch and even then, I do not have the guarantee that I can do it.  My mistake was not annotating the text in the first place, plus not having an interest in either subject does hamper one.  So, mission ::: lose the wordage.  I am not going to burn myself out on an assignment that I cannot significantly turn round in time - over and out.

20:18
It is done.  Tomorrow is the sticky political essay IN3 (which I didn't totally cock up, but will need a rethink).

Bank Holiday Monday and it has been lashing down all day.  My car has not moved all week, because the hoses have split again and I cannot see the mechanic til Thursday.  This always seems to happen when I have a particularly shitty piece of work to do.  Right now it is just as well that I don't have transport, because I would make a bolt for the door and possibly not come back.  Hubby is in a similar position - he is revising for his exam due 8 days after my final submit.  He has ground to a halt because nothing read has sunk in today.

I am looking at TH2 Jane Eyre/Feminist Theory and the essay is awash with the main lecturer's scrawling.  It's a mess and I am in despair - it stands at 59% and I really want to shove it over 65%.  Would be really happy with an upper second, if possible.  Lit Theory is NOT for the faint-hearted.  I have printed off the OWL Purdue checklist re Fem Theory and have stuck it to the side of the computer. Right now, nothing is sticking for me either. Am going to add main lecturer's notes to the new essay and somehow find a way through.

15:37
When you have a partner who is in the same boat, it does reap some rewards.  You both know how the other is feeling, both climbing the wall, both supportive etc.  What DOESN'T work is if one (me) is trying to soldier away and the other (he) is wandering aimlessly around, wanting to chat because they are bored.  Being the loving Wifey that I am, I have dragged him into the 21st century and suggests he listens to podcasts from the accredited site.  As I am the only one with speakers, we had a miniature growly face-off, where he suggested frisking the PC for MY set.  No sunshine, that's NOT how it works.  I have now sent him out to get a new set of speakers with an still-in-date Argos card. Hopefully it will do the job :-)

17:27
Cross-eyed and reading Gilbert and Gubar.  There is a thin line between high brow and turgid - I am sorry Bronte aficionados, I am not a fan.

22:17
I managed to replan my assignment by printing off the rough draft and seeing parallels that I hadn't seen before.  Feeling much better and am off to watch V for Vendetta.  Not that I am interested in Dystopia at all :-DDDDD

Woo hoo!! It is a summery 16c (60.8f) out there!  Sunshine - two days on the trot! Alas I am indoors, still slavering away over a tepid desk, but even I can appreciate the warmth through the window.  The plants in the porch are stretching their leaves to catch the sunlight, lest it is a fleeting visitor.  The long range forecast is good, if a little cloudy - which means I can really ramp up the speed on this essay and take some days off.  Actually see some friends in the next town, maybe my sister and niece and even better, live life through a lens for a while.

Meanwhile, I have been up since 8:45 with a staggering 2,528 words under my belt and I haven't even finished with Rochester yet, let alone set my sights on the clinical St John Rivers, nor add the sprinkles of academic critical view (does it really matter what old Prudence Stuffed-Shirt (MA) said in The English Review ten years ago? Apparently it does).

20:17
I have gone as far as I can now - 2,944 words.  Sprinkles yet to be added.  I want out, though: if I can nail all of this totally by tomorrow evening, I will be out for the whole day on Tuesday and/or Thursday - gratefully photosynthesising in the rays of the early spring :-D

Not best pleased at the moment - the Gilbert and Gubar page is refusing to load, the Literature Online is refusing both my college and university username/password.  To my absolute joy, I am making headway.  I have chiseled out 1,904 words, but I have a fair way to go before I add critical review from other journals, then cut swathes into it to make it fit.  I have found out yesterday that the mini dissertation next academic year will be 4,000+ words.  Bearing in mind I can write reams about Jane Eyre using Psychoanalytical Theory, my problem will be knowing WHEN to stop.

17:24

"It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it"

(Bronte, 1847, p.140)

Poor Jane - I don't think anyone has gone through life without identifying her on some level, especially in regards to unrequited love.  She remonstrates herself because she feels so strongly for Rochester, then lives in strict denial. She then gets caught off-guard by her own feelings and gets carried away by the undertow. For her, it's like jumping into the fire, in order to put the flames out.

20: 32
Progress has been made.  I think I am about just about 2/3rds the way through (I have to develop the maginalised Bertha, the lies that reveal themselves and how things are never equal unless really improbable events take place.  Thankfully, I have been able to download G&G and I have managed to find essays in The English Review.

For anyone interested in Jane Eyre, the links to the online book and a video dramatisation are under the cuts

( Jane Eyre Film & Online Book Link )

I am watching Jane Eyre on film right now, before I launch back into the book. I watched the 1996 version with Ciaran Hinds and Samantha Morton and even tried to watch the 1943 version with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine.  This is just not my thing, but hey ho - time to write the essay.  Jane and her Shadow Self and the price of patriarchy etc.

Below is another Shadow Self - taken outside the Fal Building.

( The Shadow Self )

Alas, the shadow makes me look like I have an enormous butt cheek - courtesy of the bag I was wearing :-)

18:26
I find this task exhausting, because I have to keep seeing this as deliberate suppression of the female spirit and I don't always see Jane Eyre as that.

21:22
I have written 700 words today - not a lot, but then I have been watching films, taking notes and planning as well as writing researching and quoting.  Have dealt with Mrs Reed and Son, currently dealing with Mr Brocklehurst and the starved sisterhood of Lowood Institution.  The Joy :-/

This is a restart as I have just received advice from my lecturer.  I have to have a running commentary about the book, using extracts from key moments of the book, rather than use an extract and comment of that.  I am going to hone in on chapter 26 (no spoilers) and build my case around it.  The thing is, I have a hard time with this because I don't find it very believable e.g. the path to equality is people conveniently dying, a bagful of cash and a mansion being burnt to the ground (well, maybe a few spoilers here).

How is this this meant to be a feminist victory - unless this is the whole point?  That back in the 1800s, a woman had few rights and it is something as ridiculous as the most unlikely plot twists, that would point this out.  Thing is, whereas I am all for the 'sisterhood,' I feel more at home discussing Marxist Theory/Post-Colonial Theory.  However, I think I have thrashed out some of this via my trusty wipe board, under cut (look away if you don't want any spoilers)

( Wipeboard Notes - Jane Eyre )

Last year, my bugbear was Wuthering Heights, written by her sister.  I struggled a bit with this, but I managed to crawl through and I even had a sneaking respect for Emily Bronte.  Hopefully, I will have that re her sister.

19:15
Getting the bare bones down, but will fill in the rest tomorrow evening and Friday.