Books

This book was interesting and gave me a deep insight into society, morals and what is deemed right and wrong.

When I was reading this book I felt somewhat detached from the story and struggled to relate to the characters. While this made it harder for me to get into the story it actually helped me understand the concept of the story and the culture these scythes lived in.

This story is set in the future where the human race has conquered death and it is meant to be the perfect world, so the only way to die is to be ‘gleaned’ by a scythe. The book follows to character, Citra and Roman and explores their life as apprentice scythes. As the story progressed I started to see the corruption and evil that tainted the scythehood.

To me the characters helped show two sides of the same coin, with Citra possessing the redeeming qualities of a scythe and portrays hope. While Rowan became more of a grey character. His actions were corrupt and evil but deep down you can see his inner turmoil and his struggle with defining what is right and wrong. This helped me understand the concept of nurture and nature, where ones environment can alter their morals and beliefs but their nature will always be vital.

This book focused on a lot of political issues and explored the impact they can have on individual lives. This made the book more meaningful to me, and made me realise how this could be a reality in our world.

I can’t wait to read the second book, and I 100% recommend this book!!

Rating: 4.5/5

What can I say about this book, it was beautifully written, touching, emotional and real. I think this book touched on depression really well, showing how it affects life without ruling it. This book made me cry on so many occasions, I really felt for Darius and what he was going through. The experience Darius goes through, straddling two culture, feeling like he never fits in and his depression makes for a story that pulls on the heartstrings. I recommend this book to everyone. It really was an amazing book. You feel as if you are transported into the story. the whole time I was reading it I felt like I was in Iran right next to Darius watching him experience being in Iran for the first time. This is a great book all in all!!!

Rating: 5/5

Hi all. I thought it was necessary for us to discuss what Jane Eyre is about and most importantly WHY Charlotte Brontë wrote what she did. Because through this exploration, many other questions you might have (like why it was so popular), will be answered. This, of course, is due to context.

The first thing to notice is that Jane Eyre was published in London in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell. Writing in a time of female suppression, Brontë wrote under a male name in order for her works to be published. Britain was impacted heavily by the industrial revolution and the transformation into an urban society in the 19th Century. Her book Jane Eyre was different and challenged her society causing her readers to respond with harsh criticism. Jane Eyre unsettled the views of women in her society and challenged their actions. Facing head-on the strict ways that women ‘should’ behave and in a sense, it was trying to confront social order. Jane Eyre questions the role of women. Right from the age of 10, Brontë’s character Jane speaks out against those in control (her aunt and cousin). Later throughout the book, as she grows Jane once again challenges those around her. It’s against these powerful, dominant male figures whom Jane has to find her own voice and her own identity. This makes it a very significant text for asserting the value and exploring the independence and the depth of women's lives.

Definitely one of the examples of Brontë challenging her societies view of women is when she explores Jane’s job. Being a governess was one of the few respectable jobs that middle-class women could do. Throughout the novel, you get a socially limited governess and orphan revealing central things about the way that society worked (social terms, gender terms and class). Jane is often in the room but not properly of it. Brontë uses that to reveal the inner workings of 19th Century society.

A shift in the opinion of the novel consists of a seeing Brontë’s work in a different light. It is still empowering for people today but not for it’s forward-thinking. Why do YOU think it’s managed to remain relevant and popular?

One of my favourite so-called ‘re-do’s’ of Jane Eyre is the very recent Graphic Novel by Aline Brosh McKenna. Her novel titled Jane is a modern appropriation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic and is beautifully illustrated by Ramón Pérez to show a modern Jane Eyre in 2018 New York. The illustrations pull the reader into the world with gorgeous landscapes and contemporary storyline. It explores her character development from being alone and alienated in her childhood to being a young woman with feelings and emotions.

The use of colours in this Graphic Novel adds a great deal of artistic detail that only builds upon the meaning and values of the text. The images start off raw, sketched and only in black and white. However, as the storyline develops, colour is gradually added into scenes and characters are drawn with precision. As Jane finds herself, colour is added to the page and scenes are developed. The audience can follow her journey through the text and through the images. As graphic novels have limited words, Jane is constructed using a variety of different shots. The use of close-ups contrasts against full shots. Jane’s story is understood in a clever way as Pérez and McKenna focus on the contrast of scenery and human facial expressions to show how their characters are feeling. The language especially portrays the characters thoughts, emotions and personality as modernised characters.

The context of this time is different from Brontë’s time. 2018 New York. Jane focusses on the exploration of identity, education and social classes. Much like Brontë. In this time there are no evident classes, instead, status is solely dependent on money and wealth. Women can receive an education and don’t have to be ‘traditional’ – women can be independent and live out of home unmarried.

Another adaptation of Jane is the popular 2011 film directed by Carly J. Fukunaga. The story expertly uses time shifts to engage the audience, starting in the middle of the storyline and gravitating backwards to her childhood and how she came to end up with Mr Rivers.

Context is important because it focusses on particular aspects of the text that appeal to the audience and society of that time. In this instance, the director has chosen certain themes that have relevance to that context (2011). For example, there is an emphasis on the gothic theme of Brontë’s creation because that might be what's popular during this time.

Another example is the gravitation towards the feminist aspects of the novel which portray Jane as a witty, self-sufficient independent protagonist - a figure for the audience to admire.

This adaptation of Brontë’s classic can resonate with a lot of the audience as it visually explores the 19th Century through set design, location and costumes. It provides a deeper understanding, much like what I was able to achieve after travelling back in time. Movies are already great ways of understanding your text more, but imagine if you could place yourself in that movie - or better still go back in time.

Texts like Jane Eyre have been adapted to explore, expose and critique the texts values, messages and context. Together we can come to answer the question; Why was Jane Eyre adapted to remain relevant? I believe that the reason Jane Eyre continues to be re-made and appropriated is to appeal to different audiences, explore important morals and values and expose the similarities and differences of changing understandings.

Classics like Bronte’s Jane Eyre have timeless morals and stories that appeal to a variety of different people. By adapting the text, it enables it to not only maintain it’s relevance but also exposes the changing values of society. When Fukunaga directed the 2011 film production Jane Eyre, he made a few expansions to the values that would have relevance in our society today. The one scene that stood out to me was one where you can watch the brilliant Mia Wasikowska express her frustration, through her character, about the lack of control women have over their lives. “I wish a woman could have action in her life, like a man. It agitates me to pain that the skyline over there is ever our limit. I long sometimes for a power of vision that will overpass it. If I could behold all I imagine."

This scene is powerful and it got me thinking if this was envisioned by Cary Fukunaga, or Charlotte Bronte herself. After a little digging on the matter, I discovered that the scene derives from one written by Bronte. “It agitates me that the skyline there is forever our limit, I long for the power of unlimited vision...If I could behold all I imagine.” The very fact that Fukunaga has elaborated this line and others to portray Jane as a character that promotes female empowerment and says everything I need to prove that this movie was adapted to meet the views of our current society.

This is similar in Aline Brosh McKenna and Ramón Pérez’s graphic novel Jane where the characters are very open to modern living and modern views. An unmarried woman, living with a man alone would be unheard of and looked down upon in 1847. However, it is because the context of Jane Eyre has changed, that meanings and values have adapted and developed to suit the time frame. This adaptation takes along the storyline, messages and themes, and continues to help them remain relevant and popular through the ages.

Through this mismatched jumble of words, the purpose of this piece was to understand the importance and significance of the context of a text and how this changes it’s relevance to the audience. These three texts explore Jane Eyre in a different way, changing aspects and messages to remain relevant and popular.