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tabular_rasaReading Jane Eyre . . . it's actually pretty interesting. Very Victorian, but eh, lol . . . those Romantic themes very much appeal to me.
This little passage cracks me up:
(Mr. Brocklehurst:) "Do you know where the wicked go after death?"
(Young Jane Eyre:) "They go to Hell."
"And what is Hell? Can you tell me that?"
"A pit full of fire."
"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there forever?"
"No, sir."
"What must you do to avoid it?"
"I must keep in good health, and not die."
Lol! Then, later:
(Mr. Brocklehurst:) "Do you read your Bible?"
(Young Jane Eyre:) "Sometimes."
"With pleasure? Are you fond of it?"
"I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah."
"And the Psalms? I hope you like them?"
"No, sir."
"No? Oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a ginger-bread nut to eat, or a verse of Psalm to learn, he says, 'Oh! The verse of Psalm! Angels sing Pslams!' says he. 'I wish to be a little angel here below;' and then he gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety."
Well, duh; if you give him two nuts for saying the thing about the Psalms, of course he's going to say the thing about the Psalms every time! That cracked me up! Ahh, the irony of childhood piety . . .
There's a character that reminds me of my character, Andy, too, a little bit: Helen Burns, who keeps getting in trouble for things (though on accident) and then goes on about how she deserves punishment and God wants her to stand to it and not hate anybody. She's like a pious Christian version of Andy-- though a little sappy. She of course dies.
That's the odd thing about literature. Everyone that ought to die does. Children that are too pious, too good, too perfect and wonderful to be imagined (except for maybe Meg's kids in Little Women-- particularly the girl-- ugh, I WISHED they had died . . . ) die. They usually make a big scene about it, too . . . Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Beth in Little Women . . . even Oliver's suffering in Oliver Twist was reminiscent of that. It's maudlin, it's sappy . . . it's so Victorian and I can see myself falling into that too easily (I wrote a passage like that in a piece that was a protest to atomic weaponry, in fact-- only the little girl doesn't peacefully slip into death with a beautified conscience and a wise last word of wisdom . . . she passes out her own intestines and lingers on for a few days in intense suffering and doesn't say anything as she dies-- which actually fits the storyline better and is more meaningful, considering the whole Japanese concept of suffering in silence and bearing the burden, etc, etc . . . -- and it was based on a true story). Helen, of course, dies, with Jane managing to sneak in and see her (somebody has got to HEAR your last words, come on!), and her tombstone says "Resurgam" over her grave on it, which means "I will rise again" and is just dripping with Christian allusion.
The same goes for tragic figures. Good little kids are doomed to die, but so are miserable older folk. People who are unrequited in love almost always die-- they kill themselves, they die saving their lover, or, most realistically, they fade away into nothing but pretty soon afterward. They never find another love, like supposedly is the norm. People who are too focusing in things die, people who cannot change, people who are disillusioned. Those scare me the most. I can name a bunch of people right now who should die, and probably their method of death. If we turned our lives into a Victorian novel, we would all be so screwed.
Then again, literature is for symbolism. People moving on makes no great statement, unless you want to make the statement of renewal. Happy endings are less memorable than sad ones. However, both should be fulfilling, full-circle, cathartic. They should complete what was started. That way you feel that tingly, "Ohhh . . . " at the end, and you feel sort of cold for a moment. Irony works, too. Misinterpretation of things.
There's a difference between drama and melodrama, too. Needless death just to provide trauma in a character's life is just cruel. Meaningless death. Those are the types that still make me cry-- and those actually seem to be the most realistic. The fitting, good deaths, though, are those that fit. I don't cry about those anymore. Those are the deaths in which the character is happy in their release, or they weren't meant to live anymore. Those are those that inspire.
You know, I just realized something: They are going to have trouble in the 5th movie (Harry Potter, of course), when they go to depants Snape. If he's wearing the Hogwarts uniform, how do his underpants show when his pants go down?
This little passage cracks me up:
(Mr. Brocklehurst:) "Do you know where the wicked go after death?"
(Young Jane Eyre:) "They go to Hell."
"And what is Hell? Can you tell me that?"
"A pit full of fire."
"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there forever?"
"No, sir."
"What must you do to avoid it?"
"I must keep in good health, and not die."
Lol! Then, later:
(Mr. Brocklehurst:) "Do you read your Bible?"
(Young Jane Eyre:) "Sometimes."
"With pleasure? Are you fond of it?"
"I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah."
"And the Psalms? I hope you like them?"
"No, sir."
"No? Oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a ginger-bread nut to eat, or a verse of Psalm to learn, he says, 'Oh! The verse of Psalm! Angels sing Pslams!' says he. 'I wish to be a little angel here below;' and then he gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety."
Well, duh; if you give him two nuts for saying the thing about the Psalms, of course he's going to say the thing about the Psalms every time! That cracked me up! Ahh, the irony of childhood piety . . .
There's a character that reminds me of my character, Andy, too, a little bit: Helen Burns, who keeps getting in trouble for things (though on accident) and then goes on about how she deserves punishment and God wants her to stand to it and not hate anybody. She's like a pious Christian version of Andy-- though a little sappy. She of course dies.
That's the odd thing about literature. Everyone that ought to die does. Children that are too pious, too good, too perfect and wonderful to be imagined (except for maybe Meg's kids in Little Women-- particularly the girl-- ugh, I WISHED they had died . . . ) die. They usually make a big scene about it, too . . . Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Beth in Little Women . . . even Oliver's suffering in Oliver Twist was reminiscent of that. It's maudlin, it's sappy . . . it's so Victorian and I can see myself falling into that too easily (I wrote a passage like that in a piece that was a protest to atomic weaponry, in fact-- only the little girl doesn't peacefully slip into death with a beautified conscience and a wise last word of wisdom . . . she passes out her own intestines and lingers on for a few days in intense suffering and doesn't say anything as she dies-- which actually fits the storyline better and is more meaningful, considering the whole Japanese concept of suffering in silence and bearing the burden, etc, etc . . . -- and it was based on a true story). Helen, of course, dies, with Jane managing to sneak in and see her (somebody has got to HEAR your last words, come on!), and her tombstone says "Resurgam" over her grave on it, which means "I will rise again" and is just dripping with Christian allusion.
The same goes for tragic figures. Good little kids are doomed to die, but so are miserable older folk. People who are unrequited in love almost always die-- they kill themselves, they die saving their lover, or, most realistically, they fade away into nothing but pretty soon afterward. They never find another love, like supposedly is the norm. People who are too focusing in things die, people who cannot change, people who are disillusioned. Those scare me the most. I can name a bunch of people right now who should die, and probably their method of death. If we turned our lives into a Victorian novel, we would all be so screwed.
Then again, literature is for symbolism. People moving on makes no great statement, unless you want to make the statement of renewal. Happy endings are less memorable than sad ones. However, both should be fulfilling, full-circle, cathartic. They should complete what was started. That way you feel that tingly, "Ohhh . . . " at the end, and you feel sort of cold for a moment. Irony works, too. Misinterpretation of things.
There's a difference between drama and melodrama, too. Needless death just to provide trauma in a character's life is just cruel. Meaningless death. Those are the types that still make me cry-- and those actually seem to be the most realistic. The fitting, good deaths, though, are those that fit. I don't cry about those anymore. Those are the deaths in which the character is happy in their release, or they weren't meant to live anymore. Those are those that inspire.
You know, I just realized something: They are going to have trouble in the 5th movie (Harry Potter, of course), when they go to depants Snape. If he's wearing the Hogwarts uniform, how do his underpants show when his pants go down?
