There are various poems that any average literature student can study. Each poem, depending on the fundamental ideologies, and or past experiences of their authors, can be uniquely parallel from, or somewhat similar to each other. The objective of this paper is to discuss side by side Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills and compare the two based on the style of their writing and expression, and the themes and ideologies that were evident in their respective poetry-related work.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre was the name of the fictional main character in Charlotte Bronte’s book Jane Eyre. For reference purposes, the book was published in October 1847. The book talked about the tale of a young woman, who got older and more mature as the readers progress further in reading the book. In the most popular edition of the book, there were 38 chapters. Each chapter series was divided into three volumes with each volume having different settings.
The first volume was set in Jane’s hometown where she lived with her uncle’s family, the Reeds, as a result of his uncle’s dying wish to his family to allow Jane to live with them after both of her parents died of Typhus. Mr. Reed, the head of that family, her uncle, apparently was the only person who really cared for Jane. Mr. Reed’s wife and his three children did not like and were abusive to her, physically and emotionally. Bessie, a servant residing in the Reeds’ residence, also appeared to be an ally although there were some instances wherein tension between her and Jane could be felt.
Most events in the first volume happened at Jane’s hometown. The second volume was all about Jane’s stay at a charity educational institution in Lowood named Lowood Institution. Jane was sent their after the Reeds’ family physician, Dr. Lloyd recommended that Mrs. Reed send Jane away. In fact, moments before Jane left the Reeds’ residence; she screamed at and expressed her years of struggle under the Reeds’ supervision that she said she would never call Mrs. Reed aunt again and that she would tell everyone at Lowood how cruel and deceitful the remaining Reed family members are.
Just when she thought she could finally escape the cruelty of life by being sent to Lowood to study, Jane, after making several mistakes and being pre-branded as deceitful and arrogant by the self-righteous clergymen and perhaps other members of the Lowood Institution and community, suffered from another series of life challenges.
The last chapter of the book revolved around Jane’s experience at Thornfield Hall where she stayed after being a student for six years and a teacher for two years at Lowood Institution. She diligently advertised her services, expertise, skills, and educational background. Luckily, she was able to get a job as the governess of Thornfield Hall under the supervision and ownership of Mr. Rochester. There, she was able to meet all the other significant characters in the book and in Jane’s life. It was in Thornfield Hall that she discovered that she was already in love to Mr. Rochester.
There are more things that one can see from Jane Eyre than the simple hardships that an orphan can encounter in his or her life. Aside from this, Bronte actually emphasized Morality, God and Religion, the effects of differences in social class, love and passion, gender relations, and quite obviously, the feeling of continuously searching for a home and a real family . One part of Jane Eyre’s story that emphasized morality was when she rejected, at least initially, the idea of being Mr. Rochester’s paramour because she saw herself as a person with impassioned self-respect and moral conviction and so she cannot take the idea of being a mistress to Mr. Rochester. Her ideas that suggest that conventionality is not equal to morality and that self-righteousness is not religion are good evidences of the story’s relation to God and religion .
Jane’s experiences of being discriminated are examples of the effects of differences in social class. In terms of love and passion, the clash between passion, morality, and conscience, particularly which one would she choose to adhere to is a good example. Lastly, and as evidenced by Jane Eyre’s thoughts and actions throughout the story, Jane Eyre was continuously trying and failing to look for a place she could finally call home and for people she could finally call family.
Rebecca Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills
Life in the Iron Mills is a novella or short story written by Rebecca Harding Davis and published in 1861 about the typical life of people working in industrial plant and factories, which coincides with the publishing year of the book, late 19th century, which was also the boom of the industrial revolution. The short story was regarded as one of the earliest American literary works about realism. It was also considered as a revolutionary work because of the way how it opened the eyes of Industrial Revolution era Americans about the usual daily activities and life of a person who worked in America’s numerous factories and mills . The story of Life in the Iron Mills began with a narrator’s monologue about how the smog-filled city and iron workers inside it looked like.
The narrator, in the short story, would keep on telling about his or her life (the gender of the narrator was never revealed in the book) before the time when mills and factories proliferated. The main character in the book was not the narrator. It was Deborah, a hard-working woman with a small but significant hum in her back who the narrator also described as meek, together with some of the main characters Hugh, a puddler born into poverty, and Janey, a beautiful friend of Deborah and Hugh.
The short story mostly revolved around the lives of Deborah, Hugh, and several significant others, as workers of the unfair and unjust labor force during the industrial revolution wherein even averagely educated and education-inclined individuals, a group where Hugh belongs, are stingily and often, insufficiently compensated.
The conflict in the story was created when during an unplanned public gathering, Deborah stole Mitchell’s wallet. Mitchell was the son in law of the mill owner. Upon going home from the unplanned public gathering, Deborah confessed to Hugh that she stole Mitchell’s wallet and found a check with a significant amount of money in it. Instead of reprimanding Deborah and returning the money to its owner, Mitchell, Hugh decided that they keep the money because according to him, everyone is deserving in God’s eyes after all.
As to the question what happened next after such turn of events, the narrator would turn the readers’ attention into a scene that depicts Hugh and Deborah in prison for stealing from Mitchell. Later on, it would be discovered that Hugh had lost his mind and ended up killing himself while inside the prison. The story ended when a woman helped Deborah give her cousin a proper burial and when the woman promised she would go back for Deborah after she is released from prison.
There are two major themes that were emphasized in the short story: Immigration and Industrialization, and of course, their effects on the lives of people living during the era of Industrial Revolution. The story “launched a path-breaking expose of the effects of capitalism and industrialization, including the physical, spiritual, and intellectual starvation of immigrant wage earners; in fact, the novel is recognized as being the first literary work in American to focus on the relationships among industrial work, poverty, and the exploitation of immigrants within a capitalistic economy” .
It did indeed exposed the different hardships, the ideas running in the minimum wage factory workers’ minds, and the fact that only the mill owners receive the largest benefits from running a factory and manufacturing commodities and not the entire nation as what proponents of plans for industrialization would suggest. The difference in the wealth of capitalists, industrialists, average citizens, and factory workers, created more distinct divisions among members of the society, which apparently did not exist before the industrial revolution, which of course, would lead to a more complex social structure .
Works Cited
Bloom, H. "Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre"." Midwest Book Review (2007): 245.
Burt, D. "The Literature 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights and Poets of all Time." Infobase Publishing (2008).
Conn, P. "Literature in America: An Illustrated History." (2011).
Kessler, C. "A Rebecca Harding Davis Reader: Life in the Iron Mills, Selected Fiction and Essays." Society for Utopian Studies (1996): 316.
Richard, G. "A History of American Literature." Blackwell Publishing (2004).
