Sanam Shahedali
Professor Ms. Firouzeh Ameri, PhD
Short Story – English Literature MA (95)
26 January 2017
One can cry out
With a voice quite false, quite remote
‘I love…’
(Forough Farrokhzad, Clockwork Doll)
This essay will provide a comparative
analysis between Alice Munro’s Short Story “Amundsen” (2012) and Charlotte Brontë’s
novel Jane Eyre (1847) in order to achieve a view of conflicting
gender roles in these two works. A careful examination of the leading female
characters in the aforementioned works yields fascinating insight into the
differences and similarities between their perceived inner worlds as they
struggle in and out of a space marked by various limitations and opportunities provided
for them by the forces of society, nature, and instinct.
“Amundsen”, a short story which
appears in the short story collection Dear Life (2012) written by the
Canadian Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro, is a first-person retrospective
narrative focused on a young woman, Vivien Hyde, who travels from Toronto to a
remote place called Amundsen in a Canadian province to work as a teacher in a
tuberculosis sanatorium for children. Vivien starts a relationship with Dr.
Fox, her employer and the local surgeon, but the relationship does not lead to a
marriage as she has hoped. Dr. Fox changes his mind minutes before the ceremony
and sends the heartbroken Vivien back to Toronto. The story is set against the
backdrop of World War II, and although Amundsen, with its freezing cold weather
and its TB sanatorium, is far from the war zone, the atmosphere of disease and
death adds to the pressing mood of gloom and stagnation in the story. Composed almost
two centuries earlier by the excellent English writer Charlotte Brontë, Jane
Eyre is a novel in Bildungsroman genre that traces the emotions and
experiences of its female character, Jane Eyre, from her unhappy childhood to
her adulthood as a governess and her eventual marriage to Mr. Rochester, her
employer, with whom she is in love. Like “Amundsen”, Jane Eyre is
narrated in first person from the perspective of the main female character. In
order to provide a better ground for a comparative analysis, in the present
essay, the analysis of the character of Jane Eyre will be examined since the
time she starts her work as a governess – and not before that phase - towards
the end of the novel when she is married to Mr. Rochester. Both narratives trace
the passions and conflicting emotions of a young woman who wishes to be united
in marriage to a moody and mysterious male character with a higher social
status than herself, i.e. her employer. The most notable point in comparing
these two works lies in how these female characters deal with various social
and emotional forces that assail them from every direction as they struggle through
and between their own individual identities and the identities that are imposed
upon them by the outside world which is out of their control.
“Amundsen” starts with a description
of Vivien Hyde’s journey by train to the tuberculosis sanatorium located in Amundsen,
a town far away from Toronto, where she has been living apparently with her
grandparents. The concept of a journey undertaken by the young character is
important since it signifies not only a journey from one physical location to
another, but “a metaphorical journey” in which she will explore and even
challenge her own emotions and perceptions (Ładuniuk 39). A description of how
the young and inexperienced Agnes Grey feels on her way to the place where she
is to work as a governess reveals the significance of her journey as a symbol
of an exploration of a new world and its foreshadowing of the “cold” and
“dreary” life that expects her as a governess:
As
we drove along, my spirits revived again, and I turned, with pleasure, to the
contemplation of the new life upon which I was entering. But though it was not far past the middle of
September, the heavy clouds and strong north-easterly wind combined to render
the day extremely cold and dreary; and the journey seemed a very long one, for,
as Smith observed, the roads were ‘very heavy’; and certainly, his horse was
very heavy too: it crawled up the hills, and crept down them, and only
condescended to shake its sides in a trot where the road was at a dead level or
a very gentle slope, which was rarely the case in those rugged regions; so that
it was nearly one o’clock before we reached the place of our destination. Yet, after all, when we entered the lofty iron
gateway, when we drove softly up the smooth, well-rolled carriage-road, with
the green lawn on each side, studded with young trees, and approached the new
but stately mansion of Wellwood, rising above its mushroom poplar-groves, my
heart failed me, and I wished it were a mile or two farther off. For the first time in my life I must stand
alone: there was no retreating now. I
must enter that house, and introduce myself among its strange inhabitants. (A. Brontë)
The concept of setting off on a
journey to a new place with the promise of new experiences and opportunities proves
as significant for both young women in the two narratives under examination
here. Interestingly, the title of Munro’s short story and the name of the city
to which its protagonist is traveling is reminiscent of Roald Amundsen, a
Norwegian explorer of Polar Regions. Like the Norwegian explorer, Vivien is
setting off to explore new regions on the levels of both her inside world and
the outside one. The same is true for Jane Eyre who ruminates at great length
about her prospects and her emerging anxieties and hopes as she travels on a
“misty” night on the roads that she describes as “heavy” (C. Brontë 178). Since
there is little space in a short story for such detailed descriptions, Munro
uses symbolic and suggestive language in order to convey similar feelings and
the result proves to be even more effective. As she is waiting in the station, Vivien smells
the “raw meat” that a woman near her is carrying (Munro 1). Later on, the meat woman tells a couple of
women who get on the train that “it was a raw day” (Munro 2). When the driver
of the train calls out ‘San’ – short for ‘sanatorium’ – Vivien is confused,
thinking that he is calling a man’s name ‘Sam.’ As the train moves on its path,
Vivien experiences another moment of bewilderment as a group of raucous men want
to board the train. In her agitation, Vivien imagines that the vehicle will run
away from them because of the noise they are making (Munro 1). In fact, it is Vivien,
the raw and inexperienced character, who wants to run away from any encounter
with the opposite sex. Just as Jane, Vivien is a virgin who is about to
discover the hitherto unexplored realms of her passion and desire. Vivien and
Jane are raw human beings on the verge of encountering raw and wild emotions.
The disparity of the fates of Jane
and Vivien is foreshadowed in the manner of their arrival and the way they are
received. In Amundsen, the weather is freezing cold. The air is “like ice” and
the “frozen lake” is “not level but mounded along the shore, as if the waves
had turned to ice in the act of falling.” (Munro 2). Vivien imagines that she
likes the place, mostly because, in her artificial perception, she thinks “it’s
like being inside a Russian novel” (Munro 7) as she informs Dr. Fox, her
employer, in a failed attempt to sound smart and sophisticated. Instead of
relying on her own original judgement, Vivien takes refuge in stereotypes and ready-made
formulas, especially when she wants to encounter and impress new people. The
way she is received at the sanatorium is cold and indifferent. She describes
the sanatorium thus: “No heat, no light, except what came through a little
window I could not reach. It was like being punished at school” (Munro 4). As
Ładuniuk observes in her essay “Missions and Explorers: “Amundsen” as a Key to
Reading Alice Munro’s Other Stories”: “The negative associations of the
sanatorium with punishment, prison and isolation emphasize Vivien’s awkward
situation and foretell her difficulties with finding a place for herself in
this hostile environment” (40). To Vivien’s disappointment, nobody seems to
respect her for being a teacher or being from Toronto. In contrast, Jane’s
first encounter with the house in which she is going to work is completely
different:
A
snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high-backed and
old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little elderly lady, in
widow’s cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron; exactly like what I had
fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder looking. She was occupied in
knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to
complete the beau-ideal of domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for
a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to
overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady
got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me. (C. Brontë 180)
Although she is
aware of her inferior position as a friendless and dependent employee, the
smart and imaginative Jane Eyre relies on her wits and originality to countercheck
the taunting and teasing manner in which the cunning and bitter Mr. Rochester
addresses her in their second encounter when they sit down together to speak. While
Vivien keeps falling into the “traps” that she believes Mr. Fox is setting up
(Munro 8), Jane is the kind of young woman who would famously assert: “‘I am no
bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will”
(C. Brontë 483). Despite all the vicissitudes and hardships that she
has gone through, Jane has retained her sense of self-assertion and
individuality. Time and again throughout the novel, she is described as
“passionate” (C. Brontë 18, 65, 455, 569) while Vivien’s emotional identity and
self-will has been squeezed out of her in the artificial urban society she
comes from.
Once
the two women start working as teachers, they try to improve the mental
condition of their students by introducing new pedagogical methods and
educational material, but their employers almost care nothing for their
professional capabilities. They are neither genuinely praised nor criticized
for the way they perform their jobs. Instead, their employers are interested in
them as sexual objects whom they want to dominate and make their own, each in
their own way. Vivien’s job is a mock job because she is teaching children who
may never recover from their illness. Even her students know that “this was a
pretend school where they were free of all requirements to learn anything.”
(Munro 12). Likewise, Jane has become the governess and tutor of a girl in whom
her employer shows no interest. Although Mr. Rochester notices that Adele, the
girl under his guardianship, has improved under Jane’s tutelage (C. Brontë, 229), he has a contempt for her that prevents him from
really focusing on her education and welfare, rendering all the efforts that
Jane makes in this regard almost completely futile and void. While Mr. Rochester
is free to roam the world, have wild affairs with various women, and pursue his
business as an independent gentlemen, Jane feels restless in her dormant and
confined situation that offers no opportunity for a sense of fulfillment: “but
women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a
field for their efforts” (C. Brontë 207). As Weisser points out in her article “Thornfield and
‘The Dream to Repose on’: Jane Eyre”, “it is from this starting point—the
inability to find a meaningful place in the social community—that the Brontë
heroine is impelled to find an alternative home in sexual love” (76). Both
characters eventually seek to make up for the discontentment they feel by entering
into the new realm of sexual passion as they develop a romantic relationship
with men whom they perceive as superior to themselves. Thus, they create a
challenging project for themselves and they seek to find a sense of superiority
and power by taming the wayward and moody male characters through love and
marriage. Vivien basks in the glory of others’ awareness of her relationship
with Dr. Fox as she boastfully declares: “My stock had risen. Now, whatever
else I was, I at least might turn out to be a woman with a man” (Munro 29). This
remark suggests female inferiority and, despite some initial resistance, Vivien
eventually end up as increasingly passive and dependent on her fiancé’s
opinions (Söldenwagner 15).
Vivien shows no
authority or power in the arrangement of her marriage to Dr. Fox. He is the one
who decides on what day the marriage will take place; he is the one who decides
that they will not have a wedding ceremony; he is the one whose approval Vivien
seeks as she wonders whether he would agree to her “having a bouquet” (Munro
38); he is the one who drives the car as they take a trip to the Town Hall in
the nearby town to make formal preparations for their marriage; and, of course,
he is the one who, to Vivien’s utter bewilderment and mortification, suddenly
decides that he does not want to go through the marriage at all. When Dr. Fox drops
her at the station and buys a ticket for her to send her off to Toronto, Vivien
fantasizes about him coming back, and when she despairs of this fantasy after boarding
the train, she thinks of jumping off the train and running to find him in the
street (Munro 43), but she fails even to exert her will in this feeble attempt
at controlling her fate.
Vivien’s character is at the mercy
of all the external forces that tuck at her from different directions, ranging
from the social standards set for women at her time to the dominance of the man
who promises to marry her. Even the desire she feels for Dr. Fox is not
genuine, but results from his higher position in the social ladder. This is
evident in the confession she makes to herself right before engaging in erotic
fantasies she entertains on the day she thinks she is going to marry him: “I
find it exciting that he is a surgeon” (Munro 38). Conversely, Jane Eyre proves
to be rather different in the quality of her affections for Mr. Rochester and her
attitude towards her marriage. She forcefully refuses to be showered in jewelry
or rich clothes as Mr. Rochester wants her to by declaring that: “I don’t like
to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I
would rather not have them” (C. Brontë 493). When their marriage ceremony is
broken off by the declaration of the fact that Mr. Rochester is already
married, Jane refuses to live with him as his mistress. She leaves the man she
loves as she actively exerts her will to hold on to her principles: “I care for
myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the
more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by
man” (C. Brontë 605). And when she comes back and marries the now widowed, destitute,
blind, disfigured, and disabled Rochester, it is again on her own accord, as is
manifest in her well-known blissful announcement: “Reader, I married him” (C.
Brontë 861). Although it cannot be ignored that part of the strength in Jane’s
character stems from her religious convictions, she still seeks to acknowledge
and satisfy her own desires even when an opportunity arises for her to devote
herself fully to a religious cause. In fact, it is through her desire that she
wills her selfhood into existence (Weisser 90).
In accordance with
her optimistic view of a benevolent divine plan for human beings, Charlotte
Brontë places her own beloved creation, her Jane Eyre, in the company of a
husband in whose blessed society she knows “no weariness” (864). Jane’s
conjugal bliss is in stark contrast with the cool spiritless future that Alice
Munro depicts for Vivien Hyde. Years later, while she is out to clear her head
after a “kind of dragged-out row” with her husband (Munro 46), Vivien once more
meets Dr. Fox in a “crowded street” in Toronto as they are moving “in opposite
directions” (Munro 45). When Dr. Fox asks Vivien how she is, she answers that
she is “fine” and, adds “for good measure” that she is “happy”, though she immediately
informs the reader in a confiding tone that: “At the moment this was only
generally true” (Munro 45). The short
story “Amundsen” reaches its cynical conclusion with Vivien Hyde uttering a
particularly wry and enigmatic last sentence: “Nothing changes really about
love” (Munro 46).
As demonstrated in
this essay, a comparative analysis of Alice Munro’s Short Story “Amundsen” and
Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre with a focus on their respective
leading female characters Vivien Hyde and Jane Eyre can provide invaluable
emotional psychological insight into the inner world of these two characters as
they struggle with the problems of agency and female identity in their
interaction with a society that relentlessly imposes various conflicting gender
roles upon them. Jane Eyre seems to show more energy, authority and positive
individuality throughout the novel while Vivien Hyde’s uncertain character as a
young woman in the emerging modern world with all its violence, artificiality
and gloom appears to be at the mercy of all kinds of social, political, and
conventional forces. However, both these female characters can be said to have
gained an immense degree of agency as they find their own captivating voices
through their first-person narrative of the vicissitudes and emotions they
experience in their fictive lives.
Works Cited
Brontë, Anne. Agnes Grey. 1847, The Project Gutenberg
eBook, December 2010,
www.gutenberg.org/files/767/767-h/767-h.htm.
Accessed 29 January 2017.
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. 1847. Planet PDF, pp.
18, 65, 178, 180, 207, 229, 261, 455, 483,
493, 569, 605, and 864.
Ładuniuk, Magdalena. “Missions and Explorers: “Amundsen” as a Key
to Reading Alice Munro’s
Other Stories.” Alice Munro:
Understanding, Adapting and Teaching, edited by Mirosława
Buchholtz, Springer, 2016, pp. 39-40.
Munro, Alice. “Amundsen.” Dear Life. Knof, 2012, pp. 1, 2,
4, 7, 8, 12, 29, 38, 43, 45, 46.
Söldenwagner, Ronja. “Love, Gender and Social Pressure in
‘Amundsen.’” For (Dear) Life: Close
Readings of Alice Munro's Ultimate Fiction, edited by Eva-Sabine Zehelein, Lit, 2014, p. 15.
Weisser, Susan Ostrov. “Thornfield and ‘The Dream to Repose on’:
Jane Eyre.” Charlotte
Brontë’s Jane Eyre, edited by
Harold Bloom, Chelsea House, 2007, pp. 76 and 90.
No comments:
Post a Comment