“The pattern of a novelist’s work is formed by his attitude
to life and by his point of view, neither of which need amount to anything so
portentous as a ‘philosophy,’ even in the case of a great novelist; all that is
necessary is that the writer should have considered the human state and done
something to bring us nearer to an understanding of it.”
-Michael Swan in Henry James
---
I may begin each high school literature course with this quotation from now on. My eager students, some of whom strive to discover alternative spiritualities and social commentaries in every line of Tennyson, could benefit from the reminder that greatness is often in simplicity. Perhaps all the writer intended to do was to say: Here, gentle reader, look at this facet of life, more closely than you've ever looked before. Isn't it strange? Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it terrible? Now-- what do you think? Perhaps the writer didn't even have a philosophy to express. Perhaps he was less a social activist than an observer and storyteller.
Then I can stop fielding questions like "Is Jane Eyre's initial refusal to marry Rochester a criticism of Victorian women who married for money?" Well . . . I suppose. But I suspect that Charlotte Bronte had broader themes in mind and was more interested in demonstrating the difficulty of pursuing one's ideals of purity, the heart-wrenching lengths to which that pursuit may take you. The whole marrying-for-money issue is worth mention but, taking the entire novel into consideration, it's not really the point. In my opinion. :)
