Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Small Addition to Yesterday's Class Discussion
There was one point yesterday, during our class discussion, in which there was an argument: is Antoinette insane or not? Is Rochester insane at the end of Part 2 or not? There were differences of opinion, but generally people argued that both were concretely one or the other. What I wanted to say was that you cannot define someone so absolutely. Insanity is not black and white, it is a spectrum, and both Antoinette and Rochester show signs of insanity but neither can be wholly classified as insane: that is too much of a generalization.
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Or, another way to come at this same question, if Antoinette *is* "mad" by the end of the novel, can we see this "madness" as something she is *driven* to, by Rochester's actions and/or by the range of circumstances that shape her life? But is it also possible that there is a lucidity and a poignant humanity in her "madness"? If Rochester is fully "sane" by societal standards (locking up his wife in an attic and pretending she never existed), then maybe Antoinette's "insane" reaction to this condition is both more reasonable and more human than he is.
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