The sins of the father

        I've come to realize that i feel horrible for the children of Samad Iqbal. These poor children have been wrapped up in the horrible maelstrom of karmic bullshit that has followed their parents (the sins of the father...). At barely the age of ten they've already been acquainted with mad men and women, tried to feed a toothless old man apples and coconuts, haplessly stumbled upon and ruined Samads affair, been degraded at constant intervals, have watched (seemingly) numerous fist fights between their father and mother, so much so that it's become routine to bet on the winner, and eventually Magid was even kidnapped by his father and sent back to Pakistan to learn the "Old Ways". All this before they even hit puberty.


       It strikes me as surprising to see that Samad could so easily separate himself from what was clearly his "favorite" son, and how it seemed alright to him to just send away one of his children having never told his wife. Archibald, of course helped in the matter, but like most things in their friendship he was just a pawn. Archibald is a man who has little understanding of things, and finds contemplation a waste of time. "Why can't everyone just get along?"

Things That Make You Go "Ughhghh"

     How many times has this happened to you? Going about your life you come across a woman, not your average woman, but a caramel queen with gobs of cash hanging like curtails from her last name. Well you decide to get married, and in that binding you receive her riches. Now after marrying her (we'll skip the details for now) you begin to realize that she is completely, utterly, bat-shit crazy. She is off her rocker, gonzo, her proverbial marbles have long since left their satchel. Well, you do what any sensible person in your situation would do, you take the money and run!...then you lock her in an attic, and pretend it never happened. It makes sense! People do this kind of thing every day! Just yesterday I was married to a madwoman! Well being the sensible man I am, I did what had to be done! To the attic she went, toys and all, a burden off my mind to be sure. Honestly, what are problems but things to be pushed to the back of the mind (or, attic) and all but forgotten?


     Well, if you've responded "Just the once!" to this...you're probably a sociopath with some literal skeletons in the closet. Or...you're a man named Rochester. Does it not strike anyone strange that, while people are upset and bewildered that he hid his first marriage in order to marry again, no one is upset that he has imprisoned his wife in an attic? This does not bode well for our dear Jane, because bless her heart, she doesn't seem too upset by that fact either. Now she's furious that he has another wife, but the imprisonment is just an unfortunate barrier that hid that fact. Can we sense a potential pattern forming? What happens if, when Jane grows old, dimensia wraps it's icy fingers around her mind? Assuming Rochester is still alive and cognizant, what could his next step be? I already hear the rusty grinding of a well used lock, and the foreboding clunk of that secret keeping deadbolt. Luckily for Rochester, however, no one seems to mind.

The Acceptable Absurdities of Romance

     From the beginning of chapter 23 you could feel the onset of some Gothic expression of all consuming love. The first sentence alone: 'A SPLENDID Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour, even singly, our wave-girt land." Basically saying that "Today is an exceptionally beautiful, and wholly uncommon day." Bronte may as well have gone the way of the cliche by furthering the sentence with "and love was in the air"
     And though it was drawn out, and Gothic, and altogether reprehensible, I couldn't help but get sucked into the whole affair. Casting aside my twenty-first century sense of things i read on in a fervor blazing through the pages of this, and later chapters with reckless abandon. Much in the way (however no where near as vehemently) Rochester and Jane find the idea of separation painful, i found myself quite grudgingly setting aside this novel to continue with life.
    Moving on...About the climax (which is, oddly, the beginning) of the love affair between Rochester and Jane. It's important to note that as the passion begins to come to a head in their shouting fest of equally cast rebukes and rebuttals, Jane again spits in the face of conformity. In a short (while impassioned) speech, Jane sets herself her masters equal. Not in the sense of class and caste, but in spirit as a person. She followed her own mold and made well her feelings known, not for the first time, nor the last (i suspect).


Also, as a side note, do you think this is where the term "Plain Jane" came from?