The Art of Loving: Introduction

Is love an art? Or is love a pleasant sensation, which to experience is a matter of chance, something one "falls into" if one is lucky? Erich Fromm's in his 1956 classic suggests that real love "is not a sentiment which can be easily indulged in by anyone." He claims that it is only through developing one's total personality that one attains the capacity to experience real love, which should be considered a rare achievement.

Fromm's acknowledged masterpiece offers a penetrating analysis of various types of love ranging from brotherly love to motherly love to erotic love to self-love to the love of God. He notes that most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved rather than that of loving. In pursuit of this aim they follow several paths. One, which is especially used by men, is to be successful, to be as powerful and rich as the social margin of one's position permits. Another, used especially by women, is to make oneself attractive, by cultivating one's body, dress, etc. However, the capacity to love truly, according to Erich Fromm, involves the basic elements of care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge which need to be cultivated with discipline, concentration, patience, and a supreme concern for mastering love.

Please join us here for a month long exploration of love and the art of loving. We will approach the subject not only from classic but also contemporary and inter-disciplinary perspectives since today love can be understood far more holistically than it was in the times of Erich Fromm who was especially quite influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Since then we have made great progress in understanding the phenomena of love. Although, socioeconomic and psychoanalytic approaches offer useful insights into the puzzle of love, they become far more illuminating when integrated with cross-cultural social and cognitive neuroscience. If love is mysterium tremendum then learning to love is nothing less than our summum bonum. As Bertrand Russell said so succinctly: "The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge…Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness. In the union of love, I have seen in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined."

As the month ends

I've developed a short bibliography that I hope leads you to more reading about Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre and the world of women in the Victorian era.

Thank you for reading the entries to this month's book.


A Short Bibliography of Web Sources and Interesting Reads

Books:

Flanders, Judith. Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England.
New York: W. W. Norton, 2003

Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale Nota Bene, 2000

Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, vol 3 “Bronte, Charlotte” Detroit: Gale Research Company,
1981-

Vicinus, Martha, ed. Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1972

Websites:

The Bronte Parsonage Museum and Bronte Society. http://www.bronteinfo.com/
This site includes photos of the parsonage and surrounding countryside, layout of house plan,
upcoming events, gift shop items and more.

“The Enthusiast’s Guide to Jane Adaptations” http://eyreguide.bravehost.com/
This has photos and film reviews by web host. Mentions a Lux Radio Theater 1948
version that lasted 42 minutes.

The Internet Movie Database. Titles search “Jane Eyre” http://www.imdb.com/
The database lists versions starting in 1910 and includes 5 televisions productions made
between 1955-1963.

Internet Public Library. Online Literary Criticism Collection. Sites about Jane Eyre. This has a
collection of essays written about every aspect of the book.
www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/bin.litcrit.out.p?ti=jan.67

Yahoo Groups. Jane Eyre. Members can join lively discussion between the over 200 members.
Topics discussed range from the book, Bronte, film versions and any other related topic. Membership is free. http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/janeeyre/


Please join us for May's discussion on Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving.

Debbie

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Introduction

Dear Reader, welcome to our discussion of this classic and loved novel. Like Jane Austen’s novels Jane Eyre still has loyal fans and has survived the changes in thought and society in the 151 years since its publication. Readers still identify with Jane, Mr. Rochester, Mrs. Reed, Bertha, St. John Rivers and other characters and events in the tale.

Published in 1847 it is the oldest book in the online book discussion series.

Although gothic novels had been written before Jane Eyre it is considered one of the best examples and the basic outline of the story has become the plot for so many novels that they have been given a name, or genre: historical romances or gothic romances.

A Brief Biography

Charlotte Bronte was born in 1816 and grew up in the dramatic landscape of England’s Yorkshire area. Her father was a rector and her mother died when she was only 5 years old. The children of the family: Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily (author of Wuthering Heights), Anne (author of two novels), and the only boy, Branwell became very close.

Their education was seriously influenced by their father’s wide-ranging collection of books which he encouraged his children to read. From an early age the children made up fantasy lives and worlds and were writing stories and poems. However, paralleling her real life, Charlotte and her sisters did attend a boarding school much like Lowood in the book. The harsh conditions there contributed to the childhood deaths of Maria and Elizabeth.

Charlotte and Anne worked as teachers and governesses but hated the separation from the family. Hoping to open their own school they studied in Brussels. Charlotte fell in love with the married head of the school who refused to respond to the open expressions of her feelings. The school idea failed and they had to return to working as teachers and governesses.

Supporting themselves by writing seemed one avenue by which they could stay together and be employed, so under their masculine pseudonyms they sent a first work, a book of poetry, to a publisher. It was a dismal failure but the immediate success of Jane Eyre was encouraging. Their years of childhood writing and reading and personal experiences became in their creative minds wonderful stories.

Charlotte also wrote Shirley, Villette and The Professor.

She died during her first pregnancy within two years of marriage.

Don’t know how to begin discussing the book? Here are some ideas:

● The book had a heroine who was not pretty and a hero who was not handsome and yet the book is considered romantic. This was unusual for its time and for the gothic romances of today. Why did it work?

● Why is the book still read? Are you one of the book’s fans? How many times have you read it?

● How is the first person narrative style an important way to tell the story of Jane’s life?

● Jane’s conscience will not allow her to remain with Rochester no matter how deeply she loves him after becoming aware of Bertha’s existence so why, when she hears him calling to her, does she return without hesitation?

● Readers developed, as they still do, affection for Jane. The 19th century reader would have wanted the best for her: to be a wife and mother. This was believed to be the only place where a British woman could attain true happiness and have clear and acceptable position in society. However Jane never expresses this as her goal but speaks instead of respect and love in a more general sense. Do you think the ending is so romantic that Bronte could
speak out about the role of women in that society?

● How is Jane Eyre different from the books that copied it? Why have so many books been written that a genre has been created?

● What are the examples of the supernatural and superstition in the novel; what do they contribute to the story?

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston: Introduction

Brooklyn Public Library is honored to host Zora Neale Hurston's masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This book has also been selected for The Big Read campaign -- an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, with the intent of revitalizing the role of literary reading in American popular culture. The initiative's purpose is to bring people together to read one great American classic at the same time, to better understand through discussion how its themes are still alive and relevant today. Throughout the month of March, book talks and movie screenings will be held in branch libraries all across Brooklyn.

Here, we welcome and invite you to the online discussion of Their Eyes. Together we will explore the novel through various critical, creative and literary perspectives and discover its many complex, latent and manifest meanings.

We begin with the biographical perspective and will look at some of the salient aspects of author's life such as class, race, birthplace, ethnicity, education, sex, gender, language, family history, spiritual values and political persuasions--and discern how they illuminate our reading and interpretation of the work.

Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama, the fifth of eight children. Her mother died in 1904 when Hurston was thirteen, causing dramatic and unexpected changes in her life. She recalls the events surrounding her mother’s death: “That hour began my wanderings. Not so much in geography, but in time. Then not so much in time as in spirit.” Her father quickly remarried, and Hurston discovered an "adversary" in his new wife. Because of the conflict with her stepmother, Hurston left home at the age of fourteen. She moved to her brother’s house and took care for his children, and was able to continue her education, thanks to her brother's financial aid.

Hurston arrived in New York City in 1925, and played an active role in the Harlem Renaissance along with her friend Langston Hughes. Soon after her arrival in New York City, she received a scholarship to attend Barnard College where she studied Cultural Anthropology under the famous anthropologist Franz Boas, who later influenced much of her anthropological research. Boas is also renowned for arguing that the notions of race are culturally constructed and politically sustained, and that skin color does not suggest innate differences. Boas not only inspired Hurston’s work in anthropology but also supported her trip back to Eatonville to conduct formal folklore research. While studying at Barnard, Hurston worked as a secretary for Fannie Hurst who later wrote Imitation of Life, a story of a black woman passing as white.

Some critics have claimed that in Their Eyes, Hurston embodies much of her own chaotic and creative emotional life in the character of her protagonist--the passionate, restless and rebellious, Janie Crawford. Both Hurston and Janie, left their hometowns and what was left of their families. And both became wanderers. Hurston explains it through Janie: “…sittin’ still worries me. Ah wants tuh utilize mahself all over.”

In the words of critic Yvonne Johnson, Their Eyes is “the first self-conscious effort by an American ethnic writer to simultaneously subvert patriarchal discourse and to give voice to women of color.” But Hurston’s life has been surrounded by questions and controversy as she was not without "ambivalence." Hurston continued throughout her life to make, what another critic Mary Helen Washington called "unorthodox and paradoxical assertions on racial issues." It is not without some reason that Maya Angelou once wrote : “It is difficult, if not impossible, to find and touch the real Zora Neale Hurston.”

In her last years, Hurston moved back to Eatonville, Florida where she worked as a newspaper journalist, substitute teacher and finally as a domestic servant. Her several books were out of print and she was beset by an incapacitating poverty. She continued to write, published three short stories in the early 1950s and worked on a final novel, The Life of Herod the Great. She never completed her final novel, as she sank into a major depression. She suffered a stroke in 1959, and died in a nursing home on January 28, 1960 and was buried in an unmarked grave.

In August, 1973, Alice Walker, who described Hurston as her literary "foremother," traveled to Florida to locate Hurston’s unmarked grave. She had a marker placed on the spot that was most likely Huston’s grave, and then dedicated herself to calling attention to Hurston’s genius. Through Walker’s efforts, Hurston’s work received the critical acclaim that it deserves.

Hurston’s creative and complex life story is contained in her three major works: her “official” autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road; her famous anthropological work, Mules and Men; and her acknowledged masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God. Her books are now back in print, and being taught in university literature courses. Also, Eatonville, Florida is now home to the annual Zora Neale Hurston festival. As Palahniuk said so well, "We all die. The goal is not to live forever, the goal is to create something that will." Zora Neale Hurston certainly did.

Following are some questions from various literary perspectives that will lead us deeper into the text and its context. We hope to explore them here in the course of our month long discussion of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Biographical Questions:

1. Are facts about the writer's life relevant to your understanding of the work?
2. Are characters and incidents in the work versions of writer's own experiences? Are they treated factually or imaginatively?
3. How do you think the writer's values are reflected in the work?

Formalist Questions:

1. How do various elements of the work--plot, character, point of view, setting, tone, diction, images, metaphors, symbols, and so on--reinforce its meanings?
2. How are the elements related to the whole?
3. What issues does the work raise?

Psychological Questions:

1. How does the work reflect the author's personal psychology?
2. What do the characters’ emotions and behavior reveal about their psychological states? What types of personalities are they?
3. Are psychological matters such as repressions and desires presented consciously or unconsciously by the author?

Historical Questions:

1. How does the work reflect the period in which it is written?
2. What literary or historical influences helped to shape the form and content of the work?
3. How important is the historical context to interpreting the work?

Socio-economic Questions:

1. How are the class differences presented in the work? Are the characters aware or unaware of the economic and social forces that affect their lives?
2. How do economic conditions determine the characters' lives? Does the work challenge or affirm the social order it describes?
3. What ideological values are explicit or implicit in the work?

New Historicist Questions:

1. What kind of documents outside the work seem especially relevant for shedding light on the work?
2. How are social values contemporary to the work reflected or refuted in the work?
3. How does your historical moment affect your reading of the work and its historical reconstruction?

Cultural Studies Questions:

1. What does the work reveal about the cultural behavior contemporary to it?
2. How does popular culture contemporary to the work reflect or challenge the values implicit or explicit in the work?
3. What kind of cultural documents contemporary to the work add to your reading of it?
4. How do your own cultural assumptions affect your reading of the work and the culture contemporary to it?

Gender Studies Questions:

1. How are the lives of men and women portrayed in the work? Do the men and women in the work accept or reject these roles?
2. Is the form and content of the work influenced by the author's gender?
3. What attitudes are explicit or implicit in 'unconventional' relationships? Are these relationships sources of conflict? Do they provide resolution to conflicts?

Mythological/Archetypal Questions:

1. How does the story use symbols?
2. Are archetypes presented, such as quests, initiations, scapegoats, withdrawals or returns?
3. Do the characters undergo any kind of transformation such as a movement from innocence to experience that seems archetypal?
4. Do any specific allusions to myths shed light on the text?

Deconstructionist Questions:

1. How are contradictory or opposing meanings expressed in the work?
2. How does meaning breakdown or deconstruct itself in the language of the text?
3. Would you say that ultimate definitive meanings are impossible to determine and establish in the text? Why? How does that affect your interpretation?
4. How are implicit ideological values revealed in the work?

Reader-Response Questions:

1. How do you respond to the work emotionally?
2. Do you respond in the same way to the work after more than one reading?
3. What is the work's original or intended audience? To what extent are you similar to or different from that audience?

Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Welcome to our discussion of Chronicle of a Death Foretold. The novel was first published in the Spanish-speaking world in 1981 under the title Cronica de una muerte anunciada. The U.S. edition appeared in 1983. Between those two dates, Marquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the most prestigious literary award in the world. Marquez's reputation at that time rested chiefly upon One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967, English translation 1970), a sprawling family saga spanning seven or eight generations, which tells the entire history of a small town and seems to contain stories within stories. Chronicle of a Death Foretold, on the other hand, is a remarkably controlled, taut, tense little book, concentrating on one event that takes place in the course of a few hours.

The story is a murder mystery of sorts, and yet we find out very early who committed the crime, and we even know the motive: Pedro and Pablo Vicario kill Santiago Nasar to avenge the honor of their sister Angela when her husband returns her to her family the night of their wedding because he learns that Angela was not a virgin. What, then, is the mystery of this story? What is it that we really crave to understand as we watch Santiago Nasar's final hours and the brutal killing at the end? How does the author create such suspense when we already know what is going to happen?

Chronicle of a Death Foretold: A culture of contradictions?

The novel portrays a town full of contradictions: It is a religious community that flocks to see the bishop, but the bishop sails by indifferently. Santiago Nasar's mother is famous as an interpreter of dreams, but she fails to interpret Santiago's dream correctly in the hours before he is murdered. Virginity is such a sacred value in this culture that it is worth murdering over, and yet a house of prostitution (Maria Alejandrina Cervantes' House of Mercies) is open day and night, even during the wedding, and many of the main characters go there. What other contradictions and ironies are there in the book? What do they suggest about this community?

The Women in Chronicle of a Death Foretold

The brutal crime is committed by men, but some of the key women in the story actually encourage the reluctant murderers. Which women do this, and how? What motive might they have?

Angela and Santiago (Chronicle of a Death Foretold)

Did Angela really lose her virginity before the wedding? If so, was Santiago Nasar really the one who deflowered her? If it wasn't him, why might Angela have named Santiago? Is the family satisfied with her answer?

Based on a True Story

The story in Chronicle of a Death Foretold is based on actual incidents that occurred in Sucre, Colombia, where Gabriel Garcia Marquez lived. On January 22, 1951, the brothers Victor and Joaquin Chica Sales murdered Cayetano Gentile Chimento, a 22-year-old medical student, son of the richest family in town. The brothers murdered him because he allegedly deflowered their sister, who was returned to her family on her wedding night. As in the novel, the rejected bride continued to live alone for years after the murder. These events occurred while Gabriel Garcia Marquez was in college studying journalism (like the narrator of the novel) and he knew some of the people involved.

Did you know beforehand that the novel was based on true events? How does it affect your reaction to the book? Does this suggest anything about Garcia Marquez's motives for writing it, or the tone or technique he chose? What, finally, is the point of the novel? What is Gabriel Garcia Marquez saying about his culture?

Gabriel Garcia Marquez and William Faulkner

The influence of William Faulkner upon Latin American writers is widely acknowledged, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez has called the Mississippian author, with some exaggeration of the geographical facts, "my fellow Caribbean writer." This is most evident in Garcia Marquez's most famous novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, but we can also see traces of Faulkner's influence here as well. Which themes in Chronicle of a Death Foretold are similar to Faulkner's themes? How about the narrative technique and point of view? Which characters seem particularly Faulknerian? Compare Chronicle of a Death Foretold with, say, Absalom Absalom?