Kap 1 - 1. Additional text

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, 1847

Jane Eyre is a novel written by the English author Charlotte Brontë. The plot follows the development and maturation of the female protagonist Jane Eyre and is thus often labelled as a bildungsroman. Jane narrates the story in retrospect and unfolds the, often brutal, obstacles she has had to overcome on her journey towards adulthood and self-assurance.

The book is a critique of Victorian norms and assumptions about both gender and class.

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

(“JANE EYRE”, CHAPTER 12)

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. How does the narrator, Jane, describe human nature in general?
2. How are women supposed to behave in the Victorian society? What are their main skills?
3. How is this problematic, according to Jane?

GO RESEARCH

Read about Charlotte Brontë’s background and the context in which the story about Jane Eyre was written

• Google the words sparknotes jane eyre context

Find more information on feminist readings of Victorian literature

• Google the words the madwoman in the attic

GO DISCUSS

• Discuss whether girls are expected to prefer or be better at sitting still and remaining calm and less likely to rebel than boys are.

Find more information on feminist readings of Victorian literature

• Google the words the madwoman in the attic

WATCH THE TRAILER FROM THE FILM ADAPTION (2011) on YouTube.

Kap 1 - 2. Grammatik

Gender Equality is Your Issue too af Emma Watson (2014)

Grammatik
Brugen af udvidet tid på engelsk + verber som tager ing-form.

Arbejd individuelt eller i par.

• Understreg alle verballeddene i de følgende teksteksempler fra Watsons tekst.
• Forklar brugen af ing-formen. Er der tale om udvidet tid eller skyldes ing-formen et bestemt verbum?

1. Today we are launching a campaign called “HeForShe.”
2. I am reaching out to you because I need your help.
3. I started questioning gender-based assumptions.
4. When at 14 I started being sexualized by certain elements of the press.
5. When at 15 my girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn’t want to appear “muscly.”
6. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists who are changing the world today.
7. If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are we can all be freer and this is what HeForShe ia about.
8. You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl?
9. And what is she doing up on stage at the UN.
10. I have been asking myself the same thing.

Kap 1 - 3. Go Research

Gender Equality is Your Issue too by Emma Watson (2014)

Emma Watson mentions a speech given by Hillary Clinton (then First Lady) in Beijing in 1995 at the U.N 4th women’s convention.

Find the speech on the Internet and read/listen while answering the following:

1. How does Hillary argue the need for a women’s convention and discussing women’s issues?
2. What is the challenge of the convention, according to Clinton?
3. What is the goal of the convention?
4. On whose behalf does Clinton speak?
5. How are the human rights of women and girls around the world violated, according to Hillary Clinton?
6. Why are women’s human rights more often violated?

Hillary Clinton is at the time of writing the primary candidate for the presidency for the Democratic Party. Visit her official homepage and find out where she stands on women’s rights and opportunities, and LGBT equality.

Also see if you can find out where the republicans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz position themselves. How do they e.g. stand on abortion/prolife, transgender, and homosexuality?