celestine's ideas for essay

One thing that interests me about the book is the progression of Jane's character, especially comparing her personality before and after Lowood. Before Lowood she was extremely passionate. I think that her experience there quelled a lot of her passion, and made her a more modest, unassuming person. Jane is a naturally passionate person, and the school (and her upbringing overall) pushed reason on her. In other words, she's been conditioned. I was thinking about what she'd be like without Lowood, and how the book would be different. She probably would have stayed with Rochester (her morals would be looser and her passion would be greater). That's one idea, but I don't think I could go very in depth with that for an essay. Something else that interests me is the commentary on conventionality contained in the book. I think that this is the best parallel to the Transcendentalist movement in the book, and it's mentioned a lot. One of the messages in the book is that conventionality is not morality. I think in those days people were very conventional, and Charlotte Bronte was speaking out against that. Conventionality is still an issue in today's society, and I think her message should be taken seriously. And the last thing that I'm considering writing about is gender roles and feminism in the book. I find this theme very interesting. I wonder how these ideas were viewed in the mid 1800's, whether they were considered radical. I'm guessing they were. This also ties in with conventionality. Maybe I could write about how some of the ideas in this book were very radical for the time period, and how Charlotte Bronte was going against conventionality by expressing these ideas. Conventionality does not allow for progress.