Engl 435 Learning Letter

Grant Wengeler

Dr. Torgerson

2/11/2020

Learning Letter

This class has taught me much, but I’m not sure I would describe it specifically as “learning” so much as I’d quantify it as “adapting” what I already knew into something more developed. I suppose it depends on your definitions. Still, I’ll describe what I learned without drawing such distinctions. First and possibly foremost in my learnings are the skills I’ve developed under the intense pressure and weight of a heavy workload. With so much reading to do for this class, as well as my other classes, I had to find a way to adapt and continue to accomplish what was expected of me despite the factor of time being against me. I stayed up late, all night if I had to (which was at least once a week) in order to keep up with my assignments. I learned ways to manipulate my body into continuing to stay active. I’ve never done so many jumping jacks at 4 a.m in my life. My brother is in the Army, and he told me a big part of his training was learning to stay awake for extended periods of time without losing his faculties. I’m convinced they told him to read hundreds of pages of Victorian literature as part of this training because that’s what did it for me. I began listening to the public domain audiobooks of Jane Eyre, Villette, and Deerbrook on youtube while I was at work to make certain my time was being used at peak efficiency. I learned how much caffeine I should administer to myself to keep awake without the dreaded crashing effect. This took some perfecting, but eventually I got it down. 

Apart from my personal life, I learned much about dynamics of the Victorian era which I only had a vague idea of before. Harriet Martineau’s Illustrations of a Political Economy was probably the most profound to me when it came to grasping an idea of the social dynamics of the time. When faced with poverty, disease, death, and despair the most mankind could conjure was a system which perpetuated discrimination and unrelenting oppression. Men, women, and children being forced into labor through necessity is a tale as old as humans themselves, as nature dictates that those who don’t produce food for themselves shall die. However, the industrialized version of this seemed less of an improvement over the hunter-gatherer precursor and more of a perversion. Martineau’s call for transformation of this system lifted my heart because I feared that amongst all the turmoil many may conclude to just do away with the bones of civilization and fall back again into communistic tribes. The dark tone embedded deep into my blood a sorrow which shall remain until my brain decays and I forget I ever knew such events. 

The subjugation of women is a prevalent theme throughout Victorian women’s literature, and I hate it. I hate that it happened because it was truly unfair to the women, and it also effectively cut the efficiency and possibilities of mankind in half. I have alway supported equality between met and women, and to see a world within these pages where such inequality exists leaves a foul taste in my mouth. I wish to ensure such discrepancies of power do not exist, but still I feel myself misunderstood by my peers. I learned something about modern society through all this, and the tendency to “other” a group of people in order to prop up one’s self. It’s happened throughout history, and in Bronte and Martineau’s tales. I felt myself “othered” as well, because the sins of our fathers seemed thrust onto my shoulders as if I’d swung every cane and berated every governess myself. I learned that by pointing out the other-ing of myself I’d only invoke more wrath. I learned that in the eyes of some of my peers I am responsible for the horrors of the past, despite my distaste for such. I learned that my two-way mentality of equality is not shared by many, who believed equality will be achieved through a swing of the pendulum where the female identity is given prevalence over my own. I had some semblance of this idea before. In movies, on TV, in ads and academic papers alike there is a strong movement to subvert my own identity in favor of the identity which was subverted for most of human history. This movement seeks to put female identity on a pedestal, while simultaneously deconstructing the concept of gender, thus undoing itself in my eyes. I learned that my frustrations are few compared to that of women over centuries of subjugation, but I refuse to believe that my own subjugation is proper payment for such atrocities. I cannot undo it, so I’ve learned it’s best to ignore it. Nobody wants to hear what a man has to say about women anyway. 

I’ve also learned that common themes in literature will incur different treatment based on the circumstance of gender. Bronte had to publish herself under the guise of Bell to achieve fruition for her work. She exposed inequalities of society, she delved into the philosophical ramifications of rebellion and what it meant to bolster one’s identity after it had been suppressed for so long. I’m certain many who read the same words as me saw it differently, but I couldn’t keep the words of Milton out of my mind. Forgive me, for this is not a direct quote, but rather the words as I remember them. After all, how I remembered them is what affected my mind in these hours: “within my mind I may make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven.” “It is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven.” Thus, Hell became my Heaven and in my mind I saw Jane Eyre as myself. I looked through her eyes, and I knew her mind. I felt within the both of us the rebellious spirit which drew Satan from the lake of fire to face the gates of heaven if only to stand for himself as himself, and not for the dictated rule of law which suppressed. Jane did much the same, as do I in my own life. Jane, and I believe Bronte herself, are more akin to me than was to be expected. I give her mad props for the relatability of her work. But, in the end, Jane marries, Winston is shot walking down the hall, Lucifer is barred from Heaven, and I learn something about the relationship between hope and despair. Such vicarious ramblings may seem detached from the class, but I assure you that the learning I’ve endured did not take place within some room but within my own mindscape. Bronte herself depicts her mindscape through her writings, and by including my perspective into these writings I gained validation for my own thoughts. I gained knowledge, but much more than that, I adopted some of Bronte’s wisdom for my own. I drew from her a spirit which was congruent with my own, and found an image of a world I know will never be. Such is hope, to see a better world, and such is despair to recognize its unrealistic nature. The best which can be done is to keep learning and trying, and for us all to keep hoping that with time our social and philosophical conflicts will gain some speck of resolution.