Category: Commonplace Book

When I started this commonplace book, I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to do with it. Based on my personality, I knew I would end up picking a theme and sticking with it until the end, which did happen, but even as I completed entry after entry, I couldn’t quite find the words to describe what I was focusing on. It wasn’t until I sat down and actually tried to find the common thread running through all of my entries that I realized two things. First, all of my entries were centered around how the Victorian authors we read portrayed their monsters. I wanted to know what qualities made these monsters terrifying to their original and modern audiences. Second, but more importantly, trying to understand the things that frighten and unnerve us is something I’ve had a fascination with for a long time. It wasn’t until I reflected on my commonplace practice that I was finally able to recognize that.

The first time I felt like I explored a topic that personally interested me was “Entry 3: The Monsters Within.” We were reading the section of Jane Eyre where we first got introduced to Bertha Mason, and I couldn’t help but notice how her physical description was described by Jane. From prior exposure to analyses of the novel, I knew many scholars had connected Bertha’s character with mental illness, so I decided to do some research. The history of treatment for the mentally ill is something that I’m curious about, and even though I know acceptance and kindness toward mentally ill patients is a recent development, I wanted to know when that shift happened.

According to the Westminster Review “the ‘disposition of the public’ towards the mentally ill was becoming ‘more enlightened and benevolent‘” and “that patients in mental asylums ought to be given ‘the benefit of a cheerful look-out on a pleasing prospect’” (Atherton, “The figure of Bertha Mason“). This makes Jane’s reaction to seeing Bertha strange, possibly to indicate that judgement is the true monster, not Mrs. Rochester.

From “Entry 3: The Monsters Within”

My purpose for doing this was to establish some historical context that would be beneficial in further readings of the novel, but I didn’t expect to fall down a rabbit hole. I was so interested in what I was learning that I decided to continue this line of research in “Entry 4: Discovering Primary Sources.” In that entry, I found an actual pamphlet, published around the time of Jane Eyre, that supported my point that people were beginning to be sympathetic toward the mentally ill which made Jane’s reaction to Bertha reflective of a previous way of thinking. I really enjoyed getting to follow this train of thought. 

I’m really glad I got the opportunity to engage in some commonplacing in this class. I had never heard of it before, but I would love to keep up with it and use it as a way to document my interests and learning over time. I start student teaching in a high school English classroom this fall, and I think keeping a commonplace book could be a good journaling exercise for me to reflect on how my teaching skills are improving. I also think it could be really cool to teach my students about commonplacing and utilize it as we read our novels. I personally found that my commonplace book allowed me to be more engaged in the readings because I was actively trying to find snippets that I could relate to, and I feel like more people should know about it.

Hannah’s Book:

Although I couldn’t comment directly on your book, I really appreciated the humor you included. I think this shows your personality well and approaches these serious texts in a new and insightful way. Most of the content you included pokes fun at these novels, not just for the sake of doing it, but to critique the larger ideas at play, which is very unique.

Aubrie’s Book:

I think your commonplace book is cool because it shows how your ideas about each novel have shifted over time. You didn’t really have a unifying theme, but the focus on what you think was interesting speaks to who you are as a person. I particularly liked how you included a wide range of media outside the novel which demonstrates your curiosity in relation to the books we’ve read.

Andrea’s Book:

I can tell you really dove into the background of the books we read and I appreciate that your book reflects what you found specifically interesting. I think your final reflection could honestly be based on option 1 or 2, even though I know you’ve written up option 1 already. I think the common thread that runs through your common book is exploring the reality that each book was written during.

For my commonplace book, I decided to examine how Victorian authors portrayed monsters in their novels. I chose this angle because, although I would consider myself someone who knows quite a bit about modern monsters, I was unfamiliar with their Victorian counterparts. Additionally, while I do enjoy a good monster story, I’d never really thought about what is supposed to make them terrifying and unnerving. My goal for this commonplace book was to address these two areas so I could better understand some of the original literary monsters and the realities that inspired them.

In reviewing my commonplace book, there were two entries that stuck out as clear favorites to me, but for different reasons. The first was “Entry 9: Elusivity of the Monster,” which was written after we finished reading The Beetle by Richard Marsh. In this entry, I wrote about how the monster is always one step ahead of the protagonists, and by the end, I felt it was unclear who actually came out on top. What I thought was most interesting about this entry was a set of four illustrations done by John Williamson in 1897 that accompanied The Beetle and exemplified this point. Many times when I was trying to figure out what to include in my commonplace book, I looked for images to inspire me, and these illustrations stood out amongst the many book covers and pictures of live beetles. Upon looking into the origins of these illustrations, I realized they either had to be published in the book itself or on their own shortly after the book was published which speaks to this work’s popularity at the time. I also felt like these images highlighted what scenes were important for readers to visualize, and seeing as most depicted some sort of investigation, it was clear that mystery was the focus, not the monster.

Something that I really appreciated about this project was getting the chance to just explore what was interesting to me every week. Even though I did stick with a theme, I felt like it focused my exploration, rather than impeded it, the latter of which I was afraid would happen when we started out. However, I think it was really important for me to learn about where some of our modern monsters come from and why they are monsters in our eyes.

In one of our last discussions, the topic of antisemitism in Dracula came up, specifically related to the Count’s appearance, so something that I’ve been thinking about is what he actually looks like. Since this story has been told countless times through film adaptations, when I was introduced to Dracula in the book, I already thought I had an idea of what he looked like, so I didn’t pay much attention to his descriptions. Therefore, after hearing what other people said, I had to go back and really try to understand how Stoker presents his title character. I was surprised by how differently he is portrayed in this novel versus other adaptations. I honestly feel like the film portrayals of Dracula are actually more derogatory than in the book. I’m not trying to say that Dracula isn’t antisemitic because it’s clear that elements of the vampire legend, like being repelled by Christian relics and symbology, represent people’s prejudices towards the Jewish faith, but I just don’t see how Dracula’s appearance relates to this in any major way. The only one of Dracula’s features that is stereotypically Jewish is his “aquiline nose,” but I personally don’t see how he is depicted as a caricature of a Jewish man.

Vampires have a long history that predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and their legend goes beyond literature and film. There are numerous alleged accounts of real-life vampires ranging from the late 16th century to the present day. This podcast, created by Aaron Mahnke, explores a few stories that happened just a few years before Dracula was published.

The Beetle as a monster aligns strongly with Cohen’s second thesis that the monster always escapes. The other characters always seem to be one step behind The Beetle, with the exception of Holt in the beginning who actually stumbles into its lair. Still, Holt doesn’t have control of the situation and isn’t aware of The Beetle’s plan, so he has no capacity to put a stop to the future events in the novel. At the end, when Lessingham, Atherton, and Champnell finally think they’ve caught the monster, it’s revealed that it has eluded them and left Miss Linden for dead. I find it interesting that after these events, life seems to go on fairly normally for the English characters in the book, albeit with a great amount of trauma. It makes me wonder what The Beetle’s actual intentions were and if it succeeded.

Something that I found interesting in The Picture of Dorian Gray was that unlike the other novels we’ve read, Dorian’s monstrosity is the result of an external force, ie. Lord Henry. Even in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which has some similar themes of duality, Jekyll’s monstrosity comes from within not without. It’s clear from the story’s progression that Dorian likely would have retained some of his innocence if Lord Henry had never met him. With that in mind, if we think about what warning Oscar Wilde intended to make with this book, perhaps don’t let yourself be easily influenced by others was the main goal.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on the article “Hyde the Hero” and as it talked about the Hulk as Hyde, I started thinking about other superheroes that might fit this mold. I’ve also been looking at some critiques on the new Batman movie and the article above came up. In the article, author Julia Métraux asks the question “is Batman/Bruce Wayne just an American version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?” She notes that there is an easy comparison between Dr. Jekyll with Bruce Wayne who are both wealthy men, but that their alter egos are written as polar opposites to each other. One of the main points of contention is that Mr. Hyde is definitively the dark side of Dr. Jekyll, but Batman seems to be a better half Bruce Wayne since the former is a literal superhero. However, Batman can also be seen as somewhat monstrous, it’s just that his need for vengeance drives him to do good instead of evil. An important point that Andreas Reichstein points out in a linked article, “Batman- An American Mr. Hyde?,” is that “In order to draw a clear line between Batman and the other, the evil, the criminal side, the artists have created a certain range of supervillains who are clearly insane and have obviously crossed over the thin line separating possessive fanaticism and absolute evil.” This suggests that there is a figurative line in the sand where monstrosity is neither good nor evil, and the different adaptations of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde seem to bounce back and forth across that line.

Remarks on nervous & mental disorder, with especial reference to recent investigations on the subject of insanity / by David Uwins.

From some of my previous research into the social contexts surrounding Jane Eyre, I looked at a source that mentioned how Jane’s reaction to Bertha is odd considering the changing opinions of mental illness to be in a more positive light. In looking through the digital archive, I was looking for an artifact that might illustrate this change and I came across the document featured below. This artifact, titled “Remarks on Nervous & Mental Disorder, with especial reference to recent investigations on the subject of insanity,” is a pamphlet written by David Uwins in 1830 about mental illness and the public’s perceptions of the mentally ill. Uwins explicitly states his motives for writing about this topic: first, that mental illness has been considered too far removed from physical illnesses; second, those skilled in medicine should be diagnosing mental illness instead of regular people; and third, that the fearful image surrounding asylums is uncalled for and these places should be viewed just as you would a house of recovery for a physical illness or disease. This is important because it signifies the beginning of the shift in attitude towards the mentally ill. This was a huge step towards recognizing that people with mental illness are still people and that they don’t deserve to be locked away in an asylum (or the attic at Thornfield as in Jane Eyre) where the general public wouldn’t have to interact with them. This pamphlet also argues for a more proper use of terminology surrounding mental illness, specifically in regards to a person’s “soundness of mind.” Uwins points out that there is no basis in using this terminology to describe someone who is mentally ill, and that there are better ways of determining if such a person needs help, like determining if they are capable of making good decisions for themselves. This puts society in a position where it is no longer placing judgment on a person suffering from mental illness, but rather it is recognizing that the person needs to be cared for just as someone with tuberculosis or smallpox would need to be cared for.

The Commonplace Book entries I looked at were really interesting to me. A few people talked about their observations of the setting: one person noticed how the initial description of Thornfield seems to be a setup for a dark turn while the other discussed the first instance of a bad omen at Thornfield. Another CPB listed some of the criticisms and praises of the book around the time it was published. After reading some of my classmates’ CPBs, I’m really interested in how cultural influences manifested in the actual writing of Jane Eyre and how it was received to its original audience.

“What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing; and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face.”

Brontë, Jane Eyre, on Bertha Mason

Brontë seems to be portraying Bertha as a monster in the physical sense, but this is not the only monstrous thing in this section of the novel. Jane’s description of Bertha reflects how people once viewed the mentally ill, though it’s important to note that Jane Eyre was written around the time that public opinion on this subject was changing. According to the Westminster Review “the ‘disposition of the public’ towards the mentally ill was becoming ‘more enlightened and benevolent‘” and “that patients in mental asylums ought to be given ‘the benefit of a cheerful look-out on a pleasing prospect'” (Atherton, “The figure of Bertha Mason“). This makes Jane’s reaction to seeing Bertha strange, possibly to indicate that judgement is the true monster, not Mrs. Rochester.

“How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth. You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back- roughly and violently thrust me back into the red-room, and locked me up there- to my dying day; though I was an agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, ‘Have mercy! Have mercy Aunt Reed!’ And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me- knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you are a good woman, but you are bad; hard-hearted. You are deceitful!”

Brontë, Jane Eyre (Ch. 4)

In the first eight chapters of Jane Eyre, we see Jane as a girl who, despite how young she is, is strong-willed and rejects the thought that she ought to be quiet and indifferent. In this scene, Jane is confronting her aunt, who has treated her poorly for her entire life. Striking back in this sense was unheard of, and the fact that a woman wrote of this was controversial. According to some at the time, “if the book was by a woman ‘she had long forfeited the society of her own sex’” (Shuttleworth). The act of writing the character of Jane behaving as she does goes against how women were told they should act. Coming from Brontë, Jane Eyre may be seen as a commentary on the overbearing nature of authority on women in her time period.

“It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.”

Victor Frankenstein on creating his monster

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of a void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: I can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself.“

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley on creating Frankenstein