Part Of The Reason I Am Considered Weird

There are many ways in which I differ greatly from my peers, most of which have labelled me "weird." I don't watch TV, I don't go out on the weekends (walking two doors down the road doesn't really cut it as a social life at high school when you're competing with your partying cohort), I listen to "fake" bands and I actually enjoy the subject of English.

First term of English, our assignment was to write a descriptive prose. I was very excited to get that assignment because I knew I'd end up with a good mark for something I do anyway. A lot of people aren't overly keen on writing, and barely anyone- around here, anyway- would actually do it voluntarily. I guess it was similar to English last year as well, when we were told we were going to be studying Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

There was a collective groan from all the lethargic, bored fourteen year olds who would much rather be kicking around a football or discussing the colours of hair dye in an exclusive cluster in a carefully chosen stairwell as opposed to reading some love story written way back when by some ancient, bald guy. 

I, on the other hand, broke into a grin. Though I never read a Shakespearean play, I was well up for the challenge. Although I personally don't find Romeo and Juliet all that romantic at all, the tragedy of the story intrigued me somehow. I may be a hopeless romantic, but the same "happily ever after" ending time after time doesn't really wash well with me. But it wasn't only that, it was the language! "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she." Language like that is not used every day- most people I know don't exactly appreciate me using vocabulary exceeding eight letters in length! To read language creating imagery so vivid and beautiful is remarkably refreshing...to me, anyway.

And so, with this term's assessment in which we had to choose one novel to read from a list of twenty-something, I chose Jane Eyre. That book, to put it simply, is absolutely beautiful. Even Charlotte Bronte's commentary on the lives of women in the Victorian era, and the way she gave a voice to the oppressed sex of the times through the narration of the headstrong Jane is incredible. Back in the 1800s, it was radical to speak out this way due to the given role of a woman as a loyal and dutiful wife. To all of a sudden have Jane- plain and simple, orphaned and brutally honest- as a protagonist, speaking out against social norms and refusing to conform to the demands of a class based society is incredible.

And again, it's the language. The way in which sentences are constructed- it's not just the same words over and over. And the quotes I can draw from it! One which I relate to is this:

“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.” 

--Mr. Rochester to Jane, Chapter 19

Either way, this is quickly becoming an analysis essay, and if that were to be so, it may ruin the book for anyone who may read it, which I definitely recommend, if you are a reader like me. And so, dear reader, I shall leave you to believe what you will.

Sayonara, fellow ninjas!! xoxo