Neworld Books Podcast

A Stoic Letter from Jane Eyre to Mr Rochester

My Dear Edward,I write to you not in the fever of passion, but in the clarity that comes with acceptance of what is, and what must be. Love, I have learned, is not the wild tempest that poets would have us believe, but rather a steady flame that burns regardless of circumstance—neither dimmed by absence nor brightened by proximity.You have asked me to speak of my feelings, and I shall do so with the same directness that has always marked our discourse. I love you. This is a fact as immutable as the rising of the sun, as certain as the turning of the seasons. But I love you not because you complete some lacking part of myself, for I am whole in my own right. I love you because in you I recognize a kindred spirit—one who has known suffering and emerged neither broken nor hardened, but tempered.We are equals, you and I, though the world would deny it. My station may be humble, my fortune modest, but my soul stands level with yours. In this recognition lies the foundation of any love worth having. I will not be made less by loving you, nor will I require you to be other than what you are to earn that love.I have observed how love oft makes fools of the wise and slaves of the free. I refuse such diminishment. My affection for you is freely given, not extracted by pretty words or grand gestures. It requires nothing of you save honesty, and offers nothing save the same in return.Should circumstances keep us apart, I shall not rail against fate like some tragic heroine. I shall carry this love as I carry all meaningful things—with dignity and without complaint. Should they bring us together, I shall meet that joy with the same steady spirit. For love, true love, exists independent of its object’s proximity or response.I am not yours, Edward, for I belong first and always to myself. Nor are you mine, for no person can possess another. But I am with you in spirit, in purpose, in the deep understanding that passes between souls who have chosen to walk honestly through this difficult world.The heart that loves with reason loves longest. Remember this, should you doubt the constancy of one who speaks so plainly of such tender matters.Jane To hear more, visit stephaniepoppins.substack.com

In Bed with Brontë podcast JANE EYRE (SHORT)

Hello!It’s lovely to see youI’m going to be talking about Jane Eyre todayIf you’ve been listening to my tracks, you will know we are in the last quarter of the book and we’ve been on quite a journey with Jane. We are coming to the point now where she has suffered her worst and she’s coming back from it (we hope). Obviously, it will end happily because that’s what Victorian novels tend to do.We’re going to talk about the Gothic theme to start with, and every week as you know we delve a little bit into the psyche of Jane. Stoicism is the school of thought whereby we say virtue is sufficient for happiness, so maintaining that level of virtue in your life where you’re not necessarily looking for external validation, and not looking to surround yourself with false idols. And the belief that the world is ordered by an external force, but one that can also come from within.If we practise Stoicism, we focus on the world as it is, and think about what we can control rather than what we can’t.And we can see this with Jane – a character who was very resilient and clear about who she was – I can’t change this, she says, but I am clear on what I am willing to accept, and therefore I’m going to leave if this is not what I want it to be. Many times, this was very difficult for her to do.We see this character go through massive transitions within this Gothic theme, this dark backdrop of misery, contempt: the lies the deceit that she faced, the isolation that she had right from the beginning when she was at Gateshead with John Reed bullying her and being sent to the Red Room where she had Supernatural experiences, which in the Victorian era there was a massive mistrust of and fear of.She was a frightened character and isolated character, yet she kept those stoic beliefs and she remained true to who she was. And the strongest message I take from Jane Eyre is that.And I appreciate that, because life is very difficult at times, it can be very dark at times, but it is enough for us to have that core foundation deep within us that is saying, you know what? You’ve still got me. And Jane had Jane throughout her experience, even when she’d left Thornfield Hall, when she was sleeping in a ditch, before she came to Moor House, because she could not make peace with being somebody’s mistress. I have to be true to myself, no matter the cost, she said, which is very virtuous.And because this was written in Victorian times, it went against every assumption people made about women and their place in society. Women are people and they have a core set of values and that should be enough, believed Bronte. Perhaps their path isn’t to be a wife and a mother, and perhaps we should talk about that.This was why the book was ground breaking.One feature of Stoicism is to keep your head when everything around you is going crazy, and of course at Thornfield Hall when everything around her is going crazy, we meet the character Grace Poole, and we see the love of Jane’s life: Mr Rochester, has deceived her with this mysterious, crazy woman who is living somewhere in the house – a juxtaposition between pious and virtuous Jane, and this supernatural energy (the Gothic coming through), which serves to highlight just who Jane is, because if you place the dark against the light, it’s just going to make the light even brighter.The book can be depressing at times, because when you read of isolation and deprivation and hardship, especially for a woman who is on her own in a Victorian Society in a period of time where if you wanted to escape and you had no financial means, you walked.But the saving grace for Jane, is nature. Every building she lived in actually was owned by a man, but when she was submerged in nature, that belonged to her. She could make peace with that she could be safe there. So even if at one point she was sleeping in ditches and when she first meets Mr Rochester walking in the dark to embrace Mother Nature, she has a sense of ownership of who she is. And that’s a valid lesson for us all.So let’s compare that Stoicism with the reward system we have in the Twenty First Century, which is frightening and damaging. The financial reward system is the ‘big play’ the thing everyone is talking about. But in fact you get little internal reward at all from that. And I think what we can do from reading Classic Literature, is understand that even though we may think differently, and feel isolated from that, there were people the way we think before – kindred spirits –souls we can connect with, and I am very comforted by that because if you feel detached from the norm (perhaps this is heightened sensitivity, perhaps you just cannot tap into this aggressive financial push, push, push), maybe open a book and have a look at somebody else’s thoughts on that, and make a new friend!So, to go back to Jane as a character with her own mind, she shows love when she wants to show love, she’s driven by her own choices, and she allows herself to be loved on her terms.So yes, the book is a romance, but it’s really about her loving herself. Her understanding that, ‘I really can’t let myself down here. Even though every thing is against me, I cannot let myself down. And there are little moments of hope. When we see her at Lowood and she is up against Mr Brocklehurst.So we do have quite a few angry, aggressive male characaters: one, a young boy, John Reed, then one Mr Brocklehurst, a very unforgiving, hard, male character.From this we could assume Bronte is ‘anti-male’ somehow. But I don’t see that at all. This is more of a social comment. An observation, rather than a judgement.Bronte has set Jane up as someone who is not necessarily good looking, who doesn’t carry the burden if you like, of having to concern herself with the way she looks, but can just be free to concern herself with her thoughts, and she’s looking for an intellectual connection which she finds in Rochester. Yes, he’s got baggage, yes, he’s tormented, but he’s amazing because he’s a deep thinker, and he says, Look, I know Blanche Ingram (visually speaking) is a good match, but I’m not interested in that’.And then you have the character of St. John who comes along afterwards, and we come to see in later chapters, he is in love with somebody else, but he doesn’t think they would make a good missionary’s wife, so he is sacrificing what he wants for something he doesn’t believe to be good. So, there are pro-male elements.I veer away from the idea ‘it’s a romance, it’s just for women’. No I don’t think it is. I think it’s a tale of hardship. I think it’s a dark tale. I think it sets the gothic backdrop beautifully. It embraces nature, and the character of Jane speaks to me because it’s saying, ‘You know what, hold your tongue, it’s going to get better. Be strong. And be sure about who you are. And that’s wonderful sentiment for all of us to hold on to.Si I’ve spoken a little bit about the story, and I just want to say, it’s lovely to read literature that embraces characters that are a little bit odd. That are a little bit different. That feature not your classic hero or heroine. And that gives us hope right? Because sometimes it feels like why don’t I have those qualities that person has? Why can’t I be more like this person?But in fact the characters in these stories are hard wired to be different, to be difficult, and not to be a stereotype, but still to be worthy of embrace and to be celebrated.Celebrate the unusual! Is the message.So ‘m going to close with a little poem I wrote, that embraces this message. And this poem’s called ‘Square Peg’.SQUARE PEGYou know that holeThat you made for me?Well, I don’t quite fitIt’s my thoughts, you seeThey’re bigThey’re smallAnd iced with a cherryLike a juicy steak that’s topped with berriesUnexpectedUnwantedAnd the ones left unsaidThey’re the light that glows blueWhen it should be redI could pinch them inBut they’d just bounce backI could squeeze them thinBut they’d burst out fatBecause truth has a wayOf doing thatSo why dig a hole, at all?© Stephanie Poppins To hear more, visit stephaniepoppins.substack.com

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Be mean with your shares Be cautious with your likes Mustn’t seem too keen Must retain your rights To the thoughts that haunt you To your own special brand Then return for the insults they left behind Such divine intervention to me, was handed Such sweet victory earned with that wit I landed As I ruled the comments on the internet that dayBe mean with your likesI’m not going away…©stephanie poppins To hear more, visit stephaniepoppins.substack.com

In Bed with Brontë

In this LIVE session we will look at symbolism and how we can use it to create emphasis and context in our written work. By approaching our work in a structured way, we can make sense of our own experiences and develop a further understanding and appreciation in an informative and objective way.This podcast compliments my writing course on InsightTimer. To hear more, visit stephaniepoppins.substack.com

The Dragon and the Bell

© stephaniepoppins Neworld Books To hear more, visit stephaniepoppins.substack.com