Deck the Halls with Hypocrisy—- a column I wrote for my school newspaper

The holiday season is marked by festive decorations, cold weather, Christmas movies, lights on houses, lots and lots of cookies, cakes, gingerbread houses, nutcrackers, and maybe one of the most popular: holiday music. Played in stores the second that Thanksgiving ends, people can officially begin shopping for Christmas gifts while listening to festive holiday tunes. At this point, radio stations gain the devotion to spread the holiday cheer through the college of music that took its form over the last century.

Known for its time for peace, joy, and happiness, the Christmas season took a downturn due to a major controversy. The dilemma took place when a Cleveland, Ohio radio station pulled the timeless song: “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” When listening to the song, the majority of people merely imagine the iconic scene from “Elf” where Jovie sang the song in the shower and Buddy walked in. Yet, such a wholesome song and scenario transformed into a storm of arguments. Multiple feminist groups argued that the song sanctions rape and increases the rape culture that remains increasing prevalent in our country as well as others. Urban dictionary even refers to the song as the “Christmas Date Rape Song”.

The flirtatious banter taking place within the song morphed into a discourse between a young woman who plays hard to get by thinking of excuses as to why she should leave and a man who attempts to talk her into staying. A few lines from the song read, “Say what’s in this drink? (no cabs to be had out there)/I wish I knew how (your eyes are like starlight now)/To break this spell (i’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell)”. These lyrics refer to the clear references to a date rape drug. Due to this, many radio stations around the country followed suit after hearing many complaints about the song.

Taking into account the time period in which the song was written proves a deciding factor to the implications that the piece provides. Written and primarily performed in 1944, society deemed it unacceptable for women to remain alone with men. A woman would not put herself in this situation without knowing the man she accompanied herself with. Furthermore, the lyrics that question the material in the drink can easily mean that the woman may try to blame her behavior on the alcohol she drank by stating that she cannot remember how much she drank or what exactly the beverage contained. At any rate, the girl in the song could leave at any time. It did not appear that the man kept her against her will. Instead, she continues to formulate reasons as to why she should leave, but instead she does not want to leave and continues to come up with excuses as to why she should stay. The woman merely desired that the man believe she wished to leave.

People need to take things for their worth. During the 1940s, the Me Too movement, along with, other feminist movements did not contain the compelling influence it produces today. Many young girls may relate to the song of a woman who knew that she should go home, but wanted to stay with her boyfriend a little while longer, something that if given the chance that majority of people would jump at.

The past cannot be judged by the standards that we live by today. Society has built itself on such a high pedestal, dishonouring the decisions of the past. In reality this era proves itself to not be as high and mighty as everyone makes it out to be. People turn into harsh critics that constantly spew harangues at past events and people; while sometimes this may be justified, in this case the palemics do not suffice. The ridiculous rebuttals that make it so this song gets banned prove outrageous, while the popular songs of our age speak bluntly in a crude context of sex, drugs, and prostitutes. The hypocrisy of our time culminated to a peak.

Goodbye?

Grey clouds embark upon a solemn sky; the sleeping dragon hither lies.

His heart and mine forever tied.

Remove the mask that hides your face from view.

I was in love with the you I thought I knew.

Is all that’s left to say goodbye?

I don’t want to say goodbye, but even the most beautifully cut flowers die, unable to look at the

sky,

Just one last time. Nothing lasts forever, that I knew.

Still, I convinced myself to believe in all your lies.

Now it hurts too much to view your lovely face. Our knot has been un tied.

My hands are tied--- so tell me how to say goodbye.

You say you love me, but in your view my heart does not belong. You held me in the sky,

Your grip is slipping; here now I lie broken and bleeding.

Where you were, I no longer knew.

Every time my wounds heal, you seem to rip them a new.

No amount of needle and thread could have tied my heart together again. Instead I am bound by

your lies

Like snakes under my skin, hissing “he never told her goodbye”.

I cannot compare to this angel in the sky. Is my mind deceiving, or do they embrace in my view?

Unless you can say goodbye to all the lies

I must come down, out of the sky, abandoning our view.

Because now I knew, just as ours, your heart and her’s are forever tied.

Sweet Reprise

I sit on the bench nearest the window of my bedchamber. 
Large puffy clouds consume the sky, 
Turning the landscape slightly grey. 
Birds sing their sweet reprise, 
Whilst small lizards preform a dance of courting on the sill. 

A break, only a momentary break,
In the clouds allows for sunlight to flood over my face. 
I close my eyes, dreaming of the coddiwomple of my invention. 
Only the distant hum of the washing machine reminds me where I am; 
Eliciting me back, requiring all of my lucidity,
To open my mind’s eye to the world’s agathokakological facet.
Reminding me that while my earthly body may be confined by chains, 
My mind and soul are free to soar to my heart’s content. 

Oh, but my heart! — 
Which is plagued with a chilling sickness. 
A sickness for which there is no cure, but that of time. 
All I have is time. 
I sit here wasting away, waiting for some obligatory life changing and earth shattering event  that
          never comes. 
Will it ever come? 
My heart grows cold and my body numb. 
I feel as if I have entered into a trance. 
For now, what shall I do now? 
I suppose that now all that is left to do is wait. 
Listening to the drip, drip, drip of the leaky shower faucet; 
I wait. 
Listening to the broken words of the conversation transgressing just outside my door; 
I wait.   

I wait for the moment to come where I am freed from the chains in which I have created for  myself,             as a punishment, 
So that I may escape.   

But for now I shall continue to sit here, listening and watching; 
Providing the groundwork for my escape. 
I wait for the day that I imagine will come anon.

Bequeath of Prudence by Kailey Norusis

She began her narrative, while I knelt next to the bed she rested on, in a sonorous tone that bore stark contrast to her then withering disposition: “I was seated at a cream coated, wooden vanity, which matched the bed, laying in the backdrop of the scene, exactly. The deep chestnut wooden floors were without a scratch and the walls had a light brown paper, with a floral design, until about halfway down the wall when the paper was met with a cream colored chair rail and the wall was finished in a brown only slightly darker. My reflection was imitated in the looking glass attached to the table; the woman staring back at me held about her an obvious beauty— of cream colored skin, silky black hair held in tight curls framing her delicate face and spilling down her back, high cheek bones painted with a rose colored rouge, and thin dark red lips— but something appeared aloof and detached in her gaze as she inspected me. The only entity which tainted the semblance of the avaricious girl in the mirror was a swollen bruise retained in her right eye. Tears smothered my eyes as I glared down at a newly placed ornament, located on the ring finger of my left hand.”

With seemingly youthful tenacity, as if to brazenly protest her inevitable demise, she continued. “The vanity held small trinkets, such as stationaries and ink for letters, a jewelry box, and a small container of perfume. The aroma of the bouquet permeated the thick air of Southern Georgia. There were four drawers— two on each side. On each drawer there was a round brass handle encircled in a cream crown of flower detailing in the wood. A container of white powder placed in front of the mirror was open with a large brush standing adjacent.

“In my hand was a tear stained letter, dated the previous day, reading:

‘My dearest Anne,

                Many trials have plagued me on my way to you. The only article that I will assure you of is my eternal and inevitable love for you. That being said: I wish you great joy in your new marriage. The obeisance I hold towards you is of a great multitude; so great that if I believed you were truly happy and this was truly a good match, then I would not have allowed myself to send you this letter on the day of your bridal ceremony. But I do not believe that you are truly happy. This arrangement has been made to improve your social standing and economic holdings- that is all. I love you. Where you could have had a marriage with me, you will have strictly an arrangement with him- and that is all it will ever be.

So many nights I have been filled with indignation for not being handsome enough, or wealthy enough to deserve you, but I did deserve you. If you are so paltry to let such negligible specifics concern you, then you shall never be happy in life. I beg of you to consider my offer of engagement one last time.

Yours,

John’

“The saccharine adulations, which my new husband had spoken only days before, had turned into abrasive harangues the moment that we were left alone together. If only I had read this letter, from my dearest John, the day before, instead of casting it off, then I would have been able to repent the rejection, which was now despondent of remedy. When I think of how I broke that poor man’s heart, it breaks my own. I was no longer the young girl that was shrouded in innocence and goodness; she was dead. In her place lay a woman who was guilt-ridden and tormented by the ghost of this girl, for whom everyone seemed to care so deeply. For when one is young the soul has not had time to wither and perish in its virtue. I had grown to hate her, for the reason that I simply aspired that I could defile time and be reunited with her again. Forlornly, she was not strong enough.

My eyes had swollen with tears, as I began to understand the brevity of my mother’s final words. “Why had I allowed myself to be a vain slave to beauty? I will now have to survive a lifetime of horror only to be cast off in death, enduring an eternity of a hectic second circle of the lustful in hell; its occupants pointlessly pushing boulders together only to crash into each other time and time again in a marvelous effort to distract themselves from the avarice and prodigality of their mortal lives.” I recognized these few lines from the works of Dante and inwardly wept imagining my mother’s proposal.

“Coming out of the trance, I checked the time on an old grandfather clock that sat in the corner. The hours seemed to have flown by, as it was now half past four; my husband would be home in nearly half an hour. The tick of the second hand seemed to keep me sane and the swing of the pendulum was hypnotizing. Slowly, with hands shaking, I excused myself from the dressing table and took out a portmanteau, which had been veiled by the bed.

“I prayed it was not too late to remedy this. I would pack my bags and leave, find John and we would run away together. I would explain to him that I had never meant to hurt him; explain to him how much pressure I had been under due to my family; explain to him how he was right and my life was turning out horribly. I packed the suitcase to the rim, with all of my possessions of value and a few sets of clothes. I wore a bonnet as I carried the luggage down the stairs of the small house I had moved in to the day before. I walked out the door, without as much as a glance behind me.

“The front porch was what every girl dreamt that her initial house would be. It was painted the purest white and was shaded with an overhang and a large cedar oak tree, surrounded by vibrant green grass, all encompassed by a white picket fence. There was a swinging bench where I had imagined my husband and I drinking iced tea or lemonade whilst our children played in the yard climbing trees and chasing each other.

“There was no one occupying the street. It was a grey and rainy day. I held an umbrella in my hand, at my side, while a steady stream of raindrops fell from the sky. On the ground was the morning’s newspaper, which I had been too busy consoling myself, to take inside. My disposition was oddly placid. As I picked up the newspaper I saw a picture of a familiar face: John. I took up the article and began to read:

‘John Wilson was born on the twentieth of April in 1885 and proclaimed dead on the thirteenth of November 1916. Wilson spent the majority of his life in Georgia. He was unmarried and fathered no known children. The cause of death is unknown—.’

“At the completion of reading, my mood became melancholy. Before I could help it a thin stream of salted water leaked from my eye, solemnly falling onto the stationary. I allowed myself to cry this single tear over perished man, whom I loved, that had become a phantom, now living only in the few brief lines of lugubrious verses that he had sent to me.

“I took the newspaper inside, undid my bonnet, and unpacked the clothes that I had so eagerly taken out of my chamber. I went downstairs, set the table with a lace doily, put a pot roast in the oven, and then welcomed your father home for dinner- hoping that it would be a better night than the last. Willingly coming to peace with the horrifically humdrum, which my life had become.”

At my mother’s pause in the tale of her tragedy, it was now time for me to interject, “Why would you tell me that?” I asked; lip quivering and tears threatened to destroy the façade of composure I had created for myself during this narrative. Her silence left only the visualization of her fragility, as opposed to the beautiful portrayal of herself she had described in her earlier years. We were in the same room that had been her bed chamber since she and my father had first been married. He had died about a year ago and as the only child, I sat alone, genuflected at my mother’s death bed hearing her last confession to me.

“Because, in my feverish condition, I cling on to the certainty that you will not make the same mistakes in life that I did. I was never happy; I do not wish that for you.” My mother was quiet for a few moments. The atmosphere was dreadfully callous. A part of me wished that I had not learned these things about my father; not learned that my mother was merely mortal and had a past with regrets, but that was unfair of me— even if I was a result of those transgressions and regrets. Her eyes fixated on mine as if to penetrate telepathically my feelings before I even knew they existed. Her mea culpa now climaxed into her then present concern.  She continued, “You don’t dislike this man, but you are not in love with him either. On my death bed, I seek reconciliation for my faults and to implore that you overlook my offences, which I have burdened you with. And to tell you emphatically that you are not destined to repeat those offenses in your own future.”

I looked down at the blue sapphire, encircled with crystals. I nodded my head without looking up at the woman— that I realized I knew nothing about. She continued to tell me not to settle for money, appearance, or even comfort— not to settle for anything except love.

“Please! Promise me,” the fragile woman in front of me pleaded desperately. “I could not endure eternity if I had to watch you ruin your life in the same ways that I have. Promise me that you will not pursue your engagement to this man, or any other man you do not love.”

That night I went out to the garden behind the house. We had a statue of Mary in a fountain; I sat in front of it and prayed. I prayed more intently than I ever had in my life. My bare hands squeezed together, until they turned white in a desperate attempt to say everything which needed to be said. Brilliant crystals transversely scattered across a dark blue blanket; that is how I remember the sky that night. I sat there until the sun rose, in my night dress with my hair in curls. I sat there savoring every second of fleeting peace that I was able to oblige myself with because I knew that once morning came I would never feel the same way for a second time.

Some moments are so perfect that the second they break, the entire world shatters around you; that night was my first, but not only experience of this. The second that I came out of the haze that night had made for me, I was hit with the reality of my life. And I hated everything about it.

I sat there that morning patiently awaiting my destiny; the solemnity of the situation reaching even my hands, which perched upon my lap. The sun rose early. Its rays casting off radiant oranges, pinks, reds, and purples. The colors danced together, a formal waltz across the sky. In the center of the dance was the sun and as it rose the dance began to fade slowly away. The colors bended and leaned, swayed and replaced, rubbed up against and mixed with each other. A reflection in the rivulet appeared as jewels gently resting on the sandy bottom, moving leisurely with the current. The scene vanished as rapidly as it had appeared.

That night, as I assembled there under the handsome crystals twinkling down at me and inviting me into their world of wonder and amazement, I made my mother the promise. A promise that even now five years later I can still remember, the same way I remember the bristle of hot air that made the trees dance and lifted my hair up, tempting me to follow it; or the way I remember the dry lighting crackling across the sky, followed by an explosion of thunder; the same way I remember the prepense of pricking the tip of my finger on a sharp rock to watch the blood drip and form a small pool of scarlet at my feet to remind myself of how beautifully mortal and finite I am. I promised my mother that I would not repeat her mistakes, but make my own instead.

That morning when I went back into the manor, I found my mother dead in her bed. She looked at peace, as if she heard what I had promised her the previous night— maybe she had. Later that day I called off my engagement and it was a good thing I had because after that I was introduced to a new side of the cad, who was quite different than the gentleman I thought I knew.

Now five years later, I am happy that I made my mother and myself this promise. Because as I prepare to walk down the aisle, there is not a doubt in my mind that I have made the right decision. I stand outside the church doors in a white dress with a bouquet in my hands, but none of that matters. The thought of spending the reminder of my life with the man I love is enough for me. The doors to the church open and the congregation stands. A massive three tier wrought iron chandelier hangs from the ceiling; on each tier there are four lit candles- one for each quarter- with a drip pan fastened underneath. Tensile wooden beams lay exposed horizontally across the ceiling under the large peak the roof forms in the center. The walls were white and directly in front of me stands the altar, along with my soulmate.

The aisle has been sprinkled with rose petals. My eyes wander, until they find him and then they are still. He stands there with a grin on his face— which stretched from ear to ear. His eyes a deep blue; I found myself lost in yet again. He guided me to him and once I was there we clasped hands. He never lets go and neither do I, as long as we both shall live.

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

            How do you identify yourself? Are you tall or short? Skinny or fat? Beautiful or ugly? Kind or mean? Happy or depressed? Most of the time we identify ourselves by what other people label us. From such a young age, who we are is decided for us and we are told of our own personalities. In the novel Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, Jude and Sue have both been told their entire lives that they are unfit for marriage simply because both of their parents had been. This leads them to rush into their first marriage and then, getting cold feet and becoming claustrophobic with the fear of commitment, they leave. This is what causes the pair to never marry and eventually leads to the tragic end of their love affair. If the couple had not been convinced of this primal characteristic flaw that they both shared, they would not have been convinced of their inevitable doom. For some reason, we see nothing wrong with letting other people decide who we are- which is truly alarming. Society tries to shape us into these clay figures that cannot act or think for themselves. We are merely being used as puppets by people who are in higher power than us. Without us they are useless, so they need to make us feel as if we need them.

            Throughout most of the book, Jude and Sue debate on whether or not to get married. Sue was unable to see the value in the ceremony and; therefore, refused on several occasions. This poses the question: Is there value in marriage, or is it just something we do to make ourselves feel as if we are not alone? Recently I went to a few Catholic wedding ceremonies. After the first two weddings, I could not understand why every little girl (myself included) has dreamed of their wedding their entire life. I was thoroughly disappointed by the meaninglessness of the ceremony and how anti-climactic it was. But the third wedding that I went to was amazing. The bride was nice, the family requested the chapel to pray in before the wedding, and most of all when the bride and groom were standing on the alter reading their vows you could feel the love they had for each other oozing from their pores. A day or two later once the events had sunken in, I realized that maybe it was not the ceremony that was meaningless, but the people present and participating in it. The bride and groom decide if there is any value in marriage and it is conveyed to everyone at the wedding. There was value in marriage in the world Thomas Hardy created, just not in the matrimony of Jude and Sue.

            Loss and devastation can do one of two things: (1) cause you to give up on your dream, or (2) make you want that dream even more. In the novel, Jude tries to achieve his dream of going to a prestigious university. No matter how much he studies and how smart he is, something always seems to get in the way- a girl, pride, not having money, another girl. There will always be obstacles in your way that distract you from what you want to do in life, but it is up to you to decide to let those obstacles become a permanent pit stop or if you will graciously move around them. Jude cannot get past any of his obstacles to achieve his dream and later in the novel it is clear how much he regrets this.

             As people get older they say that they wish they could do certain parts over again. They made mistakes or wish they had done things differently. This is incredibly sad. You only have one shot at each day of your life. It is okay to make mistakes and wish you had done things differently, but you should not waste more of your time and life by holding on to those feelings. People disregard some of the more important principles of life- happiness, family, and comfort- for money. Thoreau said “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” If having a lot of money and an important corporate job is imperative to your life then it is worth it, but if you are doing it to make someone else happy or you think it is what you are supposed to do then ask yourself if it is truly worth it. Is sitting at a desk doing paper work for the majority of your life, getting up early, coming home later, being stuck inside a concrete box worth everything that you could be missing?

            Thomas Hardy did a wonderful job of conveying the message that no one can give your life meaning except for you. So many people are living a life that they do not want and are miserable because of this. The only person that is responsible for that and can fix it for yourself is you. People find meaning in their lives in different ways, some find purpose through religion, love, family, learning, etc. Everyone needs something that will make them excited to wake up in the morning; life is about discovering what you truly want out of life.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

                Every child dreams of the day they are granted with the same freedom and respect as adults. They yearn to be taken seriously, resulting in them making idiotic choices like getting drunk or smoking, that no respected adult would do. Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye is no exception. Everyone has a difficult time transitioning from these two stages in life, but Holden has an exceptionally hard time due to his painful past and the guilt he feels for moving on from it. Holden refers to his childhood as “David Copperfield crap” (pg. 1). While there are many characteristics that classify Holden as an adult- being tall, smoking, having grey hair-, there are just as many that would classify him as a child- smoking so much he cannot run, not being served alcohol at respectable bars, frequently using curse words, hiring a prostitute because he wants someone to talk to, and insulting girls whom he like.

            Though Holden is trying to act older than he is, Holden is also simultaneously trying to keep a tight hold on his childhood. This is the result of a few things; for one, change is scary, especially when that change means to start to fend for yourself. “The best thing about the museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. The only thing that would change is you.” (pg. 135). In a museum, if you think of a section of it a person’s life then the museum would still never change. You can only truly document an event when it is over or extinct. Holden doesn’t want to freeze time, he wants to go through the museum of his life and step into a past exhibit that he liked more. Holden wants to go back to when the people he loves were the people he originally knew them as. He felt that it was his job to save his loved ones from themselves. The only problem is that life is not a museum; you cannot walk from one exhibit to the next, living in the one that is most pleasant. It is all your experiences- good and bad- that make you who you are.

            “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything.” You cannot control people. Holden had these incredibly high expectations for everyone that he loved. He was upset with his brother D.B. for moving to Hollywood and becoming a sellout, he was upset with Jane for going out with Stradlater because Holden thought she was too good for him. During this page of the book Holden not only realizes he has to let Phoebe go and not be so afraid of losing her, but he also has to let the child in himself go, so that he can grow up. There is a point in everyone’s life where the child inside you dies to make room for a practical life. In the novel Holden is at this point of his life, though he is resisting it. He feels guilty for growing up when Allie never will and to Holden this feels like moving on. This death, or disappearance, of being a child brings up memories of Allie’s death, which forces Holden to mourn two deaths throughout the novel.

            “I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this field of rye and all. Thousands of kids, and nobody’s around- except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do is catch everybody if they start to go off the cliff.” (pg. 191). This is how Holden acquired the name “The Catcher in the Rye.” He took it as his personal responsibility to save others, especially children, because no one was able to save Allie from death and no one could save Holden from his grief. Holden wants to blind children from pain, but you cannot do that forever. Without exposing children to pain they will expect to get everything they want whenever they want it and the world does not work like that. Death is a prominent part of life that you cannot hide yourself or other people from.

            Throughout the novel, Holden, asks repeatedly “where do the duck in central park go in the winter when the lake freezes over.”  Holden really could not care less about the ducks; he is using this question to ask where Allie went. One day the ducks were swimming in the lake, with the sun out, and the next day they are gone with no warning, leaving behind only a desolate frozen lake. The hardest part about death is after seeing someone every day for most of your life and then, with no warning, they are gone and you will never be able to see them again.

            The Catcher in the Rye is an amazing book for the simple fact that J.D. Salinger took these issues that most people have when confronted with adulthood and death. The novel talks about how when children find out about things they do not understand- such as curse words and death- it bothers them. One of the biggest indicators that Holden is not ready to grow up is how afraid of death he is. Holden is a timeless character that every person can relate to at one point or another in their life.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

In Victorian England it was considerded beautiful to be very tall, full waistested, plump and have a pale complection; in 1920 it was beautiful to have a flat chest, bobbed hair, and a boyish figure; from the 1930s to the 50s women aspired to have a curvy hourglass shape; today most women want to have large breasts and bottom, flat stomach, and healthy skin. In each of these time periods the idea  of what is beautiful was a specific body type; not everyone looks like that. Does that mean they are not beautiful? Of course not. In the novel Jane Erye there are two very important aspects of the story that create the plot: beauty standards and money. Jane is classified as plain, but does that mean that she is not also classified as beautiful? Acording to dictionary.com beauty is “a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight”. Nothing in that definition says that if you are considered plain you cannot be beautiful. “If you get simply beauty and naught else, You get about the best thing God invents.”- R. Browning. In the novel, Jane Eyre was taught that there are more important things that beauty. It is better to be simple, smart, have multiple accomplishments, and be able to carry a conversation. Mr. Rochester could have just as easily married Miss. Ingrim as Jane Eyre. Miss. Ingram was considered beautiful, she could sing, play the piano, and draw; most of wich Jane could do. The one thing that she lacked that Jane didn’t was the ability to be intelectualy stimulating and to Mr. Rochester that made her more beautiful.

Jane Erye is described throughout the novel as plain. Most of the time she is describing herself this way because she has been brought up to believe that being plain is more attractive than being obviously beautiful. Jane had been forced her entire life to supresse her emotion and personality. Her plain style symbolizes how she was brought up. She grew up being taught that being practicle and smart was more beautiful. It is more practicle and smart to wear plain clothes than extravagent silks. There are more important things in life and Jane Eyre understood that. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Everyone finds different things, features, and characteristics beautiful. It is ignorant to say that someone is not beautiful because there is someone in the world that will worship them as the most beautiful person ever. The novel does not have the plot that it does because Jane is plain, it has the plot that it does because of who Jane is; which woud not be changed if she was beautiful. There is a misconseption about the book that Jane’s aunt did not like her because she was not beautiful. This however is wrong; Jane’s aunt did not accept her because she felt that her husband spent more time with Jane than his own children. While it is indiffernt to the story wether or not Jane was beautiful, it is important to the story that she did not believe that she was. This was cause for some of Jane’s growth throughout the novel. The book was written through Jane’s perspective so it is difficult to tell what others thought of her appearance. Miss. Ingram hated Jane. It never said this in the book, but I intrepreted that this was because Jane was beautiful and she knew that Mr. Rochester was in love with her.

In today’s time too much ephasis is placed on outward apperances and not enough empashis is placed on inward apperances and who people truly are. The world is too superficial. Before school started I got a pixie cut, maybe not for of the right reasons but because I felt that I had changed so much as a person, that it seemed foolish that my outward appearance did not reflect that. The day that school started (my sophmore year of highschool) I was welcomed back with comments such as “did you decide to be lesbian over the summer?”, “Oh so you’re like a really big femanist.” , “Does the word communism mean anything to you?” I was getting judged on such a simple thing as my hair and not by what type of person I am. After hearing insults like this over and over again it made me regret getting my hair cut…for a while. After a week or two into school I realized that it does not matter what these people thought as long as I liked my hair. Once I realized this it made me like my hair even more just for the fact that it wasn’t what people would call obviously beautiful on a girl. Like Jane portrayed in the novel it is much more important to be smart, kind, and witty than to be beautiful. Someone is always going to be prettier than you, or have better clothes, so if you are always trying to out do them you are never going to be happy. You have to be satisfied with who you are as a person. I think that this message is a little too over used, which makes sense because it is important, but it also makes people disregaurd it. That is why Jane Eyre is such an amazing book. She shares this message in such a nonchaluant way that it gets the message across without actually coming out and stating it.

            The story would be emensly different if Jane was rich instead of poor. In the novel Jane was humble, knew how to work, and wanted to be independent. She would have been brought up completely different if she had had money. Those morals would not have been instilled in her if she had been rich. Although it is hard to say what would happen if one essencial part of a story was changed, but from how I see it there would be no story. The entire story was based on Jane not having money. If she had inhareted a large amount of  money at birth then she would never have gone to work for Mr. Rochester. She would have never fallen in love or had the amazing experiences (good and bad) that she did. One of the major themes of the book is that money will not make you happy if you are not, as a person, already happy. Mr. Rochester, for example, had a great deal of money, but as a person he was misserable. He had made mistakes in the past that he would not forgive himself for and this caused him to hate life. If Jane was born rich and did not have to work for anything in her life she might have ended up being miserable. One of her greatest pleasures was teaching. When she went to visit her cousins before her aunt died you could see how miserable they were. Neither daghter shed a tear for their mother. They could not wait for the affair to be over so they could move on with their lives. Money does not buy happiness. That is a lesson that Jane was shown first hand. She never wanted to be rich, she just wanted to have enough money not to worry. She had the right idea in my opinion.

            These two asspects are essential to the story. The fact that Jane views herself as plain means that she is humble, modest, and apprecietes things more than if they had just been given to her. Jane is rich, she just does not know it. An uncle on her father’s side, who had a large sum of money,  would have been willing to adopt her but her aunt told him that Jane was dead. When this uncle died Jane receive a large inheritance. She gave a portion of the money to the family that had helped her onto her feet after she left Thornfeild. Without these key aspects of the novel there would be no plot. Charlotte Bronte was icredibly talented and smart for putting this into the story. She took true issues of that time and today and built a story around it. The concept of beauty has been a problematic subject matter since the beginning of time. Throughout the years the idea of beauty changes and will continue to change as long as there are women to contradict each theory.