I just saw this was out... it doesn't look bad actually.
They also seem to have Blanche as a brunette- yay!
I can't say I don't look forward to another chance at seeing Michael Fassbender, although the more I read feminist literature from the late 19th and early 20th century, the more uneasy I feel about Rochester. Stories like "The Yellow Wallpaper" and essays about these "mad women" diagnosed with hysteria (code for a misbehaving female in that era), the less heroic he seems. Within the world of Bronte's book he is wonderful, but looking at him in a broad cultural context, he is less so.
I guess it depends on if you presume Bertha was just "misbehaving" or if she was actually truly insane. If she was just the misbehaving sort of mad, fair enough, that's not very nice. If she was an actual "lunatic" as the book says, theeen ... nothing really changes.
ReplyDeleteBut then I am quite fiercly Team Rochester ... *cough*
Oh, I've loved him for years, it is just an interesting perspective to consider. Especially because certain levels of "misbehaving" would have been diagnosed as this hysteria.
ReplyDeleteDctors would prescribe this sort of confinement as a treatment and that would actually make them worse or drive them to madness. He was might have been doing what he thought (and was told) was best, whether it was or not is questionable.