Adult figures play a big part in both Jane Eyres and the narrator in Hideous Kinky’s lives.
In Hideous kinky, the narrator’s main adult figure and influence is her mum, although there is some other characters in the book that do have some effect on the narrator like Bilal.
Her mum is there with her all the way through the book. Her mum is the main reasons that there in Morocco, she has dragged her children around first to escape the busy and hectic lifestyle of London. When she arrives in Morocco she soon finds out about being a sufis. As the book goes on we see her mum become more and more interested in the Sufi than her children. This is clear when she decides to leave Bea with Luigi Mancini and go to Algiers with the narrator. Her mum can be a bad influence because she gets carried away with becoming a Sufi and doesn’t realise that her children need her.
They first meet Bilal in the Djemaa El Fna where he was acting as the hadaoui’s assistant. He then starts working as a builder in Mellah and lives with them. Bilal becomes very important and she sees him as a father figure, the narrator feels that Bilal likes her more than Bea, the narrator is very happy about this and keeps things from her sister that he has told her. I think this is because Bea often talks about there father because she says that she remembers him, the narrator cant remember her father so Bilal is special to her especially because he seems to have a extra closeness to the narrator.
The narrator is clearly attracted to Bilal on their first meeting. She describes him as having:
‘The most beautiful smile of all smiles, and his dark eyes twinkled in a face, smooth and without a trace of anything unfriendly’
Jane meets a lot of adults as she’s growing up some treat her kindly and some treat her badly. All of the adults have an effect apon her, some are negative and others are positive.
We first see Jane growing up with the Reed family at Gateshead; here we see that she can be impulsive, but that she also can be sullen and withdrawn. She is clearly intelligent and precocious. She is also
Perceptive; knowing that the Reeds dislike her,
When Jane describes her relationship with the reeds at the beginning of the book she says:
“ I dared commit no fault; I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night.”
Jane feels her social position as an outcast very keenly. She says about this:
“ I was a discord at Gateshead Hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs Reed or her children.”
She is occasionally very angry, as when she lashes out at John Reed, and when she rounds on Mrs Reed after the Red Room incident. She is also afraid and insecure, but tries very hard not to let anyone see that side of her character. It is only at times of great stress that she becomes fearful, but has great self-control for a ten-year-old.
The Reeds treat Jane as nobody, and because we see them entirely from Jane’s point of view it is hard to see any good in them. Mrs Reed hates Jane because she has been foisted upon them and Jane’s cousins take their lead from their mother. Jane is clearly unhappy and rebellious and angry. I think this is a direct result of the treatment she received when living with the Reeds.
Although she seems to be very unhappy living with the Reeds, she has the servant Bessie who always shows kindness and sympathy towards Jane. Bessie is also the only real figure of ordinary, unrefined human kindness that Jane meets. Even though Bessie shows kindness and is gentle towards her, Jane is still very unhappy.
Just before Jane leaves Gateshead Mrs Reed introduces Jane to the proprietor of Lowood School, Mr Brocklehurst. She thinks that Lowood School will be much better than the treatment she endures from the Reeds and is eager to go.
A different side of her character is revealed at Lowood School, when we see the tender and trusting nature in her dealings with Miss Temple and Helen Burns. It is obvious that she has a great desire to be shown love, and when this given, she is perfectly happy to return it in kind. There is still, however, anger and resentment.
To Jane’s horror she finds that she faces the same treatment as she received at Gateshead, but on a larger scale and in a religious community. For the first couple of weeks Jane settles in well and is making friends and getting on well with the teachers. Because of the stories that Mr Brocklehurst have heard from Mrs Reed, he humiliates her and shames her in front of the whole school.
He tells the pupils that:
‘you must be on your guard against her; you must shun her example-if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her out of your converse’.
He then tells the teachers:
‘You must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul’
He then goes on to tell them about Mrs Reed and the terrible things that she did when staying with him:
‘I learn from her benefactress – from the pious and charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid by an ingratitude so bad and so dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity’.
After he subjects her to all that humiliation and shame, he then punishes her further by making her stand on a stool for half an hour and tells Miss Temple that no one can talk to her for the rest of the day.
Jane’s humiliation does dishearten her; she feels that every one hates her and that every one thinks that she’s a liar and an evil person.
It is her friend and peer Helen who allows her to regain some of her confidence when her friend Helen tells her:
‘Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises or dislikes you; many, I am sure, pity you much.’
Helen then goes on to say how the whole school is not liked,
‘ Mr Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man: he is little liked here: he never took steps to make himself liked’
Miss Temple is the charitable schoolteacher is both an example and a warning. Jane instantly recognises her as someone to trust and admire. As soon as she starts talking to Helen about the teachers she picks out Miss Temple as her favourite,
‘But Miss Temple she’s the best - isn’t she?’
She can and serve as a role model for Jane, but she is also a powerless female – having to answer for her independence to a wrathful Mr Bocklehurst, and having no real authority when he is on the premises. When she follows her best instincts and gives the children an extra big lunch, because they have missed breakfasts, we are quite clear that she is in the right, but she dare not talk back to Mr Brocklehurst when he upbraids her for her simple kindness.
When Helen dies of tuberculosis Jane soon rejects this apparently death-dealing vision of self-sacrifice, but quickly falls under the perfect Miss Temple spell. Miss Temple, Jane’s teacher also has to conform. Jane learns many things from Miss Temple and gains a lot from her. Miss Temple’s self-control is a model for Jane until her mentor leaves the school, at which point her influence begins to fade, Through her friendship with these characters Jane learns the sacrifices demanded of women and, once she is beyond their influence, she quickly looks for another alternative. Jane also gains Miss Temple’s submissiveness as a direct result of association with her.
Think about the positive and negative influences?
Discuss the social conventions of the time, eg, The Lowood regime. How much of Jane’s life is routine?
How much freedom do the girls have? What restrictions are placed apon them?
The underlying difference between the two books is the in relation
To the notion of structures and control . In Jane Eyre the social
Context is set throgh the idealogical and cultural components
Of Victorian society . Here the characters all play a part in emphasising each component as Jane wends her tortuous way to the
Classic Victorian ‘happy ending’ .
In contrast Hideous Kinky offers very little cultural
or social consistency and this throughout provides the dynamic
between the children and the mother . The children in the book strive
for stability even to the exent of attending a foreign Moslem school
but throughout that longing is continually twarted . If anything the
happy ending comes with a train journey out of Moroco back towards
England and the stability that the children have for so long wanted .
The narrator’s main child influence is her elder sister Bea; she is very different from her sister. Bea is very stubborn and bossy towards her sister, but her sister seems to not notice. The narrator seems to want to copy and be like her elder sister because when her sister goes to school she wants to go too.
When Jane goes to school she is not simply subject to Brocklehurst’s rule, however, she also makes friends with Helen Burns who, in sharp contrast to Brocklehurst, represents an ideal of Christian practice. Helen Burns is the saint like child who teaches Jane the philosophy of submission and endurance. Jane rejects this at the time, but is impressed by it. She does not live her life in the idealised way that Helen does, but she influences her when she needs to flee temptation. Helen tries to teach Jane the value of self-control.
One day when Jane is participating in a sewing class she sees Helen in her history lesson. It appears that the teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is picking on Helen even though she is very good at the subject. At one point Helen is flogged, but takes it stoically. In the evening, Jane speaks to Helen, she asks her why she puts up with Miss Scatchared’s bullying and she explains the principles of endurance, duty and self-sacrifice to Jane, as based on the New Testament Gospels.
A lot of the first few chapters when Jane starts Lowood consist of the converse between Helen and Jane. Though this dialogue covers some complex theological ground, it is nonetheless quite naturalistic and provides us with a deep insight into Helen’s character. Helen offers one solution to Jane’s problem – the need to quell her passionate nature and Jane does learn from her, as we begin to see in the following chapters. But Helen’s faith is also essentially inward – looking, as indicated by her tendency to slip into reverie, and potentially death – willing; she looks forward to death as an elevation, ‘I live in calm, looking to the end’.