Exploration of Race and Colonialism in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain (Annotated Bibliography Sample)

DISCUSS CHARLOTTE BRONTË’S JANE EYRE AS AN EXPLORATION OF RACE AND COLONIALISM IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN.Name:Subject:ProfessorDate:
Exploration of Race and Colonialism in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain
McKee, Patricia. "Racial Strategies in Jane Eyre." Victorian Literature and Culture 37, no. 01 (2009): 67-83.
Description
The author notes that the existence of nineteenth century racism was built on affective and cultural criteria whose malleability was key to economic privileges and social entitlements. This article examines the multiple discursive strategies that Bronte contended with in trying to define racial identity. The author tries to clarify the usefulness of the existing ambiguity to the narrative of racism by critically analyzing the notion that, nineteenth century racism depended on fixed criteria thus flexibility was an impossible factor.
Summary
The resource focusses on Eyre’s use of race in furthering another political project to revise a modern position on class hierarchy. The discussion bases its explanation on how the authoritative middle class in the novel emerges as whites and not any other race. It appreciate the ambiguity of racial identities as it relates to both cultures and bodies. It confirms that hierarchy of races is what determined the scale of human achievements worldwide. The author also confirms that attachment of civilization degrees to racial differences, repositioned the classes within the Great Britain. As culture took place of being the measure of class and racial difference, the weight of this differences shifted from colonial to metropolitan locations within the social divisions.
Evaluation
This reading can be used to determine the influence that whites had during the colonial periods. The white black woman is seen as a contamination to the whites but the white woman exercises absolute power over her. It informs the reader about the physical components that were used to distinguish whites from Blacks or dark colored people. The author tried to explain this physical distinction through the use of Jane’s white and small body and Bertha’s huge black body. The reader can thus, understand that during this period, the physical differences used in distinguishing races was more emphatic.
Additionally, the author uses strong and critical means of depicting freedom from slavery. She uses atmospheric changes in her writing to translate a physical place into an atmosphere. These translations clears the locales of any culture that might hold Jane back. The writer uses atmosphere to figure out the material environment as an inspiring spiritual force. Such a style educates and enlighten the reader about how racism was slowly fought against over the years. The improvements about racism that we witness today can be said to have originated from this detachment from material world and embracement of spiritual world.[Alexander, Christine. "Experimentation and the Early Writings." A Companion to the Bronte’s (2016): 11.]
This project can be identified with an indication of a disciplinary force in today, society. The reader can align Jane’s private life reforms with a modernized discipline in our public sphere. This article can effectively be used in analyzing and comparing Bronte’s writing about the Victorian period and i...