Multidisciplinary Pairings

This is the fun part!

Picture the fog rolling in over the moors—quiet, spacious, sorrowful, and emotionally honest. These pairings will not tell you what to feel; they should create the contemplative atmosphere in which Jane's inner voice can be heard.

Music

Photography

Take a tour around the Bronte Parsonage. This is the home where the infamous Bronte Sisters grew up. View the English Moors and setting that inspired these epic gothic tales. This is the exact location where Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë wrote literary masterpieces like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Art

The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli. Learn more about Fuseli here.

Quiet domestic isolation by Vilhelm Hammershøi. Learn more here.

Abbey among Oak Trees by Caspar David Friedrich. Learn more here.

Poetry Pairings

Wild Geese By Mary Oliver. I love this video of her reading to us.

Film Pairings

Notice the uses of architecture, silence, and constrained women to generate emotional tension.

The Criticism

Two essays have shaped how Jane Eyre gets taught more than anything else written about it. You don't need either one to have a good experience with this book. But they're the arguments the novel keeps generating, and it's worth knowing what they are before you decide where you stand.

Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar — “A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane’s Progress” (1979)

Their claim is that Bertha is not the obstacle to Jane’s story. She’s part of it. Read the novel as a sequence of rooms Jane has to survive — the red room, Lowood, the third floor at Thornfield — and a pattern shows up. Every time Jane’s rage has nowhere to go, something happens elsewhere in the house. Bertha tears the wedding veil. Bertha sets the fire. Bertha does, on the page, what Jane is never permitted to do and never quite says she wants.

Gilbert and Gubar argued that this wasn’t Brontë being careless. It was how a nineteenth-century woman wrote anger she couldn’t claim in her own voice — she gave it to a second woman and locked her upstairs. Their larger book, The Madwoman in the Attic, makes the same case across a whole generation of women writers: the docile heroine and the monstrous double are the same woman, split in two because one of them wasn’t allowed to exist.

It’s a reading that makes the ending stranger, not tidier. Thornfield has to burn. And it’s Bertha who burns it.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak — “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism” (1985)

Spivak read Gilbert and Gubar and asked the question they hadn’t. If Bertha is Jane’s dark double — a device that exists so Jane can become herself — then what happens to Bertha as a person? She’s a Creole woman brought from Jamaica, whose money built the house she’s imprisoned in, who never speaks a line in her own defense, and who has to die for Jane’s marriage to be possible. Spivak’s argument is that celebrating Jane’s independence without accounting for that cost repeats the thing it thinks it’s criticizing. Feminism that reads Bertha only as a symbol is still refusing her a self. The novel’s triumph is real. It’s also paid for by someone.

She isn’t saying don’t love this book. She’s saying know what you’re loving.

Where to actually read them

Neither essay is easy to reach without a university login, so here are the doors that are open:

• Spivak’s essay is in Critical Inquiry, and JSTOR now offers a number of free article reads per month with a free personal account. That’s the cheapest route to the original.

• The Madwoman in the Attic is a book — try your library’s hold system, or the Internet Archive’s lending library.

You don’t need permission or a login to think about this novel. But if you want the originals, they’re reachable.

End-of-Book Reflection

When you finish, return to the Key Question:

What are we willing to sacrifice in order to stay true to ourselves?

Then consider:

• What does the novel suggest true equality looks like?

• Which version of religion ultimately proved most convincing?

• How does Brontë distinguish loneliness from solitude?

• Which symbolic image stayed with you longest, and why?

• Is the ending emotionally satisfying, morally satisfying, or both?

• If Jane lived today, which parts of her struggle would remain the same?

• Which current conversations—about gender, class, disability, mental health, race, or power—does the novel still illuminate?

• What one sentence from Jane Eyre would you carry into your own life, and how might it shape the person you hope to become?

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Introduction

Few novels have shaped modern ideas about love, womanhood, morality, and independence as profoundly as Jane Eyre. While it is a love story, it’s much more of a coming-of-age novel, a psychological autobiography, a Gothic mystery, a religious debate, a feminist manifesto, and one of the greatest explorations of personal integrity ever written.

Jane Eyre endures as a classical favorite because it was groundbreaking for having a heroine whose inner life mattered as much as the plot around her. This book is for any girl who lives inside her head— For the girl who withdraws into her own mind. Cue I Hate It Here by Taylor Swift. As we follow Jane’s life, we see her grow from a girl who refused cruelty to a woman who becomes fiercely independent. Jane’s journey is about belonging, love, and creating a life she can live with integrity.

At its heart, the novel asks a timeless question:

What are we willing to sacrifice in order to stay true to ourselves?

That question—and Jane’s refusal to accept easy answers—is one reason the novel remains one of the most influential works in English literature.

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Things to Know Before Reading

I’m using this copy of Jane Eyre. You can use any copy of your choosing; this is simply the one I snagged from a free table back in college. I know a lot of people love the Penguin Classics version linked here. They’re about the same price!

If you haven’t seen the Thought & Title Annotation Guide, read it now before you start! You’ll also see a section in this guide for “what I am tabbing”; it may help you to review our tabbing guide as well.

Historical Context

Published in 1847, Jane is neither conventionally beautiful nor socially powerful, yet her intelligence, moral courage, and insistence on her own humanity challenged many assumptions about women’s roles in Victorian society.

• Class divisions were rigid.

• Women had almost no legal independence after marriage.

• Governesses occupied a strange social position. While educated and respectable, they were neither servant nor family. Living between class divisions made them economically and emotionally vulnerable. Charlotte Brontë herself briefly worked as a governess and word on the street is that she hated it.

Reading Jane today means remembering that Jane possesses almost no external power. Her only real possessions are her education, conscience, and self-respect— none of which pay the bills. This makes every decision she makes surprisingly radical.

Understanding Gothic Fiction

Unlike horror novels, Gothic fiction uses fear to ask philosophical questions. The Gothic externalizes psychological conflict; the haunted house becomes the haunted mind. Settings like the haunted house and descriptions of the weather reflect and inform on the emotional state of the soul. Brontë anchors the emotional Gothic drama in realistic psychology— Jane’s greatest battles and scariest moments happen within herself.

Know the conventions of Gothic Fiction:

• ruined architecture

• hidden rooms

• mirrors

• ghosts (real or imagined)

• dreams

• stormy weather

• moonlight

• supernatural ambiguity

• imprisonment

• forbidden desire

  ---

Key Question

Throughout the novel, continually return to one question:

What are we willing to sacrifice in order to stay true to ourselves?

Close Read

Spend extra time with these chapters (chapter numbering may vary slightly by edition, so verify against your copy). If you are unsure how to close read, use this guide:

• The Red-Room episode (Ch. 2)

• The conversation between Jane and Rochester (Ch 14., Pg. 133- 139)

• The Fortune Teller (Ch. 19)

• “Do you think I am an automaton?” speech (Ch. 23)

• The interrupted wedding (Ch. 26)

• St. John’s proposal (Ch. 34)

• The End (Ch. 37)

Important Symbolism

• Fire- passion, destruction, purification, transformation.

• Windows- Longing, Observation, Freedom just beyond reach.

• Birds- Jane repeatedly compares herself to birds. Ask why.

• The Red Room- One of literature’s great symbolic spaces. Represents trauma, childhood fear, social exclusion, psychological imprisonment.

• Thornfield Hall- Treat the house as a character.

• Weather- Storms often signal emotional turning points.

Themes to Track

• Self-Respect vs Romantic Love

  Jane repeatedly refuses relationships that cost her integrity.

• Freedom

  What kinds exist? Physical? Economic? Psychological? Spiritual?

• Identity

  Who tells Jane who she is? When does she reject those definitions?

• Equality

  Jane insists love only exists between equals. This is revolutionary.

• Religion

  Different versions appear through: Brocklehurst, Helen, Rochester, St. John, and Jane. Ask which version does Brontë ultimately endorse?

• Class

  Money changes everything. Notice every conversation involving inheritance.

  ---

WHAT I’M TABBING

Look for recurring patterns:

• Characters who mirror one another

• Dreams that predict later events

• Repeated colors

• References to paintings

• Biblical allusions

• Fairy tale imagery

• Imprisonment

• Blindness

• Names

• Thresholds and doors

  ---

  Character Guide

• Jane Eyre- not beautiful. Not wealthy. Not powerful. But almost impossible to manipulate. Notice how often Jane chooses dignity over comfort.

• Edward Rochester- the Byronic hero. Intelligent. Charismatic. Emotionally wounded. Morally compromised. Constantly testing boundaries.

• Mrs. Reed- represents inherited social cruelty.

• Helen Burns- embodies Christian endurance. Jane admires her but ultimately develops a different moral philosophy.

• Mr. Brocklehurst- religious hypocrisy personified. Watch how Brontë separates faith from institutional religion.

• Miss Temple- Jane’s first model of intellectual womanhood.

• Blanche Ingram- a foil to Jane. Beautiful. Socially polished. Concerned with status.

• St. John Rivers- perhaps the novel’s most underestimated character. He represents duty without passion.

• Bertha Mason- one of literature’s most debated figures.

  Is she:

  • mad?

  • colonial anxiety?

  • Jane’s unconscious?

  • patriarchal imprisonment?

  • Gothic monster?

  • all of these?

Avoid simplistic interpretations.

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Part II…

I let go of creativity and mastered the thesis, the MLA standard structure— studying literature and becoming an English teacher, driving me further from that writing voice that came so naturally in my youth. Now in my head, I hear all the rules circling; I read my own work and recognize that it sounds nothing like Dostoyevsky and lacks the complexity of Steinbeck. The bar has been studied, set, and placed at an academically engaged high. The childlike voice becomes inaccessible after years of learning. I worked hard to become what I believed would make me worthy or credible enough to write, only to realize I am further from being the writer I want to be than ever before.

There is an aliveness to raw writing, writing in your own found voice. It can’t be faked. Real aliveness is hard to come by. When someone learns how to write academically, it’s the first thing to go— and it’s what artists spend their whole life trying to get back. Sitting down to write creatively now feels like turning the handle to my childhood bedroom, only to discover someone’s locked the door. I know what’s on the other side, but I can’t get through. I want to, no, I need to, return to myself and find that voice that came so easily before everything got so loud. Here is the writing practice that is getting me back on track.

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The Writing Practice

1. The Notebook

   I believe in writing by hand, always have, always will. This makes finding a notebook that works for you important. It needs to be something that gets you excited to write but doesn’t feel too precious. If you have something too precious, you will feel scared to write. I once bought a journal in Italy (no replaceable inserts like the Louise Carmen), and it is still sitting on my shelf because I feel whatever I put on the pages must be as pretty as the cover, and I haven’t found the right words for it. Here is what I’ve found works well for me:

   1. The Composition Notebook

      I think of it as a strength; my father saw it as a costly hobby, but I have an affinity for beautiful things. What can I say? I’m aesthetically motivated. Whether it’s my clothes, home, book covers, or even my writing journal— I cannot fight the urge to pretty it up. In High School, I couldn’t afford anything nice, so I began the practice of taking composition notebooks and collaging all over the covers. I made the outside my “outside persona” and the inside a representation of my inner life. I have stacks of these notebooks filled to the brim lying in a closet. This practice is low stakes because comp notebooks are cheap, and you don’t mind scribbling all over the page. There is no pressure to write a great work in a cheap journal. The creative practice of collaging also brought me great joy.

   2. The Louise Carmen

      I can’t in good faith recommend this journal to anyone simply because of the price tag. However, it is my favorite thing I have ever owned, and I use it every day, AND it brings me immense, immense, immense joy (okay so actually go buy one right now). Custom-made in Paris, my Louise Carmen is the perfect journaling ecosystem for me. I chose the Honore in Navy blue, with a black insert, and a blue cord. I have three notebooks inserted. First, lined pages for my morning pages writing practice. The second notebook has dotted lines for lists and miscellaneous thoughts. Third, I have blank pages for mind maps and brainstorming— the pages are thick enough to watercolor on, which I do enjoy occasionally. This notebook is worth it to me because the ecosystem stays together as a whole, instead of me chasing all my notebooks around.

2. Intention- Busting Perfectionism to discover my voice

   We are busting perfectionsims through a Stream of Consciousness Drill. Stream-of-consciousness writing helps with perfectionism because it temporarily shuts down the part of your mind that wants to evaluate, edit, and optimize every sentence. The constant self-monitoring turns off, and if the goal is to write what you think, then there is no “right” or “wrong.” Instead of thinking, writing, then evaluating, you have to write-think-moveon. The goal is to get it out, not get it right, and often I surprise myself with the few gems that come out.

   Here’s the drill:

   Step 1: Open notebook

   Step 2: Start the timer for 10 minutes

   Step 3: Stream of consciousness writing. The rule is that everything you think goes on the page, and your hand does not lift off the page for 10 whole minutes.

   Step 4: Read what you wrote, but make NO edits.

   Step 5: Turn the page and start something new

3. Time- 30 minutes a day

   As a mom to a one-year-old boy, time feels like it’s always running out; I could make a thousand reasonable excuses as to why I don’t have the time. And one thing about us moms— we learn how to execute fast, because who knows when we will have another chance. I don’t have a set time for my writing practice; it would be nice to say “every morning at 6 am I do this,” but at this stage of my life that just isn’t realistic. Whether it’s 6 a.m., 12 p.m., or 8 p.m., it doesn’t matter; I know I can’t go to bed that night unless I’ve done thirty minutes of writing that day. You have to find the time. I don’t care where you find it, but if it matters to you, you’ll make it work.

4. Resources: Syllabus by Lynda Barry

   I enjoy trying out other people’s writing advice. Right now I’m using Lynda Barry’s Syllabus. It’s an untraditional and chaotic approach to writing meant to bust perfectionism and cultivate creativity. Sounds like exactly what I need! It’s been a little hard to follow, but I do believe that’s the whole point. I highly suggest trying it out.

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• Yesteryear

• Giovanni’s Room

• I Who Have Never Known Men

• The Master and Margarita

• The Bell Jar

• Play it as it Lays

• The Virgin Suicides

• Bone

  ---

This story is the only story, the battle between good and evil, order and chaos, love and resentment. Using two brothers to represent this battle is a common mythological motif. It is often referred to as the rival brothers archetype or the divided self. Christ and Lucifer. Caine and Abel. Prometheus and Epimetheus. Romulus and Remus. Thor and Loki. Mufasa and Scar. Round and round we go. And when you read these stories, their obvious message is that inside all of us, we have good and evil, and we must overcome our darkest parts. However, on my most recent read of East of Eden, and maybe this is because I am a parent now, I couldn’t help but notice what a large part shame plays in whether people overcome their darkness. I think about how each sinful character felt shame and rejection; Cain’s sin wasn’t because he hated his brother, but because he felt rejected and ashamed. Adam and Eve partook of knowledge, but it wasn’t until shame made them hide themselves from God that they were rejected. The fault is not in having desires and making mistakes, but in letting the shame of those mistakes turn us into someone we are not. Ultimately, I hope each of us can learn to love ourselves enough to accept who we are. We cannot hate ourselves into something great.

I like to keep my work free so that everyone can enjoy and learn. I know what it feels like to be on a budget and still want to discover and learn new things. However, if you enjoy this work, please consider donating to my coffee fund. Any contribution makes it easier for me to keep writing, producing, and curating great content for you all to enjoy. Thanks for reading!

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Week 6

Reading target: Ch. 45- END

Key Question

Do nature and circumstance bind human beings, or do they have the freedom to choose who they become?

Close Read

Ch. 49- Aron comes home from college, and Cal plans to reveal his present to his father. Analyze the treatment of both boys and the consequences that follow.

Ch. 51, section 2, pg. 568-569- Lee helps Cal realize he’s just human and part of being human is being imperfect.

Ch. 55, section 3- The end of our book tells us everything we’ve needed to know. Read slowly and read closely. Let the message set in.

Watch For

• At the end of chapter 49 and the beginning of chapter 50, things get a little jumbled, so let me tell you plainly what happens. Cal takes Aron to meet their mother. Aron is so upset about his lineage that he decides to be incredibly melodramatic and enlist in the army without telling anyone.

• If "thou mayest" means we can choose, then identity is something we participate in creating rather than merely inheriting. Pay attention to the correlation between Timshel and the effect it has on shame. Furthermore, draw parallels between love, shame, identity, and fate.

• Cathy keeps a copy of Alice in Wonderland on her desk; she confides that she had a fixation with Alice as a child, pretending to shrink down until she could escape reality. Many critics claim this represents mania or womanly hysterics (Saputra); others call this out as a representation of false innocence and a key to manipulating people.

  I see it differently. From my perspective, Steinbeck gives us this last humanistic trait of Cathy’s in order for us to see and remember that she was a child who knew she was different, who never felt seen, who always wanted to disappear into her own world where she felt safe, but never could. Does this excuse her choosing to become a monster? No, it doesn’t, but it does show us that she sees herself in Alice. A little girl who didn’t quite fit in, who always wanted a world of her own. Maybe this is why she ran away and ran the brothel, not because she loves hurting people, but because she could control her own world this way. Just like all of us, she craves security and control. Steinbeck pushes us to admit that monsters aren’t born but made through rejection, shame, and fear.

Important Symbolism

• Cal’s gift on Thanksgiving

• Burning money

• Adam losing his sight. Adam creates idealized versions of people, never truly seeing them for who they really are, but as his dream version of them. It is ironic and symbolic, then, that he should lose his sight.

• Parental love resembles God’s love. Notice how the only secure attachment the boys and Adam have is to Lee; he represents the God figure. It is Lee’s acceptance and love that save Cal from defeat.

Media Pairing

• Those who wrestle with god. Full Lecture. Short Snippet.

  • This is the story of Jacob becoming Israel in the book of Exodus. It essentially explains that it is not until we wrestle with our faith (like we see Cal do) that we can truly become part of the house of Israel, AKA the “people of god.” Jacob also follows the rival brothers archetype by having and conquering his twin brother, Esau.

• David and Bathsheba- A lesson on shame.

  • Read 2 Samuel 11–12; 1 Kings 3; 6–9; 11 OR watch this (kinda freaky AI) video

  • Many people use the parable of David and Bathsheba as a warning to men not to lust after women. I remember sitting in Sunday School and receiving a lesson on modesty and pornography. However, I was recently talking with my younger brother about this story and how it is actually a lesson on shame, not sin. It wasn’t the sin itself that led to the destruction of David and his kingdom, but his shame. Instead of admitting his wrongs, he tries to lie and hide. I picture Cal Trask battling himself and feeling shame. If he kept his guilt to himself, it would destroy him; instead, he confesses how he feels to Lee and his father and is set free because of this.

• The Second Coming is a poem by W. B. Yeats; it is one of my most personal favorites. I came across this poem in the midst of a faith crisis; it felt fitting as the center of my world could not hold. First published in 1920, it is widely regarded as one of the most influential poems of the twentieth century, known for its haunting vision of social collapse, upheaval, and the arrival of a mysterious new era. I like to imagine that this is how Aron would have felt learning the truth about his mother, futhermore it is how Cal may have felt for most of his whole life. To me, this poem resembles how it feels when a new truth collapses your paradigm.

  

Focus Questions for End of Week Discussion

1. What effect does parental acceptance and love have on us? Do our parents love us more when we look like them? Do they love us more when we share their trauma? What if we reflect the better or worse parts of them?

2. Is growing up primarily a process of gaining knowledge or losing illusions? Is it a process of creating more illusions to protect ourselves?

3. Is ignorance ever preferable to truth?

4. Why does Cal end up different from the other characters we see who struggle with darkness, like Charles and Cathy?

5. What is the messaging around shame that Steinbeck is trying to convey?

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WHAT I’M TABBING

• Free will vs destiny

• Good and evil

• Jealousy and rejection

• Identity

• Inherited trauma

• Moral responsibility

• Redemption and the possibility of transformation

Character Guide

The Trask Family

Adam Trask— Idealistic, trusting, yearning for goodness.

Charles Trask— Adam’s brother. Jealous, wounded, desperate for love.

Caleb Trask— Adam’s son. Feels darkness within himself and fears he resembles his mother.

Aron Trask— Cal’s brother. Pure, idealistic, sheltered.

The Hamilton Family

Samuel Hamilton— Inventor, storyteller, moral center of the novel.

Liza Hamilton— Practical, deeply religious, steadfast.

Other Key Characters

Cathy Ames— One of literature’s most unsettling villains. Raises questions about evil, free will, and human nature.

Lee— Philosopher, servant, scholar. The interpreter of Timshel.

Abra Bacon— One of the novel’s most important moral voices.

Citations

Saputra, Bianca. (2018). Steinbeck’s East of Eden: Redefining the Evil within Cathy Ames. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences. 82. 19-23. 10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.82.19.

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Week 5

Reading target: Part 4- ch.45

Key Question

How much of our soul is inherited, and how much is choice?

Close Read

Ch. 35- Steinbeck gets philosophical and a bit existential in explaining the battle between good and evil. This is what he is trying to tell us in his story.

Ch. 39 (section 2)- Cathy confronts Cal after catching him following her. Their conversation rattles Cathy and strengthens Cal. Closely read this passage for signs of inheritance, trauma, and choice.

Watch For

• Who accepts truth and who runs from it.

• Who recieves love and who gets denied love.

Important Symbolism

• Settings:

  • Cal wanders at night

  • Cathy’s dark bedroom

  • Aron at the church

• Gifts and offerings

Media Pairing

Read both The Tyger and The Lamb by William Blake in tandem.

Blake uses rhetorical questions to explore the nature of creation itself, asking who could have created such a magnificent yet terrifying creature like the tyger. Could it be the same creator who made a creature for innocence and goodness? How could a creator make ferocity and power and goodness and light? This is perfectly captured in the famous line: "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"

Focus Questions for End of Week Discussion

1. Do you believe that underneath all vice is a human wanting to be accepted and loved?

2. Aron knows deep down that his mother is alive, but refuses to admit it because the pain would be too much. What does this reveal about Aron’s character?

3. Why does Cal upset Cathy so much?

4. What is the significance of Cal loving his father?

WHAT I’M TABBING

• Free will vs destiny

• Good and evil

• Jealousy and rejection

• Identity

• Inherited trauma

• Moral responsibility

• Redemption and the possibility of transformation

Character Guide

The Trask Family

Adam Trask— Idealistic, trusting, yearning for goodness.

Charles Trask— Adam’s brother. Jealous, wounded, desperate for love.

Caleb Trask— Adam’s son. Feels darkness within himself and fears he resembles his mother.

Aron Trask— Cal’s brother. Pure, idealistic, sheltered.

The Hamilton Family

Samuel Hamilton— Inventor, storyteller, moral center of the novel.

Liza Hamilton— Practical, deeply religious, steadfast.

Other Key Characters

Cathy Ames— One of literature’s most unsettling villains. Raises questions about evil, free will, and human nature.

Lee— Philosopher, servant, scholar. The interpreter of Timshel.

Abra Bacon— One of the novel’s most important moral voices.

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Week Four

Reading target: Ch. 25-Part 4

Key Question

Who is the better person? The one who finds it easy to be good or the one who fights to be good?

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Close Read

Ch. 27— Closely compare and analyze the two brothers. Pay attention to the ant hill analogy. You’ll see that Aron is a sweet boy, much like his father, while Cal has the manipulative tact of his mother. Steinbeck gives these boys a predestined path, following the generational Cane and Abel tradition.

Ch. 30- Cals prayer. The difference between Cal and his mother is that Cal wishes to be good, he wants to be liked, and he wants to be easy like his brother. His honest temptation is the need for truth, and I don’t believe we can blame him for that. What does this scene reveal about Cal’s heart?

Important Symbolism

Gifts: Aron gifts Abra a rabbit, but she rejects it due to Cal's manipulation. This is a callback to the original Cane and Abel story.

Media Pairing

• Watch the 1955 film East of Eden starring James Dean.

• John Milton, Paradise Lost excerpt.

  • Satan says this after being cast out of Heaven and dropped into the burning lake of Hell. He is justifying his resilience, arguing that even in torment, his unbroken will gives him dominion. Highlighting the idea that our internal state of perception dictates our reality, regardless of our external circumstances.

• M.C. Escher’s “Circle Limit IV”

  • “The subtitle of Circle Limit IV is ‘Heaven and Hell’. The print presents us with white ‘angels’ and black ‘devils’ (in the form of bats). The three angels and three devils in the middle complement each other perfectly. Good and evil need each other in order to be visible, to infinity” (Museum Escher in The Palace, 2018)

    

Focus Questions for End of Week Discussion

1. Is Aron a better person than Cal, or is he simply easier?

2. Cal seeks out the truth. What does this say about him in the context of his battle between good and evil?

3. How does Lee feel about each boy?

WHAT I’M TABBING

• Free will vs destiny

• Good and evil

• Jealousy and rejection

• Identity

• Inherited trauma

• Moral responsibility

• Redemption and the possibility of transformation

Character Guide

The Trask Family

Adam Trask— Idealistic, trusting, yearning for goodness.

Charles Trask— Adam’s brother. Jealous, wounded, desperate for love.

Caleb Trask— Adam’s son. Feels darkness within himself and fears he resembles his mother.

Aron Trask— Cal’s brother. Pure, idealistic, sheltered.

The Hamilton Family

Samuel Hamilton— Inventor, storyteller, moral center of the novel.

Liza Hamilton— Practical, deeply religious, steadfast.

Other Key Characters

Cathy Ames— One of literature’s most unsettling villains. Raises questions about evil, free will, and human nature.

Lee— Philosopher, servant, scholar. The interpreter of Timshel.

Abra Bacon— One of the novel’s most important moral voices.

If you enjoyed this work, please consider donating to my coffee fund. Any contribution makes it easier for me to keep writing, producing, and curating great content for you all to enjoy. Thanks for reading!

Buy me a coffee!

If you enjoy this work, please consider donating to my coffee fund. Any contribution makes it easier for me to keep writing, producing, and curating great content for you all to enjoy. Thanks for reading!

Buy me a Coffee

Week Three

Reading target: Ch. 18 - ch. 25

At the end of this week we finally read the chapter where the central theme to our novel is unveiled. “Timshel” is a Hebrew word meaning, “thou mayest.” Though character analysis we’ve noticed that each person feels predistened to repeat old patterns and suffer from their inant nature. However, the concept of timshel reveals that you have a choice in who you become and what you do. You are not damned before you’ve even begun. Before this truth is revealed to us, Cathy transforms herself into Kate and establishes her place at Faye’s brothel, she will eventually become Queen Dom and probably would have loved reading Julia Fox’s memior “Down the Drain.” Meanwhile, Samuel Hamilton and Lee emerge as some of the novel’s deepest moral and philosophical voices. Lee becomes far more than a servant. His intelligence, wisdom, and emotional depth challenge assumptions held by both the characters and readers. The question of whether people can escape their nature becomes increasingly urgent.

Key Question

• Are we born good or evil, or do we become good or evil?

Watch For

• How Kate challenges the novel’s belief that people can choose goodness?

• Keep track of moments when characters:

  • Feel trapped by their past.

  • Believe change is impossible.

  • Make surprising moral choices.

  • Refuse opportunities for redemption.

• Close read ch. 22 when the twins are being named

• Close read ch. 24 and the timshel “thou mayest” discussion.

Important Symbolism & Themes

• Gardens and Creation

• Reinvention- Many characters attempt to become someone new.

• Reality vs. Fantasy- Adam’s life increasingly revolves around what might be rather than what is.

• Parenthood and Responsibility- Parents throughout the novel shape future generations.

Media Pairing

• Song of Myself, Walt Whitman. Selections 1, 6, and 51. Whitman writes, "I contain multitudes." Which character in this section best embodies that idea?

• This Substack article may seem disconnected from the novel, but let me talk you into it. So many of our characters don’t know what they like; they know what they are supposed to like. Cathy is the only person who knows exactly what she wants and goes and gets it. Do we think Adam would be happier if he were actually aware?

  for the record

  the power of knowing what you like

  a quick note…

  Read more

  10 months ago · 19806 likes · 358 comments · sydney rheeder 𖣠

Focus Questions for End of Week Discussion

• Is Adam healing or hiding? Why does he resist confronting the truth about Cathy?

• Why is power more important to Kate than love?

• Why does Steinbeck place philosophical discussions in Lee's voice?

• Is identity chosen or inherited?

• How does Steinbeck redefine strength?

WHAT I’M TABBING

• Free will vs destiny

• Good and evil

• Jealousy and rejection

• Identity

• Inherited trauma

• Moral responsibility

• Redemption and the possibility of transformation

Character Guide

The Trask Family

Adam Trask— Idealistic, trusting, yearning for goodness.

Charles Trask— Adam’s brother. Jealous, wounded, desperate for love.

Caleb Trask— Adam’s son. Feels darkness within himself and fears he resembles his mother.

Aron Trask— Cal’s brother. Pure, idealistic, sheltered.

The Hamilton Family

Samuel Hamilton— Inventor, storyteller, moral center of the novel.

Liza Hamilton— Practical, deeply religious, steadfast.

Other Key Characters

Cathy Ames— One of literature’s most unsettling villains. Raises questions about evil, free will, and human nature.

Lee— Philosopher, servant, scholar. The interpreter of Timshel.

Abra Bacon— One of the novel’s most important moral voices.

Week Two

Reading target: Part 2 to ch.18

The novel establishes Samuel Hamilton as the moral center of this story. He is what Steinbeck believes is a good man; our characters can now be compared to him to test their “goodness.” The novel shifts from the Hamilton family background into the story of Adam, Charles, and especially the growing mystery and danger surrounding Cathy Ames. This section is important because Steinbeck deepens his exploration of deception, innocence, and the ways people misunderstand one another. The novel's recurring Cain and Abel pattern becomes more visible.

Key Question

How much of our lives are determined by nature, and how much by choice?

Close Read

Close-read the passage of Lee meeting Samuel Hamilton (pg. 160-163 in the centennial edition). One of his most interesting but overlooked characters is the Chinese servant “Lee,” who becomes central to the development of Steinbeck’s major theme in the novel. Lee is significant for another reason, too. He represents Steinbeck’s most ambitious attempt to demonstrate the precariousness of ethnicity. At first, he appears as a narrow stereotype of a Chinese servant, and people will pull quotes from this section, waving a red flag, crying for the cancellation of Steinbeck. But several scenes later, Lee emerges from that disguise as a thoughtful, educated, and well-spoken man who has intentionally chosen a life of servitude and obscurity for the multiple benefits it affords him. Lee states that people are unwilling to understand him, perhaps in part because they are unable to really see him. Lee is a character in tension, a man of dual identities created by his position as an ethnic minority. While Steinbeck could not fully escape his own white, masculine perspective, his portrayal of Lee demonstrates a willingness to see people for who they are, despite the current mainstream views.

Watch For

Notice how characters respond differently to the same reality:

• Adam chooses trust.

• Charles chooses suspicion.

• Cathy chooses manipulation.

Seeing vs. Not Seeing

Many characters have evidence before them but refuse to interpret it correctly.

Look for:

• Ignored warnings

• Misread motives

• Self-deception

Goodness and Naivety

Steinbeck questions whether goodness without wisdom is truly a virtue.

Masks and Identity

Cathy’s public face differs radically from her inner self; she is hiding the monster within. How does this compare to the mask that Lee wears to protect himself?

Ask:

• How do other characters create versions of themselves?

• Which identities are genuine?

Important Symbolism

Gifts and Offerings

In the story of Cane and Abel, both brothers are asked to burn an offering to God. God is pleased with Abel’s offering and rejects Cain’s— notice the symbolism of every gift given, but also of anything burned.

Ex: Adam and Charles gift their father a puppy and a knife

Ex: Cathy lights a fire; is her offering accepted by God?

The House

Homes in East of Eden often symbolize emotional realities.

Consider: Who belongs in the house? Who is trapped? Who is pretending?

Media Pairing

• Poetry- The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot

• Andrew Wyeth’s

  Christina’s World

• Edward Hopper

  House by the Railroad, 1925

  What I find striking in Hopper's work is the sense of absence, not only of loneliness but also of isolation, of uprootedness. I highly encourage you, if you are interested in American Art, to look into Edward Hopper further.

Focus Questions for End of Week Discussion

1. Does Charles understand Cathy because he shares some of her darkness?

2. Can goodness become dangerous when it ignores reality?

3. What responsibilities do we have to see people truthfully?

4. Is Cathy a realistic character or a symbolic one?

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   ---

WHAT I’M TABBING

• Free will vs destiny

• Good and evil

• Jealousy and rejection

• Identity

• Inherited trauma

• Moral responsibility

• Redemption and the possibility of transformation

Character Guide

The Trask Family

Adam Trask— Idealistic, trusting, yearning for goodness.

Charles Trask— Adam’s brother. Jealous, wounded, desperate for love.

Caleb Trask— Adam’s son. Feels darkness within himself and fears he resembles his mother.

Aron Trask— Cal’s brother. Pure, idealistic, sheltered.

The Hamilton Family

Samuel Hamilton— Inventor, storyteller, moral center of the novel.

Liza Hamilton— Practical, deeply religious, steadfast.

Other Key Characters

Cathy Ames— One of literature’s most unsettling villains. Raises questions about evil, free will, and human nature.

Lee— Philosopher, servant, scholar. The interpreter of Timshel.

Abra Bacon— One of the novel’s most important moral voices.

Reading target: roughly pp. 70-125, to Part 2

At this point, the book becomes hard to put down and hard to sit with. Cathy Ames arrives, and Steinbeck introduces her with one of the most debated narratorial moves in American fiction: he tells you, flatly, that he believes she was born an immoral monster, the way some are born missing a limb. Adam falls for her completely and cannot see what the narrator sees. Sit with how uncomfortable this is — the question of whether Cathy is truly inhuman or whether that is the narrator’s own flinch from something he cannot explain is one the novel never fully closes. Hold your own verdict loosely. It will be tested. It is much debated because of this whether the narrator is unreliable or if Steinbeck is truly prejudiced against women.

Reading Focus

• Cathy Ames’s childhood

• Adam’s courtship

• Marriage and betrayal

Key Question

Is evil chosen or innate?

Watch For

• How the narrator frames Cathy versus what Cathy actually does on the page. Are they the same? The gap is deliberate.

• Adam’s blindness. He is not stupid — he is a man who needs her to be what he imagined. Watch the cost of that need. Characters project fantasies onto others continuously. In fact, the women in this story are the only ones who seem to truly live in reality. What are the dangers of idealization?

• The move west to the Salinas Valley. The Trasks are now in the Eden of the title. Notice that they bring their inheritance with them.

Important Symbolism

Cathy often appears serpent-like.

Media Pairing

• Cathy Trask, Monstrosity, and Gender-Based Fears in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden

  • Warnick, Claire, "Cathy Trask, Monstrosity, and Gender-Based Fears in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 5282. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5282

Focus Questions for End of Week Discussion

• Is Cathy a Satan figure or something more disturbing?

• What does Adam’s refusal to see reality say about him as a person?

• What are the dangers of idealization?

• Is evil chosen or innate?

WHAT I’M TABBING

• Free will vs destiny

• Good and evil

• Jealousy and rejection

• Identity

• Inherited trauma

• Moral responsibility

• Redemption and the possibility of transformation

  Character Guide

  The Trask Family

  Adam Trask— Idealistic, trusting, yearning for goodness.

  Charles Trask— Adam’s brother. Jealous, wounded, desperate for love.

  Caleb Trask— Adam’s son. Feels darkness within himself and fears he resembles his mother.

  Aron Trask— Cal’s brother. Pure, idealistic, sheltered.

  The Hamilton Family

  Samuel Hamilton— Inventor, storyteller, moral center of the novel.

  Liza Hamilton— Practical, deeply religious, steadfast.

  Other Key Characters

  Cathy Ames— One of literature’s most unsettling villains. Raises questions about evil, free will, and human nature.

  Lee— Philosopher, servant, scholar. The interpreter of Timshel.

  Abra Bacon— One of the novel’s most important moral voices.

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I came to East of Eden in a hard season of my life, assigned to me by a college professor. I expected it to be a big, boring drag about a family I didn’t care about— instead I found the most generous thing a novel has ever said to me— that I was not bound by the worst of what I came from, that I could choose, that what I saw as good and evil was subject to change. Steinbeck builds the entire novel around one word, timshel— a Hebrew word meaning thou mayest. By the end of this guide, you will not just know that word. You will know how to watch Steinbeck hide his whole argument inside it, and you will read the Trask family not as a saga to get through but as a question being asked of you directly. Read this one slowly. Let it be long. My college professor told me to read this book as if it were about my own family, and I would encourage you to do the same.

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Welcome to California's Salinas Valley, where we meet the Hamiltons and the Trasks. These are the two families we will be following over the course of about fifty years. The Hamiltons are Steinbeck’s own mother’s family; he wrote himself into this book as a child watching from the edges- that’s our narrator. The Trasks are invented, and they carry the Cain and Abel pattern down through generations: Adam and Charles, Cal and Aron. When you notice the initials C and A, again and again, that is not a coincidence; Steinbeck uses A to represent the “pure” Abel and C to represent the darkness of Cane.

HOW TO READ THIS GUIDE

The guides will be broken down into six parts of roughly a hundred pages each, paced for one part a week over six weeks. Each week gives you a reading target, a short note on what is actually happening underneath the plot, and one or two things to watch for. Read the week’s note before you read the pages, then come back to the themes, motifs, and discussion sections once you have finished the book. Nothing here spoils more than the book’s own structure reveals on its first page.

Week One, Part 1 · The Valley and the Two Brothers

Reading target: Part One (roughly pp. 1–70, to ch. 8)

Steinbeck opens not with a person but with a place, the Salinas Valley. You will find yourself wanting to skip this because sometimes we really don’t care about the setting, but I want you to read more closely. It’s light and green and rich in water; Steinbeck is painting you his modern version of Eden. Juxtaposing the valley between the gentle Gabilan mountains to the east and the dark Santa Lucias to the west. The books title East of Eden, has major significance. In the Bible, "east" holds deep symbolic meaning, typically representing either hope and beginings, like the sun rising in the east, it is God’s presence. It can also be associated with alienation and exile as we see in the story of Adam and Eve. After sinning, Adam and Eve were exiled "east of Eden.” Similarly, major empires of oppression, like Babylon, lay to the east of Israel.

After we are introduced to the valley we come to the Trask family — Adam and his half-brother Charles, and a father, Cyrus, whose love lands unequally on his two sons. The first Cain and Abel is already in motion before anyone says the name.

KEY QUESTION

Can love be earned, or is it given freely? Do we have to earn god’s love?

WATCH FOR

• The Salinas Valley: the two mountain ranges, east and west— Steinbeck tells you outright what each one means to him.

• The Hamilton family vs. the Trask family

• The origins of sibling rivalry- Cyrus loves Adam more, and what that does to Charles. Notice your own sympathy. Jealousy is the first “Cain and Abel” pattern.

• The scar. Watch who is marked, and remember that Cain was marked too.

• Our first hearbreaks were our parents. In chapter 2 we see Cyrus trask fall from grace in his children’s eyes. Contemplate what it’s like when you realize your parents is just a normal human.

• Generational Trauma and patterns. Are we predestined to repeat our parents mistakes?

IMPORTANT SYMBOLISM

The contrasting landscapes symbolize competing possibilities inside every person.

WHAT IM TABBING

• Free will vs destiny

• Good and evil

• Jealousy and rejection

• Identity

• Inherited trauma

• Moral responsibility

• Redemption and the possibility of transformation

MEDIA PAIRINGS

• The Garden

  By Andrew Marvell

• Brush up on the Cain and Abel Story, this will help you identify the motifs and parrallels that Steinbeck is using.

Lethabo Dipudi

Our first heartbreaks were our parents

I think our first heartbreaks are our parents — because they are the first people we love without knowing love can hurt…

Read more

3 months ago · 253 likes · 14 comments · Lethabo Dipudi

Character Guide

The Trask Family

Adam Trask— Idealistic, trusting, yearning for goodness.

Charles Trask— Adam’s brother. Jealous, wounded, desperate for love.

Caleb Trask— Adam’s son. Feels darkness within himself and fears he resembles his mother.

Aron Trask— Cal’s brother. Pure, idealistic, sheltered.

The Hamilton Family

Samuel Hamilton— Inventor, storyteller, moral center of the novel.

Liza Hamilton— Practical, deeply religious, steadfast.

Other Key Characters

Cathy Ames— One of literature’s most unsettling villains. Raises questions about evil, free will, and human nature.

Lee— Philosopher, servant, scholar. The interpreter of Timshel.

Abra Bacon— One of the novel’s most important moral voices.

Focus Questions for End of Week Discussion

• Why does Steinbeck describe both fertile and barren land?

• How does the landscape mirror human nature?

• What does the coexistence of beauty and harshness suggest about moral life?

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Reading Guide Index:

1. The Schedule (You are here!)

2. Guide 1, part 1

3. Guide 1, part 2

4. Guide 2

5. Guide 3

6. Guide 4

7. Guide 5

8. Guide 6

Delving into the text

Hi Bookies!

I can’t wait for us to jump into this text; it is my personal favorite, so I am feeling the pressure to give it due justice. With past reading guides, I’ve given you everything right out of the gate, but I think this novel requires something else. Instead of one reading guide, I will deliver weekly reading guides each Sunday based on that week’s assigned readings. If you follow my proposed pacing, it’ll take you 6 weeks to finish this book- this comes out to about 100 pages a week.

I recommend taking some sticky notes and blocking out your pacing for visual motivation.

I am using the Centennial Edition, which I could only find available on Amazon (forgive me, bookstore owners and librarians). Still, it doesn’t have the nasty Netflix emblem perverting its cover. This Penguin Classics edition is great, but it is marred by Netflix. Disclaimer: I do make a minor commission if you use those links, which I always appreciate.

As you follow along, I hope you feel like you’re back in your favorite teacher’s classroom. I apologize if this is too forward to say, but I am proud of you for choosing to continue learning, continue reading, and continue pushing yourself in an age where you’re busy and could be doomscrolling.

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Schedule

Reading Tips

A larger book like this can be intimidating, especially if you haven’t been reading classics lately, but don’t worry; I have some tips that might make it easier for you. Keep in mind, though, that these are recommendations, not requirements. If you start to feel overwhelmed or like it’s too much, strip your reading process back down to enjoyment and the basics. We don’t want you to burn out!

1. Keep a reading pen and journal nearby at all times. I prefer these pens and buy them in bulk. I use my Louise Carmen journal, but I recommend you use a journal you don’t care about keeping looking neat, something like this one. Using a plain or dotted page will help you be more open—minded; you don’t want your pages to look like those aesthetic videos with the perfect handwriting. You want this to be a safe space for your thoughts to get messy, to figure things out. While you’re reading, you don’t have the time to make it cute; just get the thoughts down.

2. This book is the perfect time to use our annotation practice. If you haven’t viewed the Thought & Title Annotation System, it breaks down how, what, and when to annotate to get the most out of your reading. I’ll be using this system to guide our reading, ending with the post-read-pass template.

3. Get your tabs ready! This is exactly the kind of book you want to be tabbing. You can use your own system, or you can steal mine. The first reading guide will outline what I am going to be tabbing as well as key passages to look for.

4. Tracking Characters within this text will help keep you oriented. We span over generations of multiple families, so it’ll be good to keep a running list of characters and your thoughts on them. Steinbeck uses his characters to show us the messaging of the text; therefore, this book is heavier on character analysis than on plot.

5. Go slow. I know it is hard; I feel it too when you have to sit down with a book that wasn’t written for today’s attention spans. This will be the best thing you can do for your mind. It’ll feel slow and painful at first; you are not alone in that — but by the end of the book you are going to feel like a new person! I recommend reading slowly and closely, savoring every word, rereading a page multiple times. I’ll also provide passages I believe are worth reading more closely and spending more time on.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments below. Or join our Substack chat for community interactions! Let’s get into it!

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I use color-coded tabs to track themes — and by the end of the book, the tabs show me what I was really reading for. It’s a visual representation of what themes in the book were most heavily used and helps me to recognize patterns within the text.

I start by identifying about five possible themes the book might be exploring. Each theme gets its own color, but here’s the thing: I don’t know which themes will actually matter until I’m reading. So I tab all five at first, then I pay attention to which ones keep showing up, which ones resonate with me most. About halfway through the text, I know the main themes I want to focus on. By the end of the book, I’ve usually narrowed it down to three themes; you can do more than this or less, but I find three to be the sweet spot.

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I also use separate colors for motifs and character development, so a finished book might look like this:

When I’m done, I’ll have 10, 20, 30-ish tabs — and the color distribution tells me something.

If I have 20 purple tabs and only 10 blue tabs, that means the purple theme dominated my reading more than the blue theme did. The tabs show me what I was paying attention to, not what a study guide says the book is about, but what it was about to me. It clearly shows me where the important passages are and makes it easier to find supporting evidence for a thesis.

The tabs become a visual map of my reading.

Tabs mark the themes, and my margin notes explain why each moment matters. If you’re new to my page, get my full annotation system here. And check out this reading journal template here. Using all three of these resources together will make your reading comprehensive, detailed, and worth remembering.

Up next, I’ll show you how I tab my fantasy books, because it is actually a completely different system altogether.

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If you’re new here, catch up on the annotation system found HERE.

If you enjoy this work, please consider donating to my coffee fund. Any contribution makes it easier for me to keep writing, producing, and curating great content for you all to enjoy. Thanks for reading!

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Your reading journal is a notebook that holds an analysis for each book you read. This includes your one-paragraph summary, a deconstruction of the text, and your top questions and annotations from that book. I like to reference the literary terms glossary (found in the Annotation Guide) when I'm not sure how to name what I'm noticing — but you don't need to identify every term for every book. Just pull the 3–5 margin notes that mattered most and write them down. This leaves you with an analysis and reading guide for each book you’ve read.

I’ve made this easier for you! I built a reading journal entry template you can download and use for every book. It includes space for your one-paragraph summary, your top margin notes, the literary elements you noticed, and the questions that didn’t resolve. Download the template here- make a copy, then print it, fill it in digitally, or just use it as a guide for structuring your own journal entries.

This unlocks a guide for you so that a year from now, you flip through your journal and see your reading life as a continuous conversation, not 30 isolated books. I can look through my own journal and see that there were parallels between “I Who Have Never Known Men” and “The Bell Jar” and the analysis is that much easier with my thoughts already preorganized in my journal.

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Opening

If I’m “Ballerina Farm,” I am suing the pants off of Caro Claire Burke. The Juilliard trained ballerina-turned ranch wife with the impossibly clean children seems to live rent-free in our author’s head. But instead of being the angry woman analysis of trad-wifery I was expecting, this book became a critical analysis of “choice feminism.” You get real close and personal to all the uncomfy truths of being a modern-day woman, essentially damned if you do, damned if you don’t, all while other women scream at you in the comment sections. Yesteryear is what happens when the tradwife fantasy collides with the historical reality it claims to honor. The collision is devastating and uncomfortably close to home.

This book will make you furious, it will make you laugh, it will make you wonder how much of what we call “choice” is actually choosing, and how much is a script we didn’t write but have agreed to perform. And by the end of this guide, you will be able to see the truth behind the aesthetics- the tradwife trend, the momfluencer economy, the hollow rhetoric of empowerment through submission, and recognize that Yesteryear is not a time-travel novel. It’s a reckoning for the modern-day woman.

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The Framework

Yesteryear operates as a satirical psychological thriller, feminist critique, and historical fiction all at once. It asks, “What happens when a woman who has built an empire by performing traditional womanhood is forced to live the reality her performance mythologizes?” The book’s central tension is not between past and present but between performance and reality, between the version of femininity sold to millions and the reality of what that labor looks like. It forces our nose into the truth and doesn’t let us turn away.

This is a book about complicity. About how women can be both victims and architects of their own exploitation. About how the language of empowerment can mask the systems that make that choice the only viable option. About how capitalism will package anything, even subjugation, as liberation if it can be monetized. But if feminism makes you uncomfy, then yeah, it’s a book about a trad wife who has to learn how to chop wood and shower outside.

Contents:

1. Major Themes

2. Motifs

3. Symbols

4. Literary Analysis

5. Media Pairings

6. Final Discussion Questions

Major Themes

1. Performative Femininity as Labor

Ex: Natalie’s Instagram life is a production. She has a producer, a content calendar, nannies off-camera, and hidden modern appliances. The “traditional” life she sells is not traditional at all—it is a highly aestheticized performance with a particularly political pull.

Analysis: The tradwife movement sells women a myth: that they can opt out of capitalism by retreating to the home. But as Burke shows, the tradwife is capitalism. Natalie’s performance of domesticity is her labor, and, traditionally, it was unpaid. Her children are her content. Her body—pregnant, postpartum, always producing—is her brand. Not to mention the expectations put on her body by others. The moment she stops performing, the empire collapses. What the book exposes is this: there is no escape from exploitation by choosing a prettier cage. There is only a new form of exploitation dressed in cream linen and called empowerment.

Connected reading: Gaby Del Valle's article "Land Ho" (The Baffler) traces how Ballerina Farm’s wealth is concealed behind the performance of simplicity. The tradwife life is not accessible; it is expensive. The sourdough, the farm-to-table meals, the handmade everything, these require either wealth or unpaid labor (usually women’s). When Natalie loses her money and her nannies in 1805, the aesthetic collapses into brutality.

2. The Exploitation of Children as Content

Ex: Natalie’s children appear in her posts. They are props in her brand, their childhoods monetized before they can consent. When she is transported to 1805, the children are suddenly hers to care for without a producer to frame the shot or a nanny to take over when the cameras stop rolling. In fact, it is clear that Natalie does not enjoy being a mother. Furthermore, she has isolated her children on the ranch even when they desire to be a part of society. Don’t even get me started on their theological education.

Analysis: Burke does not let Natalie off the hook for what she has done to her children. The novel positions child exploitation, “sharenting,” as a central moral failure of the influencer economy. Natalie’s children exist to make her relatable, to prove her fertility, to perform the happy American Nuclear family she is selling. But they are also unpaid laborers in her business. It begs the question: Can children consent to being documented online?

Connected reading: “Sharing Images of Children on Social Media: British Motherhood Influencers and the Privacy Paradox” (2025, PLOS ONE). The study reveals that influencer mothers deliberately use children’s images as a business strategy, not an accident. Pay and protections for children in this industry are minimal to nonexistent, leaving children vulnerable to exploitation now and psychological harm later.

3. The Myth of “Choice” Feminism

Ex: Natalie insists she chose this life. She chose to marry Caleb, to have six (soon seven) children, to live on a ranch, to perform pioneer womanhood for millions. But the book asks, what were her other options? A scholarship to Harvard that alienated her from her evangelical mother. A marriage to a man from a wealthy conservative family that offered her the social capital she never had. A brand that gave her power she had never experienced.

Analysis: “Choice feminism” is the neoliberal repackaging of oppression as empowerment. It tells women you can choose anything; therefore, your choices cannot be critiqued. But as scholars have pointed out, choice requires alternatives. Globally, women perform nearly twice as much unpaid domestic labor as men. They are also systemically underpaid for the same work that men do. The author uses Natalie’s roommate, Reena, to exhibit this point.

The language of “I chose this” often masks the structural inequalities that made that choice the only viable path. Natalie’s “choice” to be a tradwife is constrained by her class background, her evangelical upbringing, her lack of economic power outside marriage, and the influencer economy that rewards her performance of submission. And can we blame her for choosing these golden handcuffs when the alternative feels just as damning? Natalie is so constrained by these elements that she can’t even distinguish what she really wants; instead, she figures out what her husband wants, and only then are her ambitions palatable.

Connected reading: “Redefining Empowerment: The Case Against ‘Choice’ Feminism” (2025). Choice feminism overlooks the women who never had choices to begin with.

When Natalie says she “chose” to step back from her ambitions to care for her family, the novel reveals that this was not a choice—it was the only script available to her that came with money, status, and safety.

4. Complicity and Accountability — The Sliding Glass Door

Ex: Natalie is not a victim. She is calculating, manipulative, and narcissistic. She uses her children. She performs submission while wielding power behind the scenes. But the book also holds “The Angry Women” accountable, Ivy League, coastal elite critics who hate-watch Natalie, who mock her, who tear her down while consuming her content obsessively. Burke names them directly, the women who feel superior to Natalie, who call her an “antifeminist iconoclast,” who are “sick with jealousy.” They are complicit, too.

Analysis: This is the sliding glass door structure of the book. On one side, Natalie, the tradwife, is performing subjugation for profit. On the other side, the women who consume her content with contempt, who use her as a foil to feel better about their own choices, who participate in the spectacle by watching, sharing, and critiquing. Both sides are trapped in the same system. Both are performing. Both are complicit.

Connected reading: “All The Ways We Surveil Motherhood.” This podcast analysis mothers as a medium of projection. How women are subjugated through parenting choices, constant access to surveillance, and economic controversies. Feminist economic theory on domestic labor (Benston, Warrior, Waring) argues that women’s unpaid labor is the foundation of all economic survival, yet it is systemically undervalued and erased from GDP calculations. Natalie monetizes this labor, but does not recognize it as exploitation, just expectation. Meanwhile, the women who critique her are often the same women whose own choices depend on outsourcing care work to other (often less privileged) women, nannies, housekeepers, and care workers. The critique becomes hollow when the critic has simply hired someone else to do the labor she condemns Natalie for aestheticizing.

Motifs

• Pregnancy and fertility as a brand: Natalie is always pregnant or postpartum. Her body’s productivity is central to her content. It’s noted that her content performs better when she is pregnant.

• The hidden modern vs. the visible rustic: Industrial appliances concealed behind barn doors. The aesthetic is a stage set, the constant ploy of “playing pretend” and being “found out.”

• Performance of submission, reality of control: Natalie performs obedience to her husband while running the entire operation behind the scenes. She is the one who arranges deals to get the farm, when to have the kids, and even how to hide her money.

• The Angry Women as Natalie’s mirror: The coastal elite critics who hate-watch her are performing too—performing superiority, performing feminist consciousness, while participating in the same attention economy.

• Whiteness as the default: The tradwife aesthetic is overwhelmingly white. The “traditional” past it romanticizes is one that excluded and oppressed Black, Indigenous, and immigrant women. Often, the invisible labor of the white woman was supported by marginalized communities.

• Children as props, then as people: In 2024, children are content. In 1805, they are dependents she cannot escape.

Symbols

The Cream-Colored Aesthetic

Represents the sanitized, romanticized version of domestic labor sold to followers

vs.

Reality: stains, dirt, blood, exhaustion

The Nannies

Invisible labor that makes the tradwife's performance possible

vs.

Their absence in 1805 is the collapse of the illusion

Fire

Modern timeline: controlled, aesthetic (candles, the AGA stove that stays on day and night)

vs.

In 1805: survival, labor, danger

Literary Analysis

1. The Sliding Glass Door Structure

Burke builds the novel so that Natalie and “The Angry Women” are reflections of each other. Both are trapped in performances. Both are complicit. Both believe they are right. The structure forces you to see yourself in one side or the other—or both. If you find yourself hating Natalie, the book asks if you have ever felt superior to another woman’s choices while participating in the system that rewards her? The glass door slides, and you have to walk through. You are implicated too.

2. Natalie as Unreliable Narrator

Natalie narrates in first person, and she is deeply unreliable. She believes she is the hero of her own story. She believes she has chosen this life freely. She believes her children are happy. The novel asks you to read against her to see what she cannot or will not see. This is uncomfortable work. You will want to dismiss her as a villain. The book will not let you. It asks you to see how she became this way, but you will still probably hate her no matter what.

3. The Time-Travel as Metaphor, Not Magic

The 1805 timeline is not literal time travel, though the book plays with that possibility). Is it a psychological break, a constructed reality, a punishment—or all three? The ambiguity is deliberate. What matters is not how Natalie got there but what the experience reveals, that the life she sold was always a lie, and the historical past she mythologized would destroy her. This isn’t an Outlander spin-off; there is no sexy redhead waiting to save her.

4. The Tradwife as Pioneer Burlesque

Del Valle calls the tradwife phenomenon “pioneer burlesque.” It is a performance of frontier womanhood with all the labor, danger, and violence edited out. Burke literalizes this: when Natalie is forced to live the reality, it is not charming. It is terrifying.

5. The Ending and the Question of Justice

No spoilers here, but…The ending will divide readers. Some will find it satisfying. Others will find it too much or not enough. What matters is this: the book refuses to offer you catharsis. It refuses to let Natalie (or you) off the hook. It refuses to resolve neatly. That refusal is the point.

Media Pairings

Essays & Criticism

• Gaby Del Valle, “Land Ho” (The Baffler, 2023): The definitive essay on Ballerina Farm and the tradwife economy. Required reading alongside this book.

• Goodman, Emma. “Tradwives and the Anti-Feminist Mirror World.” Media@LSE - Promoting Critical Research into the Vital Role of Media and Communications in Contemporary Society, 30 June 2025.

• Miller, Elizabeth A., and Elizabeth R. Cole. “Selling the #SubmissiveWife: How White Tradwife Influencers Commodify Traditional Femininity.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, 29 Mar. 2026, 10.1177/03616843261434820.

Film & Youtube

• Weiner, Matthew. “Mad Men.” IMDb, 19 July 2007, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804503/.

• How Tradwives Prove Judith Butler’s Philosophy of Gender Performativity.

Podcasts

Final Discussion Questions

1. Is Natalie a victim or a villain? Can she be both? How does the novel ask you to hold both truths at once?

2. The sliding glass door: How does the book hold “The Angry Women” accountable? If you have ever hate-watched an influencer, ever felt superior to a tradwife, ever torn down another woman’s choices—what is your complicity in the system the book critiques? Does consuming tradwife content with contempt make you innocent?

3. What does the book argue about “choice”? If Natalie says she chose this life, does that make her choices immune to critique? What systems shaped her options?

4. How are Natalie’s children complicit in her brand, and how are they exploited by it? What does the novel argue about the ethics of family vlogging and momfluencer culture?

5. What is the book’s relationship to feminism? Does it critique feminism, or does it critique the commercialization and individualization of feminism?

6. Why does the tradwife aesthetic erase labor, violence, and the experiences of non-white women? What past is being romanticized, and for whom?

7. What is the significance of the 1805 timeline? Is it literal? Metaphorical? Psychological? Does it matter?

8. How does the novel connect to current political movements? What does it say about the intersection of Christian nationalism, white supremacy, and tradwife influencer culture?

9. The book refuses to give you a neat resolution. Why? What would a “satisfying” ending have cost the book’s critique?

Conclusion

The book refuses to let anyone off the hook. Natalie is responsible for exploiting her children and selling a dangerous myth. The Angry Women are responsible for participating in the attention economy that rewards her, and for tearing down another woman instead of critiquing the system that created her. The consumers are responsible. The critics are responsible. Natalie is responsible. The system is responsible. All of it is true at once.

This is what makes the book so uncomfortable. It does not give you a villain you can safely hate. It asks: if you have ever hate-watched an influencer, if you have ever felt superior to a woman making choices you would never make, if you have ever participated in tearing another woman down—what is your role in this? The sliding glass door swings both ways.

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You want to annotate, maybe you’ve been annotating, but you still feel like there is some secret to it that nobody ever explained. You’re scared that the cool lit girl who studied at Columbia would guffaw at your annotations. Annotation is the most accessible tool for becoming a better reader, but nobody ever thought to teach you an actual system beyond “underline this” if you like it. This guide will give you a concrete annotation method to use on every book you open. This is the system I used as an English major and an academic, and it's the system I taught my high school students for years. But annotating is personal, so I encourage you to make it your own, take it slow, and adapt it to your needs.

What Annotation Is Actually For

Most people annotate to remember the book, but a year from now, you won’t remember what you underlined. Annotation is about remembering who you were when you read it, the things you noticed, what you questioned, and how you felt. Your underline tells you what resonated. The margin note tells you who you were when it resonated. And that's the reading record worth keeping, not remembering facts about the book, but remembering yourself in that time. When you annotate to remember yourself, you start noticing patterns in your own thinking. You see what you always pay attention to. You see what you miss. You see how your reading changes over time. That self-knowledge is what makes you a better reader — not memorizing what happened in chapter seven.

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Layer 1: The Marking Hierarchy

• Underline = this landed (the reaction)

• Bracket = this passage is doing something I want to come back to (marks a section, not a sentence)

• Margin note = here’s why it landed or what it’s doing (the thinking)

Example:

Layer 2: The Question Mark Method

Confusion while reading is your greatest strength; you want to be questioning everything! Most readers only mark what they understood, but that’s backward. You need to mark what you didn’t understand- cover your margins in “???”. If you’re questioning, you’re thinking. Here’s the key: after finishing the book, go back to your question marks. Half will have been resolved because the book answered them for you; you’ll write the answer next to the question. The other half didn’t get resolved. Those are the book’s intentional ambiguities — the places where the text is deliberately unclear. That’s where the deepest analysis lives. If you only annotate clarity, you miss the entire conversation the book is trying to have with you.

Layer 3: Symbols & Shorthand

You need a quick notation system so you can stay in the reading flow. You don’t need to write essays in the margins. You need a symbol system.

• Here’s a starter key

  • ! = this matters

  • ? = I don’t understand this yet

  • → = connects to something earlier

  • ∆ = something shifted here

  • * = beautiful / notice the craft

  You can invent your own, but the goal is speed. You’re not writing for an audience, you’re leaving breadcrumbs for yourself. The symbols flag the spots, and the margin notes explain them. At the end of the chapter, I like to go back and review my symbols.

  Example:

  

Layer 4: The Post-Read Pass

This step is where annotations become analysis, and this is how you become a better reader. After you finish a book, read your annotations as if they’re a separate text. Don’t reread the whole book. Pass over your underlines, brackets, and margin notes in sequence.

After finishing, ask yourself these three questions:

• What did I keep noticing?

• What patterns emerge across my own marks?

• What did I annotate most heavily — and what does that tell me about what I was paying attention to?

Write a one-paragraph summary at the end based on your annotations, not your memory of the plot. That paragraph is your reading of the book. This paragraph can be personal. When I finished reading East of Eden, my one-paragraph summary was an entire identity crisis around organized religion! It wasn’t a deep analysis of a writing style or the plot- it was about me and my experience. My one caveat there is if you’re annotating for research or class, you’ll want to keep the purpose of your read in mind.

Literary Vocabulary Glossary

Quick reference: Literary terms you might want to use in your annotations

Motif — A recurring image, symbol, or idea that builds meaning across the story.
Ex: In The Bell Jar, mirrors and reflections appear repeatedly, tracking the protagonist’s fracturing sense of self.

Foreshadowing — A hint about something that will happen later in the story.
Ex: The author mentions the broken lock in chapter two, before the break-in happens in chapter eight.

Symbolism — When an object, character, or event represents something deeper than its literal meaning.
Ex: In The Great Gatsby, the green light symbolizes Gatsby’s longing for an unreachable past.

Irony — When what happens is the opposite of what was expected, or when words mean the opposite of what they literally say.
Ex: A fire station burns down (situational irony), or a character says “What a beautiful day” during a thunderstorm (verbal irony).

Tone — The author’s attitude toward the subject they’re writing about.
Ex: Didion’s tone in “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” is detached and observational, even when describing chaos.

Point of View — Who is telling the story and from what perspective.
Ex: First-person (”I walked into the room”), third-person limited (the narrator follows one character’s thoughts), or third-person omniscient (the narrator knows everyone’s thoughts).

Imagery — Sensory language that creates vivid mental pictures — what you can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch in the text.
Ex: “The room smelled of old books and wet wool” — you can smell it, which makes the scene feel real.

Characterization — How the author reveals who a character is, either by telling you directly or showing you through their actions, thoughts, and dialogue.
Ex: Direct characterization: “She was ruthless.” Indirect characterization: She fires her assistant for arriving two minutes late.

Conflict — The struggle between opposing forces. Can be external (person vs. person, person vs. society, person vs. nature) or internal (person vs. self).
Ex: In Giovanni’s Room, David’s external conflict is his relationship with Giovanni, but his internal conflict is his inability to accept his own identity.

Theme — The big idea or message the book explores — not the plot, but what the plot is about.
Ex: The theme of The Bell Jar is the struggle between societal expectations and individual identity, not “a woman has a mental breakdown.”

Annotating while reading may feel awkward at first, like your brain is trying to do too much thinking- that’s normal. Just like any skill, you’ve got to practice, and eventually you’ll do it without even thinking. And in case you’re like me and are a chronic rule follower- here is blatant permission to adapt this guide, to skip layers that don't work for you, to invent your own symbols, and to break the rules. Give yourself three books to make this system yours. Start with one layer and add more as you go.

Happy Reading!

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Reading Guide

The Master and Margarita

“Devils, Desire, and the Absurdity of Power”

The Framework

This novel consists of satire, theology, surrealism, and political critique. Written under Soviet censorship, it begs the question, “What is truth in a world built on lies?” Full of devils, desire, and the absurdity of power, “The Master and Margarita” is a retelling of the story of Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ. Here, the devil visits atheistic Moscow in a fantastical and dark-humored way, challenging the ideas of bureaucratic corruption, illusions and truth, cowardice, and love conquering it all.

If you try to read this novel literally, you will be instantly lost. You want to approach this book as if it's a fairy tale, talking animals, flying women, absurd things that don’t really make sense. If you try to hold on to this novel too tightly, it will take you down. Instead, flow with it. This book is a journey where you have no idea where you’re going until you reach the end and look back.

Contents:

1. Pacing Guide: weeks 1-4

2. Major Themes

3. Motifs

4. Symbols

5. Literary Analysis

6. Media Pairings

7. Final Discussion Questions

Pacing Guide

Week 1: Chaos in Moscow (Ch. 1–8)

Introduction of Woland and satire of Soviet society.

To Do:

• Track confusion vs. reality

• Note how humor masks something darker

• Remember to use the footnotes to help your understanding. This is a translated text, so sometimes you need additional support. It’s okay to go slow!

Key Question: What happens when truth enters a system built on illusion?

Week 2: The Devil’s Theater (Ch. 9–18)

The Varieté Theater and corruption.

To Do:

• Pay attention to greed, vanity, and mass hysteria

• Observe how crowds behave

• Reading tip- it may be helpful to use a reading journal to track your thoughts and ideas. During this stage of reading, I begin drawing mind maps to help me stay organized.

Key Question: Why are people so easily manipulated?

Week 3: The Master & Margarita (Ch. 19–26)

The love story and Pontius Pilate narrative

To Do:

• Track the shift into emotional and philosophical depth

• Compare Moscow vs. biblical Jerusalem

Key Question: What is cowardice, and why is it the greatest sin?

Week 4: The Ball & Beyond (Ch. 27–Epilogue)

Redemption, freedom, and surreal resolution.

To Do:

• Pay attention to Margarita’s transformation

• Track justice vs. mercy

Key Question: What does freedom actually look like?

Major Themes

1. The irony between truth and illusion.

Ex: Soviet Moscow operates on denial and propaganda

Ex: The Devil ironically reveals the truth

2. How power leads to the corruption of bureaucracy.

Ex: The writers, officials, and institutions are performative.

Ex: On an existential level, authority is absurd, not legitimate, and ultimately cannot exist within the confines of mortality.

3. Cowardice in the face of the unknown.

Ex: Pontius Pilate condemns Yeshua out of fear

Ex: The novel suggests cowardice is humanity’s greatest failure.

4. Love as Redemption

Ex: Margarita’s love overcomes reality, death, and morality.

Motifs

• Madness vs. sanity: Who is actually insane?

• Performance & spectacle: The theater as a metaphor for society

• Dual narratives: Moscow vs. Jerusalem

• Fire & destruction: Cleansing vs. chaos

• Flight: Freedom (especially Margarita)

Symbolism

Behemoth

• Chaos, absurdity, dark humor

• Represents the ridiculousness of our idea of evil

The Moon

• Connected to Pontius Pilate

• Symbolizes guilt, memory, and unrest

Fire

• Destruction of false systems

• Purification

Manuscripts

• “Manuscripts don’t burn.”

• Symbol of truth and artistic immortality

Literary Analysis

1. Woland as a Moral Paradox

Woland is the Devil—but not purely evil.
He punishes greed, vanity, and dishonesty.

Interpretation:
Evil, in this novel, is more honest than institutional “good.”

2. Satire of Soviet Literary Culture

The writers represent:

• Performative intellectualism

• Political conformity

• Fear-driven creativity

Interpretation:

Bulgakov critiques a system where art cannot tell the truth. This reflects his personal struggle with not being able to publish his works and being suppressed under the Soviet reign.

3. Pontius Pilate Narrative (Story within a Story)

This storyline mirrors Moscow:

• Pilate is power constrained by fear

• Yeshua is truth without power

4. Margarita as a Radical Female Figure

Unlike passive literary heroines:

• She chooses transformation

• She embraces darkness for love

• She gains agency through chaos

Media Pairings

• T. S. Eliot – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
  - Paralysis, fear, moral hesitation

• “Ecce Homo!” painted by Antonio Ciseri
  - Observe the moral hesitation frozen in time and the cowardice in his great failure.

• The Garden of Earthly Delights painted by Hieronymus Bosch

• Hellscapes, surreal moral chaos

• The Truman Show

• Study a fabricated reality slowly unraveling. How does this compare to theology and deconstructing what humanity thinks it knows?

• Media Pairing: The Twilight Zone

• The surreal reveals deeper truths

Final Discussion Questions

1. Is Woland evil?

2. Why does Bulgakov suggest cowardice is the greatest sin?

3. What does Margarita gain by abandoning societal norms?

4. Can truth exist without suffering?

5. Why does the novel end with “peace” rather than “light”?

Reading Guide

Novel:

• Baldwin, James. Giovanni’s Room.

Giovanni’s Room is a novel about identity, love, and shame. Published in 1956, set in Paris, we follow David, an American who becomes romantically involved with an Italian bartender named Giovanni. The plot twist is that his fiancée Hella is traveling in Spain. As David struggles to reconcile his desires with his internalized fears about masculinity and sexuality, the relationship ultimately leads to tragedy. Baldwin explores the consequences of self-denial and the unraveling that comes from societal alienation.

Academic Essays & Articles:

Key Characters:

• David: The American narrator who is struggling with his sexuality and identity.

  Giovanni: An Italian bartender whose passionate relationship with David becomes the emotional center of the novel.

  Hella: David’s girlfriend, who represents the conventional life he believes he should pursue.

  Jacques: An older gay man who understands the realities of queer life and serves as a kind of mirror for David.

Key Themes:

• The need for identity and the consequences of self-denial

• Where Shame and internalized fear come from, and the effects they have on the behaviors and psyche of men.

• Social Expectations around Masculinity and the taboo nature of rejecting these societal standards.

Symbols:

• Mirrors & Reflections

• Giovanni’s Room

• Paris vs. America

Discussion Focus:

1. Baldwin famously said the novel is not about homosexuality but about fear of love. Do you agree?

2. In what ways does the novel critique traditional ideas of masculinity?

3. What might Baldwin be saying about the cost of living dishonestly?

4. Why does David find it so difficult to accept his relationship with Giovanni? What fears shape his decisions?

5. Do you view David as sympathetic, frustrating, or tragic? Why?

6. How might the novel have been received differently when it was published in the 1950s compared to today?

Poem:

• Ocean Vyoung “Home Wrecker”

Movie:

• Broke Back Mountain

Novel Pairing:

• The Picture of Dorian Gray

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• Novel:

  • Harpman, Jacqueline. I Who Have Never Known Men.

Summary: 40 women live imprisoned underground, having no idea how they got there or why. Patrolled by wach guards, the women struggle to cope with unanswered questions, and how to make meaning out of their lives in confinement. One girl, “the child,” was too young to recall the world before imprisonment; her unique experience will be the key to the women’s escape and survival above ground in a new, mysterious world. This is not a horror or a thriller; it is a slow and steady analysis of what makes us human.

Background on the Author: Jacqueline Harpman (1929–2012) was a Belgian Francophone novelist and psychoanalyst whose family fled Nazi-occupied Belgium to Casablanca during World War II, an experience that influenced her introspective writing. After initially studying medicine, she turned to literature in the 1950s and published her first works before pausing her literary career to train and practice as a psychoanalyst; she later returned to fiction and wrote more than fifteen novels, exploring psychological depth and existential themes, and won major awards including the Prix Victor-Rossel and Prix Médicis, with I Who Have Never Known Men becoming her most internationally recognized work.

Academic Essays & Articles:

• Crowell, Steven. “Existentialism.” Stanford.edu, 23 Aug. 2004, plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/existentialism/?utm_source=chatgpt.com. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.

  • “Existence Precedes Essence”

• Why Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs Matters

  • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs details the fundamental needs of humanity, showing what needs to be fulfilled to reach “self-fulfillment.”

• Harlow’s Studies on Dependency in Monkeys

  • This study was groundbreaking for its time. Psychologists previously believed that babies only needed food, clothing, and shelter to thrive- this case disproved that theory. After these experiments, people learned that comfort and touch are necessary for an infant to thrive. (disclaimer: this study is unethical and would not be allowed to happen in the U.S. today).

Key Themes:

• What does it mean to be human?

• Existential Loneliness

• Identity without social scripts: womanhood detached from men
  

• Supporting Media:

  • “Alone.” The Poetry Foundation, 25 Apr. 2017, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46477/alone-56d2265f2667d. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.

  • Art: Nuit Banai. “Yves Klein.” Artforum, Sept. 2010, www.artforum.com/events/yves-klein-4-189106/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.

    • Yves Klein’s famous exhibition Le Vide literally presented an empty gallery — placing emptiness itself at the center of attention. It invites the viewer to confront nothingness and presence, much like Harpman’s narrator confronts meaning without society.

• Book Pairings:

  • Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus.

  • Golding, William. The Lord of the Flies.

Discussion Focus:

1. If identity is usually shaped through relationships and society, what does the narrator’s development suggest about the “social” self?

The narrator grows up without family, men, culture, history, and mirrors of comparison- yet she still forms a distinct inner life.

Is Harpman arguing that identity is inherent to consciousness itself, or that identity becomes something different (more abstract, less relational) when social structures disappear?

2. The novel does not explain the women’s imprisonment or the state of the world. What does the absence of answers do to our sense of meaning? Is Harpman suggesting that meaning comes from understanding and answers, or does meaning come from the experience itself?

3. There is no concept of femininity as performance, no male gaze, no heterosexual framework. What does the novel imply about womanhood when men, romance, and gender roles are absent?

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Reading Guide

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.”

• Novel:

  • Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar.

• Poem:

  • Plath, Sylvia. “Lady Lazarus” – A poem about resurrection, transformation, and the struggle with mental health that complements the themes of The Bell Jar.

• Academic Essays & Articles:

  • Moss, Howard. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. The New Yorker, 3 July 1971

  • Showalter, Elaine. “Ophelia, Gender, and Madness”

    daily suit

    fighting the fig tree analogy

    I can never read all the books I want, I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physycal experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited…

    Read more

    2 years ago · 7735 likes · 245 comments · alba leao

Key Themes:

• Women face immense pressure to conform to societal expectations, often at the expense of their own mental health.

• Feeling out of place or misunderstood can lead to isolation and internal struggles.

• The American Dream, traditionally aspirational, becomes suffocating when it leaves no room for individuality.

Discussion Focus:

• How does Esther Greenwood’s descent into mental illness reflect the pressures placed on young women?

• In what ways does the novel challenge the traditional American Dream?

• How does Plath’s poetry further illuminate the themes in The Bell Jar?

Journaling Prompt:

• Describe a moment when you felt trapped by expectations—whether societal, familial, or personal.

• If you could rewrite the idea of success for yourself, what would it look like?

Supporting Media:

• Girl, Interrupted (1999 film)

• Frida Kahlo’s The Broken Column

• Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell album

Reading Guide

• Novel:

  • Didion, Joan. Play It As It Lays.

Didion’s “Play It As It Lays” reflects the darker side of Hollywood’s promise. Encapsulating the aesthetisized suffering of beautiful women against the backdrop of 1960’s glamour. She challenges us to face the void of identity, loss, and the cost of autonomy for women.

Academic Essays & Articles:

• Sontag, Susan. “Notes on Camp.” Against Interpretation and Other Essays, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966.

Key Themes:

• Hollywood glamour hides a deep emptiness, particularly for women seeking autonomy.

• The feeling of detachment and existential crisis can be amplified in a world that values image over authenticity.

• The novel critiques the way women’s suffering is often aestheticized or dismissed.

• Discussion Focus:

  • How does Maria’s journey in Play It As It Lays reflect the darker side of Hollywood’s promises?

  • How does Didion’s minimalist style contribute to the novel’s themes?

  • How do modern female musicians and filmmakers continue to explore female alienation?

• Journaling Prompt:

  • Have you ever felt disconnected from the world around you? How did you process that feeling?

  • If you could capture a moment of loneliness in an image, what would it look like?

• Supporting Media:

  • Cindy Sherman’s photography

  • Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You”

Poem:

• Rich, Adrienne. “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” – A poem about the societal expectations placed on women, offering a counterpoint to the illusion of Hollywood glamour and the harsh reality of a woman’s internalized oppression.