jane eyre and romance
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I. "Speak I Must"
With the childhood declaration, "Speak I must" Jane resolves to narrate
her own story (68), to explain and vindicate her life, to exercise her
voice and participate in the "joyous conversational murmur" (198). In
spite of her extreme youth, her habits of quiescence and submission
(resistance was "a new thing for me," she readily admits [44]), her need
to be loved and approved, even if only by her oppressors, Jane stands up
for herself and for fairness. "I will tell anybody who asks me questions
this exact tale," Jane warns Mrs. Reed. "People think you a good woman,
but you are bad, hard-hearted. You are deceitful! ... If any one asks me
how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of
you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty"
(69,68)...