Question 3. Could Rochester’s ward Adèle have made a valuable
member of The Clash?
Explain your answer.
Explain your answer.
Answer:
The needy child Adèle enjoyed attention and would have taken to the stage eagerly with the Clash, wanting the limelight. But her value to the band would have been in her novelty and therefore by its very nature short-lived.
The needy child Adèle enjoyed attention and would have taken to the stage eagerly with the Clash, wanting the limelight. But her value to the band would have been in her novelty and therefore by its very nature short-lived.
It is hard to imagine this shallow,
trite little creature contributing much – if anything – to their oeuvre.
Certainly she would have been ill at ease working with the subtleties of the
Clash’s characteristic minor keys (consider ‘London Calling’ and the plaintive
yet menacing use of the key of E minor), preferring the kittenish
lightheartedness of C, say, or F♯,
majors. It is unlikely that she would embrace the electric guitar with any
skill, and drumming would be unthinkable for a child of her class and
background. Indeed these instruments were entirely unfamiliar to her. She
probably knew little of punk, ska, dub or reggae. Her training in the performing arts was limited to
a small amount of rudimentary tuition in classical ballet techniques and light
French opera, which are somewhat irrelevant here.
Her attitude also presents
a difficulty. The members of the Clash tended to be rebellious, angry and
anti-establishment, while in contrast Adèle
maintained a pliant, eager-to-please demeanour always trying to gain approval.
She might well have found it hard to overcome this in order to smash a valuable
musical instrument on stage or to spend her evenings boozing in squalid hotel
rooms.
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| Surely this can't be Adèle? No, it isn't. |
Her stagewear would be a problem as well. Adèle favoured gowns covered in lace flounces and silly frills all of which were perfectly ironed and smelling of fresh lavender water – whereas the Clash gave no thought for their clothing, dressing in tatty old T shirts and torn jeans. Her incongruous outfits might have evinced some initial thrill in the mosh pit - thanks to the shock of the unexpected - but it is doubtful whether such originality would provide a longlasting appeal for diehard fans of the genre.
And so candidates should
opt for keeping her out of the line-up for the foreseeable future.
Question 4. Estimate Rochester’s emotional age, giving an
account of your reasoning.
Answer:
Rochester conducted himself like a spoilt toddler for the majority of the novel. His customary tantrum-throwing placed him within the "terrible twos" age group familiar to parents of any normal infant. He spurned the idea of fending for himself, looking instead to Jane to become a mother figure to pander to his whims. From these traits one might estimate his emotional age to be 24 months or thereabouts.
Rochester conducted himself like a spoilt toddler for the majority of the novel. His customary tantrum-throwing placed him within the "terrible twos" age group familiar to parents of any normal infant. He spurned the idea of fending for himself, looking instead to Jane to become a mother figure to pander to his whims. From these traits one might estimate his emotional age to be 24 months or thereabouts.
He was willing to toy callously
with the emotions and welfare of his acquaintances; and activities such as his deceitful
courting of Blanche Ingram in order to make Jane jealous, and his locking up of
Bertha Mason, were not unlike the deliberate, unthinking savagery of 7-year-old
boys who torture insects by pulling off their wings. An emotional age of 7 years
is also consistent with his habit of adopting a scowling sulkiness when denied
his own way.
His brave attempt, when he
was biologically about 40, to rescue Bertha from the fire suggests a
recklessness more commonly associated with teenage boys of, perhaps, 18 years
of age. The dissolute existence he waged in Europe adds credence to this
evaluation, as does his tendency to multiple love affairs.
He ignored the mores of the
society within which he lived (imagining for example that he could engage in a
bigamous marriage rather than bear the consequences of the foolish actions of
his youth) in order to pursue a life of utter selfishness. This in itself,
unfortunately, is not something which necessarily indicates any particular age
group, since the sad fact is that there are many people at large who continue
blithely to coast along in this vein till the end of their days; so we gain no
insight into Rochester's emotional age from this observation.
Thus we see behaviours
appropriate to a 2-year-old, a 7-year-old and an 18-year-old. Averaging gives a
9 year old, and a deeply flawed one at that.
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| Naughty Mr Rochester! You've been very bad, haven't you? Yes, Mummy. Sorry, Mummy. |
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