Woman in the attic/Woman in the basement

I know I am a little late on posting the second project but I have been having a hard time thinking of songs that could go for the characters. I was going to make another Spotify playlist like I did for Frankenstein but decided on making small playlists for each character. I was going to make one for Mr. Rochester, but this man is so difficult to read and make a playlist for. I then finally made the decision to make mini playlists for the two main women in his life, Jane and Bertha. Also, this title will make sense a little farther into this when I get to the specific song and my thoughts on what happened to Jane after the book ends.

I want to start with Bertha Mason’s playlist first (we now know her by Antoinette). The first song is Mad Woman by Taylor Swift, and I know a lot of people don’t particularly like her but this song was too perfect not to add.

Every time you call me crazy. I get more crazy
what about that?
and when you say I seem angry, I get more angry

And there's nothing like a mad woman
what a shame she went mad
you made her like that
and you'll poke the bear 'till her claws come out
and you will find something to wrap the noose around
and there's nothing like a man woman

I chose not to pull quotes from the book, but rather talk about my interpretations of the songs and the entirety of the book. From what we read in Jane Eyre, Bertha was crazy and Mr. Rochester had to lock her in the attic. These lyrics talk about how the mad woman gets crazier and angrier based on her treatment which just automatically connects to how Bertha is treated by those around her. She is chained up, locked away in an attic, and is treated like an animal leading to her acting out. She acts the way she is treated, its like that saying “treat people how you want to be treated” maybe if she wasn’t locked away she wouldn’t attack people.

I set fire to the rain
and I threw us unto the flames

The next song I chose was Set Fire to the Rain by Adele. In all honesty this was a joke song at first until I really thought about how it could be connected. Bertha has a connection to fire, which is how we are technically first introduced to her. The first mention of her is when she lights Mr. Rochester’s room on fire, and the last time we see her is in flames. The anger she felt to her husband for locking her up is astronomical. She uses fire to free herself and I feel like the song does the same. The fire symbolizes the hatred she has in her body.

The third song I chose is called Madwoman in the Attic by Blackbriar. This honestly speaks for itself but this whole song is connected to Jane Eyre so might as well talk about it. If you are reading this before listening to the songs then I recommend you stop reading and listen to this song or read the lyrics, because this connects with the title. Bertha is obviously the madwoman in the attic, but since we don’t know what happened to make her “crazy” we can only have our own interpretations. Mine is that Mr. Rochester actually causes something in people that makes them wish to leave and he doesn’t like that. This causes him to lock Bertha up which then drives her mad. We never know what happens in Janes life after the novel, what if she herself becomes the madwoman in the basement. This song just gives me and I hope other people something to think about for Janes future and Berthas past.

Next up we have Janes playlist, some has to do with just her and her life, others have to do with Mr. Rochester. Take the song Nobody Sees me like you do by Yoko Ono. I connect this song with how Jane thinks she is plain and nothing special but Rochester falls in love with her anyway, he sees her different than she sees herself or anyone else sees her. Another song on the topic of not seeing herself like Rochester does I chose the song Not a Pretty Girl by Ani DiFranco which says:

I am not a pretty girl
That is not what I do
I ain't no damsel in distress
And I don't need to be rescued

She doesn’t classify herself as a pretty girl so I thought this went bell with the book. Whenever we hear about Jane we think of her as just a plain regular person from the 1800’s we don’t think of her as a model or anything too special, that is what makes her work with Rochester so well, because neither of them are spectacular. Jane is definitely no damsel in distress, from the novel I learned that she doesn’t want a man to protect her or anything like that, she wants to be the caretaker, she wants to feel important and useful, hence the marrying of Rochester after he is disabled and makes her feel needed.

Also the song Orphan by Ashley Monroe. Jane was simply an orphan, and yes she was raised by a family and things like that, but she never had the motherly figure or have people that were actually happy to raise her. She was treated very poorly, learned from life around her and felt abandoned. This song connects to that feeling of hopelessness and how other people are in the same shoes.

I was painting a picture 
the picture was a painting of you and 
for a moment I thought you were here

This song is called Runaway by Aurora, its a beautifully sad song I chose this quote from the song because its about running away and finding something in someone to run back to. Jane thinks she hears Rochester calling out to her and she runs back after all she went through to runaway. I know she doesn’t have much to do with this part of the novel, but I also wanted to talk about when Jane decided to paint pictures of both herself and Ms. Ingram, and how she compared herself to her beauty and how Rochester could never love her like that. Yet she is the one he marries eventually.

Again I want these to be collaborative playlists, so if you have any songs for either of the playlists you can comment them or just add them to the playlists yourselves. Also, if you disagree or dislike any of the songs let me know, I want to know what people think.