Orphans of the Universe (1) With Numbers

7/26/2019 Orphans of the Universe (1) With Numbers

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COLEGIUL NAŢIONAL IENĂCHIŢĂ VĂCĂRESCU

THE STORY OF THE UNDERPRIVILEGED

PROFESOR COORDONATOR:

MAGDALENA IULIANA BUCUR

ELEV:

HAU DARIA

2016



Contents

Introduction……………………………………………….….. .Page1

Chapter1.Olivers’s Land………………………………………..Page3

Chapter 2.Jane’s Land…………………………………………..Page5

Chapter 3.Heatchliff’s Land……………………………………Page7

Conclusion…………………………………………………… ...Page9

Bibliogr aphy…………………………………………………….Page10



INTRODUCTION

I chose the ―orphan‖ topic for my paper because it took my eyes and impressed me with

the genitive structure from the title ― of the Universe‖. We also associate this term with the fact

that they (the children) do not belong to anyone. This title places the orphans all over the world

in someone’s care. And that loving parent is the Universe.

Chapter one outlines ―Oliver Twist‖, one of the most beloved orphans in romantic

literature. From the first very pages of the story, one can easily notice that Oliver Twist is not

going to enjoy generosity of faith. He spends the first years of his childhood at a workhouse

being brought up with little food and few comforts. During his journey to London, he meets Jack

Dawkins and Charley Bates who manage to inflitrate Oliver in Fagin’s criminal actions withouthim knowing it. Trying to draw Oliver into a life of crime, Fagin forces him to participate in a

burglary. It goes wrong and the boy is shot in his arm but ends up under the care of the people he

was supposed to rob. Oliver Twist is an example of inncocence despite the criminal company he

encounters.

Chapter two talks about another story that frames the hard work children without parents

are put to, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre is barely cared for by her unloving aunt,

and is tormented by her cousins. She is then packed off to the Lowood School, where most of the

pupils are similarly abandoned. After six years as a student and two as a teacher, Jane decides to

leave Lowood and become a governess at Thornfield Hall where she falls in love with Mr.

Rochester, the owner of the house. Refusing to go against her principles Jane leaves Thornfield

in the middle of the night. She decides to become a misionary in India but she hears that Mr.

Rochester's wife set the house on fire and committed suicide by jumping from the roof. In his

rescue attempts, Mr. Rochester lost a hand and his eyesight. Jane reunites with him and he

recovers enough sight to see their first-born son.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Bates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Bates



Chapter three shows a different side of the orphan, Emily’s Bronte’ Heatchliff. He is a

dark-skinned boy, raised by the Earnshaw family who develops a great relationship with his

sister, Catherine. As she matures into her young teens, however, Catherine grows close to Edgar

Linton. A bitter Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights upon overhearing her saying that it would

degrade her and while away, by means unknown, makes his fortune. He turns back cruel and

vindicative causing a lot of harm. In the end he dies wishing to be burried next to Catherine.

The 19th

century is also known as the romantic century and it was born as a response to

the inflexible rules of his predecesor – the classicism. Literature was one of the art branches that

was touched by its strong influence. In contrast to the main characteristics of classicism –

characters choosen from the middle and upper classes of the society gifted with special features

and noble virtues, the formal and strict rules of writing and previsible action – the romantism

encourages writers to explore a unique vision of the world, a more veridical and unperfect one.

Romantic novelists embrace the construction of different characters, less fortunate, allowing

their manner of being to be dictated by flaws and wicknesses. In literature, all of these features

introduced romantic specific themes like the solitude, hatered against the society and its

unfairness or, a very common one, the orphan. This one is a character out of place and origin,

who is forced to make his own shelter from the world around without any parental support. This

human condition offers the author a background of endless posibilities to create unique plots

with various types of characters. The orphan theme provided a base for some of the most

exquisite literary creations where english novelists played a massive role in, Emily Bronte,

Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Lord Byron and Walter Scott being just some of them.

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CHAPTER ONE. OLIVER’S LAND

A relevant first example is Charles Dickens who outlined Oliver Twist, one of the most

beloved orphans in romantic literature. Oliver Twist was born in a workhouse in an unnamed

town. Being an orhpan almost from his first breath Oliver is meagrely provided for under the

terms of the Poor Law and spends the first nine years of his life at a baby farm in the 'care' of a

woman named Mrs. Mann. Around the time of Oliver's ninth birthday, Oliver is removed from

the baby farm and put to work picking and weaving oakum at the main workhouse.

Later, Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish, takes Oliver into his

service. He treats Oliver better and uses him as a mourner at children's funerals. However, Mr.

Sowerberry is in an unhappy marriage, and his wife doesn’t like Oliver so she starts to make him

suffer. He also suffers because of Noah Claypole. While attempting to bait Oliver, Noah insults

Oliver's biological mother. Oliver flies into a rage, attacking and even beating the much bigger

boy. Mrs. Sowerberry takes Noah's side, helps him to punch and beat Oliver, and later compels

her husband and Mr. Bumble, who has been sent for in the aftermath of the fight, to beat Oliver

again. Once Oliver is sent to his room for the night, he breaks down and weeps and decides to go

to London

During his journey to London, Oliver encounters Jack Dawkins, a pickpocket more

commonly known by the nickname the "Artful Dodger ‖, and Charley Bates, but Oliver's

innocent nature prevents him from recognizing any hint that the boys may be dishonest. Grateful

for the unexpected assistance, Oliver follows Dodger to the "old gentleman's" residence. In this

way, Oliver unwittingly falls in with an infamous Jewish criminal known as Fagin. Ensnared,

Oliver lives with Fagin and his gang of juvenile pickpockets in their lair at Saffron Hill for some

time, unaware of their criminal activity. He believes they make wallets and handkerchiefs. Oliver

realises too late that their real mission is to pick pockets. Dodger and Charley steal the

handkerchief of an old gentleman named Mr. Brownlow, and promptly flee. When he finds his

handkerchief missing, Mr. Brownlow turns round, sees Oliver running away in fright, and pursues him. Others join the chase and Oliver is caught and taken before the magistrate.

Curiously, Mr. Brownlow has second thoughts about the boy – he seems reluctant to believe he

is a pickpocket. To the judge's evident disappointment, a bookstall holder who saw Dodger

commit the crime clears Oliver, who, by now actually ill, faints in the courtroom. Mr. Brownlow

takes Oliver home and, along with his housekeeper Mrs. Bedwin, cares for him.

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But his bliss is interrupted when Fagin, fearing Oliver might "peach" on his criminal

gang, decides that Oliver must be brought back to his hideout. When Mr. Brownlow sends Oliver

out to pay for some books, one of the gang, a young girl named Nancy, whom Oliver had

previously met at Fagin's, accosts him with help from her abusive lover, a brutal robber

named Bill Sikes, and Oliver is quickly bundled back to Fagin's lair. The thieves take the five-

pound note Mr. Brownlow had entrusted to him, and strip him of his fine new clothes. Oliver,

dismayed, flees and attempts to call for police assistance, but is ruthlessly dragged back by the

Artful Dodger, Charley and Fagin. Nancy, however, is sympathetic towards Oliver and saves

him from beatings by Fagin and Sikes.

In a renewed attempt to draw Oliver into a life of crime, Fagin forces him to participate in

a burglary. Nancy reluctantly assists in recruiting him, all the while assuring the boy that she will

help him if she can. Sikes, after threatening to kill him if he does not co-operate, sends Oliver

through a small window and orders him to unlock the front door. The robbery goes wrong,

however, and Oliver is shot and wounded in his left arm at the targeted house. After being

abandoned by Sikes, the wounded Oliver makes it back to the house and ends up under the care

of the people he was supposed to rob: Miss Rose and her guardian Mrs. Maylie.

On the way to this happy ending, Dickens explores the kind of life an outcast, orphan boy

could expect to lead in 1830s London. He delivers a somewhat mixed message about social caste

and social injustice. Oliver's illegitimate workhouse origins place him at the limit of society; as

an orphan without friends, he is routinely despised.

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CHAPTER TWO. JANE’S LAND

Another story that frames the hard work children without parents are put to, is Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Brontë. The novel begins with the titular character Jane Eyre living with her

maternal uncle's family, the Reeds, as a result of her uncle's dying wish. Excluded from the

family activities, Jane is incredibly unhappy, with only a doll and books in which to find

happiness. One day, after her cousin John knocks her down and she attempts to defend herself,

Jane is locked in the red room where her uncle died; there, she faints from panic after she thinks

she has seen his ghost. She is subsequently attended to by Mr. Lloyd, to whom Jane reveals how

unhappy she is living at Gateshead Hall. He recommends to Mrs. Reed that Jane should be sent

to school, an idea Mrs. Reed happily supports. At Lowood Institution, a school for poor or

orphaned girls, she attempts to fit in, and makes friends

Jane’s friend, Miss Temple marries, and Lowood seems different without her. Jane places

advertises for a governess position in the local newspaper. She receives one reply, from a Mrs.

Fairfax of Thornfield, near Millcote, who seeks a governess for a ten-year old girl

One January afternoon, while walking to Millcote to mail a letter, Jane helps a horseman

whose horse has slipped on a patch of ice and fallen, unknowing that the man Edward Fairfax

Rochester, the owner of Thornfield and her employer. He is a dark-haired, moody man in his late

thirties. Although he is often taciturn, Jane grows fond of his mysterious, passionate nature.

But odd things to happen at the house, such as a strange laugh, a mysterious fire in Mr.

Rochester's room, or anattack on Rochester's house guest, Mr. Mason. Jane leaves Thornfield for

a month to attend her aunt, who is on her deathbed Before dying, she gives Jane a letter from her

uncle, John Eyre, who had hoped to adopt Jane and make her his heir. The letter was sent three

years earlier, but Aunt Reed had vindictively kept it from Jane.

After returning to Thornfield, Jane finds about Mr. Rochester's rumoured marriage to the

beautiful and talented, but snobbish and heartless, Blanche Ingram. Then follows one of the most

stirring speeches in the whole book, when the normally self-controlled Jane opens her heart to

him. Rochester is then sure that Jane is sincerely in love with him, and he proposes marriage.

Jane is at first sceptical, but eventually believes him and gladly agrees to marry him. But another

strange event happenens: a strange, savage-looking woman sneaks into her room one night and

rips her wedding veil in two. As with the previous mysterious events, Mr. Rochester attributes

the incident to Grace Poole, one of his servants.

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During the wedding ceremony, Mr. Mason and a lawyer declare that Mr. Rochester

cannot marry because he is still married to Mr. Mason's sister, Bertha He admits this to Jane,

explaining her that his father tricked him into the marriage for her money. Once they were

united, he discovered that she was rapidly descending into madness and so he eventually locked

her away in Thornfield, hiring Grace Poole as a nurse to look after her. When Grace gets drunk,

his wife escapes, and causes the strange happenings at Thornfield.

After the marriage ceremony is broken off, Mr. Rochester asks Jane to go with him to the

south of France, and live with him as husband and wife, even though they cannot be married.

Refusing to go against her principles, and despite her love for him, Jane leaves Thornfield in the

middle of the night.

Jane travels as far from Thornfield as she can using the little money she had previously

saved. Exhausted and hungry, she eventually makes her way to the home of Diana and Mary

Rivers,but is turned away by the housekeeper. She collapses on the doorsteps because of her

preacarious health.After she regains her health, St. John finds her a teaching position at a nearby

village school. Jane becomes good friends with the sisters, but St. John remains aloof.

One day, St. John finds that Jane has inherited 20,000 pounds from her uncle, John Eyre.

Furthermore, she discovers that St. John's real name is St. John Eyre Rivers, so he, his sisters,

and Jane are cousins. The Rivers were cut out of John Eyre's will because of an argument

between John and their father. Thrilled to discover that she has a family, Jane insists on splitting

the inheritance four ways, and then remodels Moor House for her cousins, who will no longer

need to work as governesses. St. John is not happy with his life so he plans to become a

missionary in India and proposes Jane to go with him. Jane refuses his request to join him and

leaver Moor House.

Arriving at Millcote, she discovers Thornfield a burned wreck.From a local innkeeper,

she learns that Bertha Mason burned the house down one night and that Rochester lost an eye

and a hand while trying to save her and the servants. He now lives in seclusion at Ferndean..

There she discovers a powerless, unhappy Rochester. Jane carries a tray to him and reveals her

identity. The two lovers are joyfully reunited and soon marry. Ten years later, Jane writes this

narrative. Her married life is still blissful; Adèle has grown to be a helpful companion for Jane;

Diana and Mary Rivers are happily married; St. John still works as a missionary, but is nearing

death; and Rochester has regained partial vision, enough to see their first-born son.

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CHAPTER THREE. HEATCHLIFF’S LAND

Wuthering Heights, Emily’s Bronte novel, shows a different side of the „orphan‖ . In

1801,Lockwood, a wealthy man from the South of England rents Thrushcross Grange in

Yorkshire. He visits Heatchliff who lives in a farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. Snowed in,

Lockwood is grudgingly allowed to stay and is shown to a bedchamber where he notices books

and graffiti left by a former inhabitant named Catherine. He falls asleep and has a nightmare in

which he sees the ghostly Catherine trying to enter through the window.

In this wild, stormy countryside, Lockwood asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him

the story of Heathcliff. Nelly consents, and Lockwood writes down his recollections of her tale

in his diary; these written recollections form the main part of Wuthering Heights.

Nelly begins the story with her childhood. As a young girl, she works as a servant at

Wuthering Heights for the owner of the manor, Mr. Earnshaw, and his family. One day, Mr.

Earnshaw goes to Liverpool and returns home with an orphan boy whom he will raise with his

own children. At first, the Earnshaw children — a boy named Hindley and his younger sister

Catherine — detest the dark-skinned Heathcliff. But Catherine quickly comes to love him, and the

two soon grow inseparable, spending their days playing on the moors. After his wife’s death, Mr.

Earnshaw grows to prefer Heathcliff to his own son, and when Hindley continues his cruelty to

Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw sends Hindley away to college, keeping Heathcliff nearby.

Three years later, Mr. Earnshaw dies, and Hindley inherits Wuthering Heights. He returns

with a wife, Frances, and immediately seeks revenge on Heathcliff. Once an orphan, later a

pampered and favored son, Heathcliff now finds himself treated as a common laborer, forced to

work in the fields. Heathcliff continues his close relationship with Catherine, however.

When Frances dies after giving birth to a baby boy named Hareton, Hindley descends

into the depths of alcoholism, and behaves even more cruelly and abusively toward Heathcliff.

Catherine confesses to Nelly that Edgar has proposed marriage and she has accepted, although

her love for Edgar is not comparable to her love for Heathcliff, whom she cannot marry becauseof his low social status and lack of education. Heathcliff overhears her say that it would

"degrade" her to marry him (but not how much she loves him), and he runs away and disappears

without a trace. Distraught over Heathcliff's departure, Catherine makes herself ill.

Three years pass. Edgar and Catherine marry, and go to live together at Thrushcross

Grange. Six months later Heathcliff returns, now a wealthy gentleman.

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Edgar's sister, Isabella, soon falls in love with Heathcliff, who despises her, but encourages the

infatuation as a means of revenge. He hears that Catherine is ill and, with Nelly's help, visits her

secretly. However, Catherine is pregnant. The following day she gives birth to a daughter, Cathy,

shortly before dying. After Catherine's funeral Isabella leaves Heathcliff,goes to England and

gives birth to a son, Linton. Hindley dies six months after Catherine and Heathcliff thus finds

himself master of Wuthering Heights.

Twelve years pass.Cathy,one day, rides over the moors to Wuthering Heights and

discovers that she has two cousins: Hareton and Linton. When Edgar returns with Linton, a weak

and sickly boy, Heathcliff insists that he live at Wuthering Heights.

After three years, Nelly and Cathy encounter Heathcliff, who takes them to see Linton

and Hareton .Heathcliff hopes that Linton and Cathy will marry, so that Linton will become the

heir to Thrushcross Grange. Linton and Cathy begin a secret friendship

The following year Edgar becomes very ill, taking a turn for the worse while Nelly and

Cathy are out on the moors, where Heathcliff and Linton trick them into entering Wuthering

Heights. Heathcliff keeps them captive to enable the marriage of Cathy and Linton to take place.

After five days Nelly is released and later, with Linton's help, Cathy escapes. She returns to the

Grange to see her father shortly before he dies.

Now the owner of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, and Cathy's father-

in-law, Heathcliff insists on her returning to live at Wuthering Heights. Soon after she arrives

Linton dies. Hareton tries to be kind to Cathy, but she withdraws from the world.

At this point Nelly's tale catches up to the present day (1801). Time passes and, after

being ill for a period Lockwood grows tired of the moors and informs Heathcliff that he will be

leaving Thrushcross Grange. However,eight months later Lockwood visits Nelly.She lives at

Wuthering Heights replacing the housekeeper, Zillah, who had left. Hareton had an accident and

was confined to the farmhouse. During his convalescence, he and Cathy overcame their mutual

antipathy and became close. While their friendship developed Heathcliff began to act strangely

and had visions of Catherine. He stopped eating and after four days was found dead in

Catherine's old room.Lockwood finds that Hareton and Cathy plan to marry on New Year's Day.

As he gets ready to leave, he passes the graves of Catherine, Edgar and Heathcliff, and pauses to

contemplate the quiet of the moors.

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CONCLUSION

It is no accident that the most famous character in recent fiction – Harry Potter – is an

orphan. The child wizard’s adventures are premised on the death of his parents and the

responsibilities that he must therefore assume. If we look to classic children’s fiction we find ahost of orphans. Like many orphans of the time, Jane, whose parents died when she was very

young, has been taken in by relatives. Pip in Great Expectations and Esther Summerson in Bleak

House are similarly adopted by resentful and punitive relations. In Britain adoption was legally

unregulated until the 1920s, so was easy and commonly informal. In George Eliot’s Silas

Marner, the abandoned Eppie, whose mother dies at Silas’s door, is adopted by the solitary miser

without any objection from the parish authorities. In Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, the

young orphan Jude Fawley is taken in by his great-aunt.

Concluding, the theme of the orphan in literature bordeans the horizon to various

destinies. These stories succeeded in changing the preconception that seeded in peo rple’s vision

concerning the role and the value of the orphan in the world. The up-mentioned characters prove

that compassion is not the only feeling people should feel about the ―deprived‖ children. One

who limits his empathy to pitty as the only emotion, in fact deprives himself from a larger inner

experience.

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BIBlOGRRAPHY

Wuthering Heights- Emily Brontë; Adevarul Holding, Bucuresti, 2009

Jane Eyrre-Charlotte Bront ë; Adevarul Holding, Bucuresti, 2009

Oliver Twist-Charles Dickens; Corint, Bucuresti, 2006

http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/orphans-in-fiction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Twist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights
















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