Into the Velvet

Fifty-Eight Days Until

"So I think we can all agree," Mr. Cain surmised, "that the red room — where Mrs. Reed holds Jane Eyre prisoner — represents more than a child's hyperactive imagination. And yet the 'dead men, troubled in their graves' which Jane imagines, a quality she ascribes to her late uncle, sets the scene within the 'preternatural'. Why does the supernatural hold such significance to Brontë, and to this scene in particular?"

My hand shot into the air before he'd finished his last sentence. Mr. Cain's sharp eyes had already connected with mine before I'd moved, expectant and pleased.

"Louise."

"Gothic literature," I began, "and its narrative elements serve as the perfect glimpse into the Victorian imagination. The red room is scary because it evokes the repeated narrative imageries that Victorian readers could easily identify — that the ordinary was the fantastical, and the mundane as the other-worldly. I think this anxiety, this fear of the 'preternatural', was an actual presence in Victorian life and literature. Even once the supernatural was rationalised or explained. Throughout the novel, Jane is always caught between the known and the unknown world. The unknown 'quivers over her head' like a ray of light, or hovers at a distance as a Gytrash."

I heard a bored classmate clear his throat. Heads lolled forward against folded arms. It was the middle of the sticky afternoon, in the sweet spot of peak lethargy. Our heavy lunches weighed us down from our bellies.

But I couldn't just stop there.

The twinkle in Mr. Cain's eyes encouraged me onward. I sat up slightly higher. "So much like with Rochester's mad wife in the attic, both the red room and Bertha Mason belong to that supernatural realm. That was an easy connection to make in those times — before anyone could, for example, describe mental illness outside of unexplainable lunacy or madness. Jane acts as our seer into the mystic world until she can dismiss her premonitions as mundane."

Krishani Patel rolled her head back up in surprise. "Wait. Rochester keeps his wife in the attic?"

Mr. Cain's eyebrow lifted. "Where would you keep her instead?"

"I don't know. Ew."

Mr. Cain paid her no mind. He nodded and thoughtfully considered my words. "That's some insightful reading, Louise. Thank you for sharing with the class. I totally agree. The conventions of the time fixated upon a sense of dread over what couldn't be explained — such as apparitions or ghosts. Even madness."

He seemed appreciative. Perhaps most of all, he seemed relieved.

Mr. Cain truly welcomed my contributions. It made him feel like his planning and effort weren't a waste of time. I judged that there was nothing more demoralizing than standing in front of blank faces and crossed arms, trying to stuff knowledge into the minds of uninterested children. More often than not, I usually spent his classes in this fashion — with him and I locked in a thought-provoking discussion. The class refusing to take the bait.

With every new teacher came a different tempo. A newborn fresh from graduate school was porous, prone to self-doubt and sensitive to the whims of their students. A seasoned veteran was tough and unyielding, and had literally seen it all. And then some.

Several years back, a fire had forced the entire school into evacuation mode. Mrs. Tucci's now famous lines had been: "The burning building outside doesn't dismiss you — I do!" This tale was eagerly recounted through word of mouth, from old students to new, like a folklore tradition.

Mr. Cain was conversational and outgoing. He was earnest and casual, but serious enough to hint that the authority belonged to him. He was very much a teacher who, in his inexperience, kept all of his guards down. Who wanted to be surprised. We spent his lessons analyzing passages, often morphing into a light-hearted discussion about morality, or religion, or the importance of being well read. He tried to make himself relatable by cracking jokes.