My wife and I noticed while watching a BBC production of Jane Eyre from the 1970s that Rochester consistantly calls Miss Ingram "Dona Biancha." Now, this makes sense since her name is Blanche and the French "blanche" in English is "white." So transposed into Italian we get "Dona Biancha" or "Lady White." However, in English folklore a "white lady:" is a common ghost in old castles or mansions. Thornfield does in fact boast a "white lady," though Mrs. Fairfax tells Jane that she's never heard of the house being haunted. That "white lady" is the very tangible Bertha Mason. This point highlights a close resemblance between Blanche and Bertha. Both are haughty, imperious, locally renowned for their beauty, olive-skinned, and drawn to Rochester. We might say that in choosing Blanche to make Jane jealous, Rochester is also acting out for her a rejection of his first wife as she was in her prime. It seems to be his twisted way of saying (to himself? to her a year after their wedding?) that even were his wife sane and still a beauty, he would infinitly prefer Jane to her.
I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old. That's a couple years after it first came out. The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer. I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit. It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows. With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play. What was that first game? It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past . Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge. It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing? There were stretches when I didn't. Many times, I've just been too busy. There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....
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