Melancholy Mentor Podcast
Welcome to Melancholy Mentor where classic literature meets the vibrant world of radio plays.
Melancholy Mentor Podcast
Gothic Secrets and Strong Heroines: Exploring Jane Eyre
What drove a Victorian woman to publish her masterpiece under a man's name? How did three sisters from a remote Yorkshire parsonage revolutionise English literature? And why does Jane Eyre continue to captivate audiences nearly two centuries later?
We journey through the fascinating world of Charlotte Brontë and her enduring classic Jane Eyre in this episode of Melancholy Mentor. Written in 1847 under the male pseudonym "Currer Bell," this story of a plain yet fiercely independent heroine challenged Victorian sensibilities while creating one of literature's most compelling love stories.
The Brontë sisters' remarkable story unfolds as we explore Charlotte's short but brilliant life, the family's literary legacy, and the Yorkshire parsonage that nurtured their creativity. We delve into Jane Eyre's complex narrative – an unhappy orphan who becomes a governess, falls for the mysterious Mr. Rochester, and navigates the dark secrets of Thornfield Hall with unwavering moral strength.
Our conversation spotlights the 1943 radio adaptation from "The Weird Circle" series currently featured on our YouTube channel. Though the audio bears the atmospheric crackle of vintage recordings, paired with our footage of Paul Harbour in Dorset, it creates a unique window into how classic stories transform across different media. We discuss the importance of preserving these adaptations while finding new ways to introduce timeless literature to contemporary audiences.
Join us as we celebrate the enduring power of storytelling and plan our pilgrimage to the Brontë Museum. Subscribe to experience more classic literature reimagined through radio dramas, and share your thoughts on your favourite Brontë novel!
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You can watch the radio drama episode we are discussing on our YouTube channel :
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Hello everyone and welcome to Melancholy Mentor, where classic literature meets the vibrant world of radio plays. I'm Fran and I'm joined by Evan from Mystery Mythos. Together, we're your guides on this creative journey. During each episode, we'll dive into stories featured on the Melancholy Mentor channel, allowing fresh ideas to flourish, inspiring you to dream big and unlock your creative potential. Get comfy, open your mind and embrace curiosity. Let's get started. Hello, I'm Fran and I'm Evan, and this week we are highlighting the radio drama that we've got on the Melancholy Mental YouTube channel Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is a novel written by Charlotte Bronte that was first published in 1847 under the male pseudonym Carabel. Would you?
Speaker 2:say that's how it's pronounced Carabel.
Speaker 1:Carabel, I want to say Curabel, for some reason. So a pseudonym is like a different name that a writer uses and many writers even wanted. Modern day writers use pseudonym. Yeah, they do carabel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not carabel carabel carabel is spelt c?
Speaker 1:u, re-r and then B-E-L-L. So Charlotte Bronte initially used this male pseudonym name. So she used we're just going to get into something a little bit she used the pseudonym to protect her privacy, no doubt of it. We she used the pseudonym to protect her privacy, no doubt, but also did not want to be judged based on being a female writer. So at that time the gender um would have been a significant factor yeah and a lot of female writers wrote under male names.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to make it look as though a man had written the story. So at some point and I don't know when, so I don't know whether it was during her lifetime or after I didn't actually find that out because I didn't look for it as to whether she started to publish things under her actual name of Charlotte Bronte, which is an interesting little rabbit hole for you all to go down. It is, isn't it? Yeah, so at that time, you know, they would have faced criticism that a woman shouldn't write. Charlotte Bronte was born in 1816, during the victorian era, so that's um. She was born in yorkshire and also um died in yorkshire, wow, yeah, died in 1855, um, and she was only 31 years old, wow, she, when she passed.
Speaker 1:So she had two sisters who were both writers as well, emily and Anne, and between them they actually wrote several novels. I think Anne's possibly the little known of the sisters. They also had a brother, and their brother was called Bramwell, and I kind of get the impression that Bramwell was a a bit naughty. Wow, we're not going to say a lot about branwell, but you know, by all means look him up if you're interested in bonte family, because it's actually a really um, interesting part of history and part of english literature as well. Yeah, that there were three sisters that all wrote um, no doubt.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know, bramwell maybe wrote as well, um, and that they, you know they were in the victorian era up in yorkshire, now yorkshire's um, I'm based on the south coast, that would. Evan and I are both based on the south coast and yorkshire is up the country. Yes, north yorkshire is a very big county. I think it's actually the largest county in the uk. Yeah, it's known for being known for the yorkshire actually like yorkshire a lot. Yeah, yes, charlotte bronte was the last of her siblings to die now, bearing in mind that she was 31, so, um, and they lived on the edge of the moors in a parsonage that's now a museum right now, this museum. I've been wanting to go there for years and I like Yorkshire. I've got family in Yorkshire and I go there, you know, at least, well, hopefully a couple of times a year, hoping this year, um, and I've never visited this museum yet. I'm a big Bronte fan, so so, I'm going to have to do it.
Speaker 1:I know I'd love to it's one of those things that's been on my list for so many years and it's one of the things that's quite important to me, because I grew up reading classic literature, reading the Bronte sisters stories, and so it's, you know, one of those things that I've always had in the back of my mind to travel to the area where they came from. Yeah, so, the parsonage that they grew up in, I think they were. They were born in a different, maybe little village or little town in yorkshire, but they grew up in in this parsonage that's now a museum. So apparently they were surrounded by books, so the children were surrounded by books and they were passionate about reading and no doubt passionate about classic literature. So their version of classic literature at the time.
Speaker 1:So the novel Jane Eyre follows the story of Jane and she's a simple, plain girl, and it follows a story as she battles through life and life struggles, struggles, yeah, yeah. So the novel um is in the style of prose. I'm going to call it prose. I'm not familiar with this. So although I'm a classic literature fan and book reading, I'm not a scholar as such. So the information that we bring to you, a lot of this we're kind of, we're just looking up doing a little bit of light research and just bringing you some things that um are hopefully a facts you know, especially when it involves dates and things like that. And I'm pronouncing it prose, it's spelled p-r-o-s-e and prose fiction, so it tells the story through kind of everyday language and it focuses on the, the characters, so the character development and the plot development and progression and it's a certain style um, so that was quite interesting because I didn't know about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the character, jane eyre, has an unhappy childhood, unfortunately, and some wicked things happen to her and then she leaves school, becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall where, of course, she falls in love with her employer, but you know the dashing Mr Rochester who wouldn't, yeah, and then Mr Rochester has secrets that are kind of slowly come to light throughout the story and it's kind of, you know, a gothic classic literature story. Yeah, and it's actually my favourite Bronte story. Yeah, I thought it was. Yeah, and one of my favorite actual classic literature stories as well is um is jane eyre. Yeah, yeah, I just, I just like it. The story is actually quite complexed.
Speaker 1:Um, and the character of jane, who appears kind of very plain and, you know, has had this kind of hard um childhood and upbringing and faces all these um challenges. Yeah, rather than kind of being a weak character, she's actually very, very strong and I kind of like that. Yeah, she had a very sort of strong character, so that character development, uh, um, within the story writing is really really good. Yeah, yeah, we've actually got um a radio adaptation, like a radio drama, of jane eyre. There has been many, many adaptations of jane eyre many too many to mention anyway, because we only do short podcasts and there's been a TV series film adaptations, many audio adaptations um different book covers, you know, different ways of presenting the book over the years. It's a really, really big story. Yeah, the version that we feature on the channel. You've got some more information about that yeah, I do.
Speaker 2:Um, this is a weird circle adaptation. We've got a few of these on the channel. The weird circle was a supernatural horror and, like fantasy radio drama, it aired from 1943 to 1945, was produced in new york and then it was like broadcast out onto different radio stations after that. There was actually a total of 78 episodes and they had two seasons, and this particular episode aired on the 26th of December 1943 and was number 18. So and the video, uh, that we've got that you filmed was at paul harbour in dorset and the the actual episode is 23 minutes long okay, and where was the word circle actually done?
Speaker 1:uh, it was produced in new york so it was produced in new york, right? Okay, so this particular episode that we've got currently has 59 views, yeah, um, of which we're very grateful. Thank you, thank you. I think that this one so it's what happens is, with this, as we do this podcast to highlight episodes that we've got on on the radio drama channel of melancholy mental. We have other youtube channels, no doubt some highlights of those will be coming soon, hopefully, um, and the purpose of this is to kind of bring that creativity of not only the writing but what other adaptations can be done.
Speaker 1:So, whether it's short stories, you know, today's kind of media is all about repurposing content and repurposing it in different ways. So you can, you can video log it. You can, you know, blog it like a writing, blog it, you can do audio. There's so, so many different ways and there's different ways of bringing these old stories and writers and creators to life. Yeah, that's what we like highlighting on this channel. This particular episode that we've got on the youtube channel, it's actually, um, it's a bit crackly in the background, so the audio is not clean. Uh, it's quite old, isn't it?
Speaker 1:and it's it's yeah, it's not a clean audio, so it doesn't lend itself to the ears as being easy listening. However, we still like to air these ones on the channel because it brings those, those old audios and those old recordings, some new lives. Yeah, and there are still people that are going to like that vibe. Yeah, I've listened to this. I found it a little bit hard going on the ears due to the crackle in the background. However, I, I just I love the story of jane air, so yeah you know I like this episode anyway.
Speaker 1:Um paul harbour, just to mention, he's a work in harbour, so what? I do is I go out and about filming and then we um use the film to overlay the audio on top of um and on evan's channel mystery mythos. On their youtube channel it's um ai generated, so on mine.
Speaker 1:It's actually kind of me just going out doing some random filming of puddles and a bit of seaside, and this particular video is actually quite nice because it shows part of the working harbour yeah so I've got one of the ships in the harbour, um, and I was kind of just there with my tripod and my phone just sort of filming it at the time, and so I actually like the film of this one, even though the audio, the accompanying audio, is a little bit crackly. Yeah, so I'm going to move, going to yorkshire to visit the bronte museum. Higher up on my list now needs to be yeah, no, I know, and I feel like it'd be nice to do a little bit of film of it, so we can kind of film going and and be, just the surrounding area be quite interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. Yeah, to bring that to the channel as well. That's it for this episode, so thank you for listening. Bye bye thank you for tuning in. Contact us, melancholymentorcom. Until next time, keep your minds open and stay curious.
