The Rake Figure in Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre Essay -- Charlotte Bro

The Rake paradigm in Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre Edward Rochester, the male protagonist of Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre embodies a number of diametric roles of masculinity. One of the least recognized but very influential roles contend by Rochester is the rake. The idea of the rake is commonly related to the amends geological period in England yet this figure does not completely disappear during the ordinal and nineteenth centuries. Historical figures such as John Wilmot the second Earl of Rochester are described as leading rakish lifestyles. Literature and Art also played an important role in defining the rake. The rake voice is primarily defined by his sexual nature. A rake was relate about his status among other men. He spent most of his age in search of sexual liaisons or relating tales of past sexual escapades. Harold weber in The Restoration Rake-Hero explains that most rakes possess little identity exterior of the love game, their lives responding largely to the rhy thms of courtship and seduction, pursuit and conquest, foreplay and release (Weber 3). However, as Weber further points out the rake is too complex and enigmatic a figure to be reduced to a sexual tool his love of disguise, need for freedom, and fondness for play all establish the complexness of the rakish in the flesh(predicate)ity (Weber 3). The rakes sexual desires can be seen as a call for freedom and a break from sociable order. He balks at the idea of marriage and family in pursuit of private gratification. While a common characteristic of the rake is his pursuit of personal gratification there are a number of different types of rakes the Hobbesian libertine, outgo explained by Horner in The Country Wife the philosophical libertine, seen through th... ...rake was so strong that he continues to influence the perception of masculinity well in the twentieth century. Charlotte Bronte was attracted to rake model of masculinity and modeled Edward Rochester after this Restorati on figure. Works Cited Cohan, Steven M. Clarissa and the Individuation of Character. ELH 43 (1976) 163-183. Johnson, Samuel. The Life of Cowley. The Penn State Archive of Samuel Johnsons Lives of the Poets. Ed. Kathleen Nulton Kemmerer. 3 March 2003. Norman, Charles. Rake Rochester. New York Crown, 1954. Weber, Harold. The Restoration Rake-Hero Transformations in sexual Understanding in Seventeeth-Century England. Madison U of Wisconsin P, 1986. William Hogarth and Eighteenth-Century Print Culture. Northwestern University. 10 March 2003. William Hogarth A Rakes Progress. Haley & Steele. 10 March 2003.