Jacqueline Ramirez

AP Literature and Composition

Critical Reading Journal Reflection

With every work of literature we encounter in our lives, there comes times of confusion,

suspense, shock, and many more emotions. However, as a novel progresses what do we do to

capture such moments? With the use of our critical reading journal, we were able to capture such

moments and envelop the every meaning of our beliefs within its pages. “Jane Eyre” was a very

complex, but riveting novel which made our leeway into such a skill set easier to pursue than

books such as “Heart of Darkness”. In order to organize our thoughts through the various twist

and turns of the novel, the critical reading journal gives us the opportunity to capture essences

such as themes, memorable quotes, characterization, and diction.

Jane encountered several hardships from the beginning of the novel towards the very end.

At the start of the novel, we see Jane encounter the hardships with her Aunt Reed and her cousins.

Various times in my journal I would jot down the various color motifs and weather symbolisms I

would notice. For example, I pointed out the colors in the red room which I would correlate with

pain and distress. Furthermore, I made connections to the cold in relation to Jane’s loneliness, and

the warmth towards things that made her happy such as the books in the library. Latermore, I

made connections to the various pieces of her family and their structure. For example, I could

make out that the Reed family was most likely very rich as they had two helpers in the home who

were often in charge of disciplining Jane. As the turmoils of Jane’s life progressed, I made

connections between her past upbringings that have brought her to her currentstate. For example,

in chapter 6 I made distinctions between Jane and her past self. I made the remark that Helen was

a resemblance of the old Jane. Although I lacked proper evidence and my claim was but a stretch,

I was not far from a potentially strong claim. I latermore made remarks that Mr. Brocklehurst was
an embodiment of Mrs. Reed, only this time I made connections to his behaviors and connected

them to Mrs.Reed’s. For example, the girls in Lowood were expected to follow strict rules, while

Jane was forced to endure the same strict life. Each individual brought Jane closer to the heroic

figure she was later to become.

At times I feel like I wondered into claims that I deemed were a bit too far fetched, or

often times were unrelated to the plot of the chapter. For example, I made a remark that Blanche

was fairly jealous of the relationship Jane had with the Rochester which would spark the snide

remarks made at the party in chapter 17. However, Blanche is just a rude person so my hypothesis

was quite wrong and not very much related. I feel like I often created questions that I knew I

could never answer using the text and it would make it harder for me to create a generalization of

what was going on it the text. For example, I often questioned why Bessie showed so much

kindness to Jane. As the story progressed, I never got my answer, but it was something that

could’ve been argued. Furthering my thoughts, I used quotations that I seemed relevant to my

remarks in order to reinforce my claims. Often times, I used the text to connect to the world

around me for instance, I used Jane’s emotions to further establish the connections between Jane

and Jesus Christ at times. Jane made claims that she felt as though she was a martyr, so I therefore

pulled out biblical references to establish how Jane is much like Jesus. The tabernacle in the red

room could illustrate a place of suffering where she was taking away the pain Mrs. Reed could

have potentially been feeling inside.

Often time I feel like my connections to the unreal are better than my connections between

characters. For example, my connections to between weather and color motifs towards Jane’s

changing emotions were beginning to become more concrete as the story progressed. I feel like

oftentimes Bronte tried to use weather to signify Jane’s personal relationships for example just
like her relationship with Mr. Rochester. The lighting tearing the tree would make a large

symbolic reference to the power Mr. Rochester’s lies had and how the tree split could signify the

breakage in their relationship. The connection between natural life and Jane Eyre’s life allow me

to establish what I presumed would be a larger issue to occur throughout the novel. As the plot

progressed, I tried to play guessing games with myself in order to establish well rounded

inferences for Jane’s progression. I often found myself thinking: “what’s she gonna do next?”, “is

she going to leave?”, “what’s going on in her head?” Such inferences allowed me to become more

and more enthralled by the progression of Jane’s character.

The thought process that came with using the critical reading journal engaged me further

in the reading of Jane Eyre. Using such a device allowed me to create more cohesive thoughts.

When engaging in paideias, I would already have some knowledge into what I wanted to say and

what I could do with the evidence I had. However, I feel like the journal did, oftentimes, mix me

up. At times I would have a certain belief in regards to one idea only to see it unfold into another

thing making it harder for me to be certain on the progression of the novel.

I find it super hard to concentrate sometimes. Reading is often my biggest nightmare

because a certain word would just draw my attention towards something else. However, the

critical reading journal allowed me to keep my focus of the book itself. Whenever I would get

distracted by a certain word or phrase, I would try to make a connection before my brain thought

of something totally off topic. For example, I would get really distracted by the gypsy scene in the

novel because I’d always draw some random distinction to the random gypsies I see at work. In

order to keep myself at task I would try to outline what was going on in the novel and make

distinctions towards what if could mean for Jane and the characters around her. However, the
journal also helped me sharpen up my thematic and analytic thought processes when it comes to

variations of novels. I could use my knowledge of theme and extend it towards the novel itself.

My last trial of the usage of the critical reading journal would be in my reading of Catch-

22. Using the novel for this purpose would allow for me to connect my various ideas on the

proclamation of logic. I could create correlations between the various characters sanities as the

plot progresses. While reading Catch-22 I could understand why Yossarian seems to be the only

person in belief of the war and how the characters around him are often affected by his actions. I

could use this journal to understand why Yossarian is in such a need of lying when in comes to

his relation in the war. Most importantly, this journal will allow me to maintain correlations

between the various changes in plot from character to character.

Continuing to college, I feel like I could use the critical reading journal to elaborate my

thoughts on other novels and create a plot outline for myself to follow. The novels in college may

not be as entertaining as those that we get in college, but I believe that with the use of the critical

reading journal I could allow myself to formulate my beliefs on behalf of the author’s work.

Knowing that I have the change to jump into an English-102 course rather than 101, I would need

to sum up my attention span in order to create knowledge towards the books given to me.

Weaseling my way out of reading novels just won’t cut it anymore. I hope that once I reach

college I am able to keep myself at task with my workings of a critical reading journal.