My experience participating in
SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship)
About the Program
St. Norbert College’s 2024 SURF Cohort
I chose to conduct my research on two novels, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I specifically studied how love and abuse was intertwined throughout both novels. Each novel is highly regarded as 'romance novels,’ often being referred to and taught in classrooms as such. I strived to create an understanding of why each novel romanticize such atrocious displays of abuse, and why even in modern times we still regard both novels as true displays of love.
To do this I looked at several different reoccurring themes of each novel like physical abuse, emotional abuse, age gap/ power dynamics, and orphanhood/ abandonment. This lead me to a few key scenes in each novel where abuse and mistreatment are at an all time high. I analyzed these scenes through a reader’s response lens. This literary theoretical frame allowed to me focus on the reader and their interpretation of the text. This allowed me to ask questions like: What elements are people taking from the stories, and what are they leaving out? And how do we talk about these texts and what conversations do we have surrounding them?
My analysis lead me to my principle thesis where I proposed a divide between the implied readers, those who would have read the novels at the time of their publication, and the actual readers, people who are reading the novels current day. I believe such background of the reader—time period in which one reads and interprets the novels—are crucial to the reader’s understanding and interpretation of the works. Furthermore, I believe that at the time of publication, readers had more to gain from reading a romanticized version of abuse.
Although through my research I prove such abuse exists in reach respective novel, I still had more questions. More broadly, I proposed a general concern for putting both novels and the relationships they portray on a pedestal of ideal romantic love. My research posed several more questions such as: If we read these novels in the 21st century as ‘true love’ how does that shape the way we view love? Similarly, if young adults read these novels under the preconceived notion that they portray great love stores, what kind of effect does this have on the way they view their own interpersonal relationships? I later expanded on my research and answered these questions by conducting my media studies research which can be read here.
Overall, I believe that there’s a way to understand and interpret the novels in such that readers can interact with the classic texts, but still creates a middle ground that does not worships these relationships.
The SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) program at St. Norbert College creates a space for authentic and meaningful faculty-student research collaborations. It aims to develop students or promise into well-rounded, independent thinkers by providing guidance as students create scholastic artifacts in an intensive summer program. The SURF program fosters scholarship, vocation, and community through scheduled events including weekly professional, social, and personal developmental workshops, frequent scholarship meetings, and daily SURF lunches. These events occur outside of specific research done within student-mentor pairs. The SURF program culminates with each student presenting their research artifact at an invited research event. The SURF program is discipline inclusive and values multiple perspective on scholarship, mentoring and approaches to research.
