Passage:
"The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with whom I had conversed in the verandah […] whether good or naughty" (49).
Re-write:
During the afternoon Jane had noticed the girl from the verandah had been dismissed in disgrace by Miss Scatcherd during a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the large school room. The girl seemed very composed, yet grave. This completely contrasted how Jane would have reacted to a similar scenario. She began pondering about what might have gone on in her head, how she could deal with such an ordeal, and whether or not she was a good or bad person.
Essential question (How does this change the characters, the plot, and your interpretation of the novel?):
Similarly to what we were discussing in class this conversion from first to second person detaches the reader from the protagonist, Jane. In first person, the audience shared a more intimate connection as if what Jane was experiencing was what we were experiencing. The reader essentially was Jane, living her life, acting out her story. However when reading in the third person, the reader becomes an observer, a witness to what will unfold. The reader is free to make their own conceptions on characters and the protagonists such as what are they thinking or feeling. Looking at the passage above we get this sense of separation from the protagonist. Instead of hearing what the protagonist thinks and feels as if they were our own we are forced to learn about them in a more observational manner through depictions of what is happening in a scene. This leaves more for the reader to assume and speculate while the first person narrative prescribes what one can see, feel, and think. In the passage above for example, in the first person narrative we have deeper understanding of Jane's confusion as to how Helen can with stand such humiliation. We understand the fear of it happening in our own lives; we feel the compassion for Helen as she stands there to be shamed. In the third person narrative however, the narrator only depicts to us Helen's punishment and Jane's surprise. Everything is essentially separated from us so we are more free to conceptualize our own thoughts but are never truly capable of understanding how Jane truly feels about what is happening.
