Author: Zoe de Leon

By Ted Noser 

At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the Romantic and the Transcendental movements represented a cultural rejection of modern life, insisting on the bounty of Nature as a means to interact with the Sublime. Later in the 20th century, America’s national parks were founded to provide the nation with an identity outside the boundaries of its chaotically capitalistic culture. Time and again culture has turned to nature’s untamable spirit for salvation from the socioeconomic repercussions of large technological booms. Thus, with the internet entering the daily habits of the majority of the earth’s population in the last four years, societal rhetoric is responding to the rapid growth of a new, technologically altered life. A resulting response is one of mass anxiety and can be best represented by the plethora of monkey meme content and the rise of anarcho-primitivist sentiments circulating social media. This mass favoring of primitivistic behavior while ironically using the defining tool of the digital/post-internet age is precisely where apetor seems to have made his mark. Apetor—note the first syllable in the name—represents the inevitable synthesizing of humanity’s celebration of nature with our addiction to technological progression.

Apetor’s YouTube channel contains 221 videos of Huckleberrian adventure through the Norwegian countryside—Tor Eckhoff’s native country of residence—where he would spend his off days chasing the sublime with a concoction of vodka, ice lakes, and video cameras. With the channel’s subject matter ranging from ice-skating stunt highlight tapes to car reviews, apetor’s content reflects the multitudes of an individual in a manner unique to internet lifestyle bloggers. 

YouTube’s lifestyle category is notoriously performative, with creators urged to glamorize their livelihood to a degree akin to reality television. However, apetor’s spin on the lifestyle genre plays with the “performative honesty,” effectively blurring the line between his digital and physical identities: Ape and Tor. Supplanting lo-fi Casey-Neistatifacation with the “eep eeps!”of a deranged mountain man and iMovie royalty-free music, apetor maintains a rare, distinct aura in the mundane genre of lifestyle videos. His acceptance and celebration of nature would make even the most devoted Transcendentalists envious. Yet, Eckhoff’s devotion to his craft represents an undeniably non-natural, post-internet obsession. By embracing the changes of internet-altered life, he altered his pursuit of the Sublime from the Transcendental rejection of modernity, giving rise to his beloved internet character: @apetor.

II: Ape and Tor: The Amateur Meets the Professional 

With some 221 videos on the apetor channel, Eckhoff exhibits a variety of filmmaking abilities just as ambitious as his primitivistic adventures. From reviews of his beloved Volvo 1997 V40, to chaotic, yet wholesome vodka-fueled cooking videos and travel vlogs, apetor’s broad cinematic prowess is devoted to the craft of the digital home video, specifically the YouTube video, a post-internet practice that is indebted to Jonas Meekas just as much as it is Star Wars Kid. Through the continuation of multiple series, apetor tackled many subgenres of YouTube videos. While the pragmatically titled series “Trip to Island” is anything but your routine adventure vlog, toying with the characteristics of the YouTube adventure vlog style. The series begins with Eckhoff in his fishing boat motoring to what appears as a barren island in the middle of the lake. In the first video of the series, the camera reveals the large presence of campers on the island alongside many warning signs and rules, much to apetor’s chagrin. Akin to the performativity of the lifestyle genre, the island becomes a place for campers to perform primitive behavior while adhering to a set of predetermined societal guidelines, simulating the wild frontier apetor hopes to find. However, the ever-crafty apetor takes this as a challenge to bring uncivilized, even primal behavior back to the island. Keeping the campers out of frame, and swigging lots of vodka, Eckhoff depicts the island as a wild frontier prime for his creative genius to flow. 

The island’s paradoxical status as organized and regulated yet primitivistic inspires one of Eckhoff’s most ambitious projects. In “Lawnmower Problems,” Eckhoff blends product reviews and island adventure series into a skit format, resulting in one of his most linear and cohesive videos. (Don’t worry there are plenty of vodka breaks in the narrative to quench your thirst!) The video begins with a static, wide shot of water-smoothed rocks accompanied by a tuft of tall, green grass, a harbinger of the video’s subject to come. Meanwhile, the skit’s antagonist, the softly rolling surface of a lake, lurks in the background of the frame. Suddenly fractured, the beauty dissipates as Eckhoff’s characteristically red face emerges to the surface. He accelerates toward the rocky shore of the island frenetically, the erraticism of his swimming style accentuated by the brief indulgence of fast-motion video playback, a recurring editing technique in apetor’s videos. Returning to a normal pace, another static, wide shot captures Eckhoff climbing to his feet and out of the water from his previously prone, amphibian position as if reenacting the stages of the evolutionary process. From his newfound uprightness, he speeds toward the titular lawnmower. Deep in the thicket on the isle, the lawnmower resides on a wooden pallet, its engine covered with a smoker lid. Eckhoff removes the lid, revealing the banal machine with a thrill akin to its first inventors.

 

The film captures apetor working tirelessly to combat the inevitable encroachment of Nature’s roots. With the lawnmower rusted and damaged from exposure to the elements, apetor must venture home across the lake, through the woods, back to his house, and back to the island with a new lawnmower to mow the grass. The struggle ends with him placing lawnmower 2.0 underneath the same smoker lid, with a bottle of vodka nestled next to its engine, signifying the inevitable repetition of this venture. Seemingly satisfied with the inevitability of his return, the last shot is a closeup selfie of apetor’s sun-worn face as he steers his boat homeward, the evening sun reflecting off the clouds with a warm glow.

The montage of his journey to retrieve lawnmower 2.0 from his home is a constant juxtaposition of apetor’s chaos and the serene countryside. A wide shot of his trusty Volvo winding down a road bordered by endless forests and windmills is followed by a selfie video of him gulping vodka. Apetor’s Sublime then is a bacchanalian chaos mixed with lawnmowers and chainsaws, as hedonism and technology synthesize in Transcendental Solitude.  

The application of technology to combat nature’s growth reveals apetor’s more developed human side, while his vodka-induced dances and naked swims depict his apish, perhaps amphibian-brained, side. The film’s style perfectly reflects this marriage of civilized and anarchic, apish and human, APE and Tor. While the frames reveal a careful, critical eye, there’s a glaring continuity error, reflecting the amateurish nature of the video. During the travel montage, the sun is quite higher during the shots of him mowing the lawn than when he was driving the car to the island, suggesting that Eckhoff filmed the lawn mowing before returning home to ‘retrieve’ the lawnmower. This relatively obvious continuity problem brings into question the distinction between performance art and lifestyle documentation that Eckhoff’s videos often prompt, with it being very likely that Eckhoff came to the island with both a broken down and functioning lawnmower in order to save trips. The performativity of apetor’s videos, however, only adds to their allure. As the self-aware, practiced attitude of Eckhoff becomes more evident to viewers, it reveals an inspiring synthesis of primal and civilized behavior.

The early videos on the apetor channel reveal an entirely spontaneous, home video style, with his first video—appropriately titled “In my boat”—showing a video of Eckhoff, well … in his boat! It’s a twenty-second-long video where the only story arc is the camera flipping from a hand-held closeup of his hand on the throttle to a selfie video of him flapping his tongue about. It’s hardly a cinematic masterpiece, but it’s the building block for the iconic style.

Later in the channel’s lifespan, apetor’s videos became more refined, adding greater efforts of curation and discipline to supplant the undeniable charm of spontaneity. Apparently, Eckhoff didn’t drink outside of his videos—in fact, he spent most of his days as a sober employee in a paint factory, and was a beloved father and husband. While apetor’s lifestyle seems to be reliant on excessive (or to some, perfectly appropriate) vodka consumption in the wilderness, Eckhoff was, shockingly, a well-adjusted and subdued person outside of his internet character. The curatorial and disciplinary instincts of apetor videos thus reveal a synthesis of a human spirit nurtured by industrialized society, with an apish allure of an indulgent character that serves to remind viewers of their shared primal roots. 

This synthesis between Ape and Tor can be read as a response to the confusion caused by technological advancements that change the nature of how we interact, calming this confusion by balancing our natural tendencies with the nurturing effects of civilized life. Culture, being the great landscape for the synthesis of Nature and Nurture, has always found ways to fulfill the inexplicable desire so many people have for the great outdoors, the great unknown, to regain their agency. Characters like Davy Crockett and movements like the Romantics and Transcendentalism unearth this instinct. Similarly to Davy Crockett, apetor is a commodified character, mythologized and romanticized. While hindsight permits most critics of the Romantic poets and Davy Crocket today to recognize their mythological status, apetor’s home video charm compromises the viewer’s eye to discern the content as performative, suggesting an honesty that has been long associated with the home video.

It’s this masterfully crafted illusion of honesty that makes apetor’s videos so inspiring. After a long series of watching apetor, the typical boundaries that civilization enacts around human behavior melt away. Suddenly, drunk-driving a Volvo station wagon in the forest becomes both feasible and appealing, swimming in the East River doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, and before you know it, you may even start eyeing those half-empty beer cans around the city! Ironically, apetor’s content is the perfect antidote to the internet-borne disease of the infini-scroll, constantly reminding its viewer of their capability to enact their will on their surroundings, and possibly find an ecstatic state within Solitude while doing so.

III: The Legacy of Ape and Tor

 Through monetizing the apetor videos and selling merchandise, Eckhoff became known as a professional filmmaker. However, despite the usual connotations of “professional” movie making, there is no studio and certainly no stuntmen. Further, unlike the typical lifestyle video, there are no lo-fi hip-hop beats or drone footage. For YouTube videos, selfie videos, continuity errors, and royalty-free iMovie music connote spontaneity rather than amateurish practice, and it’s this balancing of spontaneity and methodical filmmaking that gives the apetor videos their distinct charm and thus, their interaction with the Sublime.

YouTube fandom is rabid and often manipulated for monetary gain. While Eckhoff profited off his character’s fame, it played a larger role for his fans. In the extremely young and shallow field of YouTube analysis, one of the blessings (and greatest curses) is the comment section, which allows the critic to interact with everyday viewer feedback. Thus, the YouTuber’s artistry is extended to their existence in the comments, their brand, and their public effect. Eckhoff left an overwhelmingly positive and inspiring brand to his viewers.

“One of the most fun to watch … vids on earth. His connection to universe, his awareness and joy of the moment is maybe the best antidote to cope with the pain and sadness and state of Paralyses. Hugs my friends.”

-NealCassady 

“What I’ve learned by watching apetor’s videos? I’ve learned, that if you truly are your self in this world, and Don’t try to copy others, the content you make in this world will be unique, and with only your dna on it. Nobody can copy apetor. Rest In Peace you absolute legend.”

-Robert Bordevik 

(All comments on “The Haircut”)

He also inspired, like this review, many other profound reviews, the quality of which far exceeds the average YouTube comment. Messianic worship and Transcendentalist ideals of intuition and individuality abound throughout the comments, and he truly does become the internet’s Davy Crockett figure. It’s as if the algorithms’ haunting trickery that convinces us of our unoriginality is counteracted by apetor’s originality.

One could categorize apetor’s refusal to follow trends in YouTube filmmaking as being so blatant it may have been conscious. YouTube videos find themselves in a strange frontier of cinema where the author is given the power to determine the genre of their piece. A right often reserved for the audience, the publishers of YouTube videos are prompted to select the categorical focus of their video before posting it. This self-categorization dramatically shapes the filmmaking process as videos must compete with others in their category for visibility, making the “gaming” of the algorithm just as relevant as the content of the video for someone trying to amass views. Thus, YouTube shapes its creator’s video-making process so profoundly that they become their own distinct cinematic genre. However, the apetor videos subvert the common practices that have come to distinguish YouTube videos from videos uploaded to other platforms. From the now-retired practice of making videos just over ten minutes in an effort from creators to generate more ad revenue with the least amount of effort to explicit thumbnail videos and clickbait titles, vying for the attention of viewers, apetor avoided these trends and maintained his home-video charm despite commodification. 

With the lifestyle genre of YouTube videos originating from the home video, apetor distinguishes himself as a traditionalist amongst fellow lifestyle YouTubers. Unlike other lifestyle ‘vloggers,’ like Casey Neistat, who ramp up production techniques in an effort to give the impression of effort and quality, apetor’s video style simultaneously disproves the notions of professionalism connoting effort and effort connoting quality. Rather, apetor conveys quality by focusing on the content, ingeniously reflecting the sentiments of the content through editorial choices, thus concocting a distinct aura within his videos. There’s a wonderful acceptance of nature and circumstance with a soft stubbornness to always assert himself as an agent in nature that, in many ways, leads the viewer to see Eckhoff as a master of his fate, in complete control. Not in the sense of an all-controlling god, no, but rather in the sense of remaining in control of his reactions. Eckhoff marries his internet presence with his natural presence, reacting to the trends of the internet with the same composure he kept in the face of nature’s will.

In “The Haircut,” apetor’s path is obstructed by a tree branch. This does not deter him, as the next shot follows apetor retrieving a chainsaw and drunkenly taking it to the branch. “Lawnmower Problems” displays a similar agentic urge, showcasing his trimming the weeds on a deserted island. For apetor, if there is spare food lying on the ground, then by all means! It should be consumed! If there is a thin sheet of ice at the edge of the lake, then it must be tested.

 Yet, whenever crafting the videos, no matter how banal or how extreme the action is, Eckhoff edits them similarly. Bathing in the East River gets just as much screen time as his opening of a candy bar, and belly sliding over a frozen lake. With his reliant vodka bottle in hand, beloved Volvo in frame, and Christmas bells on head, his style connotes a deep celebration of every action of life, both dramatic and mundane.

“The Haircut”

Eckhoff’s style is simultaneously ever-expanding and yet immediately recognizable, with each nuance adding to his cultish allure. The internet age has brought with it a strange conundrum, with the idea of its connecting capabilities battling the performative practices that come along with the camera. The internet, more specifically home videos, simultaneously permit an understanding of common humanity rarely explored in other moving image mediums, as it heightens self-perception to a degree that makes even mundane action feel, if not performative, capable of being performed. A bountiful amount of mental health awareness work surrounds the combatting of mistaking people’s internet presence for reality, an endeavor as foolish as comparing oneself to a superhero. Yet Eckhoff’s videos strike the perfect balance of documenting his daily life and performing for the camera. Whether it’s pretending to be a dog or reviewing his new Volvo, the breadth of content allows his viewers to feel the presence of apetor as both friend and entertainer.

Apetor’s relationship with nature is one that the likes of Thoreau, Emerson, Twain, and many more dreamt of achieving in their technologically accelerating ages. Like an internet-age Transcendentalist, Eckhoff’s videos offer an idyllic sense of peace, permitted by a lack of self-restraint and gorgeous cinematography of rural life that let his videos live well beyond their release date in the hearts and minds of viewers worldwide. It’s this ethereal acceptance of circumstance that begets a peace profound enough to carry the memory of the recently deceased Eckhoff with a note of hope and heavenly joy rather than tragedy. Notably, it’s this same sentiment that allowed apetor to thrive during the wake of the internet’s invasion of social life. Through his reaction to both, Apetor marries the untenability of both nature and mankind’s will. This marriage is what allowed apetor to buck the notoriously cutthroat produce-or-die sentiment on YouTube. While most successful creators, from Ray William Johnson to Ryan Higa have seen their subscriber counts dwindle as they produced less and less, apetor’s channel has only grown since his death. While apetor never quite went viral, his channel maintained a close cult following due to its soul-lifting ability to connect fans with their agency and inner spirit, recognizing the longevity of content that emits genuine joy. I’d like to think that if someone were to sneak a camera into heaven, they’d probably come back with an Apetor video. 

By Tayler Bakotic

With vaccines and booster shots widely administered, it seems that New York is no longer in the thick of COVID-19. And after two years of mask-wearing and social distancing, NYU has largely returned to its pre-COVID practices. This does not make COVID obsolete, of course, but my question is, when will NYU’s policies reflect this change? Our present reality should work to rethink its policy and practice, especially when policy has caused and is causing harm to students. 

NYU’s guest policy has served more to protect NYU’s reputation than its students, who have been negatively affected by the restrictions on who has been allowed inside NYU dorms over the past couple years. The strict, anti-guest policy has worsened mental health issues and caused uncomfortable, tense, and untrusting relationships between the guards, RAs, and NYU residents. And the Violet Go policies have not served to protect the NYU community, and are more of a hassle than anything else. I should be clear that my claims against NYU’s policies do not, by default, support extremist ideologies like anti-vaxx culture or COVID-19 skepticism—this would be an uncharitable reading of my essay which I do NOT support. Instead, my claims against NYU’s policies are meant to point to inconsistencies and shortcomings within an admired institution of which I am a part, and I hope to remind the reader that billion-dollar institutions perhaps don’t always have our best interests at heart. While it seems obvious that NYU’s COVID-19 policies have caused harm to the NYU student body, it doesn’t seem they have, as of recently, promoted any real, tangible benefit.

 

The guest policy changed September 13, 2022 and was praised by the NYU community. This was amazing news! Or was it? The changes, prima facie, were excellent, allowing members outside of the NYU community to finally come on campus to visit after several years of being forbidden. This meant family and friends were finally allowed to reconnect with their NYU-affiliated loved ones, bringing a true, broader community back to the university. However, not everything was as it appeared. Only those who were fully vaccinated with a booster shot were allowed, comparatively speaking, “easy” access. I say “easy” because the individual who was fully vaccinated and boosted still had to be ‘sponsored’ by their host, had to wait to get electronically approved by NYU personnel, had to submit proof of their vaccination, had to get their proof of vaccination approved by more NYU personnel, and then, once completely approved to be on campus, had to complete a Violet Go form for each day they would be staying on campus. This unnecessarily meticulous process was not a way to protect the community, but a way for NYU to slowly transition from their previous policy of ‘NO OUTSIDE VISITORS’ to ‘SOME OUTSIDE VISITORS.’

However, there is evidence that it caused harm. One NYU senior, who would like to remain anonymous, said that his time spent in isolation caused “a serious depression” which he didn’t feel he had the proper support to handle. He said, “a couple trips to NYU’s Wellness Center are not enough to help, and I know that visits from friends and family would.” Another NYU student, a freshman who would also like to remain anonymous, said that her family was under the impression that NYU was “looking down on them” for their personal choices. She said her parents weren’t vaccinated because of the lack of information about the vaccine in her home country, though she said her parents do support others who wish to get it. She said, “I understand it’s unpopular that some people wish to not be vaccinated, however, we don’t ask people about the status of their other vaccinations regularly. And it would have been really nice to have my mother visit me at my dorm, especially when I was struggling to transition earlier in the semester.” Furthermore, personally, being the partner of an individual with a congenital heart condition who is not able to receive the booster shot due to doctor’s orders, I felt shocked by NYU’s total disregard of people struggling under various special conditions and circumstances.

However, perhaps you are getting the intuition that NYU’s protocol was completely fine––maybe a bit of a bother, but not totally ridiculous. After all, all of the people mentioned above technically were allowed into NYU facilities following the September 13 rule change (albeit with increased difficulty). Therefore, one could rightly say, we had been in a global pandemic for two years, and campus safety could only naturally increase after that. I will allow this contention for now, hoping that by presenting more information on NYU’s September 13 policies, NYU’s inconsistencies will start to become more apparent and even a bit foolish in their futility.

Visitors who were not fully vaccinated or boosted were meant to gain campus access approval. If you were fully vaccinated but not boosted, or not vaccinated at all, you still had to be ‘sponsored’ by your resident and approved to visit by NYU personnel, however, this next step is where it differs. The not-fully-vaccinated individual would then have to fill out a form claiming their reason for being unvaccinated or unboosted was because of 1) religious reasons or 2) medical reasons. There was no option listed for those who decided not to, based on their prerogative, indicating subliminally, though blatantly, that these people were not welcome on NYU campuses. Therefore, the unvaccinated or unboosted person would select from these two options and then be prompted to submit a PCR test for every two days that they were on campus. (For the uninsured, this would cost $600 for a week.) The PCR tests had to then be approved by NYU personnel. Once the PCR was approved, Violet Go forms would have to be filled out for each day the unvaccinated or unboosted visitor’s access was granted.

You may be wondering…why does this matter? Well, how many of your partially vaccinated or unboosted friends or family members would be willing to go through all of this for a weekend visit? How many uninsured people do you know that would be willing to pay anywhere from $150-$600 to get PCR tests on their brief vacation to New York? The policy is lousy in practice, a way to feign progress without really putting any progress into place. In other words, NYU chose marginal benefit over preventing the obvious, ongoing harm of the NYU community. Ultimately, the policy seems to be a way to get people who are not fully vaccinated off their campuses.

Furthermore, the residual effect of the policies was the air of constant surveillance and scrutiny created between different figures of power in NYU buildings and residence halls. The guards had to bear the brunt of these absurd policies by questioning and bothering people for various signatures, IDs, and proofs of vaccination. One girl in my residence hall even complained that a guard allowed her and her guest inside the dorm at around midnight, and then banged on her door at 3:00 a.m., waking them both up, because he forgot to grab the guest’s ID. However, a different guard, who would rather remain anonymous, said the man was just doing his job because “NYU is quick to hire, but quicker to fire.” Then there are the guards who monitor building access, who are required to check for both our Violet Go pass and our NYU ID, often forced to confront people who simply forgot. RAs, too, had to take on the brunt of these policies, reporting rule violations even by residents who had snuck in a friend for a semblance of well-being or lied about their parent’s vaccination status so they could have some company. I do sympathize greatly with the students who have felt so isolated these past years in the NYU residence halls, who had always complied with the rules––that is, until they became absurdly exacerbated in duration and measure that students felt they had no choice but to circumvent restrictions. No one wants to break the rules, but mental health and socialization are human needs that should be treated with care and taken very seriously. NYU failed to do that, and so I find dissent acceptable, even admirable, in these specific cases. After all, in light of recent residence hall break-ins that have left students frightened and frustrated, the administration’s purported commitment to student safety veers toward a facade.

 

The bottom line is that if you are an NYU resident or student and any of your friends, family, or loved ones are international, single, living below the poverty line, did not receive a college education, are “non-white”, and/or have serious health conditions such as being immunocompromised, there is a higher chance that you know someone who is not vaccinated, partially vaccinated, or does not have the booster, making them, as of the September 13 policy, largely unwanted on campus. NYU seems to have conveniently forgotten that only 34 percent of the US population is fully vaccinated with at least one booster shot. Therefore, if people like this aren’t efficiently able to visit NYU dorms and campus for the safety of the greater NYU community, it would seem that, by NYU’s logic, all students and visitors should be regularly PCR tested, students and faculty should only leave their rooms unless for necessary reasons, vaccination status should be a preliminary step in engaging with anyone in public, and we should not be able to travel home for the holidays without PCR testing our family.

It is quite clear that NYU won’t implement these rules today, nor do I think they should, because though these practices may be ideal to prevent COVID, they are no longer practical, especially since NYU faculty and students have been required to be fully vaccinated with at least one booster shot. We have put in the work as a community, received our vaccines and booster shots, worn masks for two years, isolated, quarantined, attended digital classes, struggled mentally, encouraged our loved ones to get their shots. It is time to abandon unnecessary, meticulous policies that work against people within the NYU community. After all, only about forty percent of people in NYC have at least one booster shot , and the other sixty percent should not be designated as ignorant nor unworthy.

But wait! Didn’t NYU change their guest policy once again on October 24? The updated guest policy is: 1) all residents still must sponsor their guests and 2) no proof of vaccination is required to be submitted, and it will not be checked, but it is still required by all guests. In other words, ‘it is okay if you visit without being vaccinated, but we will say that it isn’t in order to virtue signal.’ After all, what has changed from September 13 to October 24? In New York City, the average number of new COVID cases per week was calculated at 1,981 on September 12 before rising to 2,110 on October 24. It seems to be safe to assume that the increase in cases didn’t provoke NYU’s revised and more lenient guest policy. Instead, it seems appropriate to assume that NYU decided enough time had passed by to ease up another restriction. Care is merely a tangential piece in the university’s mission to appear a certain way, to avoid being called hypocrites for enacting COVID-19 guest policies that caused more suffering than good in their prolonged duration. Therefore, NYU cannot simply undo the mess they made: they have to stick by it, like a stubborn child who refuses to admit fault. Moreover, it is interesting how now, after Thanksgiving, the average number of COVID cases per week in NYC are at about 2,700. No new protocols have been called into place, indicating to me once again the absurdity of NYU’s policies that, these past six months, seem to change on a whim, whenever it might benefit the university’s image.

All NYU students, residents, and guests alike deserve a certain liberty that reflects and honors the present. We are not in the thick of COVID-19, thankfully. We should continue washing our hands, wearing masks when it is necessary, and social distancing if it is appropriate, but menial policies and Violet Go checks seem to have done little more than systematize the university’s facade of moral action. I therefore encourage you to ponder when you could walk into Bobst and scan your card and go without being chased by a guard, or when NYU personnel didn’t treat you like elementary schoolers going to the bathroom, or when there was a sense of community at NYU? I’m a senior now, so many of you may not remember this. However, this was a reality at one point, and it would be great if it could be again. We deserve it. And NYU, the multibillion-dollar institution that it is, should envision itself in the image of its previous policies, if they really ‘care.’ Or, at least should show some tangible data that defends their policies as anything more than bureautic, isolating, and largely ineffective.

 

By Jaylin Figueroa

Within culinary culture, it is the norm to be ridiculed, insulted, and to be told to “do it right or do it twice.” This is a phrase I’ve heard countless times within my experience working within fine dining. The system commonly used in fine dining kitchens, the brigade system, ensures that the kitchen runs smoothly while defining the roles of kitchen staff. This structure is defined by discipline and obedience to create perfect dishes. Although this workplace creates an environment that may run at peak efficiency, it comes at a cost to the minds of the chefs creating the dishes. Created in the midst of popular shows, such as The Bear, depicting chefs’ pursuit of success comes The Menu and its depictions of what happens post-success.

The comedy horror film, The Menu, brings the fictional restaurant Hawthorn to life by showing this painstaking, grueling work that lies within the fine-dining industry. The movie’s main message is that chefs devote much of their personal lives in vain to make a restaurant run because, despite some recognition, the lack of respect following these chefs throughout the industry makes their sacrifice worthless, due to the patrons’ lack of concern for the skill and more for the appearance of dining out in an exclusive restaurant. Hawthorn, presented as one of those restaurants for which it is nearly impossible to get a reservation, serves a menu totaling up to $1,250 per person. The restaurant resides on a small desolate island only accessible by boat. For the restaurant to run, kitchen staff have given up their personal lives entirely for their careers, as they live on the island, waking up each morning at 6 a.m. to start prep, and working tirelessly until past midnight. This includes gathering crops and slaughtering animals, as everything is cultivated on the island, in addition to getting all sauces, garnishes, and proteins ready for service.

Ralph Fiennes plays executive chef Julian Slowik, the renowned chef of Hawthorn, with a particularly special menu this night. The menu has been thoughtfully planned out, as have tonight’s guests, each hand picked after months of research by the staff and chef. The guests of the evening include Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), a passionate foodie with a keen palate able to detect the smallest ingredient and an extensive knowledge of specific preparations techniques. Margot Mills (Anna Taylor Joy), the film’s heroine, accompanies Tyler on the night of the event, albeit unknown by all the staff as her place at the table was a last minute change. The remainder of the guests include finance bros who care more about the prestige of the restaurant rather than the food; a snobby food critic and her editor, who both had a part in Chef Julian’s success; an older couple who are regulars but can’t name one dish that they have tried; and a movie star no longer in his glory days accompanied by his assistant. By the end of the film the lives of patrons and restaurant employees will become intertwined in Chef Julian’s final act of lost passion, as the menu, guests, and staff culminate in a fiery confrontation.

The Menu succeeds in depictions of beautiful creations, both as an artistic statement and physical manifestation. Ranging from the physically beautiful such as a scallop-like protein rested on a rock, with garnished leaves and plants, to the more conceptual “breadless” bread course featuring only simple bread dips. The rationale the chef provides for withholding the main part from the course, only displaying sauces that would be placed on the bread, is that this was a food historically eaten by peasants. Based on the large price each diner is paying for their dinner, the people dining within the restaurant would be considered upper class. Therefore, they deserve better class than what would have been fed to the lower class in the past. Food transcends its physical components to embody a chef’s creative vision. To create these beautiful, thought-provoking dishes, the directors of the movie relied on actual experience. They consulted chef Dominique Crenn, owner of the Michelin three-star restaurant Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, to devise the dishes portrayed. In addition, they worked with David Gelb, director of Netflix show Chef Table, to incorporate his videography expertise in capturing these elegant dishes on film. This creates a film that is true to the reality of fine-dining food in plating, flavor, and presentation.

Within the menu that Chef Julian presents to the guests is a problem within the restaurant industry for the already established, specifically fine-dining restaurants, where chefs are not valued for the craftsmanship and the art that they bring to guests. The workdays consist of grueling long days (12 to 18 hours) that focus on creating novel combinations of ingredients and beautifully plated dishes. Chef Julian asserts his frustration with having achieved the recognition of a superb chef, yet not receiving the respect he assumed would accompany it. This disrespect is felt within the dining room as we watch an audacious food critic be served food and rudely display her discontent, despite being invited as a personal guest of Chef Julian to take part in this priceless experience. Before even tasting the scallop course, she yelps in disgust, loud enough for all the staff to hear, crying out that the dish is “tweezered to hell” and other insolent remarks throughout the beginning courses. A later example of this disrespect is told by Chef Julian, angry that his investor, when dining on past nights, had demanded substitutions for proteins and ingredients within the dishes. By asking a chef to change aspects of his dish, it takes away from the original way the dish was created and meant to be enjoyed. In many fine dining Michelin-starred restaurants, this is not allowed; tasting menus are not meant to be changed to cater to the taste of the diners, it is meant to be enjoyed the way the chef intends.

Despite the compelling depiction of artistic compromise, the dialogue often fails to match the severity of the message. In some moments it sounds comical, as it doesn’t accurately capture how people speak, causing the audience to burst into laughter. However, this inaccurate dialogue sometimes seems too forced, and confuses rather than amuses. In one instance, as the chef recites a lengthy Martin Luther King quote, the fiance bros dining ask each other, “is he quoting Martin Luther King?” Even for the use of comedy, the quote from a Black civil rights leader doesn’t really feel right; it’s humorous but misplaced within the context of this movie. The failure to achieve comedy also detracts from the dialogue’s attempts to convey horror. In instances when the chefs are told to begin plating by Chef Julian, they scream out “yes, Chef” in eerie unison. This behavior continues throughout each course, showing the dominance and control that Chef Julian has within the kitchen. With each clap progressing through the dining room, the act becomes frightening as the chefs continue to fall back in line and do as Chef Julian says. As chilling as this loss of autonomy appears, the failed attempts at comedy throughout the film ruin any attempt to establish an air of malaise. 

Aside from dialogue that fails to promote the movie as distinctly a horror or comedy film, The Menu is worthy of being watched for offering a underrepresented view of restaurant culture. In an industry that is highly stressful, with agonizing work that allows for little personal time, this is all endured in order to share the joy of food with delicious dishes that excite and leave a lasting impact. The Menu has one main point: you will give your blood, sweat, and tears to this profession, all the while having the job be made harder by not being valued for the work that you put in, both by those who are mentoring you in the kitchen and those who you are serving. As the film is not one with traditional elements of horror and is more satirical in nature, the real horror within this film is the grim reality that this work leaves many with a sense of isolation even when given the utmost recognition. The Menu epitomizes the essence of horror as confronting the unknown. Through a depiction of what happens after success, the endings of most restaurant filmography, we are forced to confront the depressingly funny limitations and concessions of following our dreams.

By Khadijah Iqbal

“Borges and I” Short Story

“Borges and I” by Jorge Luis Borges is a short story that examines the difference of self and persona. The idea of self is who we see ourselves as a person; our inner likings and dislikes are hidden because they are for only  us to know. The idea of persona is who others see us as; our likes and dislikes in the persona we exhibit are put on display to be criticized and examined. As the story progresses, the narrator goes through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But what is the narrator grieving? The narrator is grieving the control he no longer has. When reading “Borges and I”, Borges is presented as a character that the narrator is speaking about. Borges, in this short story, is displayed as the antagonist, and the narrator acts as the protagonist. Borges is the persona in this case, and the narrator is his true self. Before publishing, the narrator was writing as himself. He chooses to express what he felt the need to express and was writing because this is what he believed was important. Now published, he took on the name Borges. Everyone who read his work created this fantastical image of who the narrator was and put him under the tent of “Borges”. As his fame grew, the narrator was now writing for the image that Borges portrayed, not necessarily what the narrator felt was his own self. When you are writing, you are in full control of what you put on a page, whether that be as a diary entry or published work. When you are writing for the readers, you are no longer in control, but the readers are instead. The narrator is grieving his loss of control in this short story. 

The first stage when grieving is denial, as the person grieving does not want to accept his or her reality. The narrator speaks of Borges as a secondary character. He does not want to be thinking of Borges as himself and so he disassociates from Borges, writing of him as if it is someone else: “I know of Borges from the mail…” (Borges 1). This idea of him not seeing Borges as himself is his way of refusing what is now his reality. Denial is the narrator’s first push back in this short story. If you were to read this short story with no knowledge of who was writing it, you would assume that Borges is someone the author is a fan of or is maybe stalking. “And see his name on a list of professors or in a biographical dictionary” (Borges 1): the narrator explains Borges in a professional manner. There are no emotions as the narrator writes this. It is  known that the narrator knows of Borges and that he is someone that the narrator sees a lot of in his life. As the reader, this information tells me of the two characters we are going to be dealing with in this short story. Borges as the first figure, and the narrator as the second figure watching Borges. This sets the scene for this short story as calm, as the narrator has control of his life. But if the line were re-read and dissected further, the question of why someone named Borges appears in the narrator’s mail appears. Is this in a magazine that the narrator is seeing Borges in? Are Borges and the narrator writing to each other through mail? Is the mail that the narrator sees Borges name on Borges’ mail? These questions plague the reader into thinking there is more to this story than the narrator has written. 

The second stage of grieving is anger, which is when the person grieving realizes that denying the reality in front of them is no longer working, which then causes animosity to fester. When the narrator was in denial of the control he no longer has, the emotion that the narrator emitted into his writing was passive. As the narrator continues, his tone and emotion in which he writes becomes more aggressive. The narrator still speaks of Borges as another character instead of a character within himself, so the readers are still believing that Borges is someone else. “It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship” (Borges 1): the narrator uses words like “exaggeration” and “hostile”. His word choice automatically allows a different train of thought. When describing a positive relationship, one would not use a word like hostile. Using negative words or words with a harsher sentiment, the connotation is that there is a reason for those words. If I felt great affection for someone, I would say “I love you”, not “I don’t hate you.” But saying you don’t hate someone doesn’t mean loving them either. You could still dislike them or be frustrated with them or feel an indefinite number of emotions towards them. The narrator in this case uses the word hostile, but says that it would be an “exaggeration” to say that. This feels sarcastic but a tad harsher, and the tone now takes a turn from a calmer setting to one with more negative emotions. The narrator now expresses his unfavorable opinion towards Borges, which differs from when Borges is first introduced. This shows that the narrator is starting to see his control slip away. 

The third stage of grieving is bargaining, and it is when the person grieving starts to realize that feeling anger is no longer working, so they consider a compromise to accept the reality they are now in. The narrator changes his tone to be more docile. He is understanding that he can no longer deny Borges’ presence, nor can he be angry with it. “It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the language and to tradition” (Borges 1). The narrator knows that he is losing control in his writing and that Borges is the man getting the credit and control. So, what does the narrator do? He says that if he cannot have his writing belong to him, then no longer can Borges. The narrator now states that the good of Borges’ writing or his own belongs to neither of them, but to writing and literature itself. The narrator continues and states, “and only some instant of myself can survive in him” (Borges 1). This concludes that he is no longer in denial of Borges or his role in the narrator’s life, but instead stating that if Borges is true, then a part of who he is lives in Borges—but neither parts of Borges nor the narrator is in control. This bargaining technique the narrator uses is not one of acceptance but is one where he is trying to regain some control over his reality now. 

The fourth stage of grieving is depression, where the person is now trying to accept their new reality but only feels negatively about it. They now feel as if there is no point in trying or going on because their reality is too hard for them to be content with. The narrator starts to feel that his life and his work is no longer his own. He feels that who he sees as himself is no longer in his work, and instead his work is the making of his persona. The narrator states, “but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others” (Borges 1). The narrator’s tone has turned a lot more dejected. The work that the narrator is writing feels as it is not his true self, but as the Borges that his readers portray him to be. He reads his work and thinks he is adding more for the persona that is Borges, but not what he himself in full control of his writing would write. The narrator states that when he was feeling less sorrow for his loss of control, he tried other forms of writing that didn’t fall under the tent that is Borges. “I tried to free myself from him … but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things” (Borges 1). The narrator tries to dissociate from Borges one last time, and it doesn’t work. The narrator at this point is feeling desperation for not wanting to admit loss of control to Borges seep through. No matter what the narrator tries, his persona still takes the narrator’s work for himself. This causes the narrator to reach the point of acceptance. 

The final stage of grief is acceptance, the moment when the person who is grieving finally concludes that there is nothing that they can do now to change their reality, therefore it is time to accept the reality for what it is. The narrator ends his short story by stating, “I do not know which of us has written this page” (Borges 1). The narrator is seeing that no matter what he does, Borges is a part of who he is. The tone of the ending of this short story is finality. The narrator, after going through the previous four stages, understands that this is his new reality. The idea of self and persona is one which we all suffer through. Are we writing or doing something in service of how someone else may perceive us? Or are we writing or doing something because we wholeheartedly feel whatever we are doing is because we want to? The narrator may have started to write for himself but at some point, whether that be when he published or showed others his work, he started to write for what his readers saw him as. This is not showing that he has a split personality, but rather questioning the idea of whether the narrator is still writing for himself or others. “Borges” is the tent his readers put the narrator in. Therefore, either Borges or the narrator could have written this short story. The narrator accepts that he is no longer in control of his writing, but his readers are. The short story asks us to question whether what we do or what we write is for ourselves or for others. Who are we serving? And who is in control? Those questions vary answers for different situations but are questions that come up in daily life more times than we realize. Are we in control or are we stuck in an illusion of control? 

 

By James Freyland 

The formulaic can be compelling and reassuring in its promise of sameness. Millions of fans of specific genres can attest to the comfort of convention, relying on societally agreed-upon rules to guarantee particular outcomes. The Supreme Court is no different, as judicial philosophies result in predictable outcomes bound by precedent, history, and constitutional text. Liberal loose constructionists will interpret the Constitution as a document reflecting current values. In contrast, conservative strict constructionists will interpret the Constitution as a document reflecting the period it was written.

 In an extremely shocking 2022 term, the six conservative members of the Court seemed to depart from their judicial philosophy, rendering decisions premised on breaking precedent, misrepresenting history, and reinterpreting constitutional text. It appeared that nothing was safe as Native sovereignty (Oklahoma v. Castro-Huestra), executive power (West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor), separation of Church and State (Kennedy v. Bremerton School District and Carson v. Makin), and public safety (New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen) were significantly curtailed. The culmination of this assault on tradition was the showstopper Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court case overturning Roe v. Wade and sending the issue of abortion back to the states. Many sounded the death knell for our democracy as the judiciary embraced novelty to enable states to deprive their citizens of constitutional rights. This is incorrect. The death knell for democracy had already been sounded three years earlier in Rucho v Common Cause as an inept Supreme Court previewed their newfound approach to judging and condemning us to death by partisan rancor. 

Rucho v. Common Cause challenges the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandered congressional maps. Consisting of an amalgamation of two cases, one challenging North Carolina’s Republican-drawn congressional map and another challenging Maryland’s Democratic-drawn congressional map, the focus was on how maps drawn by political parties produce electoral results resistant to the national environment and partisan lean of the state. The discrepancy was especially stark in North Carolina and Maryland, as 53% of the statewide congressional vote for Republicans in the former and 60% of the statewide congressional vote for Democrats in the latter resulted in a 10-3 delegation favoring Republicans and a 7-1 delegation favoring Democrats in 2016, respectively. These results held throughout the decade, as wave elections for Republicans in 2014 and Democrats in 2018 were insufficient to dislodge even a single member from gerrymandered seats. Unsurprisingly, the liberal and conservative members of the Court agree that partisan gerrymandering is synonymous with diluting votes, ensuring one party’s vote will always be worth less in a particular congressional district. Both wings of the Court even agreed that partisan gerrymandering is “incompatible with democratic principles.” Yet, the conservative majority vacated the District Courts’ rulings in North Carolina and Maryland for lack of jurisdiction, once again refusing to fix the greatest threat to the notion of America being a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” 

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts stresses that a refusal to involve the federal judiciary in such cases “does not condone excessive partisan gerrymandering.” His analysis does not reflect an apparent sympathy for being unable to do what is right. Instead, it expresses profound ignorance of the reality of American politics and apathy for flagrant Constitutional violations. Point by point, Roberts rejects acknowledging present circumstances, basing his decision on misrepresenting history. This theme is reflected in his most tenuous claims: that there is no “limited and precise standard that is judicially discernible and manageable” to render partisan gerrymandering judiciable, the “dissent seek[s] an unprecedented expansion of judicial power,” and “experience proves that accurately predicting electoral outcomes is not so simple.” Wrapped in legalese, these lies appear plausible. However, a closer look reveals these justifications for what they are, mere excuses for disregarding the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection from “any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” 

  To dispel these noxious justifications, let’s dig a little further. One of the cases cited by Roberts is Baker v. Carr, where the Supreme Court overturned years of precedent by ruling that districts must have equal population and clarified what makes something judiciable. Remiss in Roberts’ quoting of this case is context. Disparities in congressional districts’ populations were once deemed a political issue rather than a judiciable one. Baker rejected that claim without developing a standard of how much deviation was unconstitutional. To cite Roberts himself, “fairness does not seem … a judicially manageable standard.” Clearly, this is not true, as the standard developed post-Baker holds to this day, regardless of whether or not people think less than 10% population deviation between congressional districts is a fair amount of discrepancy. The onus is on the Supreme Court to provide a standard it deems fair to judge these cases, not on individual notions of fairness. The dissent notes that advances in mapping technology and data enable states to randomly generate maps “that incorporate the State’s physical and political geography and meet its declared districting criteria, except for partisan gain.” It is simple to say that a state must randomly generate a hundred such maps, line them up on “a continuum—the most favorable to Republicans on one end, the most favorable to Democrats on the other,” and then adopt a map from the 10 in the center of the continuum. A lack of desire does not mean a lack of capability, a lesson the Court would do well to learn. 

In her confirmation hearing, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett identified Brown v Board of Education, the court case ending segregation in schools, as an instance of super precedent, a case “so well settled that no political actors and no people seriously push for their overruling.” Yet, Barrett’s admiration disparages the memory of a Court committed to fixing a great wrong regardless of the expansion of judicial power necessary to achieve their ends. Contrary to how she casts it, Brown was controversial. It encountered massive resistance throughout the South, with governments enacting drastic measures to prevent its realization. Necessarily, the Court expanded the power of District Courts to ensure they could properly compel integration. Is the suggestion that this “unprecedented expansion of judicial power” was unjustified? If it is not unjustified, then instances of great Constitutional wrong enable the Court to respond accordingly, whether in breaking precedent or expanding the power of the judiciary.  The parallels between Brown and Rucho are significant, as both challenged prior precedent, claimed Fourteenth Amendment violations, and hoped to protect fundamental rights. Instead of viewing Brown as an inspiration in settling Rucho and justifying judicial intervention in partisan gerrymandering, the Court mythologizes Brown through depictions of  judicial decisions taking instantly to society. In truth, it’s the other way around. Brown showed that ensuring equality was the Court’s top concern, catalyzing the civil rights movement and spurring legislation cementing its decision. Rucho will never get the chance to become a super precedent because the Court’s priorities have changed. Equality is no longer a priority for the current Court. 

Far from condemning “complaints about districting to echo into a void,” the majority attempts to assuage concerns with the promise of electoral unpredictability. Even the most vicious gerrymanders can succumb to rapid demographic change, especially as the parties adapt to the reality of increasing educational polarization remaking traditional voting coalitions. Where change is not quick enough to overcome a gerrymander, states can actively address “the issue on a number of fronts,” such as amending their constitutions or challenging the maps in state courts. Casting an illusion of unpredictability enables Roberts to distract from the one predictable constant in these circumstances, political agents working to insulate themselves from the people’s will. The reality, of course, is anything but unpredictable. When a gerrymander fails, a new decade allows the party in power to redraw lost seats, claim new ones, and shore up any that had become competitive. When the people vote to amend their constitutions, legislatures can slow enactment or edit the wording in direct opposition to the people’s will. When state courts issue rulings, legislatures can ignore directives or changes in their members can overturn prior decisions. In the epitome of irony, Roberts lauds the Fair Districts Amendment passed by Florida voters in 2010 for rendering gerrymandering claims judiciable. The amendment survived numerous challenges in the Florida Supreme Court and won drawn-out legal battles over a gerrymandered map imposed after the amendment passed. Years of dispute resulted in a fair map in 2015 and another round of challenges in 2020. Florida’s current governor steamrolled a bipartisan map created by Republican legislators, threatened them into passing his own heavily gerrymandered map, delayed signing the map into law to prevent a challenge before the map’s use in the 2022 elections, and appointed four conservative judges hostile to the amendment’s existence. In the face of the people’s will and written law, the map performed precisely as intended, turning a 15-12 map in favor of Republicans into a lopsided 20-8 map in their favor, despite Florida only voting for Trump by 3.4 points. Perhaps history can predict the future, if only we look for patterns rather than outliers. 

After a lengthy objection to the majority’s opinion, Justice Elena Kagan concludes by saying, “with respect but deep sadness, I dissent.” In the three years since Rucho was decided, one can only guess whether Kagan still feels the Court warrants respect. Fortunately, the public is much more overt in its disdain for the Court. Case after case resulting in broken precedents and novel interpretations of the Constitution destroy any pretense of the Court’s legitimacy, a pattern with no end in sight. Not even a precedent set by the very same conservative wing in Rucho, excluding Justice Barrett, who joined after the case was decided, appears safe from hypocrisy. A state Supreme Court’s ability to hold gerrymandered maps accountable to their state’s constitution, as allowed by the majority in Rucho, is currently being questioned by the court in Moore v. Harper. Despite the possible dangers of further insulating state legislatures from accountability, Moore offers Roberts the opportunity to add to the 18 “[annoying] unanswerable questions” he flings at the dissent in Rucho. Hopefully, he will ask questions the public wants the answers to this time around. Is the Court legitimate when three of its members were appointed by a president who lost the popular vote? How about when four are confirmed by senators representing less than half of the population? Why can the First and Second Amendment be given an expansive new reading but not the Fourteenth? Is homosexuality still equatable to “incest, prostitution, … bestiality, and obscenity”? Are you sure “the government cannot bestow dignity”? How can you support the democratic process while destroying people’s political power? For all its impracticality, maybe Roberts is onto something.  In all this questioning, it’s easy to forget that our democracy’s on fire.

 

By Destini Baylis Adams

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me” is one of the most iconic lines from Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre,” reflecting her novel’s capability to transcend time and find salience even in the 21st century. It is a novel that remains popular even though society today differs greatly from how Brontë’s society lived in the Victorian era. Published in 1847, the novel was the first to make the protagonist’s moral and spiritual development a focal point by using first-person narration. While widely read by scholars and the general public, it is often argued that many plot elements should be interpreted through a Victorian lens. Society has progressed far beyond the Victorian England mindset on matters such as race, class, religion, and feminism, which the novel explores. Still, audiences willingly read “Jane Eyre” and help maintain its timeless status when other popular Victorian novels are not as widely read. “Jane Eyre”’s popularity to audiences in the twenty-first century is because though things have changed, there are still elements of the past present in the book that speak to modern sensibilities. 

“Jane Eyre” follows the titular character’s journey. The novel opens with Jane’s unhappy childhood at Gates Hall. Her aunt, Mrs. Sarah Reed, reluctantly adopted Jane because of her late husband’s wishes. Jane is physically and emotionally abused by her aunt and her cousins: Eliza, Georgiana, and, most intensely, by John Reed. Jane is vocal about her troubles to Mr. Brocklehurst, a clergyman, director, and treasurer of Lowood Institution, a school for poor orphaned girls. She is offered the opportunity to be educated at Lowood Institution. Eventually, the education she gets helps her become employed at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with, and eventually marries, Edward Fairfax Rochester. 

Trauma and its effects are a modern thread readers can link to this novel.  In the novel’s first chapter, Jane is sitting in a window seat reading Bewick’s “History of English Birds” when John, her cousin, tortures her and aggressively reminds her of her low position at Gateshead Hall. “Take her to the red-room and lock her in there,” Mrs. Reed says when she sees the two fighting. Yet, Mrs. Reed doesn’t understand the situation’s full context. She was punishing Jane for acting in self-defense when John instigated the fight. This is the first instance of the family dynamics in Gateshead Hall and a look into Jane’s trauma. By sending Jane to the red-room, Mrs. Reed shows that she doesn’t care about Jane’s emotional well-being. For one night, Jane is locked in the chamber where her uncle, Mr. Reed, died nine years before the novel’s events. She faints after thinking that she sees his ghost. When Jane narrates her punishment, she says, “no severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-room.” The aforementioned quote reflects her denial because she suffered a “prolonged bodily illness” mentally, but not physically. Jane’s denial reflects how the Victorian period viewed illness because physical health was a priority, yet mental health wasn’t. In some ways, denial regarding mental health is also seen today, but there is more of a push for people to start prioritizing their mental and physical health. The novel’s narrative is told after the events have occurred, so when Charlotte Brontë wrote, “…it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to this day,” she described the psychological effects this incident had on Jane. Jane can logically understand that nothing physically was done to wound her when she was sent to the red-room. Yet, the psychological ramifications are present because she ruminates about it after Mrs. Reed and John Reed die and after she marries Mr. Rochester.

Trauma is just one modern element that mirrors today’s world in “Jane Eyre;” there is also a link between age gaps and power dynamics in relationships. When Mr. Rochester and Jane first become engaged in the novel, Mrs. Fairfax says, “Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and there are twenty years of difference in your ages. He might almost be your father.”  This quote is interesting because significant age gaps were not as controversial back then as they are now. By having the elderly housekeeper mention the age difference between the two lovers, “Jane Eyre” is mindful of how those two are not on equal footing. Mr. Rochester is nearly 40 years old, while Jane is 19 years old throughout the plot and near 30 when she writes the autobiography. There are plot points that showcase the differences in their power dynamic. One instance is when Mr. Rochester disguises himself as a gypsy woman and acts as a fortune teller. As he tells Jane her fortune, he slowly reverts to his deep voice. “Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I dream still? The old woman’s voice had changed…,” Jane ponders as she figures out why there was a change in a fortune-teller’s voice. Eventually, “Mr. Rochester stepped out of his disguise.” Jane reproaches him for tricking her when she says, “…you have been talking nonsense to make me talk nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir.” Jane is Mr. Rochester’s intellectual equal, but the tension in their dynamic lies in the fact that he is superior in both the social and economic context. Thus, he can play tricks on Jane and the rest of the staff because of his privileged status, but they can not do the same to him. Jane, however, is shown to be the moral superior of the two lovers when it is revealed that Mr. Rochester is already married to Bertha Mason. She leaves Thornfield Hall and faces homelessness for a short while because of the revelation of his pre-existing marriage at her wedding ceremony.

While the dynamics of Mr. Rochester and Jane, as well as the exploration of trauma, are well explored, there is one element of the novel that is somewhat hypocritical and involves the treatment of Bertha Mason. Bertha is a Creole woman from the West Indies that is locked in a secret room on the third floor at Thornfield Hall and taken care of by Grace Pool. “I would remind you of your lady’s existence, sir which the law recognises, if you do not,” says Mr. Briggs as he helps Bertha’s brother, Richard Mason, prevent Jane and Mr. Rochester’s wedding. There are hints of Bertha’s existence in the second volume, but when Jane inquires about strange instances, she is not told about Bertha. When Jane does learn of Bertha’s existence, she doesn’t seem sympathetic to Bertha’s trauma and pain, even though Bertha’s experience resembles her experiences in the red-room at Gateshead Hall. Instead, Jane listens when Mr. Rochester tells her, “Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an infamous mother, dragged me through all the hideous and degrading agonies which must attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate and unchaste,” and leaves Thornfield Hall. While the pains and voices of women of color were overlooked during the novel’s writing, evidence of “Jane Eyre”’s legacy lies in the fact that later audiences attempted to give a voice to Bertha Mason. The most notable example is the novel “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Dominican-British author Jean Rhys. The novel serves as a prequel to “Jane Eyre.” It thus provides a voice to the ‘madwoman in the attic’ in a way that is authentic because the author of “Wide Sargasso Sea” was a woman of color, providing a voice for Bertha in a way that Charlotte Brontë couldn’t. In the grand scheme of Brontë’s novel, Bertha is a plot device to cause suspense, separate the lovers, and burn down Thornfield Hall. Audiences have invested in Jane as a character and her courtship with Mr. Rochester, so Bertha’s existence is viewed as an inconvenience rather than holistically because she appears very briefly in the novel. The brevity of Bertha’s presence is a part of the reason “Jane Eyre” is still beloved, whether someone has read “Wide Sargasso Sea” or not. Despite the poor depiction of a woman of color in the original source, the already sympathetic Jane is viewed as more likable because she chose to leave Mr. Rochester even though she loves him. His marriage to a creole woman is irrelevant, as Jane reacts to the situation the same way she would if Bertha was white. 

“Jane Eyre” proves that a novel can be timeless even if it doesn’t directly move with the current era. The human condition is explored within the novel, and where the novel falls short, the modern audiences that come after it can fill in the gaps. The relationship between “Jane Eyre” and modern sensibilities can be described as “[c]ircumstances knit themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had been lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight,—every ring was perfect, the connection complete.” There are links in the story that connect with a modern audience, even those that criticize the novel. The criticism adds to the longevity of its existence, resulting in a novel all the better for it.