Jane Eyre

It isn't every book that speaks to both the Wild Romantic and the Stern Puritan in me, and since the day I first read Jane Eyre - up in the woods of Michigan, the summer I was twelve - I have revisited it often, and always with pleasure. It is a book that speaks in many tongues, to many people, and presents many faces to the world, all worth exploring...

Depending on who you speak to, this is the best and truest love story ever written - a narrative of the suffering and endurance of true love; a commentary on the social and economic subjugation of women in 19th-century England; or an oblique exploration of race and empire. It is all of these things, of course, but for me, the power of Jane Eyre stems from its keenly observed and acutely show more realized portrait of the conflict between duty and desire.

From the very first line, when a hidden Jane looks out onto a rain-soaked world, I entered wholly into the psyche of this character. Her desire to love and be loved, so cruelly denied in her childhood, seemed as piercingly real to me as anything I had ever felt in my own life. Lonely Jane, for all the Gothic trappings that surround her, could be the poster child for that "transcendental homelessness" of which Lukács speaks...

So it is, when Jane seems to find a home with Rochester, whose "bad-boy" persona would make any schoolgirl's heart flutter, I could enter with abandon into the almost ecstatic joy of her homecoming, her communion with another soul. Lonely Jane no more...

And when Jane discovers the duplicity of her lover, and the insurmountable ethical obstacles to her happiness, her stern devotion to duty, her almost-desperate recourse to principle, permit her a tremendous (but costly) moral victory. To this day, I cannot read the scenes in which Jane must tear herself away from Rochester, or the following passage, without getting chills:

Still indomitable was the reply--"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad--as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth--so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane--quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot."

After many travails, Jane does find her happy ending (thank goodness), and having triumphed over her own heart, she is rewarded with her heart's desire. But that conflict, between the desire to be happy and the need to do right, is what gives Jane Eyre its peculiar power. It is Jane herself who is the masterpiece. show less

I feel like very few "classics" I read actually can captivate me and hold my interest very well (it's not that it doesn't happen, but it doesn't happen as frequently as I might like). But it did with Jane Eyre; I found myself wanting to read the whole book in a single sitting, which I didn't do but certainly could have if I'd had time.

I'd read what I think must have been an abridged version of this, years ago, and remembered much of it extremely poorly (to the point of even having Jane at Thornfield during the fire, &c.). So I'm glad I reread it, and am delighted to report that the story came to life much more to be this time. I had forgotten how witty and playful Jane and Rochester are with each other much of the time, but also how the show more tension between Jane's strong desire for an equal conflicts with her (at times) somewhat submissive personality. And I certainly didn't recall just how very traumatizing Jane's childhood was ... goodness!

The descriptions of the natural world, particularly at Thornfield, are quite good, and the suspenseful, almost gothic, nature of the mysterious occupant of the third floor are quite spookily drawn, in a good way.

Most enjoyable, even if a bit melodramatic at times. show less

First sentence: There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

Premise/plot: Jane Eyre, our heroine, is an orphan who never in her wildest dreams imagines living happily ever after. Raised by a cruel aunt and taunted by mean-spirited and selfish cousins, she only hopes to escape misery and find contentment--albeit humble. Her adventure--or misadventure--begins after graduating Loward School as she takes the position of governess at Thornfield Hall. There she meets her charming and precocious pupil, Adele, and the brooding Mr. Rochester. The two enjoy each other's company--perhaps because no one else quite understands them. But the two aren't courting--at least not at first. Jane falls for him. But is he falling for her? Could he show more fall for her? Does she want him to reciprocate her feelings? Could the master of the house and a governess ever marry and live happily ever after?! But it isn't just social class dividing these two--Mr. Rochester has a dark secret from his past that might prove a dangerous obstacle for our loving couple.

My thoughts: I love this book. I do. I absolutely love it. It is one of my favorite books to reread every other year or so.

Quotes:

How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought!

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies;

A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play;

“Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now.” “Yes, sir, yes; and my arm.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home.”

“I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and best earthly companion.”

“My bride is here,” he said, again drawing me to him, “because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?”

Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy tale—a day-dream.

Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.

Reader, I married him. show less

I’d never read this before, and didn’t know the story either, though the name of Mr. Rochester was familiar. I can see why it’s a classic; highly readable, with drama and mystery and moral crises as Jane Eyre matures and makes her way in the world, insisting on integrity. There is rather a lot of speechifying and thoughtifying to this effect, which seems more didactic articulation than realistic person emerging from difficult circumstances, but still she’s more than enough human, with vulnerabilities if not exactly flaws, for a reader to care about her welfare. Mr. Rochester is a handful, irresponsible and deceitful and manipulative, but dynamic and complex, and despite the numerous red flags (the most offputting his treatment show more of the disowned child (and I’m not sure what to think about the crazy wife in the attic, who serves as mystery, obstacle, and route to redemption)) one can see why he might be preferable, in this limited world, to St. John Rivers, who stultifyingly one-ups her in the moral core department. I was hoping for door #3.

(read 11 Oct 2013) show less

This was the third time I’ve read this book, and I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it just as much as the first time I read it for school! It’s well and truly my favorite classic, and I’m sure this won’t be the last time I read this book.

It’s a fascinating character study; I love the deep dive we get into Jane’s perspective on life, as well as getting to know Mr. Rochester’s strengths, weaknesses, and an idea of what drives him.

This is also a very atmospheric novel…there’s nothing quite like the almost-dismal surroundings Jane finds herself in, and the kind of people she comes across in those places.

This is a deep story, and it’s got slow pacing, which makes it easy to put down, but it’s well worth persevering with show more (thankfully, the further you go in the book, the more gripping it gets). The way this book wraps up is quite possibly my favorite ending ever! Read it for the characters and the setting, and the story will grip you, too. Highly recommended! show less

The book is always better.

Finally, I read the novel! The years of watching film adaptations on lazy Sunday afternoons had been mere wispy entertainments, complete with a Victorian tea set of tropes. Mistreated orphaned relative? Check. Abused Dickensian school waif? Check. Self-sacrificing do-gooder? Check. And, last but not least, an innocent governess in love with a Byronian rake? Check!

But in the novel, along with those campy tropes and plot devices, there is firmly something more: the immediacy of being taken into the confidence of a contemplative, soft-spoken person. It's like listening to a friend telling you for the first time her life story while you each gaze into a roaring fire. She's lost in her nostalgia, recalling when show more things were different, when she was different.

There's no rush. You become lost too, mesmerized, listening.

Even sitting here in my 21st century sensibility armchair, alone and far removed from Jane's time, her story is immersive, compelling. I systematically let go of my retro judgements and postmodern fatigue. Reading bonded me with the novel like one bonds with a friend, slowly, then fully. I grew to care sincerely that this little person once was young, sensitive, and suffered.

I filled pages in my reading journal. So many thoughts. That was unexpected.

My observations weren't just how impossibly hard historically it has been for women. My thoughts were about power, who has it and who doesn't, about manipulation and how it can be warped as superior wisdom, how perilous it is to navigate a world where those pitfalls abound. In too many ways, the world of 1847 is not so distant from the world of 2024 as one might think it would be. The world yet remains difficult and oppressive, and not only to women.

By the end of my purposefully slow reading, I was heartily ready for the reward of a happy ending for Jane, for her humility and forbearance. Half consciously I was rooting also for the living others with whom I currently share this world and wishing a happy ending to their struggles too.

Jane Eyre, or rather Charlotte Bronte, is a friend to me now.

I want to tell her that she deserved so much better than her often dreary life, beset by limitations, worries, heartbreak, and that life then cut far short of richer fulfilments. I wish I could thank Bronte for her genius and her fortitude. I wish that she could know that, through her trope-ridden Gothic of plain Jane, she got something she well deserved:

She got immortality.

How about that for a trite happy ending.

P.S. I have this wonderful illustrated edition from which I read this classic.
https://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=16 show less

Jane Eyre is often considered ahead of its time for the strong female protagonist, and I agree with that assessment. Jane makes choices for herself and demands to be treated fairly in early-mid 19th century England. I loved the intimacy of the first person perspective this novel brought, and the prose to describe her feelings was beautiful. The plot itself is likewise amazing, and I can only imagine how readers in the 19th century reacted to the plot twist in volume 2. I think there are a lot of important and interesting themes that this book offers, and it can be analyzed in so many ways. The only thing that keeps it from beinh a full 5 stars for me is that it is not always well paced for a modern audience. There were a few areas I show more belived could be trimmed. For example, Did her childhood need to be 120ish pages? Did we need 2 chapters of her rejecting St John?) Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to someone. show less