Jane Eyre

I've always thought that the Brontë sisters, namely Anne, Emily and Charlotte, were messed up. I was, perhaps wrong at the time, but it was soon after I read Emily's Wuthering Heights that I came to this conclusion. I think anyone would have done the same! I digress. I read an abridged version of Jane Eyre, Charlotte's masterpiece, for a long time regarded as the best book between the three sisters. It, actually, is the most famous one, isn't it? The story? An orphan growing up in a loveless family, being sent off to boarding school, growing up to become a governess and taking on the position of a tutor, falling in love with her master, dealing with crises, and reconciling herself to love. Familiar enough?


So, why does this book make it to my top favorites? Because it talks about people in the way people would react and do in situations. It's very pro-feminist. The protagonist, Jane Eyre, grows up with the idea of independence rooted in her mind.
Jane Eyre is taken in by her uncle, after the death of her parents, as a baby. Her aunt all but hates her for this because the Eyre's married for love, Jane's mother giving up her family and friends for love. After the death of the uncle, Jane is subjected to ill treatment by her cousins and aunt, who, considers Jane a spawn of Satan himself (not said in so many words, but that's the conclusion one can arrive at). Just before Jane is sent off to boarding school, her words to her aunt set the tone of her very character. That she is her own person. Jane does quite alright for herself in school, flirting with the feelings of friendship with a devout Christian girl who eventually dies, and finds herself given the opportunity of working as a governess after she decides that she has overstayed at Lowood. Arriving at Thornfield Hall, one of the most famous gothic locations in fictional history, she is fascinated by the calm mystery of the place. And of course, the master of the house, Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester. The two of them find each other's company intellectually stimulating and welcome, because both seem to have rather dreary pasts, Mr. Rochester's a far more adventurous than Jane's. And they fall in love. Well, Jane falls in love with Mr. Rochester first, and then he goes to lengths to make her jealous so that she might feel the true strength of love, making her believe that he was going to marry a Blanche Ingram. Understanding Jane, in that moment of absolute heartache, Mr. Rochester finally calls his own bluff, rather arrogantly, and proposes marriage to her. Then comes the wedding, the revelation that it cannot take place because Rochester has a wife now living, a lunatic at that, but still living, Jane running away from him, almost dying, being given a second chance at life, meeting with a family that treats her well, finding out that she is an heiress to twenty-thousand pounds, refusing a marriage proposal because it would be one of convenience and not love, and returning to Thornfield and reuniting with Mr. Rochester.
A lot of the tone of the story, this novel of growing up and dealing with emotions - a Bildungsroman, is the correct term, I believe - pops out of the pages quite blatantly.
"Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!--I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! . . . I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, or even of mortal flesh:--it is my spirit that addresses your spirit: just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,--as we are!"
I think this signifies everything I like about the book. I don't take to Jane's religious turn, but I do love her independence. Her wish that she be left to who she is, that even if she is passionately in love she will not give up her right as a woman, her morality, for it. She acts stupidly at times, like when she runs away from Thornfield, not thinking things through in a practical manner. But luck seems to follow her all through that phase. She is taken in by a good family, who turn out to be her cousins, and gets a second shot at marriage. Not love. Just marriage. She refuses, for good reasons! She is one of the most plain heroines, but so sidled with morality, intelligence, character and poise that while you get annoyed with her more than once, you can't help but see bits of yourself in her. Told in first person, it is no wonder that I would consider the 'I' in some cases to actually mean myself instead of Jane!
Her male counterpart, male interest and partner, Mr. Rochester is bestowed with very much the same qualities. With more passion and worldly experiences than Jane. While he isn't the type of man women would swoon over - think Mr. Darcy, perhaps - his is the passion one would like to see in a man. He is not condescending in his declaration of love. He is willing to take his share of the blame in matters, and the fact that he does not strike his wife, the lunatic shut up in the 'forbidding wing', even when she physically attacks him, shows that he is a man as a man should be. He respects women. True, he very nearly asks Jane to be his mistress, but his repentance at having done it shows a man of full bodied character that will do anything for the one he loves, and would give up all to set things right. Ah!
A classic gothic story, without too much of foreboding danger, dealing with human struggles in a very laid out, smooth flowing manner, makes it one of my favorite books. Perhaps not one of my all time favorites, because I wouldn't read the whole book on an annual basis or anything, but definitely one that I have read and liked enough to shelve into my memory for all the good reasons.