“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”
That first line–and dozens of others–from Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece are permanently etched in my memory.
“You examine me, Miss Eyre. Do you think me handsome?” “No, sir.”
Brilliant.
Books are one of the “little things” in my life that continuously bring me joy, so what better way to appreciate that than a not-so-literary review of my favorite book?
Be forewarned: If you have not yet read Jane Eyre, this post contains major spoilers, so avert your eyes from some of the paragraphs below. Or better yet, close this window right now, and go read the book. You heard me.
If you have read the book, I hope you can appreciate the musings below.
I’d also like to add a caveat: I am definitely not a literary scholar, so this is not a literary analysis. What it is is an appreciation of Jane Eyre‘s appeal by someone who discovered this book at a young age, loved it, and has returned to it many times since then.
The Basic Plot (as told by me–apologies in advance, Charlotte Brontë)
A poor, orphaned, well-educated girl in nineteenth century England, after a rather lonely existence either in her brutal aunt’s house or the cold confines of Lowood School, decides she wants to see a bit more of the world (okay, fine, of England) after eight years at Lowood as a student and ultimately teacher. (Give the girl some credit; she’s adventurous for her time and place and gender and social status and…you get the idea.)
Jane obtains a position as governess to a young French girl, Adele, at the country mansion Thornfield Hall. Adele is the ward (and possibly/probably illegitimate child) of the rich, capricious, and often mysterious Edward Rochester.
Jane and Mr. Rochester–who’s somewhere between fifteen to twenty years older than her (“perhaps he might be thirty-five”)–start falling for each other. Come on, you knew that was going to happen the second I used the word mysterious. Jane is not quite nineteen around this time, for the record, and has exactly zero experience with men.
(Not surprisingly, that weirded me out a bit when reading the book for the first time at age fourteen. The sole difference now is that thirty-five is not old compared to my age today, but the creepiness of it hasn’t really diminished much.)
Anyway. Lowood was an all-girls’ school, so pretty much the only dudes Jane has ever been around regularly are 1) the stodgy old benefactor of Lowood who thinks she is an evil sinning liar, and 2) her horrid cousin, John Reed, who thinks she is a freeloading selfish brat. Not exactly the kind of people Jane (or anybody, really) would want to hang out with. And until Rochester shows up a few months into Jane’s stay at Thornfield, she’s hanging out with Adele, the housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax, and the household staff. That’s about it. And let’s be honest: Mrs. Fairfax is pleasant but boring, and Adele is kind of shallow. Long story short, Jane is happy for a change, but ends up getting a bit restless.
So it’s understandable when Rochester, one of the first non-repulsive, intelligent males she meets, draws her in. Maybe an eighteen-year-old and a thirtysomething was less creepy in nineteenth century England?
Oh, how I love the Gothic drama of it all.
The Story: When Things Get Weirder
To be fair, Jane and Mr. Rochester are friends first, and their friendship is genuine and (initially) innocent and platonic. But various events start to draw them closer together and/or make Jane jealous, including Mr. Rochester making Jane believe he’s about to marry Blanche Ingram, a snotty little 1800s version of mean girl Regina George.
But it’s not platonic for long. Mr. Rochester’s fallen pretty hard for Jane. He eventually proposes, keeping the Blanche ruse going until the last minute. After calling him out for messing with her, Jane finally believes he loves her and accepts. Mrs. Fairfax, however, ruins Jane’s happy mood by warning her, saying she knows little of men. (Duh.) And–hoo, boy–that Mr. Rochester, well, he’s been around. Foreshadowing?
(Aaah! Don’t do it, Jane!)
But their wedding day arrives, plans made, trunks packed for the honeymoon. And voila, enter the twist: Rochester is already married. He’s kept his insane wife, Bertha Mason, locked up in the attic for years, and he–
Wait. What? What?!
And that leads me to ask the question more fervently: Why do I love this book? Stay tuned.
It’s not pretty, I know. But bear with me for a second: Rochester locked Bertha in Thornfield’s attic rather than send her to an asylum. And if you’ve ever heard anything about nineteenth century “madhouses” as they were called, you’d know that the conditions there were horrific more often than not, and in many cases the patients/residents were treated like prison inmates. Rochester knew this and didn’t want to subject Bertha to such a place, much as he’d grown to resent and loathe her. But still, Rochester is no saint. No matter the justification, locking up your wife in the attic is creepy.
And, you know, NOT OK.
(Side note: For another take on Bertha’s story–including some different interpretations of Edward Rochester and even Jane Eyre herself–check out Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. I mean, if I had to leave the Caribbean for a big old lonely English manor…well, let’s just say I have a bit more sympathy for poor old Bertha, not least because our dear Charlotte B. chose to name her Bertha.)
So I’ll ask again: what is it about this book?
The Story’s Appeal
I first read Jane Eyre about fifteen or sixteen years ago, and have picked it up at least as many times since, to read either completely or in part. My maternal grandmother gave me the book, and it’s my paternal grandmother’s favorite, so that, naturally, adds some personal significance for me.
But regarding the story itself, to answer the question about why I love it so much, I’ve come up with this:
Jane Eyre is one of those books that I could open to any page and start reading. Any. Page. I know chunks of the damn thing by heart, and some of the more powerful scenes can evoke all the feels.
A selection of some of the standouts:
- The scene where a terrified Jane, locked in the red room of the Reed’s mansion, fears that her uncle’s ghost will return? Chills–and a reluctance to turn out the light.
- Poor Helen Burns, Jane’s one true friend who dies of consumption at Lowood? Break out the tissues.
- Jane meets Mr. Rochester for the first time in a spooky lane? Time to curl up with a cup of tea.
- Jane saves Mr. Rochester from a fire and realizes she may have more-than-platonic feelings for him? Sigh. (At that point, the not-fiancee Blanche Ingram and poor Bertha Mason haven’t entered the picture yet.)
- And Jane’s speech where she declares herself Mr. Rochester’s equal? Well, for that I have no words. Standing ovation from all women ever. (In 21st century terms, it would probably go something like this: “Dude, cut the crap. You realize I have feelings, right? Just because you’re some rich important guy and I’m a poor, plain nobody doesn’t mean we’re not equal human beings. And if you’re not okay with that, please buzz off, because otherwise, you’re wasting my time.”)
All of these scenes are page-turners. But that’s not even what makes the book work. Here’s the magical thing about all of those scenes: we’re seeing everything from inside Jane’s head. It’s all in the first person. And it’s Jane’s head in retrospect, to be exact: she’s telling us the story years ahead of when it originally happened, without actually revealing what ended up happening later on.
We get her thoughts and her emotions with a hint of hindsight, but not enough to give the whole story away. Jane may appear outwardly dull, plain, and so on to snooty, shallow people like Blanche Ingram. But Jane’s mind is anything but. This woman is introspective to a fault. Her emotions are raw.
And the wonderful part is that she shares them, deliberately, addressing us directly: We are “reader” throughout. She engages us, asks us questions, confesses her deepest secrets to us well before she does to any character in the novel. She’s not hiding anything from us except later details of the plot. We’re basically like a diary, and it’s beautiful.
Additionally, Jane Eyre is a coming-of-age novel that has certain universal qualities, even though it’s set in nineteenth-century England.
Who can’t identify with Jane’s feelings of jealousy as she watches Blanche Ingram flirt with Mr. Rochester? Just about every human has experienced similar feelings. Jane’s jealousy is especially poignant since she has already admitted her feelings for Mr. Rochester to herself… and had thought he might-possibly-maybe reciprocate.
(Okay, it goes like this: Jane saves Mr. Rochester’s life. When she goes back to bed, she can’t sleep, because he told her that he “knew you’d do me good someday” and that she “did not strike…delight in my inmost being for nothing”…all while holding her hand. I mean, hot damn. If someone told me that, I’d probably think they were into me, too.)
There are other moments, too: We feel the sting of her horrible cousin’s punches, the sadness and loneliness when Helen Burns dies, the disappointment when Rochester leaves for weeks at a time, the emptiness and betrayal when Jane learns about Bertha, the hope and happiness when she discovers long-lost, non-horrid cousins.
Other People Like Jane Eyre, Too
I am not the only one who is fascinated. Hollywood has repeatedly jumped on this story. There are well over a dozen English-language adaptations–feature films, miniseries, TV series. A quick iMDb search yields pretty impressive results.
Have I seen a significant number of them? Um, yes. (For the record, my hands-down favo(u)rite is the BBC’s 2006 miniseries version starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens.)
If you’re unsure of which one(s) to check out, there was a wonderful article in Slate from 2011, just before the release of the Mia Wasikowska/Michael Fassbender version, which addressed Mr. Rochester’s “creep factor” in each film adaptation–as a response to why Jane Eyre fans are so into him. (Link cited below–I pretty much agree with the author’s assessments and highly recommend the read.)
So in short, even though there are clearly some problems with the story from the perspective of us twenty-first century folks (there are for example debates as to whether it is/is not a feminist book), and the ending is a little bit happily-ever-after (which, depending on your taste, is lovely, annoying, boring, etc.), it’s still a wonderful book.
Jane is a woman both of and ahead of her time. Her independence and contentment are her number one priorities, and love starts to complicate some of those ideas about herself, her expectations, and her life experiences.
And we get a front-row seat to see how Jane figures out the direction her life will go next. She’s an incredibly approachable literary character, and even if we don’t agree with her about everything, or get annoyed with her occasionally, we can identify with her emotionally on some level.
That, in not-so-short, is why my copy of Jane Eyre is so dog-eared, why I can open it up to any page and start reading, and why I love this book so much.
References:
Winter, Jessica. “Up in the Eyre: Why are there so many movie adaptations of Jane Eyre, and which one is best?” Slate magazine, 10 March 2011. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2011/03/up_in_the_eyre.html
Photo: The British Library, https://www.flickr.com/photos/12403504@N02/11297317024/. Public domain. Illustration by Edmund Henry Garrett, in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. London: Walter Scott, 1897.
