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Jane Eyre

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'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte is a gothic romance novel that follows the life of the titular character, Jane Eyre, as she navigates through challenges and adversities from her childhood as an orphan to her adulthood as a governess. The plot revolves around Jane's relationship with her employer, Mr. Rochester, a mysterious and troubled man, and the obstacles they face due to societal norms and personal secrets. The writing style of the book is described as vivid, emotional, and atmospheric, with rich character development and strong religious themes that play a significant role in shaping Jane's character.

Characters:

The characters are well-developed with Jane as a relatable and strong protagonist while Mr. Rochester and St. John Rivers serve as contrasting figures in her life.

Writing/Prose:

The writing style is characterized by elegant prose and rich descriptions, fully immersing the reader in Jane's emotional journey.

Plot/Storyline:

The plot centers on Jane Eyre's life, highlighting her independence and moral dilemmas as she navigates her way through adversity and finds love.

Setting:

The novel is set primarily in Victorian England, with significant gothic elements contributing to its mood.

Pacing:

The pacing varies, with a slow start that accelerates once Jane arrives at Thornfield Hall, though some elements feel rushed at the end.
THERE WAS NO POSSIBILITY of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined earl...

Notes:

Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre under the pen name Currer Bell to be taken more seriously.
The novel was published in 1847 and is semi-autobiographical, reflecting aspects of Bronte's own life.
Jane Eyre is often considered one of the first feminist novels due to its portrayal of an independent female protagonist.
The story centers on themes of morality, religion, social class, and the relationship between men and women.
Jane Eyre's character embodies resilience in the face of hardship, making her a compelling figure for many readers.
The novel's gothic elements include mysterious happenings at Thornfield Hall and the character of Bertha Mason, Rochester's first wife, who is kept in the attic.
The madwoman in the attic trope has led to significant analysis and discussion about race and mental illness in the context of the novel.
Jane Eyre criticizes the hypocrisy of the religious figures and societal norms of the time, particularly through characters like Mr. Brocklehurst and St. John Rivers.
Rochester’s character is complex, seen as both passionate and abusive, leading readers to have mixed feelings about him.
The transformation of Rochester after losing his eyesight and hand is often viewed as a way of equalizing the power dynamic between him and Jane.

Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings

Content warnings include emotional abuse, mental illness, and themes of isolation and abandonment.

Has Romance?

The romance between Jane and Mr. Rochester is central to the plot.

From The Publisher:

B is for Brontë. A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzles and shocks readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom. Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, where she endures loneliness and cruelty, and at a charity school with a harsh regime. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit-which proves necessary when she takes a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. Should she stay with him and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions, even if it means leaving the man she loves?

Ratings (577)

Incredible (120)
Loved It (230)
Liked It (134)
It Was OK (54)
Did Not Like (35)
Hated It (4)

Reader Stats (930):

Read It (606)
Currently Reading (10)
Want To Read (210)
Did Not Finish (9)
Not Interested (95)

11 comment(s)

Did Not Like
1 week

I think I've read this book in total of 4 times in my life and I just can't stand it or enjoy it. Everytime I pick it up I'm hoping that this time I'll find it atmospheric and eery and intriguing story but I just can't seem to "get it". I feel like poor Jane is going through so much and end up with someone she definitely shouldn't. Don't see the romantic part in it. I guess I just have to admit that some beloved classics isnt for me. Maybe I'll need to keep my eye up for a retailing that's is more my kind of story

 
Liked It
1 month

Rounded up, though I feel 4 stars doesn't reflect how I actually felt about this book 3 stars would sell it too short.

 
It Was OK
3 months

Jane was and idiot to fall for Rochester

 
5 months

DNFed @ 65%, page 442.

just really not interesting me :( i'll try again someday

 
Incredible
6 months

Birds began singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their mates; birds were emblems of love. What was I?

2023 reread: Lovely, lovely novel. It’s beginning to acquire the burnish of comfortable familiarity that all dearly loved, oft-revisited books eventually develop.

On this reread, it strikes me that, structurally,

Jane Eyre is just about perfect. The first time I reread

Jane Eyre I wanted to skip through the first part spent in Jane’s childhood to get to “the good part” at Thornfield, but now I finally see not only all the nuanced character work that’s being done but also enjoy the experience completely. I do think the section Jane spends with St. John is too protracted (it feels like a bit of a slog, especially bookended by the whirlwind of events on either side), given that Jane’s decision feels so obvious to modern readers—but I wonder if her inner struggle would have seemed less clear to her contemporaries.

St. John really is a more appropriate match in every way: he is handsome, closer to her age, and a respectable man of the cloth. In Charlotte’s time, marrying for love was not the given that it is today, so even though she doesn’t love him I really do see the appeal

.

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.”

2021 review: Reader, I loved this book.

This is not the straightforward romance I vaguely remember from high school. Revisiting this as an adult, I, like Mrs. Fairfax, was more than a little concerned by the apparent imbalance of power between Jane and Rochester: he’s older, previously married, wealthy, and a man (not to mention her employer); she’s young, inexperienced, poor, and a woman, living in a time when to be a woman was to be at a decided societal disadvantage. It doesn’t help that Rochester flaunts these advantages in the beginning,

using his fake relationship with Miss Ingram to play mind games with Jane

. And then, on top of it all, Rochester withholds information

about Bertha

from Jane and tries to gaslight her. On paper, their relationship seems like nothing but red flags.

And with another heroine, maybe it would be. However, Jane is no ordinary protagonist. What she lacks in age, experience, and status, she more than makes up for in strength, spirit, and integrity. It helps, too, that Rochester is not the dark, moody, brooding hero that I somehow remembered him to be: instead, he’s rather odd and quirky, always talking about fairies and related fanciful nonsense, and has a good heart, even if he makes some, ah,

questionable decisions and tends to be highly melodramatic. More importantly, though,

by the end of the novel, both of them have changed and grown because of their hardships: Rochester is humbled by the fire, redeeming himself in Jane’s eyes, while Jane learns to trust and stand up for herself through her time spent with her cousins. By the final chapter, I believe Jane when she declares them to be well-matched.

Apart from the interesting characters and relationship dynamics, the atmosphere and prose are perhaps the most enjoyable aspects of

Jane Eyre. Brontë’s descriptions, particularly when it comes to nature, are just gorgeous and highly evocative. And the novel features the best elements of gothic romance, with deliciously creepy Thornfield the perfect setting.

I also appreciated how tightly plotted this was. New events constantly propel the plot forward and/or are crucial for Jane’s character development: there may be some slower parts, but there’s not really any fluff. For example,

St. John (who can we all agree is the worst?) may at first seem superfluous until one realizes he’s a crucial character whose proposal demonstrates that Jane is able to stand up for herself and reject a marriage she doesn’t want, forcing her to grow as a character and be able to hold her own in her eventual marriage with Rochester

.

(As a side note, reading this

after having recently read Daphne du Maurier’s

Rebecca, my favorite novel, was very interesting and gives me a greater appreciation for both. Yes, both heroines are

haunted by the first wife

, but the similarities go deeper than that into the aforementioned imbalances of power between the two romantic partners and the secretive nature of the male lead, to say nothing of the similarities between Thornfield and Manderley,

including the fact that both are left as burned-out shells by the novel’s end

. These similarities make the differences all the more apparent and noteworthy, particularly when contrasting Jane’s strength, moral fortitude, and independence with Mrs. de Winter’s weaknesses, fears, and codependency.)

While this still can’t quite live up to the devastating brilliance Charlotte Brontë’s

Villette,

Jane Eyre is a beautiful, captivating, thought-provoking piece of literature that has more than earned its status as one of the most universally beloved classics of all time.

Now, some favorite passages:

Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed on swallowing, warm and racy; its after-flavor, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.

I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and marked.

Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.

“No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay-lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse; I am not sure yet.”

“You examine me, Miss Eyre,” said he; “do you think me handsome?” I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware. “No, sir.”

…and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it;…

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!”

“You glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet, by-the-by, it was you who made me the offer.” “Of course I did.”

I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses, that could never revive.

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 rigor; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?

We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.

To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.

2023:

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion.

Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.

You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity.

Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.

Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I cannot tell.

Hitherto I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificant existence: to the first ten years of my life I have given almost as many chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography. I am only bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses will possess some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years almost in silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links of connection.

now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.

It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted.

I discerned in the course of the morning that Thornfield Hall was a changed place: no longer silent as a church, it echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door, or a clang of the bell; steps, too, often traversed the hall, and new voices spoke in different keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing through it; it had a master: for my part, I liked it better.

I knew my traveller with his broad and jetty eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of his black hair. I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and jaw—yes, all three were very grim, and no mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose it was a good figure in the athletic sense of the term—broad chested and thin flanked, though neither tall nor graceful.

“It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.” “The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,” he answered; “and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark.

Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day; share it into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five minutes—include all; do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid regularity. The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment: you have had to seek no one’s company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do.

The rooks cawed, and blither birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart.

It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering through space.

Everything in life seems unreal.” “Except me: I am substantial enough—touch me.” “You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream.”

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.”

Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-way. Remembering what it was—what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light—I felt the might and strength of God.

There are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin’s salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters.

Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amidst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters.

“At dead of night!” I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality at Thornfield.

“I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard,” he remarked ere long. “And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?” “You are no ruin, sir—no lightning-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.”

 
Loved It
6 months

The composure of the main character caught me. How she rises from the bad experiences in her life, without giving way to hatred

 
Liked It
7 months

idk who i hate more Mr. Rochester or Mr. Rochester

 
Liked It
9 months

Dramatic storytelling

Engaging protagonist

Emotional intensity

Victorian era setting

Character development

Reflection on orphanhood

Psychological depth

Complex narrative

Impact of historical context

Mixed feelings

 
Incredible
10 months

One of my foundational novels as a reader. I'd have to write an essay to explain why I love it, but here are the barest basics: Great writing that keeps the reader engaged; fantastic use of gothic tropes; sharp social critique and also fascinating for what it doesn't critique; an unconventional heroine.

 
Loved It
11 months

I was on the edge of my seat with this book

 
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About the Author:

Charlotte Brontë lived from 1816 to 1855. Jane Eyre appeared in 1847 and was followed by Shirley (1848) and Vilette (1853). In 1854, Charlotte Brontë married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She died during her pregnancy on March 31, 1855, in Haworth, Yorkshire. The Professor was posthumously published in…

 
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