Mood: high
Listening to: 'Hips Don't Lie' by Shakira ft. Wyclef Jean
Hungry for: nuthin'
Bella says: 'TUMMY SCRATCH!!!!!'
Okay, so I finished Jane Eyre ages ago, and it's now one of my favourite books.
Jane Eyre is perhaps the most famous of all the Bronte classics, written by Charlotte Bronte under her androgynous pen name Currer Bell. Jane Eyre is a very well written novel, very tightly written, and reads like an autobiography.
The story's heroine and narrator, Jane Eyre, captures the very essence of a virtuous woman, but her character makes her distinct from other literary heroines in that she is an independant, educated woman, and has the strength to turn away from love when it threatens her religion. Jane is deeply religious and her moral beliefs are infallible, but she is also compassionate, kind and has the ability to love passionately, in sharp contrast with Mr Brocklehurst, the clergyman who ran her orphanage, Lowood School, who abused and maltreated his pupils in the name of religion, and St John Rivers, her cousin, who, whilst passionate, is cold and lacks the ability to love her or the willingness to love his true love. Jane Eyre is not beautiful, nor is she commonly portrayed by particularly beautiful actresses, purely because her character is beautiful enough to shine through any physical plainness. Despite the fact that St John is the missionary, Jane Eyre's character is alluded to as some kind of angel, reforming and converting Mr Rochester, who is to sin as Jane is to purity, and his ward, Adele, the bastard daughter of a French courtesan. But, despite being seeped in Christian morals, it's doesn't have an overbearing effect on non-Christians, as the focus is more on moralities rather than the religion itself.
Mr Rochester is a very welcome break from Edward Cullen in that his flaws are somwhat graver and more interesting than obsessive-compulsive stalking and watching prospective girlfriends sleep. A worldly yet deeply unhappy man trapped in a hopeless marriage, Mr Rochester's life is tainted with sin and tangled with misery, and shows how Jane leads him towards and then away from sin.
It's a very good book if you have troubles with the classics, and the perfect starting point into the beautiful Bronte novels. Let Thornfield possess you.
1 comment:
We could talk heaps about this!
Wanted to tell you about something I saw on Peg Kerr's LiveJournal: it was about the Brontesaurus, where the three sisters smash the literary establishment in the manner of dolls.
Good point on Rochester's faults. When the whole Cecile Varens-Edward Rochester pairing folded out in the middle of the book, I was almost devestated.
Would love to say more about Jane's religion and beliefs. She is of very high integrity. St John is a bit more narrow, so you can see what she was fighting against. She was grounded well at Lowood.
(I definitely recommend one of Charlotte's later works as well: Villette, and definitely Shirley if you want some Industrial Revolution steampunk).
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