Jane Eyre.

I've decided I want to be like Jane Eyre.

I want to be a woman who can stand on her own feet. I'm accomplished; I know I can be even more accomplished. I'll be an academic, a writer, a woman with her own income; a woman who serves her own interests. Life is hard for women, even now, some 200 years after Jane Eyre was written; but I'll make it, some day.

Jane Eyre was a proto-feminist - a feminist before feminism existed. She shocked people because unlike many other romantic heroines she had her own job, her own income, and could exist quite capably with or without a husband or fortune. I can do that.

But at the same time Jane never shied away from the idea that she was someone capable of love; it is especially highlighted in later adaptions that Jane, quite controversially, accepts that she and Rochester are sexual beings. Despite social advancements society as a whole is still quite squeamish about the whole idea of female sexuality - it's like you can be a nun or a porn star but not a normal woman with normal needs. Of course women need sex, like sex. Of course it's one of the many things I look forward to in this life. It's ridiculous to think otherwise.

But the thing that I've learned the most from Jane Eyre is that you don't have to settle, but you can have less than perfect and still be happy. Rochester is not beautiful, nor young; but he's wise and passionate and heartbreakingly loving - that's what matters, isn't it? When one is not beautiful you learn very quickly to see what is underneath, and that's how I fall out of love. I can fall in love with chocolate eyes and curly blonde hair, but once the rosy tint is gone and I see someone for what they are underneath; sometimes I don't always like what I see. Not many people my age can do that, but hey, not many people my age have learnt the hard way not to say yes yes yes to the first person who says 'Go out with?'.

There are so many things we can learn from novels; but most of the things I have learnt is to unlearn what I have learnt from fairytales. I used to think that there were no such things as Prince Charmings or happy endings, and that if I was ever caught by a dragon I might as well resign myself to my fate as a piece of charcoal. But now I've learned that you don't need what all those princesses had to get so, so much more than they will ever, ever have.