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Heaven: 2022 Book for February - "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
edited August 2022 in Limbo
Published in October 1847 under the author's pen name of Currer Bell, and immediately popular with the reading public, this classic was described by one contemporary reviewer as "such a strange book! Imagine a novel with a little swarthy governess for heroine, and a middle-aged ruffian for hero." (Sharpe's London Magazine June 1855)

Enjoy the read! I am not quite halfway through my (umpteenth) reread.
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Comments

  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I’m re-reading it too. It’s a book like The Great Gatsby that I’ve never really ‘got’, but I’m enjoying it loads more this time.
  • I will have a re-read as well. I first read this in the 1980s on a flight across the Atlantic. Having five or so solid hours to get into it was good: it repaid that kind of reading.
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    I did this at school, and never really got it - until I saw a stage production years later, and suddenly all Jane's choices made sense!
  • BelisariusBelisarius Admin Emeritus
    Nenya wrote: »
    ...this classic was described by one contemporary reviewer as "such a strange book! Imagine a novel with a little swarthy governess for heroine, and a middle-aged ruffian for hero." (Sharpe's London Magazine June 1855)
    Don't know where the reviewer got "swarthy", as Jane is repeatedly described as pale (it's Blanche Ingram who's "dark as a Spaniard").

  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited February 2022
    Read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights several times as a child, my mother's copy in faux-blue leather from World Classics Library or Everyman, circa 1938. I copied out a line that struck me: "The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”

    Then we read Jane Eyre at school as a teen and I read it with an eye on exam questions and themes. In my 20s I read it again, thinking about the Brontë sisters and Victorian feminism.

    A few years ago, in bed with flu, I reread Jane Eyre and was so startled, I might never have read the novel before. It is much stranger and more subversive than I had realised. Looking forward to the discussion.
  • Belisarius wrote: »
    Nenya wrote: »
    ...this classic was described by one contemporary reviewer as "such a strange book! Imagine a novel with a little swarthy governess for heroine, and a middle-aged ruffian for hero." (Sharpe's London Magazine June 1855)
    Don't know where the reviewer got "swarthy", as Jane is repeatedly described as pale (it's Blanche Ingram who's "dark as a Spaniard").


    “Swarthy”= “plain” ( downright ugly by the standards of the time?)

    Who knows?

    We do know that myopic toothless ( by the time of her marriage) stunted ( lucky to be 5 feet in her stockings) Charlotte was no looker by the standards if her time.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    The OED has swarthy as 'Of a dark hue; black or blackish; dusky.' Nothing about plain, but also has a figurative meaning of '‘Black’, ‘dark’, malignant, dismal.'' So I'd interpret that as being about her seriousness and gloominess, with female lead characters being preferred (by men) to be more light-hearted and full of smiles!
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    The first time I read this book was when it was - believe it or not - a set reading for English class at my boys boarding school. To our pleasant surprise it proved not to be a light-weight romance or "chick-lit", but worth ploughing through.
    Re-reading it for the first time in preparation for this discussion, confirmed that impression. I also found that unlike most 19-th century classics it proved not to be almost devoid of action (e.g. Jane Austen, who admittedly writes very stylishly) or overlong and so full of characters that I get lost (e.g. Dickens).

    So I can recommend it even to male readers who like me, especially as it has a lively but linear narrative.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    It's such an interesting and deeply-ingrained bias, this sense that, say, the Brontes and Jane Austen are "women's classics," while I don't think anyone specifically thinks of Dickens (to use the most obvious example) as having written "men's classics."

    Hopefully we are getting to the point were we can all just enjoy books and books and respect authors as authors without too many gendered caveats.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    @Trudy, yes, I often wonder what the historical reception of Bronte novels might have been if the male pseudonyms had been all we knew of the authors Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    How soon after the publication of the novels did it become widely known that the authors were women?
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    Apparently their identity was publicly revealed in 1850, three years after each sister's first book was published, and one year after Emily's and Anne's deaths. Charlotte wrote a preface for a new edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, and revealed her sisters' true identity as well as her own. There were people who knew before then, of course.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    I have read half the book on Gutenberg.org and finally having moved to my new place was able to retrieve my books from storage and unpack my paper copy. Of course out of about 9 boxes it was the second last book in the second last box! Wuthering Heights was in the second box.
  • HelixHelix Shipmate
    I have read it but I have it on order from the library - waiting ! The last sentence is one of my favourites !
  • The last sentence reads
    “Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’”

    I suspect you have the first sentence of the conclusion in mind. Which I will not quote, for fear of spoilers!
  • HelixHelix Shipmate
    Oh - drat - there was me thinking I was ever so literary!
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    I think I got tricked by this in a quiz recently. It must be a common misconception!
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I finished reading it the other day. Having been a book I've never really warmed to, I enjoyed it a lot more this time, though I have lots of questions about Bronte's narrative structure and whether it would have been a very different book if it was her fifth or sixth novel.
  • HelixHelix Shipmate
    Mili wrote: »
    I think I got tricked by this in a quiz recently. It must be a common misconception!

    Haha - glad I am not alone.
  • Yes, something that I also got wrong for years - possibly misremembered from my younger, days when I had a taste for the romantic .
    Nowadays, in my more advanced years, I find the actual closing words have more appeal.
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    I'm posting these a couple of days before the usual 20th of the month as February is short (and I can't wait to get started!).

    Feel free to use them as guidelines, or ignore them completely and say what you would like to discuss.

    Did you enjoy “Jane Eyre?” Was this your first time of reading or have you read it before?
    If you reread the novel, did you take something new from it? What did you notice or take away from it that you didn’t before?


    Do you have any favourite quotations, chapters, or passages?

    “Jane Eyre” combines elements of the Romantic Novel and the Gothic novel, and over time it is said to have become one of the greatest and most famous love stories ever written. How did Brontë combine elements of the two types of novels? What are the Gothic elements in the story? And what were the Romantic elements? Did you enjoy the combination?

    “Jane Eyre” was a revolutionary novel when Charlotte Brontë wrote it presenting female individuality, feminism, and equality between the sexes. It also provided a discussion on classism and hypocrisy within religion. What examples do you see in the novel that supports these ideas?

    How did you feel about the first section of the book at Gateshead and then Lowood School? Lowood School was based on the very real school Cowan Bridge School in Lancashire, where Charlotte and her sisters attended. Sadly, two of her sisters died there. In her biography by Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte admitted that the character of Helen Burns was based on her sister Maria Brontë. How does knowing this make you feel toward Helen and the school?

    What was the purpose of the Blanche Ingram character? Did Mr. Rochester only bring her to Thornfield to play games and make Jane jealous?

    How did you feel about Jane becoming an heiress? Did you enjoy the section of the novel with St. John and his sisters?

    There is a touch of the supernatural in the story. What did you think of the moment when Rochester called for Jane from across a considerable distance and she heard him?

    What role does Jane’s belief in God play?

    Do you agree with Jane’s choice to leave Rochester when she finds out about Bertha? Or would you have made a different decision?

    What would have happened if Bertha had not perished in the fire? (Thanks to @Belisarius for this suggestion.)

    Have you read the prequel, “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys? What did you think of it?
  • There is a rather wonderful retelling of Jane Eyre (but as science fiction--light, though) in Sharon Shinn's Jenna Starborn.
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    There is a rather wonderful retelling of Jane Eyre (but as science fiction--light, though) in Sharon Shinn's Jenna Starborn.
    Great - let's throw that into the question mix. Has anyone else read it?

    Personally, I'm wary of trying it as I'm a bit of purist when it comes to books I love, and classics.
  • I found it charming. It really does remain amazingly faithful to the original, and I was forever turning back to the original to see if a particular image or conversation was Shinn's or Bronte's. (Usually, of course, it turned out to be both--amazingly well adapted.) And the sci-fi setting added to the story rather than detracting from it, as you (well, I) would expect.
  • BelisariusBelisarius Admin Emeritus
    edited February 2022
    Did you enjoy “Jane Eyre?” Was this your first time of reading or have you read it before?
    If you reread the novel, did you take something new from it? What did you notice or take away from it that you didn’t before?


    I think I've read it 4 times. Repeated reading has given me a higher toleration of Helen Burns, St. John Rivers, and Jane's/Rochester's more melodramatic outbursts.

    Do you have any favourite quotations, chapters, or passages?

    Off the top of my head, I like the description of Bertha's laugh--"distinct, formal, mirthless". I also like the contrast between Jane's first contact with Rochester's female guests (the "flock" overwhelming her by their clothing and speech) and her quick discernment they were far more imperfect.

    “Jane Eyre” combines elements of the Romantic Novel and the Gothic novel, and over time it is said to have become one of the greatest and most famous love stories ever written. How did Brontë combine elements of the two types of novels? What are the Gothic elements in the story? And what were the Romantic elements? Did you enjoy the combination?

    Hard to answer, as I think there is a lot of overlap between the genres--will give it more of a think.

    Edit: There is, of course, an air of mystery, but no actual crime (except attempted bigamy) and nothing supernatural; compared to earlier Gothic novels, the action is almost domestic. Instead of a literal prison, Jane is in a psychological one of Rochester's obsessive love and coercion, which she contrives to escape at great cost--an ironic overlap of the Romantic and the Gothic.

    “Jane Eyre” was a revolutionary novel when Charlotte Brontë wrote it presenting female individuality, feminism, and equality between the sexes. It also provided a discussion on classism and hypocrisy within religion. What examples do you see in the novel that supports these ideas?

    Individuality: Important theme without question, though I think Jane does have an understandable but noticeable degree of narcissism about it (if you've heard of Reddit's r/notlikeothergirls, that would be the modern vibe).

    Religion: Mr. Brocklehurst, of course, though he may to some degree genuinely believe in Predestination--if your fate is to be poor, you should be "properly" poor. Critics have detected the hypocrisy of St. John's use of religion as (by his own admission) a path to glory and (of which he is in denial) an excuse to dominate others for his own purposes (which many contemporary readers did not).

    How did you feel about the first section of the book at Gateshead and then Lowood School? Lowood School was based on the very real school Cowan Bridge School in Lancashire, where Charlotte and her sisters attended. Sadly, two of her sisters died there. In her biography by Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte admitted that the character of Helen Burns was based on her sister Maria Brontë. How does knowing this make you feel toward Helen and the school?

    It's hard to tell how much of Charlotte idealized her sister. At least in my earlier readings, I found Helen too naïve (and a Royalist!) and was completely on Jane's side in their discussions. Cowan Bridge School was undoubtedly harsh by modern standards, but it is possible that Bronte exaggerated (and students dying away from home was, unfortunately, a reality of the time).

    What was the purpose of the Blanche Ingram character? Did Mr. Rochester only bring her to Thornfield to play games and make Jane jealous?

    Mostly yes, though she represented a particular type of personality as well.

    How did you feel about Jane becoming an heiress? Did you enjoy the section of the novel with St. John and his sisters?

    Allowing Mrs. Reed one last volley of spite against Jane regarding her uncle was masterly (and defied the Victorian trope of deathbed reconciliations). Jane's uncle, however, was spiteful in turn, making her the sole heir at the expense his brother-in-law's children. Splitting the inheritance allows Jane to show her sense of justice and yet retain the independence to come back to Rochester on completely equal terms. Interestingly, a critic noticed that Jane could not have split the inheritance because she was not yet of age, but one can argue the whole novel is symbolic instead of realistic.

    Edit: Liked the Rivers siblings section, particularly the period when Jane finally can express her personality without restraint. Until her reunion with Rochester at the end, Jane's most relaxed banter in the novel is with St. John, perhaps its most rigid character. But then St. John decides Jane might be a suitable wife...

    There is a touch of the supernatural in the story. What did you think of the moment when Rochester called for Jane from across a considerable distance and she heard him?

    Per my answer to the first question, I thought it corny on my first reading, but it works well as a metaphor for true compatibility (like the final chapter's "to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking").

    What role does Jane’s belief in God play?

    It helps, with Helen's influence, to get over the anger produced by her childhood and to better bear misfortune. Also (though he would saved her anyway), St. John approves of her references to God when she thinks she's dying at his family's doorstep.

    Do you agree with Jane’s choice to leave Rochester when she finds out about Bertha? Or would you have made a different decision?

    I don't think I would have to make such a decision :wink:, but I agree with Jane's--she was being coerced, and she observes that Mr. Rochester would eventually tire of her as a mistress ("...a slave in a fool's paradise in Marseilles--fevered with delusive bliss one hour--tears of remorse and shame the next...").

    What would have happened if Bertha had not perished in the fire? (Thanks to @Belisarius for this suggestion.)

    I would imagine Jane and Rochester remaining together but in a celibate, Jamesian relationship, both from Victorian convention and that their relationship could be interpreted as now being able to exist on a purely spiritual level. They would, of course, get married if Bertha died, but Mr. Rochester wryly observes that she would probably outlive him.

    Have you read the prequel, “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys? What did you think of it?

    This is a novel I've been meaning to read for years (I could cheat and track down the movie version), though my impression is that there are serious disjoints between its reality and that of Jane Eyre (Mr. Rochester would be telling Jane either gross distortions or outright lies).

  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Did you enjoy “Jane Eyre?” Was this your first time of reading or have you read it before?
    If you reread the novel, did you take something new from it? What did you notice or take away from it that you didn’t before?


    Lots of great questions, most of which I need to think about before I reply so I'll answer them over the next week or so.

    I must have first read Jane Eyre as a child, but have no real memory of it. I have a vague recollection of Helen Burns' death, but that was probably due to a TV series rather than the book. I've read it a couple of times since, but this re-reading was the first time I felt that I 'got' why other people love it so, even though I don't think it'll ever be one of my favourite books.
    There were various things that stood out for me. The way Jane recognises that Rochester loves her for herself rather than her utility as Rivers does was one. I also found the plot is rather creaky in parts and I keep on wondering if I was writing it how I would have made some of the coincidences more plausible. The main thing that remains with me is quite a minor point. When Eyre becomes an heiress her first job is to do a make-over of the Rivers' house. I could well imagine Bronte wondering what she would do to the parsonage if she had the money to do it over, and writing it into her fiction.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited February 2022
    @Nenya, thanks for the great prompts, especially about Gothic fiction.

    When I reread Jane Eyre a few years ago, it was the first time I had read it for pleasure and not because I was studying the Victorian novel or reading a school textbook. What struck me for the first time was the child Jane's terrifying experience in the Red Room. Little Jane Eyre is an orphan living with relatives (the Reed family) who make her life hell. The word 'orphan' is coded in the Victorian novel, like 'swarthy,' or 'governess,' and for Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, George Eliot and others, 'orphan' signifies a position of extreme pathos, helplessness and abandonment in a heartless society. The sentimental didactic force of Victorian novels cannot be under-estimated: they were written to make the English middle-class feel ashamed of how they treated the powerless, especially children (and animals if we recall Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, and of course, slaves, when we think of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin).

    The child Jane's overnight incarceration in the Red Room is deeply Gothic -- this is a room in the household nobody enters, it is the chamber where Mr Reed died, it is a haunted macabre space in which Jane has to confront her own ghostliness in a great looking glass that mirrors back to the terrified child her utter aloneness in a brutal universe. She has felt like a slave revolting against cruel owners, but now she is face to face with what lies beyond the grave. The little girl has a breakdown and is taken out of the Red Room unconscious.

    There's a parallel here with the beginning of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights where Lockwood the traveller shown into an attic bedroom is confronted by the crying ghost of a dead child (not the adult Catherine Earnshaw) trying to get into his room through a broken window, determined to get back to the life she once had. If we read the novels of the Brontë' sisters together, they reveal certain themes that had not been considered before in the English novel and one key aspect for me is the uncanny power of the traumatised child to 'show' Victorian readers what is hidden in their society. In both novels by the Brontë' sisters, we encounter the abused child who will not die and will go on to haunt those who seek to destroy her.

    The uncanny nature of Jane Eyre is what draws Rochester to her: he thinks of her as unearthly and fey from their first meeting, her strange art disturbs him, he cannot 'place' her and she brings out his inner tormented secret self. The scene in which Rochester cross-dresses as a gipsy woman in order to interrogate Jane in disguise is another startling Gothic moment. For Jane, Rochester is simultaneously a beloved object of pity and an erotic arrogant threat; she is repelled and attracted by him.

    It might be worth noting that Jane Eyre will only marry Rochester when he is blind, severely disabled and unable to harm her in any way, when Thornton Hall has burned to the ground (the naming of the Red Room at the beginning has associations of conflagration and 'madness'). She will marry Rochester when he represents no threat and she can take care of him because his dependence on her is complete. He may recover his sight but he cannot tease or bully her, or conceal anything from her, he has no power over her except love. As in George Eliot, this is about marriage as companionship in trust, not a violent intimacy of the kind found in Wuthering Heights. It is the fictional journey from Gothic to Romantic.

    The imprisonment of Jane Eyre as a child has its parallel too in the fate of two other women in the novel: Grace Poole the repugnant gaoler who cannot leave her prisoner Bertha Mason unguarded, and the insanity of Bertha Mason, the creole bride from the slave plantations of the British Caribbean. For some of us, it is impossible to read Jane Eyre without thinking about what Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar called The Madwoman in the Attic in 1979, and the Caribbean writer Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. The madness of Bertha Mason is mirrored in the heartless crazy society in which the child Jane finds herself and which she must fight to overcome throughout the novel as a powerless insignificant governess, an outsider.


    A few lines from Toni Morrison came back to me when I was reflecting on how Charlotte Brontë was able to show the unconscious dynamics of what underlay British wealth and power and the curious nature of much Victorian Gothic (Wilkie Collin's Woman in White or his Moonstone) with Indian banshees displaced in an English landscape, stolen Raj jewels, dark colonial secrets. Morrison said: "Slavery broke the world in half, it broke it in every way. It broke Europe. It made them into something else, it made them slave masters, it made them crazy. You can’t do that for hundreds of years and it not take a toll. They had to dehumanize, not just the slaves but themselves. They have had to reconstruct everything in order to make that system appear true."
  • BelisariusBelisarius Admin Emeritus
    After rereading my post, I have to do Helen Burns more justice--"Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilized nations disown it" still sounds naive, but Helen still recognizes evil and has common sense:
    "Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great or admired man...Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared...I know you are [innocent] of this charge that Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed..."
    She also gives Jane good advice about not saying you can't bear something when you, well, are going to have to bear it.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    When I first read this book many decades ago, I was a student at an all-boys boarding school. Somewhat surprisingly, the English teacher had set it as a reading in the realtively relaxed year before the set texts were set by external authorities for the "big" end-of-school exam.

    Perhaps he wanted to show us that there were (had been) boarding schools with conditions much worse than ours. In this he succeeded. Although we had canings (occasional and usually seen as "fair", i.e the demonstrable wrong-doer was the one getting punished) and detentions (frequent but not physically demanding) these were not perceived by us boys as cruel - certainly not anything like those imposed by Jane's Mr Brocklehurst. Nor did we get pious preaching about our sinfulness (which we would have laughed off) ; the chaplain's sermon's focussed instead on examples of good Christian conduct for us to emulate. And we did get enough food for active teenage boys, even if it was not very tasty. One lesson I learnt from this experience was that malnutrition (which no-one demonstrably suffered!) would be preferable to starvation.

    I'll post separately about how I read the book differently as a father of feisty daughters in the 21st century: as a tale of a woman who stands up for herself and wants to be respected and even loved for that and for her brains.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    @Tukai, your comment about being a father of feisty daughters reminds me that I've often wondered about the character of the widower Revd Patrick Brontë, who outlived all his children. His only son Branwell would turn out an alcoholic disappointment, but his three daughters Charlotte, Emily and Anne would all become published novelists and after Charlotte's death Patrick would co-operate with Elizabeth Gaskell on a biography.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    I am no authority on the Bronte family, but even I can can say that the family at Moor House with 2 literary sisters and a brother bears a striking resemblance to the Bronte's, at least in its composition. Perhaps their temperaments are more about how Charlotte would have liked her sisters (and even more so) her brother to be than how they actually were. I could not say.

    But the 'Moor House' family in the story are of some interest in their own right. The sisters show great Christian charity by taking in a very bedraggled stranger (Jane) in evident distress. Even on the relatively fine day when I hiked across the moor with a couple of other fit well-equipped young men near the Bronte's cottage, it was a bleak, almost deserted, and windy place, so I can imagine how bad it would be for someone less well nourished and without weather-proof clothing. I remember the hotel at the cross-roads (still there on the ridge-top but otherwise in the middle of nowhere) but we passed it at the wrong time of day to go in.

    And as for brother St John, it is telling that his main interest in Jane is that she is a church-goer with language skills and therefore could make a suitable wife for a missionary. His Christian vision does not extend to sympathy for the troubles of those people around him, but is only of an impersonal nature for the unconverted masses. Equally telling is that Jane does not want to marry him, knowing that he will not ever be capable of loving her for her own sake, and that many missionary wives died of exotic diseases or complications of childbirth within 2 or 3 years of arrival. Her Christian vision is of the love that Jesus has for us all and exhorts us to show to others, even if she has yet to experience much of such love in her own life so far. But she has had glimmerings of such love, with Rochester (before the aborted marriage ceremony) and from her mentor Miss Thomas at the school.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    There are some markedly evil clergy in the book. Brocklehurst obviously for his hypocrisy and bullying, but Rivers more so for his egotism, manipulativeness and cruelty. He offers Jane a loveless (on his side) marriage and, as @Tukai says, a probable early death, for the sake of a Gospel of which, you feel, he has rather missed the point.

    It echoes Brocklehurst's insistence that the girls going hungry is good training for a life of self-denial. Jane is for self-assertion, emotional and sensual happiness (albeit not at any moral cost).
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    Unlike @Firenze, I think it's going too far to call St John Rivers "evil". Self-centred, yes. Impersonal in his "Christianity", yes. But evil, no.
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    Did you enjoy “Jane Eyre?” Was this your first time of reading or have you read it before?
    If you reread the novel, did you take something new from it? What did you notice or take away from it that you didn’t before?

    I love this book and have lost count of the number of times I've read it. I read it first as a teenager and the main takeaway from it then was Jane ("poor girl come good") and her love for Mr Rochester and will they or won't they get married ("phew, Bertha's dead, now they can"). As @MaryLouise observed upthread, I've noticed different things about it every time and am in my current reread am appreciating the Moor House interlude far more than I have before. I hadn't thought about that family possibly being a depiction of how Charlotte would have liked her family to be, so thank you to @Tukai for that idea.

    I wouldn't call Rivers "evil" but he is frightening in his drive and focus on being a missionary. He reminds me of a couple of people I knew years ago...

    Do you have any favourite quotations, chapters, or passages?
    Too many to even know where to start, but I always have a chuckle on the morning after Rochester's proposal:
    'Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty,' said he... 'Is this my Mustard-Seed?... the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel eyes?' (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake: for him they were new-dyed, I suppose.

    “Jane Eyre” combines elements of the Romantic Novel and the Gothic novel, and over time it is said to have become one of the greatest and most famous love stories ever written. How did Brontë combine elements of the two types of novels? What are the Gothic elements in the story? And what were the Romantic elements? Did you enjoy the combination?
    That's a big question isn't it? Sounds like a set essay for an English Literature course! Sorry about that! :lol: Thank you to @MaryLouise for some very thought-provoking comments on this.

    I was struck again by the use of pathetic fallacy, nature mirroring emotion and also indicating foreboding. One of the most notable examples is the shadowing of the night, the rising of the wind and the striking down of the horse-chestnut tree just after Jane has accepted Rochester's proposal.

    “Jane Eyre” was a revolutionary novel when Charlotte Brontë wrote it presenting female individuality, feminism, and equality between the sexes. It also provided a discussion on classism and hypocrisy within religion. What examples do you see in the novel that supports these ideas?
    On subsequent rereadings I've noticed more and more how radical the book must have been for its time, particularly in the way Jane stands up to Rochester and demands to be treated as an equal. Her religion seemed to motivate her and provide her with her standards: to good effect. The same can't be said for everyone in the book (Mrs Reed, Mr Brocklehurst) and the contrast seems very deliberate.

    How did you feel about the first section of the book at Gateshead and then Lowood School? Lowood School was based on the very real school Cowan Bridge School in Lancashire, where Charlotte and her sisters attended. Sadly, two of her sisters died there. In her biography by Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte admitted that the character of Helen Burns was based on her sister Maria Brontë. How does knowing this make you feel toward Helen and the school?
    Reading those sections makes me appalled at the abuse; even more shocked this time than on previous readings. But Lowood School equipped Jane with the practical skills she needed for her life as a governess and Helen Burns and Miss Temple are shining lights of comfort and love in her life.

    What was the purpose of the Blanche Ingram character? Did Mr. Rochester only bring her to Thornfield to play games and make Jane jealous?
    This did make me think. I thought it cruel of Mr Rochester to play Blanche off on Jane like that and I do wonder what his motivation was beyond the "interest and connexions" that Jane recognises although she doesn't understand them, putting it down to the principles instilled into his class from childhood. Blanche serves as a good foil to Jane, being so different in looks and attitude.

    How did you feel about Jane becoming an heiress? Did you enjoy the section of the novel with St. John and his sisters?
    I'm rereading that section at present and appreciating it. I was delighted when Jane became an heiress, because of the empowerment it gave her, but she is empowered already so it was a bit like gilding the lily, and enabled her to help the family she had found and grown to love.

    There is a touch of the supernatural in the story. What did you think of the moment when Rochester called for Jane from across a considerable distance and she heard him?
    It didn't seem out of place to me - completely believable that a need as strong as that could reach across the miles in an extraordinary way. It's one of the very striking moments of the book.

    What role does Jane’s belief in God play?
    I think it's her guiding light, together with her belief in human love. I think without it she would have agreed to be Rochester's mistress.

    Do you agree with Jane’s choice to leave Rochester when she finds out about Bertha? Or would you have made a different decision?
    Yes, I agree with her choice. It would have been a very different book if she hadn't made that choice; I can't imagine what it would have been like. Less satisfying, I think.

    (Why couldn't Rochester have divorced Bertha?)

    What would have happened if Bertha had not perished in the fire? (Thanks to @Belisarius for this suggestion.)
    If there had still been a catastrophic fire maybe Jane would have reached out to Rochester but I think it more likely that they wouldn't have seen each other again, all the while Bertha lived.

    Have you read the prequel, “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys? What did you think of it?
    I haven't. I've heard it's good but I'm very wary of trying it. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has.


  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Oh I dunno. I see distinct parallels with Brocklehurst. Neither are above implicitly threatening Jane with damnation, with the weight of their priestly status.
  • My oldest aunt (born almost exactly a century after Charlotte Brontë) went to Cowan Bridge School. It had some peculiarities, but had vastly improved by then.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited February 2022
    Tukai wrote: »
    Unlike @Firenze, I think it's going too far to call St John Rivers "evil". Self-centred, yes. Impersonal in his "Christianity", yes. But evil, no.

    @Tukai, this is where we need to read Charlotte Bronte so carefully because what she reveals in St John Rivers is a slow deconstructing of his supposed goodness and heroic nature. Quite brilliant if we trace through what she does with this character.

    At first St John Rivers comes across as a rescuer who brings the desperate half-dead wanderer Jane into his household. Then we are shown his passion for Rosamund Oliver and how he will not act on that human love because Rosamund would not make a missionary's wife. Jane watches him closely and notes what his sister has said of St John

    'Diana Rivers had designated her brother “inexorable as death.” She had not exaggerated.'

    Then Jane Eyre notices something more, the controlling nature hidden beneath the surface of St John Rivers' goodness. I'm looking at direct quotations here because this evolution in reading character is so subtle and indicative of Jane's maturing discernment. She begins to see through the pious Christian nature of St John Rivers as she immediately saw through Brocklehurst the hypocritical sadist.

    'St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him—its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire—after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him.'

    St John Rivers begins to groom Jane to be more like him and to take on his masochistic desire for hardship and martyrdom. She recognises this to be a 'freezing spell,' something unnatural and dominating, cruel and relentless as a form of control.

    'By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said “go,” I went; “come,” I came; “do this,” I did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.'

    This is the psychological grooming to which abused women are subjected and Charlotte Bronte describes it exactly -- she leaves the woman reader in no doubt that St John Rivers is obsessed with remaking Jane in his own image (an idolatrous project), forcing Jane to submit to what he wants her to be, controlling Jane's every thought and word, and curtailing her freedom.

    He is inhuman and incapable of love. This is what is evil about him and what we are shown is how the supposed Christian virtues of selflessness and sacrifice are used to mask this control and subjugation of women as wives.

    Jane hears him out when he eventually proposes but hears what he does not say: 'that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a husband’s heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock'.

    She is able to dismiss and sum him up because she has seen through the missionary to what lies underneath: 'The veil fell from his hardness and despotism.'

    St John Rivers represents death-in-life to Jane because he is an abusive tyrant and his God is a monster of sacrifice without love or humanity.


  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    Very thought-provoking and challenging; thank you @MaryLouise . I'm just in that bit of the book now and will continue to read with fresh eyes.
  • Not answering all the questions in order, but…

    This time of reading, after quite a few years since last time, I kept thinking “This would not get published today.” I may be wrong about that, but I think that today the way the book lurches around, and it’s deeply moral and religious tone would make it a hard sell to publishers. But I am glad that we have it!

    I was more appalled than ever by St.John Rivers. Now I have seen more of the world (!) I find him a deeply dangerous man, grooming Jane, as @MaryLouise says, and I would probably agree that his is not on the side of the angels, though he probably genuinely thinks he is. This is why he is dangerous. And what makes my blood run cold is that his ilk can still be found in some churches, and some pulpits. People who can’t see and love those who are near them because of the good they intend to inflict on those who are farther away. And people who only view others in terms of how they might help further those plans, not as people.

    This time I appreciated Jane’s feistiness and skill in repartee more than I have done, but I do find it hard to see why she falls for Mr Rochester, especially after seeing him with Blanche Ingram, and the more so when it becomes obvious he has been using Blanche. How is that supposed to make him attractive to Jane?

    I think that Helen is an important character, because as I read it, it is from her that Jane begins to learn to think for herself and to develop a thoughtful faith.

    And I have read “Wide Sargasso Sae” though not recently. I remember finding it compelling, but I don’t remember why, though it does give you a different view of poor Bertha. I am not a great fan of the way that Bertha’s mental condition is portrayed - bestial and violent.

    By the way, I think that divorce was not possible when one of the partners in the marriage was insane.
  • MaryLouise, very good analysis of Rivers. I exclaimed to my wife that Bronte nailed grooming and coercive control, before those terms were used. But she said that the 19th century saw patriarchal coercive control at its zenith, possibly. Reminds me of the cruelties in Dickens. Even Austen saw it, reminds me of Harding's essay, "Regulated hatred".
  • Sorry, absurd to talk of a 19th century zenith of oppression. You could say that people were becoming aware of it.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Another thing strikes me: the elemental naming of characters. There is Jane Eyre/Air, related to both Reeds and Rivers, that well of secrets Grace Poole, Rochester/Roche/Rock, Bertha whose name derives 'bright', the fire-raiser.

    It is the final conflagration of Thornfield Hall and all its secrets that makes possible 'the bridal of the earth and sky', air and (broken) rock.
  • As I remember, in one of Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti detective novels, his wife Paola, a university Eng. Litt. lecturer and devotee of Henry James, calls Jane a 'calculating little minx'. Is this deliberately provocative, I wonder?
  • BelisariusBelisarius Admin Emeritus
    edited February 2022
    She does allow herself to cry as a tactic when confronting Rochester after the failed wedding ceremony, but I can't think of any other obviously calculating action.

    Regarding divorcing Bertha: Rochester tried to take that step too late, as Bertha was (as cathscats mentioned) already diagnosable as insane; Divorce was still defined as a criminal trial in Britain, and an insane party couldn't defend themselves (successfully divorcing an insane spouse didn't occur until the 1870s, when the process was finally ruled a civil suit).

  • Thank you, MaryLouise, for your brilliant analysis of the characterisation of St John Rivers.

    There's something strange -and I think deliberate - too about the way Bronte handles the missionary enterprise. I've read a great deal of 1830s and 1840s missionary literature, and the missionary imperative tends to have two separate thrusts: the Great Commission and the need to follow Jesus' commands to convert - which Rivers expounds on at length, and secondly a strong emphasis on the benighted condition of the 'heathen' and their damnation, a concern from their souls, and to put a stop to practices which offend God (cannibalism, idolatry etc).

    This second strand is completely missing from Rivers' explanations for his desire to be a missionary, indeed the Indian people and their souls, the fear they are damned (in other words, a concern, however misguided, for them) are completely missing from his conversations about India. His explanation of his plans must the first piece of 'missionary literature' I've read from this era which doesn't go on about sati (ritual widow burning) and idolatry - usually at great length. It's all about Rivers and his soul.

    I'm sure Bronte had read enough missionary lit for this to be deliberate.

    (If he was going to Calcutta, as mentioned somewhere, he's also learning the wrong language, but Bronte may not have known this)
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    Eirenist wrote: »
    As I remember, in one of Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti detective novels, his wife Paola, a university Eng. Litt. lecturer and devotee of Henry James, calls Jane a 'calculating little minx'. Is this deliberately provocative, I wonder?

    If you could recall, I would like to know the name of the Leon novel. I have most of them.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    @Marama, I thought so too, deliberate and guarded but revealing. It is thought that Charlotte Bronte modelled the character of St John Rivers on Henry Martyn, chaplain to the British East India Company who died at sea in 1812, unmarried. His last words were, "Let me burn out for God." Very little was known about the missionary territories in themselves, as was the case with the 'Continent' of Europe (immoral French mistresses) or the profitable slave colonies of the West Indies.

    Those reading the novel Jane Eyre in the 1850s after its publication were more likely to associate the missionary with the famous David Livingstone of the London Missionary Society in Africa and the scandal of his wife Mary Livingstone, daughter of Robert Moffat of Kuruman. Livingstone marries Mary as a utilitarian and pragmatic move (although he later comes to love her deeply) because she has grown up in Africa and speaks several vernacular languages including Tswana, is able to address chiefs and argue against slavery. He takes her on journeys across the 'thirstland' Kalahari even though she is pregnant and miscarries, nearly dies after suffering a cerebral stroke from malaria. She would bear seven children within a few years, the usual plight of Victorian wives. Then he sends her to Britain in order to have his children educated: Mary Livingstone is not welcomed by his family, has a breakdown and is found a homeless alcoholic supposedly 'prostituting' herself to feed her children after appealing in vain to the London Missionary Society for aid. Livingstone sends for her, she leaves her children behind and returns to Africa to die of malaria in Mozambique at the age of 41. Her history is glossed over as Livingstone's posthumous fame grows. A chief in Zambia says Livingstone had three great passions and none of them a woman: the Nile, the anti-slavery cause and the Christian God.

    The surveillance of women in Victorian society was a constant and harsh reality and any 'respectable' woman who lost her reputation lost any standing in the community. Charlotte Bronte herself made a huge faux pas when she dedicates the second edition of Jane Eyre to Thackeray, not knowing this eminent literary figure had had his wife confined to a lunatic asylum. Women who created scandal or behaved inappropriately (promiscuity, blasphemous language, fits of temper, drunkenness or opium addiction) could be confined to asylums even if they were not insane. Jane's monstrous twin is Bertha Mason, dissolute, violent, hideous, a stereotype of the female lunatic. Mrs Reed on her deathbed describes the young Jane as behaving wildly like 'an animal with human eyes' and Jane herself, like her author, walks a very narrow tightrope of moderation and knowing when to keep silent. @quetzalcoatl has mentioned the insight of Harding into what he called 'regulated hatred' in Jane Austen, her secret distrust for 18th-century English society shown up in a single line in Northanger Abbey describing an England: 'where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies.'

  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited February 2022
    Firenze wrote: »
    Another thing strikes me: the elemental naming of characters. There is Jane Eyre/Air, related to both Reeds and Rivers, that well of secrets Grace Poole, Rochester/Roche/Rock, Bertha whose name derives 'bright', the fire-raiser.

    It is the final conflagration of Thornfield Hall and all its secrets that makes possible 'the bridal of the earth and sky', air and (broken) rock.

    This intrigued me too, the role of nature's elementals as a powerful underlying symbolism. 'Thornfield' is a barren place; Lowood is an unhealthy location; Helen Burns is a flame alight when she speaks to Jane of the 'invisible world beyond'. Jane observes nature closely throughout and has faith in her own dreams and omens, folklore around the seasons, faery and elvin apparitions, the storms and spring flowers, the Evening Star. Rochester proposes to her in a woodland on Mid-Summer's Eve, evoking the magical or pagan allegories of Shakespeare's play.

    And when Jane herself is in a terrible crisis, she does not turn to any kind of Evangelical consolation but to her mother the moon:

    "She broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first penetrated the sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a white human form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my heart—

    “My daughter, flee temptation.”

    “Mother, I will.”
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    It's been so interesting to read everyone's contributions this month. The symbolism of the characters' names totally went over my head and the historical context provided by posters is fascinating.

    Did you enjoy “Jane Eyre?” Was this your first time of reading or have you read it before?
    If you reread the novel, did you take something new from it? What did you notice or take away from it that you didn’t before?


    I think this was my third time reading the book, though I have watched various T.V. and movie adaptions. Last time I watched an adaption I came away thinking Jane would be better off marrying St John Rivers, but on rereading the book I remember how harsh and controlling he becomes and how obvious it is made that he is marrying her without love. I also had forgotten that they reconcile and continue a friendship through letters. I found it a bit strange that the book ends with his last letter and imminent death. The adaptions usually end with Jane and Rochester's reconciliation.

    Having taught for many years now and recently having learnt a lot about executive functioning skills and ADHD etc., I saw Helen Burns with different eyes. I always thought it was unfair that she was so heavily punished for messiness and untidiness, but realise now that many people alive today experienced the same at school, often due to having undiagnosed ADHD or other reasons for poor executive functioning skills. Girls and women tend to be more blamed for disorganisation or messiness and expected to be neat, tidy and clean than boys even today. It was sad when Helen decided she was better off dying young because a woman like her would not fit into the world.

    I also noticed how obsessed Jane and some of the other characters were with judging people based on their physical characteristics. Though interestingly both Jane and Rochester were describe as plain and ugly, yet of mostly good character and attractive characters such as Mrs. Reed and Blanche Ingram turned out to be very flawed.


    How did you feel about the first section of the book at Gateshead and then Lowood School? Lowood School was based on the very real school Cowan Bridge School in Lancashire, where Charlotte and her sisters attended. Sadly, two of her sisters died there. In her biography by Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte admitted that the character of Helen Burns was based on her sister Maria Brontë. How does knowing this make you feel toward Helen and the school?

    It's horrifying to think that Charlotte may have attended such a dreadful school. It seemed even in schools for the wealthy there was a lot of abuse, neglect and poor food up until fairly recent times. It seems to be based on an idea that the world is tough and so children must be mistreated to become strong enough to cope as adults and perhaps colonise the world etc. in harsh environments. No understanding that such treatment could lead to trauma and inter-generational issues, attachment disorders and poor physical and mental health later in life.

    What was the purpose of the Blanche Ingram character? Did Mr. Rochester only bring her to Thornfield to play games and make Jane jealous?

    One new thing I noticed this read through was that Mr. Rochester compares Blanche Ingram to how Bertha appeared and acted during their courtship. Could he have punished her as revenge for Bertha's behaviour? His gypsy act proved she was only after his money. It was interesting that Jane is critical and confused by the upper class not marrying for love and puts it down to them being raised to marry for position and wealth.

    How did you feel about Jane becoming an heiress? Did you enjoy the section of the novel with St. John and his sisters?

    It seemed a bit unnecessary, except perhaps to rule out any suspicion that Jane married Rochester for marriage. I was happy for her female cousins that she was able to provide them with independent lives in a time when work was not very rewarding or well paid for women.

    There is a touch of the supernatural in the story. What did you think of the moment when Rochester called for Jane from across a considerable distance and she heard him?

    I like a bit of supernatural events, especially as the novel is Gothic.

    What role does Jane’s belief in God play?

    Jane's belief directs many of her decisions and the way she treats others. Perhaps she would have become more vengeful and distrusting if she had not met Helen Burns and learnt about true, loving Christianity.

    Do you agree with Jane’s choice to leave Rochester when she finds out about Bertha? Or would you have made a different decision?

    I would have run for the hills! I'm not sure I would have gone back either. Though Jane was only about 18 to 20 during her relationship with Mr. Rochester and apart from St John, had not many men to compare him too and was very in love.

    What would have happened if Bertha had not perished in the fire? (Thanks to @Belisarius for this suggestion.)

    I'm not sure Jane would have gone back, or at least stayed with Mr. Rochester. Maybe she would have gone to India after all.

  • As I recollect, the Brunetti I mentioned came fairly late in the series. Unfortunately we have disposed of some of our collection, and it will take some time to work through those I have left. I think Brunetti's daughter was studying the book (Jane Eyre) at school.
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