Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

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    I chose Jane Eyre to be my second classic novel and I am so glad I did! I absolutely loved this book! I chose this book because I had recently seen the 2011 adaptation and fell completely and utterly in love with the eeriness of the story. Jane Eyre was published in 1847 and was written by the oldest of the Bronte sisters, Charlotte. I like to picture the book in three parts. Beginning with her childhood, then her time at Thornfield and her time after Thornfield. Jane Eyre starts off with an isolated ten-year-old Jane living with her malicious aunt and cousins who do not want her. As readers we get to see the neglect and maltreatment experienced by Jane which then helps shape her into the character she will become. Years later, Jane is now a governess in Thornfield. There she falls in love with her employer Mr. Rochester. The after Thornfield I will not mention for fear of spoiling you.

I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to visit you when I am grown up; and if anyone asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty. . . . 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. I shall remember how you thrust me back . . . into the red-room. . . . And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me—knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions this exact tale. ’Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty. . . . (Jane says to her aunt before her departure to Lowood)

What I love about Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre isn’t your typical female protagonist. She isn’t your typical beautiful and insecure character, who needs a male to bring out all the good in her. Jane is independent, honest, courageous and dignified. Jane Eyre was written and is set in an era where women had little to no rights. I had wrongly believed that women were all submissive and gentle during her time.  So, it came as a surprise to find Jane to be the exact opposite of what I thought. Jane Eyre was an 1800’s feminist. Which is one of them main reasons I loved her character. Mr. Rochester also isn’t your typical love interest. He is ugly and not as young as typically expected.

"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"  ( Jane thinks as she wishes she could leave and interact with the world)

I loved Charlotte Bronte’s powerful and beautiful writing. Most classics are difficult to read but Jane Eyre seemed to flow so smoothly. It is perfection! Charlotte Bronte managed to create such complex, divers and intellectual characters. I envy the way that each of her characters speak with such eloquence that you cannot find today.

“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.” (This quote is thought by Jane in chapter 29)

Another thing I loved about Jane Eyre is how she addresses the reader. I love how I felt as if she was recalling her story to me. It was so creative and different from other stories I have read.

"Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt? May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine.  May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonized as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love" (Jane speaks to the reader as she leaves Thornfield.)

Final Verdict

In conclusion, this story is one of the most amazing I have ever read. I was shocked to find myself so deeply devoted to this story. This story will now leave me with high expectations for everyone I ever met in my life.  I plan on rereading this book until I can recite every single line. I recommend this story to anyone who is interested in reading about strong female protagonists or to anyone in general.