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3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 3.75/5
Started: 4 November 2021
Finished: 18 December 2021
Summary:
Jane Eyre follows the life of young Jane from her life as an orphan living with her hateful aunt and cousins, to a boarding school, to her position as a governess. But more than that, Jane Eyre is a sweeping love story about secrets and pining and power: The power to hate, to destroy, and to love.
Thoughts:
I read nearly all of his book via audiobook, and mostly on dog walks, but I finished it while sick in bed due to the Covid Booster vaccine. That being said, I read this over a pretty log span of time, and heard the words rather than seeing them. The span of time over which I read the book also likely changed my perception of it, since I got something closer to snapshots of the mood and tone of the book each time I read a little more, rather than one overarching idea of it. So:
At first, I thought the book had a likable, honest main character, who was a little easier for me to relate to than seemed normal. She had this honest simplicity that felt simple and calm, but also a sense of capriciousness of desires that were accurately childlike. She hated her guardian, she looked up to older girls in the school, she wanted to be left alone to read. She felt injustices very deeply, and took them very personally, which I found to be super interesting. Often, people growing up in difficult circumstance will learn to almost stop caring about the injustices around them, but Jane never did, whether those injustices were aimed toward her or another student at the boarding school.
I also found the candor of her narration to be fascinating. She described people, whether to their faces or not, in this complete manner that made her seem intrinsically trustworthy. Her thoughts were complete, and she didn't pull any punches in terms of making light of people's faults. She explained, in detail, everything she thought to be good or bad about them. This gave me more trust in her as a narrator to tell things exactly as they were to the best of her abilities. I liked her tone, and the way in which her story unfolded in a manner that seemed to encapsulate exactly the way in which she was experiencing it, which again added to her trustworthiness.
In terms of the romance aspect of the novel, I had mixed feelings. While I do recognize that, in this novel, Jane had more agency and power than most women at the time ever did, it still made me a little uncomfortable to think of her and Mr. Rochester's relationship. He was so much older than her, and constantly referred to her as young or small, which felt a little pedophile-ish. He also did some very bad things to Jane, including several kinds of manipulation. He gaslit her by telling her that the person who crept into her room the night before their wedding was a figment of her imagination, and then he made her feel like it would be her fault for ruining his life if she left after discovering the existence of his wife. The scenes just before and after the couple's trip to the church with the intention of being married all made me relatively uncomfortable. Something about the emphasis of Jane's naivety and her aloneness in the world except for this older man who had manipulated her just rubbed me the wrong way. Especially in the scene where he tried to convince Jane to sta and she was afraid that he would physically harm her. THat's not good, or okay, or romantic. It's just plain abusive and creepy. In addition to that, Mr. Rochester was wronging two women at once. He had forced his wife into captivity, and we never got to hear her perspective, so it's possible that, rather than being "crazy" Bertha was just a woman who was more outspoken9 that Mr. Rochester wanted, and so he locked her up, which could have resulted in her symptoms of "madness." In addition to Mr. Rochester wronging her, a short podcast that I listened to after finishing the book talked about the possibility of Bertha not being white, since she was described as having black hair and dark skin. The idea that she was a person of color and is so othered reminds me of Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, and definitely leaves the reader a lot to think about. Anyways, at that point in the book, I was not happy with Mr. Rochester. And so I was very glad when Jane left.
I did find Jane's life away from Mr. Rochester o be in a way, the most frustrating part of the book. I liked Jane existing on her own, but her dependency on other people was annoying now that she was old enough to do things for herself, and more than that, her relationship with Mr. St. John River made me angry. He started out as a cool but kind person, whom Jane eventually managed to warm up. He seemed okay, if a little controlling, over-religous, and weird, and who, rather than helping to find her a position elsewhere, made the choice to keep Jane in his house without telling her, and then got her a job practically attached to him. But then he proposed, and Jane said no, and something that honestly bordered on abuse began. He didn't shout, wasn't mean, and was never cold enough that his sisters noticed, it, but he forced Jane to do things against her will, gave her no choice in things. He made her feel less than, and made her give up huge parts of her personality. Jane wasn't to blame for going along with it; he was manipulating her into submission.
And then the ending: Jane's return to Mr. Rochester. If Mr. Rochester hadn't been blind and crippled, I would have been frustrated at the cliche ending (yes, I do understand that, since this was basically the origin of this type of story, it can't really have been a cliche). But the way in which some higher power, whether that be nature or the divine, worked throughout the story to create balance between characters utterly fascinated me. The fact that some higher power recognized the power imbalance between Jane and Mr. Rochester and fixed it is so interesting to me. Mr. Rochester had money, age, power, and respect, while Jane had nothing. But then Jane was given money, and Mr. Rochester had power and respect taken from him, and so they were equal. This equality, and Jane's role as necessary in light of Mr. Rochester's helplessness made their reconciliation feel more mutual and right. Another example of nature acting as a force to balance power was Mrs. Reed becoming ill, and Jane getting to see her at her lowest. While I don't agree with the speed of Jane's forgiveness, it was the fact that Mrs. Reed was ill and powerless that gave Jane the ability to feel kindly toward her.
At the very end of the book, I liked the effect that the scenes of domesticity and hope gave the reader. The novel was certainly not a tragedy, but the happiness of the ending made the miserable parts of the story seem more necessary and part of life. The conclusion, which wrapped up the stories of many secondary characters, was also fascinating. The fact that the book ended with the near death of Mr. Rivers, and not with the happy couple, was particularly interesting, and I would love to do some research on the significance of that.
Outside of the order of the plot, one thing that I enjoyed in the book was the affirming symbolism of nature. Specifically, weather was consistently used as a more powerful echo of a character's feelings. The night when Jane and Mr. Rochester agreed to marry, there was a great storm, and a tree was split by lightening. This emphasized the power and wildness of their love, and also it's destructiveness. When Jane ran, feeling fear and despair and starvation, there was another great storm, which acted as a more outward symbol of her inner misery. The fire of Thornfield, too, was a symbol: This time of the rage felt by Bertha. It was deadly and destructive, which was how she she had been shown to feel in her other appearances in the story when she attempted to kill Mr. Rochester and rip Jane's wedding veil. Finally, the dark, closed-off wood that Jane found that Mr. Rochester had moved to is telling of his mental state at the time. The place where he was living was small, without even small symbols of joy, such as a garden. The woods symbolized Mr. Rochester's closed-off despair, and the house in the middle of it displayed his loneliness.
Finally, another tool that I noticed Brontë used was names. Jane's name, for one, is short, simple, and plain, which summarizes her physiognomy pretty well. Mr. St. John Rivers's name is also quite fitting, since he is extremely religious and views himself as on a life path of helping others in a way that might take him to sainthood.
In all, I liked this book more than I was expecting to. Reading it as an audiobook helped me a lot, but the book itself was engaging and fascinating, and I really did enjoy the experience of reading it.