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I’m a member of a book club, and we’re meeting at my house this week on my birthday! This month we read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (Currer Bell). From the buzz I’ve heard so far, everyone enjoyed it. I’d always meant to read it, since it’s a classic. I’d tried reading Wuthering Heights, Charlotte’s sister’s book, but that was too dark for me. But several people told me that Jane Eyre would be much easier on my dark/light preferences.
So, on Thursday I’m leading a discussion on the book. If you don’t like spoilers, stop here. I really enjoyed reading Jane Eyre. It started out pretty dark, with Jane in a mean aunt’s home and then a mean orphanage. Then things improve when she gets adventurous and decides to become a governess and move across the country. She then falls in love with her student’s guardian and things get frustrating because he leads her on for a while and then finally proposes. And there’s all this build-up to the wedding and how happy she is and how she can’t believe it’s really happening. And then it doesn’t happen because it turns out that he’s already married! To a horrible crazy lady who tries to kill her brother when he comes to visit her. And then Jane runs away to keep herself from living with a married man and she goes through a horrible suffering phase of begging for food and a place to stay until she’s rescued by a family who turn out to be her cousins. Then she finds out she’s an heiress! Then her cousin proposes, but she doesn’t like him and he doesn’t like her and just wants her to be a missionary with him in India. So she says no, much to his disdain. Then she finds out that the guy she wanted to marry is now a widower and that his late wife burned down his house and in the process of trying to resue her he became crippled and blind. But Jane still loves him and they go and get married and have a baby and live happily ever after.
I don’t like books that are dark unnecessarily, but the beginning of this one has a good reason for being dark. It has to establish that Jane is familiar with discomfort in order to make you like her when she’s so excited to live somewhere comfortable and to be loved by someone when she moves away to be a governess. Then you feel especially sorry for her when her hopes are dashed and she runs away–you relate to her sacrifice because it’s a big sacrifice for her.
If the story had ended with her marrying Rochester at the beginning when it all seemed too good to be true, it would have just been like all the other fluff Cinderella stories. You’d like Jane and be pleased for her, but it wouldn’t be very meaningful. But adversity steps in again and Jane has to make a difficult decision that is only hers–she makes it independent of any outside influence–and she chooses to do what she believes is the right thing to do. Then she is seemingly abandoned and alone in her trial. She has to endure hunger and rejection and loneliness and the elements when she could have had love and multiple homes and whatever else she wanted. Her choice makes me not only like her, but admire her. Especially since she doesn’t just give into the depression and die without trying, but works hard to find a way to live through her problems and make the best of it. And then the happy ending is meaningful and memorable.
I like the twist that Rochester is “punished” indirectly for trying to get around what’s right, for rationalizing and bringing Jane into his rationalization without fully informing her. He tries to make her do something wrong and pretend that it’s right. But then he’s given a punishment/blessing in his first wife’s death. He has to go through a trial that was as difficult as what Jane went through because of him and endure it well, and then they got the providential blessing.
It’s interesting that the two people in the story that represent the church aren’t really a happy representation, but I like it that Charlotte shows that religion and Christianity are good, but not always the people.
I thought the aunt’s character was impressive–that she couldn’t forgive Jane and it destroyed her, and that Jane had to forgive in order to survive her life. A kinda cool foil.
Jane gets bored fast, and that’s an interesting characteristic.
A HUGE part of the book is spent dicussing physiognomy. Jane and other characters in the book base much of their opinion of people on their facial features and how those features indicate personality. It was surprising to see just how much Charlotte assumed the audience would understand and agree with her interpretation of physical characteristics.
Those are my thoughts right now, which aren’t very deep, so it’ll be fun to discuss with the group. Stay tuned for a report on the birthday party book club!
