Jane Eyre

[ipanemagirl]

I've got a horrendous cold and have spent 3 days mostly in bed. So I started to read this again, starting at Thornfield. It's just so so so so so good. I love this book. It's a few years since I've read it, I can't believe I'm OLDER THAN MR ROCHESTER. When I first read it he was like an Ancient Old Man. It's so weird! He's 35! And there are loads of stout women in their 40s! I so don't want to be one of those stout women like Grace Poole!
I read books so differently now, I used to just skim landscape and interior descriptions, now I really read them. It's a different book.
Also, why does Jane accept his Parisien stories and the description of his general dissipation? Wouldn't a girl at that time be genuinely horrified? She's as unbothered as if it was 2009! Strange Brontes.

[AnnVan]

Ah. i LOVE Jane Eyre. One of my favourite books, and I would say I read it about twice a year. As for why she's not horrified - the Bronte's were incredibly ahead of their time. Think about it. Jane Eyre is about a relationship between a married man and another woman, and is sympathetic to it. Not exactly in keeping with Victorian values. Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall is about a woman who leaves her abusive husband and falls in love with another man. Totally scandalised people at the time. Mind you - Jane doesn't precisely accept it, she just isn't horrified - she does tell him in her calm way that he can right his wrongs etc.

[Shitemum]

Have you read 'Wide Sargasso Sea'?
It's the mad wife's story.

[Bleuravin]

I've read both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea and I've also read the Eyre Affair by Jasper FForde. They're really great.

I got Jane when I was 13 and at first I thought my grandparents were being really old fogies for giving it to me, but I loved it was I tried it.
I read Sargasso in Uni (because that's when I found it) and ended up doing a paper on it and Jane...Mad Woman in the Attic is a great book to look at if you're interested in literary comparesions, discussions.
The Eyre Affair I picked up because I love Jane and thought it would be interesting to see what/why Fforde would write about it. It's a very funny gum-shoe novel that pulls Jane's story into a modern setting (kinda). You might consider that too for a quick, good read.

I think all three of the fiction books are brilliant!

[Bink]

Oh, if you want bizarre Parisien emotional turmoil, have a go at Villette. That's freaky.

[Threadworm]

Can I just say that although I like the book I really really despise the character Jane Eyre. She is a perfect instance of the 'slave morality' that Nietzsche imputes to Christianity. A woman in a position of weakness, abused by all those around her, she spites her abusers, not by acquiring strength but by buying in on strength vicariously -- by associating herself with a strong man who can raise her up and damn her enemies.

And then, in a final piece of spite, she (or rather her author) crucifies blinds her revenging lord, so that in her weakness she can triumph even over her saviour.

The analogy with the Nietzsche view of Christian slave morality is striking: weak believers ally themselves with a powerful god who will avenge them against their enemies and then, despising all strength, they celebrate the crucifixion of their god.

'Slave morality' transltes well to the similarly debased morality of oppressed women. Oppression makes us base not noble.

[expatinscotland]

i thought he was 38.

[BitOfFun]

Interesting post Threadworm, rather gloriously flattened by Expat

I always found Jane a bit wet myself, but I do like the book. I loved Rebecca too, which can be read as a re-working of it.

[ipanemagirl]

God Threadworm, respect to your tight grip on Nietzsche, it sounds a good theory, I need to ponder it some more.

I've reread it loads of times too. But I'd forgotten about Bertha coming to Jane's room and trying on the veil etc Surely Bertha would just murder Jane wouldn't she? Why would she spare her?

Those poor Brontes surrounded by those moors and that graveyard, and they all looked so small judging from their frocks in Haworth.

Expat, I think she says he's 35, I just can't believe I'm older than him, it just seems so wrong, shouldn't I always be younger than Mr Rochester like until I die in a happy old age?

I don't want to suddenly realise that the only literary figure I'm the same age as is bloody King Lear! How old was he?

[Pan]

Jayne Eyre is beyond Nietzsche. He is small change in comparison. Yes, one can provide the anaysis that Threadworm applies, but the writing that is brought to the story is heady and grabbing on a level that the Big N. could never guess at.

[NancysGarden]

I love this thread! I have always hated Jayne Eyre and been fairly public about the fact but Threadworm's post articulates feelings I wasn't even aware I had

[Pan]

sounds like undergraduate desparation to impress with abstrouse presentation to me.

[AnnieLaurie]

Bink - Villette is my favourite, favourite book. I love the Brontes, and Villette is such a special book. Not many people know it I think.

The descriptions of the nun bits and Lucy out in Villette at night on opium are amazing.

I always cry when she finds herself back with her godmother and goes to sleep wetting her pillow with tears saying 'Quite tranquil' over and over or something along those lines.

Going to have to read it again now...

[NancysGarden]

Will endeavour to get hold of a copy of vilette. I'm sure I tried to read it as a teenager without success.

[Flamespar]

Jane Eyre is on my "try again" list for this year. One of the only books I have never finished - I think because it is tainted with GCSE English memories (turns out all the films rearrange the plot - how is that going to help you cheat?!?)

I have WSS here from where I was meant to be doing a course, bought the books, then couldn't do it - will read that afterwards

[Threadworm]

I don't think my presentation was abstrouse pan. The ideas are pretty simple. And isn't is a good debbate to have -- about the extent to which women's oppression has sometimes made them petty and bad? We tend to regard victims of oppression as somehow made noble by suffering. But the reality is often so very different. It is degrading to be powerless.

[Threadworm]

'''isn't it a good debate to have...

[Threadworm]

And, also, Pan, why do bloody rude? Undergrad desperation, 'absrtouse'.

I have often wanted to discuss these thoughts about Jane Eyre, and the arrival of a thread on her on Mumsnet was a welcome opportunity. Don't appreciate someone coming along and abusing the very thought.

[Threadworm]

I am, actually, really offended my your remark, Pan. The consequences of oppression on women's character is a worthwhile theme to put up for discussion on a woman's website. It pisses me off a lot that a man should sail in and trash the idea with pure namecalling.

[ipanemagirl]

Threadworm, I'm always fascinated to hear lit crit of any book that's deeply in my consciousness because I've always been very ignorant of lit crit. of any kind. I think I tend to be fairly lazy and just see books like Jane Eyre as 'of their time' and think of the Brontes as parson's daughters with extraordinary imaginations. But given their time, isn't it an act of defiance of their gender roles that they even had the cojones to write these books at all? That's how I tend to read them. Certainly Jane Eyre is pious and needs a man to triumph as in the critique you outlined. But in pure 'pleasure in a narrative' it works for me as Beauty and the Beast works. And I love that he loves Jane when she is not drop dead gorgeous and that who you are matters in the long term not who you appear to be.

[Pan]

I do apologise, Threadworm. I see why you thought it rude. I'm trying to avoid overuse of the emocion to indicate humour, but maybe I should have put it in here. I DO respect your exhibited grasp of the Big N, as ipanemagirl says, and the desperate undrgraduate thing was me being a bit robustly playful, though I totally accept it can lend to offence and I withdraw and apologise without reservation.

I love reading Jayne Eyre. IT's often quoted as the favourite 'girls' novel, but that doesn't matter. It is the pleasure in the narrative as ipanemagirl puts it,and the romance of pride and unrequited love. One can deconstruct stuff til the cows don't come home, but I try to keep Jayne beyond that.

[Threadworm]

Apology accepted

[christywhisty]

Going back to the OP I think we forget 30's was probably middle aged in victorian times.
None of the Brontes except Charlotte lived beyond the 20's and Charlotte was 39 when she died.

[IorekByrnison]

This is very interesting. I like your analysis threadie, although I felt that Jane's own strength is actually quite central to the book, and the dialogue between Jane and Rochester suggested to me that they related as equals, despite the disparity in their social positions (although it is some time since I read it). I wonder if her strength of character to some extent subverts the implication of slave morality inherent in the tale.

An aside re the blindness - was reminded of Jane Eyre when reading Rapunzel to dd recently. I had forgotten that the prince is blinded by the witch in the tower. At the end of the tale Rapunzel finds him and his sight is restored. The underlying stories are really quite similar I think.

[LightShinesInTheDarkness]

Have to agree with Threadworm - I had always thought that the blindness is a penalty for his sins.

[Threadworm]

Good point re Jane's strength of character, Iorek. I don't think it tells against the slave morality reading, but it is certainly in tension with it -- in an interesting and good way. One of the ways that literature is better than the analysis of it is that it can contain and thrive on contradiction.

Her strength of character, though, is founded on a sense of duty? Whereas N (scared to mention his name now) has a character-based notion of morality and would regard 'duty' as a self-abnegating and craven form of morality.

And I'm interested in the Rapunzel point. So there are at least two fairy stories JE resonates with -- Rap and Beauty & Beast. No wonder it is a powerful story.