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.

And remember Helen, Jayne's only friend at the orphanage??and why did Helen have to die so young? They missed such a trick on the 'feminst road story' there. Had the Brontes never heard of Thelma and Louise FFS??

I'm not a huge fan of Jane Eyre; I find Jane quite passive aggressive and the romance quite puzzling. Obviously it is complete lust but CB seems to want to dress it up as something else in deference to the time. I always saw Rochester's blindness as a way of Jane being able to take even more control of him. I much prefer Wuthering Heights where the carnality is much more upfront and no one is effecting to be a martyr.

Yes. Passive aggressive not that different from slave morality. And like you I see the blindness in terms of her control of Rochester.

RE : the blindess, as I read it again I'm struck by how gothic the atmosphere is and in a way the blindness seems in keeping with this and appropriate to the plot in terms of Rochester getting punished by fate for his youthful blindness/naivete.

Also it's like the Beast being near death when Beauty returns, the vulnerability of the Beast/Rochester is very satisfying somehow, he needs her completely. And it demonstrates entirely her lack of self-interest and proves the purity of her love particularly as she's of independent wealth by the end and could tell him to sling his hook and run off with a gilded fancy boytoy.

lol pan!

But her strength doesn't come entirely from a sense of duty. She identifies herself very early on in the book as a "rebel slave".

Regarding the romance, I was quite convinced. As far as I remember it, their relationship was full of the kind of banter that suggests a strong intellectual understanding.

I think I have recalled just one strand of the story, then. The one that resonated for me. There are others too, clearly.

Helen is Maria, Pan - CB's oldest sister, who died at (and possibly because of) the unspeakable school they were sent to.

My thing about JE (which absolutely squares with the fairy-tale resonance, and is why Helen has to die, etc.) is that it's fairly bare, & visceral, Freudian dream-work in novel form* - making myth (via symbol) out of autobiography.

That explains for me why the different stages of the book are so different, so almost incompatible. The Red Room, and "we talk, I believe, all day long" do not belong in the same world, let alone book.

And that being the case I am not sure that I can do much more with it, as a book, than see it in its immediate (ie CE's personal) psychological context - I can't (unlike lots of other Victorian literature) give it a wider social contextual relevance. Though perhaps some Jung (per the fairy tales) would apply - but that's the same idea, really.

*though not as bare & visceral as Villette (passim).

Ref to "CE" should of course be to "CB" (but that's basically a QED all on its own!).

Bink I can't type very quickly because I'm kneeling in response to your post. You are my lit hero I doff my cap.

It does seem appealing to draw Freud in, especially because of the ambivalence displayed in blinding (castrating, crucifying) the loved object. And because the peaceful co-existence of opposites (Jane's strength and weakness, e.g.) is something that Freud handles well.

I'm not sure that a visceral psychological interpretation needs to make the reading of JE just limited to the author's psychology, though. It resonates with universal psychological themes (the Neitzschean account is essentially a psychological one) -- just as fairy stories do.

Universality, yes indeed I agree - hence Jung - you know, Bettelheim and that.

Ip'girl - on feeling Lear as one's peer, a story (not really a reading story but an actress story): actress friend-of-friend met producer by chance. "Ah!" he cries, "I was thinking of you. We're casting Hamlet." Actress's eyes light up with excitement of Ophelia, and then notices producer's wary expression. It dawns on her. He doesn't want her for Ophelia.

Mate who told me this & I now refer to The Gertrude Moment.

not sure I completely agree with the idea of Rochester as her revenging lord - she returns to him as a woman of means not as a victim.

I hadn't thought of the blindness as some sort of punishment before - do you read anything into the final comments which suggest his sight is partially restored following the birth of their child?

LOL Bink, that is a moment actresses must find comes pretty quickly in their career, how very scary.

I've just read somemore and Jane has wrenched herself away from him and is now penniless at a bleak crossroads which makes me think of Hardy and the bleakness of fate. These parting scenes are really histrionic, I had forgotten them, but hell, it is Jane Eyre, CB's prerogative to be histrionic! But poor Jane with only 20 shillings in her pocket as she slips away from Thornfield. I really think she was entitled to some form of compensation from the great Brute! I can't remember how she gets to be with the tedious pious people but look forward to her being discovered near death in a ditch.

Bink, that is a corker- The Gertrude Moment...I wish I could pinch that!

Very interesting discussion- wish I could add to it but am v rusty, but you have inspired me to go back to the text, thanks guys!

I was thinking more about the Red Room and the monstrous lolling aunt this morning (nothing whatsoever to do with having shockingly overslept, Ho no) - it is interesting to me that whereas all you other posters are focussed on the Rochester bits, and the adult emotional/erotic charges there, the bit that really resonates for me is Jane as a child, just up to and around the school.

Perhaps this has to do with when I first read it, which was probably "too early".

Or perhaps it's because (thinking more about the fairy tale parallels idea) I find those bits even more vividly symbolic - the monstrous aunt is a fabulous take on Cinderella's stepmother - or just about any of those toxic parent folk archetypes. And Jane's Serves-You-Right martyrdom of the Red Room is very much a child's fantasy of how to make their (toxic or otherwise) parent SORRY.

Can't immediately think of a folk-tale analogy for that last bit, except for my own (occasional) self-absorbed sulky fantasies as a child. [Pout emoticon]

LOL Bink (with respect to your feelings of course!)

I had completely forgotten how Jane nearly dies on stjohn rivers' doorstep owing to faithful Hannah's leaving her there to die until the horrible creepy stjohn saves her. The section about her begging around this village is so good, such a sense of desperation. She's just starting the village school and I'm now a little bored and want to hurry on to be
Reunited , now it feels so gooooood.

I agree Bink about the childhood stuff, I think that section of the book is brilliant, sometimes I start with that, it's totally wicked stepmother, but I've now forgotten what happened in the red room other than she was locked in there and nearly died of fright. will have to go back.

Hi Bink - I'm interested in your comment that you read this "too early" - I also have a very strong emotional response to the childhood element which I have always put down to first reading it when I was too young to understand the adult Jane story.

I have similar experiences regarding Jane Austen as well - the one I never read young is the one that I like best and I'm sure it's because much of the impact of her writing went over my head when I first read it.

As a result I've deliberatly dissuaded my 14 year old from reading any bronte or austen or hardy because I think she'll get far more out of them when she is more emotionally mature. As a result we are all in the depths of "Twilight" et seq.

oh, MrsW, this is such a hobbyhorse of mine! (see posts passim on what age for what Shakespeare etc., with specific reference to Coriolanus(?!)) Perhaps it's an idea for a thread of its own?

Current instance of my own: dd (who was 8 in October, and a very warm-hearted, family-fond little person) was given Little Women for Christmas, and she's deep in it, but not anywhere near the Meg Thing yet, and I am wondering whether to accidentally mislay the book before she gets there.

it is interesting isn't it as to what is the right age to read particular books - when i think back the books i have had the strongest emotional response to have been the ones i read at the "right" time and i would do all i could to give that experience to my children.

i'm sorry i'm too lazy to search the archive so could you give me a potted summary of the shakespeare debate? my experience as a child was that it was boring (with the exception of merchant of venice which was brilliantly taught by the best english teacher i ever had) - we have introduced the children to it at an early stage but concentrated on open air performances in college gardens (where fidgeting and running around is not just tolerated but quite acceptable behaviour) and now, at the Globe, which has made an amazing impact on them.

Shakespeare - really? I was having a tease at my own ponciness there ... here's a selection, anyway ...

Nothing before age 5, and then an outdoor Midsummer Night's Dream, done with magically lovely fairies and OTT pantomime-like mechanicals. (Regent's Park did us proud here.)

Some of the comedies (& poss romances) can work between 5 and 10 - ds loved Twelfth Night at 7, but he went with school and according to teacher he was the only one in the entire theatre who was actually getting it. I think he'd get some of The Tempest too, specially if the music were done well. But you'd have to be careful, because that's the age when off-putting could get fixed.

Then, between 10 and 14 (depending on how gothic a child you have), a super-atmospheric Macbeth. I saw a flyer once for a promenade version, done at night by lamplight, through one of those Georgian-or-earlier folly mansions whose construction was never finished. Can you think of anything better? (The Japanese Macbeth - Ninagawa - at the Edinburgh Festival, decades ago, was wonderful for that too, but given that it was all in Japanese, maybe ahem a bit much for a 10yo).

Romeo & Juliet, obviously, is for teenagers being tossed about in their first agonized crush, and thinking that their parents can't possibly get it.

Coriolanus is for early-twenties, when you think that you're out to get the world, and that your parents can't possibly get it and it's basically all their fault.

Titus Andronicus also twenties-ish, when you really enjoy a fabulous camp guignol.

The Sonnets (which I'm indulging in at the moment) are for thirties/forties - there's clearly a decade-plus age gap between Mr W.H. (who's not an adolescent) and the Poet.

I'm not sure about Lear.

I haven't re-read the other Roman plays, or the histories, for ages. I should really. But the above is enough, isn't it?!

Shakespeare - really? I was having a tease at my own ponciness there ... here's a selection, anyway ...

Nothing before age 5, and then an outdoor Midsummer Night's Dream, done with magically lovely fairies and OTT pantomime-like mechanicals. (Regent's Park did us proud here.)

Some of the comedies (& poss romances) can work between 5 and 10 - ds loved Twelfth Night at 7, but he went with school and according to teacher he was the only one in the entire theatre who was actually getting it. I think he'd get some of The Tempest too, specially if the music were done well. But you'd have to be careful, because that's the age when off-putting could get fixed.

Then, between 10 and 14 (depending on how gothic a child you have), a super-atmospheric Macbeth. I saw a flyer once for a promenade version, done at night by lamplight, through one of those Georgian-or-earlier folly mansions whose construction was never finished. Can you think of anything better? (The Japanese Macbeth - Ninagawa - at the Edinburgh Festival, decades ago, was wonderful for that too, but given that it was all in Japanese, maybe ahem a bit much for a 10yo).

Romeo & Juliet, obviously, is for teenagers being tossed about in their first agonized crush, and thinking that their parents can't possibly get it.

Coriolanus is for early-twenties, when you think that you're out to get the world, and that your parents can't possibly get it and it's basically all their fault.

Titus Andronicus also twenties-ish, when you really enjoy a fabulous communal camp guignol.

The Sonnets (which I'm indulging in at the moment) are for thirties/forties - there's clearly a decade-plus age gap between Mr W.H. (who's not an adolescent) and the Poet.

Ant & Cleo has to be middle-age, doesn't it? (Sob)

I'm not sure about Lear.

I haven't re-read the other Roman plays, or the histories, for ages. I should really. But the above is enough, isn't it?!

sorry for that (double, even) overload

I am currently reading H G Wells Ann Veronica - it is fantastic... but...I wish I had read it 10 years ago!

many thanks - and at the risk of being poncy can i note that it accords with our experience to date. and, if you ever get the chance I strongly recommend Richard Olivier's workshop on Julius Caesar and influencing/negotiating (office politics) - we had it as one of the options on a work awayday and it was excellent.