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This was perhaps my mother's all-time favorite book so I heard about it a lot growing up and I saw the innumerable movies. None of them particularly impressed me as anything special, and some were actively off-putting (George C. Scott/General Patton as Mr. Rochester? Seriously?), or incongruous (Timothy Dalton/James Bond as Mr. Rochester).
At any rate, I didn't read Jane Eyre until this year and found myself immediately drawn into the book. The first part, told from a child's point of view, is so vivid, and the character created is so likable that I couldn't put it down. What I found most interesting was how Jane discovers that her curious combination of analytical thinking and emotion-based reactions was intimidating to the adults around her. Some found it "unnatural" while the more simple (like her stepmother) found it "deceitful." Later, we find out that Jane does have a manipulative bent to her nature, but she uses her powers for good. Still, perhaps the adults picked up on her ability to see them clearly enough to manipulate them and found this horrifying in a young child. I found this the most interesting and powerful part of the book. While the rest of it was as well-written, my attention tapered off.
I'm sure that's due to the fact that Jane Eyre had such a huge impact and because of it this once unique romance is now a cliche. At any rate, the plot is a cliche--the poor governess falls for the dark and brooding master with a terrible secret, yet she, with her sweetness and goodness overcomes all obstacles to live happily ever after.
This is an extremely common plot, but I found as I read Jane Eyre that it rises above its imitators in several ways. For one thing, Mr. Rochester is not the domineering demon lover so common to the gothic romance. In fact, I found him a bit of a flippant Chatty Cathy with an amusing, if lightweight, line of patter. In addition, Jane has him figured out from the get go and runs circles around him. She knows who she is, and she has a clear idea of her own moral boundaries that she's created more or less on her own, rather than blindly accepting whatever she was taught as a child. (She saw too much hypocrisy and ineptitude from the adults around her for that.)
Rochester, on the other hand, hasn't the strength of mind that she does primarily because he has no sense of moral boundaries. And he thinks, wrongly, that he'll be able to persuade her, if he just talks loudly, and fast enough, and appeals to her emtions, into spurning her moral convictions.
The real love here is in Jane's understanding of his limitations and the way she often manipulates him in order, at times, to protect him from his selfish, heedless, and impetuous actions.
In fact, what stands out to me in the romance part of the novel is how the main characters take turns manipulating each other. Some of them manipulate entirely in the other person's interests (rather like Andy Griffith's Sheriff Taylor on the Andy Griffith show--and I bet that is the first time in history Andy Griffith has been compared to a Bronte character); while the others manipulate in the more common way of trying to get their own way.
The least enjoyable and yet most fascinating part of this book is the final section where we meet St. John. Here is where Charlotte Bronte's genius is revealed. She first of all shows us Rochester who is openly selfish and flawed and physically unattractive, then she introduces us to St. John who is almost miraculously handsome, is ethically above reproach even to the point of denying himself love for intelligent reasons...and yet he is far more unattractive than Rochester. He is, in fact, a coldly manipulative narcissist.
Without pointing anything out directly, Bronte shows us how Jane reacts to both men. With Rochester she is a strong, vital, charismatic woman who can hold her own and provide support where those she loves require it to combat their own weaknesses. With St. John she becomes a meek, frightened, helpless enabler who almost loses sight of her own convictions in the face of his unyielding self-certainty. The irony for me is that St. John, although representing Christendom, is the real "demon lover" that Rochester is most commonly seen as. Rochester is a flawed human and Bronte never attempts to present him as anything else. St. John, however, is a monster in sheep's clothing. This part of the book was the true gothic part of the novel I felt, since it was the only time the heroine felt helpless and trapped.
Without fail I always find that where the classics are concerned it's like a game of "telephone," where someone says something and it gets passed on until by the time it reaches the person at the end of the line it barely resembles the original comment. My idea of Jane Eyre hasn't survived the actual reading of the novel--and for that, I'm glad. This is a far better book than its imitators make it out to be.
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barbara reavley
I love being able to enlarge the print
Reviewed in Canada on March 31, 2017