this book will forever be wedged in my soul. i cannot adequately describe how insane jane eyre makes me feel and how much it all is. what i think and feel about how incredible this book it had probably been said a million times over and will be for many years to come. jane eyre is so much, too much, all encompassing… lord almighty. 

This is the book that made me realise that gothic stories might not be my thing...

Jane Eyre follows the titular character through a large portion of her young life as she travels from one abusive household to the next. An orphan and left in an abusive home, Jane grows a strong will and sense of independence, rarely buckling from her own thoughts and will. What makes her stand out from other women in this era is that Jane travels like a man of her time. Majority of the time when she moves it is on her own accord and by her own means. 

Like what you might expect from a book by one of the Brontë sisters, this one is packed with abuse and dark themes. However, this one is definitely one of the lighter stories. So if you've been curious about Brontë and this literary era, this iconic book might be a good place to start. 

My main dislike and discomfort of the story comes from the relationship between Mr. Rochester and Jane. The dynamic of the relationship made me incredibly uncomfortable due to its abusive nature.

Jane is blinded by her affection for Mr. Rochester in a way that I could never completely comprehend. As he harms and lies to her, ending each action with a declaration that his affection for Jane should be obvious, still not denying that he might hurt her again. Perhaps there is a comparison to real life abusive relationships that can be seen here.

 

 

While I’m sure you’ve all heard of this book, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brönte follows the life of, you guessed it, Jane Eyre. From her life as practically a stranger in her Auntie’s house to after she’s left an orphan through to the next 10 or so years of her life. This bildungsroman centres itself on our heroine Jane who is trying to make sure that she walks her own life path and centres herself, her morals and God on whichever path she takes. Through the ups and downs of the story, the reader is always kept in close proximity to Jane’s thoughts and feelings, meaning the readers become extremely well acquainted with Jane by the end of the novel. 

Even though by the 21st century, morality and religious themes are part and parcel of modern literature, Brönte revolutionised this in the 19th century. Jane is the embodiment of female Christian teaching in England at the time, constantly aligning her intense feelings to her Christian values and ensuring they exist on conjunction with each other. This exploration of faith in Jane is probably my favourite aspect of the whole novel, most likely because of how Jane is written overall. She is the most well written character in the whole book and it is clear that Brönte might even share some relatability to Eyre because of this really deep and spiritual portrayal of the protagonist. Though my later criticism will be that none of the characters are written to the same standard as Jane, the beauty of the whole book is how inevitably, you will fall in love with Jane. 

Onto the criticisms of the book, I thought it dragged on too much. The book could have gone from 532 pages to around 400 easily. Descriptions during this time period was the focus, and even though Brönte introduced new styles of writing, the overall descriptive window and garden scenes did feel slightly repetitive and unnecessary. After two examples and 6 pages of intense descriptive writing, it really doesn’t need to carry on – but that’s classical literature for you. 

Additionally, the book is a romance novel, yet I hated how the romance was written and how flaky it was. The two main love interests in the book are both with men who are badly written, and the love between the characters is barely explored until one day Jane says, “I love him, I’m going to marry him”, which feels like quite the jump considering the readers are experiencing every thought of Jane. The second love interest seems extremely rushed and out of the blue, as if Brönte had thought the ending through but because she realised she was already on page 500 and hadn’t got to where she wanted the story to end, she rushed the whole conclusion just so she could have the ending exactly like she wanted. 

Overall, while I see its cultural significance, and I have endless praise for Charlotte Brönte (and her sisters who were also authors) for writing this book at a time when women in the West were second class citizens, the book just didn’t hit the exact spot I wanted it to. 

This is a hard book to rate. It's a classic that inspired so much. But I also think it's so dumb. Mr. Rochester is gross and creepy and not a good guy. But, whatever. Still a good story.

DNF at page 302

My second attempt didn't go so well. The first time I read this, I gave it 4/5 and you can read my review below. This time, I couldn't get through it. It was so annoying and I just... I couldn't. Not my kind of book in the least.

Original review:

Coming into this book, my only knowledge was what I kind of remembered from watching one of the movie adaptations. And, I spaced out halfway through it, so I didn't remember much at all. The basic plot, and that was it.

Happily, I found that this was not like [b:Wuthering Heights|6185|Wuthering Heights|Emily Brontë|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388212715l/6185._SY75_.jpg|1565818], a book that I did not like too much as a whole. Yes, there was an asshole of a man who was supposed to be attractive. Yes, there was one woman who was insane.

But the comparisons end there.

Overall, I liked Jane as a character. She was resourceful, strong, and witty. I liked the relationship between her and Rochester because they were a match for each other. Of course, there were bits about Jane I didn't like. Personally, I didn't like that she went back to Rochester in the end, although he had become a dynamic character (aka wasn't as much of a shit). I also didn't like how much she put out that self-hate. Seriously, there was one passage in the book I cringed through as she drew herself to compare herself to a description of a woman she had never met... all for a guy.

Rochester was a dick. But, he was a good match for Jane. Out of all the trials she'd gone through in her life, he was a pretty easy one to handle. He just should realize next time to never hide the fact that he's married when he's out courting behind his wife's back.

St. John deserves a comment as well. He was a dick, too. A different type of dick, but a dick nonetheless. Seriously? You want to marry someone so you can "mate" with them? That is how you word it? No wonder no one wants to marry you and you die alone.

For the plot, I realized about halfway through that this was going to be a long ending once the whole thing dwindled down and I remembered where it was going. It's a classic, though. What more can you expect?