Jane Eyre

Title: Jane Eyre
Author: Charlotte Bronte
ISBN: 0451526554


Plot Summary: Jane Eyre, an intelligent, headstrong girl, is orphaned at a young age. After living with unsympathetic relatives for a while, she is shunted off to an even worse girl's boarding school, where living conditions only improve after a fellow student dies. When Jane comes of age, she seeks employment as a governess, ending up in the employ of the mysterious yet oddly compelling Mr. Rochester. Although she initially develops romantic feelings for her employer, she comes to realize that there are some extremely dark secrets in his past. It is only after a great deal of soul-searching, life decisions, and various personal tragedies that Jane and Mr. Rochester are reunited - but if they are to remain together, Jane must be able to do so on her own terms.

Critical Evaluation: It is unfortunately quite rare, particularly in older literature, to encounter an independent, outspoken female protagonist. This book features just such a character, who by her own intelligence and strength of character manages to extricate herself from a number of untenable situations, from an appalling orphanage to an emotionally trying employment situation to an ill-advised marriage proposal. Jane Eyre lives life on her own terms, inasmuch as a woman of her era and situation is allowed to do so at all. The fact that Charlotte Bronte was able to achieve so much by her heroine - at a time when she initially had to publish the book under a male pseudonym - speaks volumes about her ability to make such a "rebellious" female character as sympathetic as she is daring.

Reader's Annotation: In working for the mysterious Mr. Rochester, Jane at first feels she has escaped a life previously filled with hardship and sorrow. Yet when she finds out her employer has a dark past of his own, Jane comes to question exactly which compromises she is willing to make to remain with the man she has come to love.

About the Author: Charlotte Bronte was born in Yorkshire in 1816, the third of six children. She and three of her sisters were sent away to boarding school, but the living conditions put all of them in ill health and hastened the deaths of her sisters Maria and Elizabeth. When she returned home, Charlotte engaged in extensive world-building and story-writing with her surviving siblings, sisters Emily and Anne and brother Branwell. After working as a teacher and governess, Charlotte achieved great literary success with Jane Eyre, which she published under the vaguely masculine-sounding pseudonym of Currer Bell. Earlier on, she had published a volume of poetry co-written with Emily and Anne, and went on to see two more novels, Shirley and Villette, published during her lifetime. She subsequently married her father's curate and became pregnant, but suffered from ill heath and died mid-pregnancy. A final novel, The Professor, was published posthumously.

Genre: Fiction, Historical


Curriculum Ties: European History, Women's Studies


Booktalking Ideas:

Hook: "'Unjust! Unjust!' said my reason."
Approach: Scene and character-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: Jane, although the wronged party in her altercation with John, is still treated as culpable by the rest of the Reed family. The voice of injustice, which she is either unable or unwilling to ignore. Discussion of Jane's overarching need for justice throughout the book, how it manifests itself, and to what extent she is able to obtain it by the book's end.

Hook: Jane's discovery of her predecessor, the first Mrs. Rochester, and the fallout from her discovery.
Approach: Plot-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: Rochester paints himself as the wronged party in his first marriage. Do we believe him, and are we meant to? How does Jane feel about this? Great pains are taken to conceal Mrs. Rochester from the world, but she is still looked after. Does Mr. Rochester feel guilt on some level, a sense of responsibility, or does he simply feel his wife is too dangerous to unleash on the public? Discuss racial and cultural attitudes that could explain the books depiction of her as well as the other characters' treatment.

Reading Level/Interest Age: Adult/high school

Challenge Issues: Unsuited to age group, anti-authority, racism.
This book assumes a level of cultural literacy no longer commonly extant, particularly for younger readers: entire passages of the book related to Jane's work as a governess are written in French, with no translation given or, ostensibly, needed. The passages in English use sentence structure and vocabulary that may prove daunting to those unfamiliar with 19th century literature. The title character is frequently disrespectful towards authority figures, particularly when she feels they are being unjust. More disturbing, though, is the book's casual racism. Mr. Rochester's first wife, a mentally unstable Jamaican woman, is considered devilish by her very nature, and Jane's next employer, a clergyman, wants Jane to learn Hindustani for the sole purpose of coming with him to India to convert the natives to Christianity. With proper explanation, however, an impressionable reader could be made to see that this attitude towards non-English people was indicative of its era, rather than based in fact. Jane's rebellion against authority figures is a function of her greater desire for justice, and the book's difficult language could, with some translation work and the aid of a dictionary, be understood by a reasonably motivated young reader.

Why I Chose This Book: I first read Jane Eyre at an age where I had first discovered the concept of feminism, and experienced frequent righteous indignation on the subject. Although I loved the scenes in which Jane "talked back" to her various tormentors, I failed at the time to understand exactly how much courage it took for a woman of Jane's time to stand up to such imposing authority figures, and how few options existed for her outside of marriage and childbirth. In rereading it as an adult, I was even more impressed by how determined Jane is to live her life on her own terms, despite all the forces in her life conspiring against her.