Do you remember how a couple of days ago I got all downer hour on everyone and I was like "ooh maybe we should stop worrying for one tiny second about if your tv show gets cancelled and start thinking about people living lives of quiet horror?" I know, I'm the worst. I got on that kick because I was thinking about this book I read. You might have heard about it. It's called The Sears Wishbook. No. I mean Jane Eyre. Poor Jane, you guys. What a life. It works out ok. I mean, she's dead now because it was published like 170 years ago. So that happened. But the book ends kind of nice. Spoiler alert.
If you read the Goodreads reviews for Jane Eyre you’d think it was all about a romance between two central characters. (Goodreads! Manufacturing drivel in exchange for nothing! Misunderstanding even basic literature since 2006!) There’s a lot of talk about Mr. Rochester in the same hushed tones as the endless discussion of Mr. Darcy. All these misters in Victorian literature rarely seem like fully fleshed-out characters. Instead they are a well-dressed symbol of escape from poor life in a world where for a woman there is no other option.
If you read the Goodreads reviews for Jane Eyre you’d think it was all about a romance between two central characters. (Goodreads! Manufacturing drivel in exchange for nothing! Misunderstanding even basic literature since 2006!) There’s a lot of talk about Mr. Rochester in the same hushed tones as the endless discussion of Mr. Darcy. All these misters in Victorian literature rarely seem like fully fleshed-out characters. Instead they are a well-dressed symbol of escape from poor life in a world where for a woman there is no other option.
It’s a shame that so many people read Jane Eyre in high school and never look at it again. To a young
reader, it could come across as a treatise on how with enough wit and
intelligence, even a plain girl can marry into money! Just as Les Miserables somehow cast off its
discussion of French history, religion, philosophy, social justice, young radicalism,
and Parisian architecture to become a trite story of two people who fall in love
even though one of them is a personality-free blank-slate, Jane Eyre somehow becomes about Mr. Rochester. O Mr. Rochester!
Jane Eyre is not
about Mr. Rochester, who is for the most part a whiny spoiled diaper baby. It’s
about a young woman who overcomes impossible odds to become someone whole in
spite of everyone around her telling her from a young age that she was born
wicked. Early in her life a good friend
sees value in her. “If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while
your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not
be without friends.” It’s basically Harry
Potter if Harry wasn’t useless without Hermione and if magic were raw
intelligence and tuberculosis was killing everyone.
At the time, Jane Eyre
was considered pretty subversive. It critiqued virtually every aspect of
agreed-upon society. According to one review from the time, it committed “that
highest moral offence a novel writer can commit that of making an unworthy
character interesting in the eyes of the reader.” The reviewer goes on to say, “It
is true that Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength, but it is the strength
of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself. No Christian grace is
perceptible upon her.” In other words, even though Jane consistently chooses
the path that is best for her, because she does it without being told to by a
religious figure, she’s wrong.
“We cannot help feeling that this work must be far from
beneficial to that class of ladies whose cause it affects to advocate.” Sound
advice for men who are concerned about what fool ideas these “novels” are
putting into their previously docile wives’ pretty little heads.
In Victorian times, the poor were an underclass with no
chance of mobility, and women doubly so. In a side plot we see a beautiful girl
throw herself at one rich man after another, as was her duty. In this time
having a lovely daughter was the potential to save your family from a life of
squalor. To have Jane, a poor woman with no prospects, serve as the moral core
of a mainstream novel is interesting. To have her represent so-called “masculine”
traits is downright astonishing. She firmly asserts herself to her monstrous
governess. She’s the rational one compared to the emotionally driven and often
pathetic Rochester. The voice of reason compared to her religious zealot
cousin. In one scene, Jane calmly puts out a fire without panicking or
screaming for help.
“I can live alone,”
she says, “if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not
sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can
keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at
a price I cannot afford to give.” I mean how dare she?
