ANGELICA'S BOOKS: JANE EYRE BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE

Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre (2011)

 Jane Eyre is a book published in 1847 by Charlotte Brontë aka Currer Bell (she chose a male pseudonym to publish her books since it was considered improper for women). It is a Bildungsroman novel with Gothic elements. The original title was Jane Eyre: an autobiography. Actually, in the novel, there are many autobiographical elements and Jane Eyre’s life has some features in common with the author’s life.

The novel follows Jane Eyre’s story from the age of 10 to about 20. Jane tells her life in first person, sometimes talking directly to the reader.

Jane Eyre is an orphan girl, raised by her aunt, who, however, didn’t love her. When Jane was 10, her aunt decided to send her to Lowood School, a boarding school for orphan girls. She would stay there for 8 years. After this period, she decided to go to Thornfield Hall as a governess. Here, she met Mr Rochester, the owner of Thornfield Hall, and little by little, she fell in love with him. However, a secret hidden within the walls of Thornfield Hall would put their relationship at risk.

Certainly, the reason of the success of this book is its protagonist, Jane Eyre. She is not a traditional character, because she is described as rather ugly with irregular features, and she is appreciated because of her inner qualities. She is an unconventional and self-reliant woman who does not do what society dictates her.

 “I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.”

She is a girl who likes studying and learning. However, above all, she respects herself before everything else.

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”

Self-respect is more important even than her love to Mr Rochester.

[Rochester] “Jane, be still; don't struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation."

[Jane] "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.”

Mr Edward Rochester, instead, is a typical Byronic hero. Therefore, he is far away from the classic stereotype of Prince Charming and the first meeting between Jane and Mr Rochester seems to highlight it. Moreover, he is an ugly man with distinctive features and black eyes and hair. He is moody and he always says what he thinks. However, he has a big secret and he will try to hide it from Jane.

The love between Mr Rochester and Jane Eyre can be considered as a Platonic love. The fact that Charlotte Brontë repeats several times that both Jane and Rochester are ugly, seems to emphasise it: without the beauty of the body, the spiritual beauty is praised and exalted and nevertheless it makes the body desirable.

“And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire.”

And, in addiction:

“Most true is it that "beauty is in the eye of the gazer." My master's colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth,--all energy, decision, will,--were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite mastered me,--that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his.”

Indeed, Jane says that she feels spiritually bound to Mr Rochester. On the other side, Rochester says that he wants her soul and that he cannot be separated from her. In Jane, Rochester finds a way to redeem himself from his sins:

"No--no--Jane; you must not go. No--I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence--the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in myself--I must have you. The world may laugh--may call me absurd, selfish--but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame."

Moreover, the main theme in this novel is the general condition of Victorian women. Indeed, the woman had to take care of her children; she was not allowed to study or work, except as a teacher or a servant. Jane always rebels against the rules of the society because she thinks that women and men are equal and they should have the same rights.  

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex”

 

Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë was born on 18^th April 1816 in Thornton. Her father was a Protestant minister and he changed his name from Brunty to Brontë: probably, he wanted to associate himself with Horatio Nelson duke of Bronte. She had four sisters and one brother; her best-known sisters are Emily and Anne Brontë, both writers. When her mother died, she was sent to a boarding school with her sisters, where two of them, Elizabeth and Mary, died because of tuberculosis. This experience was described in Jane Eyre: indeed, by this book, Charlotte wanted to denounce the too hard education and the mediocre hygienic conditions of the boarding schools as Charles Dickens had already done in David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby.

Her best-known novel is Jane Eyre, whose protagonist has a lot in common with the author. The book was published in 1847, the same year when her sister Emily published Wuthering Heights.  Charlotte, Emily and Anne used pseudonyms to publish their books: Charlotte signed as Currer Bell, Emily as Ellis Bell and Anne as Acton Bell.   

During her stay in Brussels, Charlotte fell in love with an already married professor and this experience inspired her novel The Professor. Then, she came back to England and she worked as a governess.

In 1854, she married Arthur Bell Nicholls, but on 31^st march 1855, she died from tuberculosis while she was pregnant of her first child.  

 

Angelica, 3sc B