How long jane eyre

Gilbert, too, rejects the premise that Jane Eyre demeans herself by returning to Rochester. In , her love of Rochester is so shocking it borders on treason. In any era, its relationship to the love it explores is uneasy, volatile. Nearly two centuries after it was published, Jane Eyre confounds every expectation.

After they met in person, Charlotte and her editor began a correspondence that can only be described as stimulating. She already knew that Smith loved her writing—when she sent him the draft of Jane Eyre , it captivated him so much that he read it through in one sitting, neglecting visitors and appointments as he rushed through the story.

It almost seemed possible that their friendship was something deeper. When Charlotte visited London, Smith begged her to stay at his house. He treated her to every amusement the city could afford. They traveled together, through London and even to Scotland, often chaperoned by his mother or sister.

When they were apart, they wrote long, chatty letters, dissecting the literary news of the day. At times it is sparkling and witty. It verges on flirty, and then it falls apart. In great happiness, as in great grief—words of sympathy should be few. Accept my meed of congratulation—and believe me. It was surreal to be the one pined for, the one whose crumbs were gladly gathered.

When he declared himself, she told her father, who exploded. But she did not love him, yet. Finally, she agreed, though she had deep reservations. During a pre-nuptial conversation with two of her friends, the kind of conversation in which virgin women asked more experienced friends about their marital obligations, Charlotte confided that she worried about what marriage might cost her. Marriage did exact a price. Though Charlotte Nicholls loved her husband, he constricted her.

He was horrified by the personal issues she discussed in her longstanding correspondence with Ellen Nussey, a friend since childhood.

Nussey agreed, grudgingly. Then she disobeyed him. Did Charlotte kill herself by handing over her intellectual and physical well-being? She died soon after, likely from dehydration following severe morning sickness. But her nine months of marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls were among the happiest of her life. Perhaps few women ever existed more anxious to be pretty than she, or more angrily conscious of the circumstance that she was not pretty.

Privacy Policy Contact Us You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. By: Erin Blakemore. February 27, March 2, Share Tweet Email Print. Topics Character Roles Protagonist, Antagonist Tools of Characterization.

Edward Rochester Mr. Edward Rochester's Timeline Mr. John Rivers Mrs. Reed Helen Burns Mr. Someone tries to murder Rochester by setting fire to his bed and Jane saves him. Rochester invites a bunch of local aristocrats over to his house for a weeks-long party. Rochester pretends that he wants to marry Blanche Ingram in order to make Jane jealous. Lloyd, who suggests to Mrs. Reed that Jane be sent away to school.

Reed concurs. Once at the Lowood School, Jane finds that her life is far from idyllic. Brocklehurst, a cruel, hypocritical, and abusive man. A massive typhus epidemic sweeps Lowood, and Helen dies of consumption. The epidemic also results in the departure of Mr.

Brocklehurst by attracting attention to the insalubrious conditions at Lowood. She spends eight more years at Lowood, six as a student and two as a teacher. After teaching for two years, Jane yearns for new experiences. The distinguished housekeeper Mrs.

Fairfax presides over the estate. She saves Rochester from a fire one night, which he claims was started by a drunken servant named Grace Poole.

Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbiddin Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Get A Copy. Paperback , Penguin Classics , pages. Published February 4th by Penguin first published October 16th More Details Original Title.

Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Jane Eyre , please sign up. Jill Rieder Eventually you should read both. In which order depends on your reading preferences. My favorite, by far, was Jane Eyre. Written in a sensationalist r …more Eventually you should read both. Written in a sensationalist romantic style, it still has moral, depth, and an interesting plot, and twists and turns that not only advance the plot but inform on the moral.

It also has characters which are more than pieces of cardboard. Wuthering Heights on the other hand reads like a straight up sensationalist novel. It took me three tries to get through Wuthering Heights, it moved so slowly in the beginning and middle and when I was done, I did not feel the better for it. But it is a classic and helps you get a handle on the different styles of the Bronte sisters, so it is worth it to get through.

This question contains spoilers Alex This answer contains spoilers… view spoiler [ I like to think that her experience of hearing him calling to her was a kind of intuition - and that after learning more about herself away from Mr. R …more I like to think that her experience of hearing him calling to her was a kind of intuition - and that after learning more about herself away from Mr.

Rochester, and after realizing that she could not go with St. John as his wife and be honest with her feelings, she was more in tune with her intuition. So that when she realized it was not her path to go with St. John, she realized that now she was strong enough to face Mr. Rochester, whether it was to tell him goodbye one last time or to try and make amends. It's important to remember that she had no clue his wife was dead, no clue about the fire.

I don't think she went back at all to pursue a relationship with him, only to acknowledge what was between them and see what was next for her in her life - whether that was something at Thornfield Hall or saying goodbye to that place forever.

Had Rochester's wife been alive, I think she would have seen Rochester one last time, and been able to say goodbye and put things behind her. As it was, with him hurt the way he was, and with his love for Jane and understanding of how he hurt her and messed up, it was then possible for them to move forward together.

See all 87 questions about Jane Eyre…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Jane Eyre. Yes, I suppose you can view this book mostly as a love story. Or you can view this as an story of formation of a strong and independent female protagonist , a nineteenth-century feminist, light-years ahead of its time.

And that's what left my now-closer-to-thirty-than-twenty self very satisfied and, quite frankly, rather impressed. Seriously - no. Just no. You don't Yes, I suppose you can view this book mostly as a love story. Seriosly, Rochester, what the hell is wrong with you? How can you even attempt to build a marriage on such a lie???

You tell him, you strong and awesome woman, you! When I read it for the first time as a young and opinionated teen, I thought Jane Eyre was a boring and meek protagonist, too clingy to her 'outdated' morals, too afraid to do what I thought was a brave thing to do - say 'yes' to the apparent happiness that poor tragic Mr.

Rochester was offering. Oh naive young me, putting way too much stock in Rochester's woes after his view spoiler [first marriage hide spoiler ] , sleeping with everyone in Europe and rejecting them probably because they were not English enough for him! Wow, was there ever a way to misunderstand a book more than I did this one? Sometimes life experience does matter indeed.

Jane Eyre has a good idea of her self-worth. And she has a good idea about her own morals. And, unlike many in her situation, she sticks to her morals and her idea of what is wrong or right regardless of what outcome is in it for her. Here is the prime example: " Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry their governesses. Ah, silly old lady, one may think, cautioning the young woman in such a prudish way.

Ah, silly young woman, taking the advice of the old lady and acting prudishly. Ah, silly young woman, eventually rejecting the sincere love and offer of happiness for a seemingly prudish reason - not wanting to be a mistress. So old-fashioned and weak and caged-up, screamed my thirteen-year-old self.

But here's the thing. It's not just for the moral lesson for the readers that Bronte has Jane firmly say 'no'. It's not for the sake of mere societal appearance. It's for the sake of Jane, and Jane alone. Having them as mistresses - probably not as rare. In her society, protecting her virtue and reputation was not only the matter of religious views or stigma - it was the question of her future, as she had nobody to stand up for her if her reputation was ruined.

And it was a question of her integrity - the quality that she maintains through thick and thin, refusing to fall head over heels for love, refusing to let love justify all the mistakes and wrong choices, refusing to let love blind her to everything else that was important for her sense of self-worth. By refusing Rochester, Jane stays so true to herself without ever betraying herself. Jane refuses to take the steps that would destroy her integrity in her own eyes, and for that she has my strongest and most sincere respect and admiration.

What Rochester did is unthinkable to her - not because of how others view it but because of her morals and convictions - and she shows unbelievable courage in sticking up for what she believes in, even if it is to her own material and soul-wrecking detriment. She will not give herself fully to something - or someone - that would destroy her integrity, tarnish her own self.

And I love her for this unwavering determination to stay true to herself! Jane has too much self-worth to have Rochester until he redeems himself in her eyes, until he repents. That's the point, not the marriage part. Despite self-proclaimed meekness, Jane Eyre is far from weak or scared.

She has been forced to make her own way in life without the luxury of relying on a rich male relative - father, brother, husband. And she did this in the world where being attached to a man was the best choice for a woman just remember Jane Austen's heroines a few decades earlier reaching happiness only after finding a suitable gentleman!

She is a rebel - setting out to have her own career in a male-dominated world, refusing to let a man rule her life that applies to both Rochester and St. John here , and making statements that may have not had the most sympathetic audience back in her day: " 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, to 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. Bronte gets rid of the 'faultless' heroine - instead of being perfect or having an imaginary flaw, like many literary heroines are prone to nowadays Jane has a real one for her time, at least - her occasional temper.

And she is not beautiful - not fake flaws, either but a consensus by many impartial observers that she is not a beauty. And to take it a step further - Mr. Rochester, our romantic lead, is quite frankly, rather ugly. This is not a beautiful couple and Hollywood managed to "fix" that in all the movie adaptations, by the way - a slap in Bronte's face, I guess? And finally, the atmosphere of this story. Oh, the wonderfully gothic atmosphere written so well, with intense moods palpable in every paragraph.

So colorful, so vivid, so immersing - every room, every moor, every tree. Every description of landscape or interior actually serves a purpose to establish the mood of the scene, and it is very well-done. All that said, I'm giving a condescending pat on the shoulder to my teenage self from the 'wisdom' of another fifteen years.

Sorry, teen Nataliya, you little annoying know-it-all - you just needed to grow up to appreciate this story. View all comments. Feb 26, Sean Barrs rated it it was amazing Shelves: darkness-horror-gothic , classics , love-and-romance , 5-star-reads , feminism. Reader, I gave it five stars. Please let me tell you why. Jane Eyre is the quintessential Victorian novel. It literally has everything that was typical of the period, but, unlike other novels, it has all the elements in one story. At the centre is the romance between Jane and Rochester, which is enhanced by gothic elements such as the uncanniness of the doppleganger and the spectre like qualities of Bertha.

In addition, it is also a governess novel; these were an incredibly popular type of stor Reader, I gave it five stars. In addition, it is also a governess novel; these were an incredibly popular type of storytelling in the age and for it to be combined with gothic elements, which are interposed with a dualistic relationship between realism and romance, is really quite unique. The correct term for this is a hybrid, in which no genre voice is dominant; they exist alongside each other creating one rather special book.

Through her life she experiences real sorrow, the kind that would make a lesser person give up. She also experiences real friendship, the type that comes across perhaps once in a lifetime. But, most significantly, she experiences true love and the development of independence to form he own ending. I really do love this book. Bronte utilises the first person narrative, which creates a high degree of intimacy with her character; it makes me feel like I know Jane as well as she comes to know her own self.

From a very young age she had the clarity of intelligence to recognise the injustice that was her life; yes, she is narrating her story retrospectively, though she still had the perceptiveness to realise how mistreated she was. I love the pathetic fallacy Bronte uses at the beginning.

The child Jane looks out the window, shielded by the curtain, and witnesses the horrible weather. The weather reflects her feelings throughout the novel, and at the very beginning the situation was at its worse. Everybody needs love, children especially so. These experiences set her on an almost perpetual quest for love, for belonging and for the independence to make her own decisions.

She finds friendship in the form of Helen Burns; she gives her some sound advice, but Jane cannot fully accept such religious fatalism.

However, it does inspire her, a little, to continue with life; she realises, no matter what happens, she will always have the love of her greatest friend. Jane clings to this idea, but, ultimately, has to seek a more permanent solution to her loneliness. She needs a vocation, one that will fulfil her and give her life meaning; thus, she becomes a governess and crosses paths with the downtrodden, miserable wretch that is Mr Rochester. When he sees Jane he sees a woman with strength, blunt honesty and integrity: he sees an emotional equal.

This attracts her to him, which develops into love. However, when he tries to express his love he does it through trying to claim her as his own. Through doing so, not only does he show the nature of Victorian marriage, he shows his own deep vulnerability. He loves her mind, her intelligence, and he too wants to be loved. He longs for it with a frightening passion. So, instead of doing things the way Jane would have wanted him to do, he overwhelms her with expensive affection.

By doing so he almost loses her. All Jane wanted was his heart, nothing more nothing less. By showering her with such flattery and expensive items, he insults her independence. He risks destroying the thing that attracted him to her in the first place, their equality; their mutual respect and love.

He takes away her dignity. Ignore the existence of the mad woman in the attic; I just think Rochester would have spoilt it. It would have become too awkward. They needed to be on the same societal level as well as one of intellect and character.

The ending is touching and a little sad, but it is the only one that could ever have worked for these two characters. Without the tragedy there could never have be rejuvenation and the chance for them to be together on equal terms, no matter what it cost to get there.

This is a realism novel, it pertains to credible events, but the suggestions of fantasy only add to the strong romantic notions. Rochester is enamoured by Jane; he cannot believe that a woman like her actually exists. All his misguided notions are brushed away in an instant. Whilst he views Jane as special, it is clear that he realises that other women may also have a similar rebellious voice, only hidden.

He considers her an elf, a witch, an improbable woman that has captured his desire, his heart, his soul, his life. He knows he will never be the same again. She had grown bored with her governess role, and when she sees the approach of Rochester and his dog Pilot, she sees the gytrash myth; she wants to see something fantastical instead she finds her heart, which is something much rarer. Then there are also the feminist elements. Jane transgresses the boundary associated with her gender in the Victorian age.

For a woman to be recognised as having equal intellect to that of a man was sadly a rare thing. Women could actually attend university, but the downside was they could never get the full degree. They could spend months studying, though never be recognised as actually having gained the qualification. This book received a whole host of negative reviews at the time of its publication for this element alone.

Reader, I love this book. I really could go on, but this is getting kind of long. View all 80 comments.

Audrey Dewey Love this! Mar 17, Miranda Reads rated it it was amazing Shelves: audiobook. Old books get a bad rap The Written Review "Though you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a woman's heart and--it would not do. Oh Jane, you wondrously bold and beautiful gal. After she was orphaned, Jane Eyre was sent to live with her maternal uncle and his wife Mrs. When her uncle Old books get a bad rap When her uncle dies, he forces his wife to swear to love, nurture and care for Jane as if she was their own child.

Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Reed is not pleased in the least with this arrangement and does the absolute bare minimum towards Jane. She spoils her three biological children but sees Jane as a wicked, conniving and devilish child despite ample evidence against.

I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child—though equally dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling Jane is sent off to boarding school where life is harsher than before threadbare clothes, small rations but she prefers it for she has finally found what she's been missing.

There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort. At the end of her time there, she sets off to be a governess.

She takes a job for a Mr. Rochester and tutors his young ward, Adel. Only, when she arrives at the house, she starts to notice certain things.

The servants know something is up and won't tell her. Rochester is hiding a huge mystery and despite the danger, and the difference in social standing, Jane Eyre is falling ever faster in love.

An absolutely stunning book. This is my third time through, and each time I am blown away by Jane's strength of character. With every twist life hurled at her, Jane merely straightened her shoulders, adjusted her pack and trudged on.

Each time I read this novel, I notice something different. This time, it was how much Charlotte Bronte slipped her own beliefs into the novel: 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 I may be the only one with this - but whenever I read a really old novel, I find it much easier to listen to opposed to reading a copy.

I spend less time puzzling out the language and unfamiliar terms and more time enjoying the story. I highly recommend listening to this book if you've tried reading it and just couldn't get into it. View all 59 comments. Dec 21, Vinaya rated it it was amazing Shelves: books-i-loved , re-reading-timesmillion. Four hundred-odd pages of purely descriptive writing 4. Overt religious themes and moral preaching 3.

A plain-Jane heroine who stays plain. No makeovers to reveal a hitherto hidden prettiness that only needed an application of hydrogen peroxide and some eyebrow plucking to emerge full-blown.

The world is not well-lost for love. In the war between self-respect and grand passion, principles win hands down.

Rousing, yet tender speeches do not make our heroine forsake her creed to fall swooning and submissive into her alpha's arms. NO SEX!!! When I was a little girl, I had a doll named Saloni.

Now Saloni wasn't a particularly attractive specimen as dolls go, especially since, over the years, I had drilled a hole in her little rosebud mouth in order to 'feed' her, I had 'brushed' her hair till all the poor synthetic threads had fallen out and I had dragged her around with me so much, one of her big blue eyes had fallen off.

But in my eyes, Saloni was the best doll ever created. She was my comfort, my mainstay in a world filled with confusing new things like school and daycare and other little people.

Jane Eyre is my grown-up version of Saloni. Comfort food for my brain. There are two authors I will read over and over and over again, until the day I die. One of them is Charlotte Bronte, the other one is Georgette Heyer. I have read Jane Eyre a million times, but I never tire of the story. Every time I reach the scene where she professes her love to Mr.

Rochester, I come out in goosebumps. Every single time.