jane

poor, obscure, plain and little

for the best reading experience: click the post’s title above to open in a new page which allows you to hover/click the numbered footnotes. this is a long-ish one so it’ll need its own page.

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

It had been a long while since I read Jane Eyre, over a decade at least. I wanted to assemble a shelf around it, so decided it was high time for a re-read. Reader, this ‘autobiography edited by Currer Bell”¹ delivers. I think it will become an annual read. It is about 550 pages of first person narration inside a bleak, beautiful setting and I was wholeheartedly entranced throughout. Have you read it? I’d watched the mini-series and the movies and, like all adaptations, the book is infinitely better. Clearly, I’m not saying anything new here; it is on many lists of the greatest English novels and is often one of just a handful of female authored books on those lists.² While engrossed in its pages I felt antsy to write a research paper or take a Brit Lit class so I could dive deep into some juicy textual analysis. Don’t fret, this isn’t a dissertation, just a taste of the thoughts I had while reading and its my newsletter so I’ll do what I want. I’m assuming as bookish people you already know the story beats; if not, here but really just read it in its entirety sometime.

Extra Credit: Jane Eyre and the Invention of the Self

JANE

Jane’s character is intriguing and inspiring from the very first pages because she is purely herself; restless, canny, spirited, strict and exacting but also fanciful and melancholy, passionate and restrained. “The restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.”³ As a child she sees herself as a ‘spirit… tiny phantom, half fairy half imp’ which foreshadows the language Rochester will use later to describe her.⁴ Though she suffers temptations as all humans do, Jane is welded to her principles, moral compass, and her sense of self-respect. Though confident, she can also be harsh on herself; as seen in the paintings she creates of herself vs Blanche in an attempt to curb her growing feelings for Rochester. In Jane I see a sort of Cinderella/Job hybrid; she is continually brought low, with everything taken away from her time and time again but through integrity, faith, love, perseverance, forgiveness and a very convenient long-lost-uncle-dying situation she gets her fairy tale like happily-ever-after ending when she gains a family, wealth and love in double abundance at the end. She is stifled and repressed but also curious, hardy and quite witty; she doesn’t know what to do with elegance or politeness⁵ so enjoys and is amused by the eccentric, gruff Rochester and entertains herself with a biting internal commentary. Again and again she insists upon her own self worth even when every person around her does not. Part of her arc is to claim her own true balance of conscience and feeling, of mind and body; a constant push/pull throughout the novel symbolized in Helen/Bertha and St.John/Rochester as she “knows no medium between absolute submission and determined revolt”. When she gains independence and family she finally declares “With me… it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of conscience: I must indulge my feelings”. She also had some feminist-y declarations too which I hadn’t remembered.

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.

ROCHESTER

Rochester is much funnier and absurdly melodramatic than I’ve seen in any of the filmed adaptations. He is definitely the moody brooder we all know, but I read him also as wily, teasing, mischievous and sly alongside his self deprecating melancholy and glowering brow. When we first meet him he needs rescuing due to a twisted ankle which is very Victorian heroine thing to need; a subversion I relished. He is romantically verbose and ridiculous at times with his enigmatic needling, taunting and flirting as he tries to get Jane to admit her feelings for him. In these scenes and in the charades he puts on he is more of an ass or a drama queen than the glowering monster onscreen portrayals often diminish him to. He is immediately drawn to Jane’s mind and spirit calling her “peculiar and unique” and then promptly puts her on a pedestal as wholly responsible for his happiness which doesn’t go well for him but is pretty damn romantic to read about; indeed just the depth of feeling we want for Jane, someone whose been entirely unloved her whole life. Of course, he locked away his first wife in an attic, but hey, no one is perfect!

SCENES I LOVED

• Their meet cute in the frozen woods: Rochester’s injury, vocabulary and requiring her help while she doesn’t know he is her new boss. Some real rom com stuff here.

• A few deliciously chilling and scary happenings like dark and mysterious shadows, disembodied laughs, nightmares and ghostly visions. Gothic!

• Jane again rescues Rochester when he almost burns in his bed; I loved the goodbye at the end of this scene. R is already all in for Jane and she is just not getting it though he more than hints at the depth of feelings going on here.

"I knew," he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some time;--I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not"--(again he stopped)--"did not" (he proceeded hastily) "strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing.

• At some point Rochester, ever the idiotic prankster, dresses as a “gispy” fortune teller which truly bizarre. But the scene of their interaction is absurd, rich, thrilling and emotional. I’ve never seen this done in an adaptation as it is in the book as I don’t know how they’d pull it off in a visual medium.

• Leading up to the proposal scene, Jane attempts to like tiptoe around Rochester to escape unseen which is ludicrous and I found it very funny. Also the mega drama and passion in this love revelation is everything. It ends in a rainstorm!? With lightning striking the tree they were under in a giant helping of doom foreshadowing!?

• Jane gets in a little revenge pranking at the end when Rochester does not know she has returned and she lets him think she’s in love with St John. A little mean and twisted sure, but quite enjoyable and cathartic too.

RANDOMS

• Charlotte’s preface for the second edition has this bit of wisdom that always seems apt: “Self-righteousness is not religion. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns… appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world redeeming creed of Christ”. ⁶

• “Abigail” means personal maid! Thanks Mom.

• Adele is basically Ann from Arrested Development.⁷ She is constantly dismissed, mocked, belittled or completely ignored. There is also some major anti-French sentiment going on…

• This is fairly heavy with religious themes as Jane is quite dedicated to her faith and the moral laws she believes it demands. After the revelation of Bertha, Jane insists she leave Thornfield and argues with Rochester, saying “I do” three times. I was struck by the classic marriage line flipped into a denial a la Peter denying Jesus three times. Later, Jane stops herself from revealing her own supernatural encounter and “pondered them in her heart” which is a direct allusion to Mary.

• Jane’s narrates from a future state and has many cheeky exhortations to the Reader: “romantic reader” and “Stay till he comes reader” etc.

• I’m sure many a scholarly article has been written about all the bird imagery:

  • The British Book of Birds is her childhood escape

  • Her creepy watercolors showcase birds

  • “don’t struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in its desperation” → “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.”⁸

  • “… birds were faithful to their mates; birds were emblems of love. What was I"?”

  • Jane’s future cousins, Mary and Diana, take care of her as they “would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen bird"

  • etc etc etc

• There’s much to say about Bertha, the ‘madwoman’ but I think I shall save that for a future post.

• How odd that St John gets the final words of the book “Amen: even so come, Lord Jesus!” He is (almost) a complete tool; dismissive, domineering, belittling and torments instead of teases. He has boarded up his emotions and declared allegiance only to his mind and a hardened, moralistic and judgmental branch of Christianity. He is a fascinating foil for Jane because she becomes smaller and smaller while in his thrall though this is the person she believed she should be by escaping Thornfield Hall; completely denied to self and dedicated to higher purpose. St John is bossy and condescending in contrast to Rochester’s “if it pleases you”, check ins and teasingly bombastic commands. Ugh, St John literally scolds Jane that if she won’t marry him “it is not me you deny, but God… Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity.” Not cool.

• When Jane entreats God to show her the path forward we get an eerie, supernatural occurence in the form of Rochester’s voice spoken directly to her innermost self though he is many miles away. What could be more intensely romantic than this!? Following this, Jane realizes “ It was my time to assume ascendancy. My powers were in play and in force.” and there was much rejoicing!

“And now I think I have said sufficient.⁹” Go forth and read Jane Eyre and/or one of these books inspired by its genius; no net ensnares you!

THE MADWOMAN UPSTAIRS by Catherine Lowell

When she was fifteen, Samantha Whipple became the last living relative of the Brontës after the death of her beloved yet eccentric father. This heritage comes with all sorts of attention and emotional baggage so Sam has abandoned her past obsession with her long lost cousins¹⁰, even as she starts her first term at Old College in Oxford under the tutelage of the the youngest tenured don of the university - the handsome, brooding and intimidatingly intelligent Dr. James Orville III¹¹ whose office is “the sort of library you would marry a man for.” Her life begins to resemble a Gothic tale when she’s assigned to a drafty tower bedroom, discovers an unexpected inheritance and her father’s lost and heavily annotated copies of the Brontë novels start appearing out of nowhere. She begins to question her own sanity as she embarks on a literary scavenger hunt while attempting to quell her crush, realize her scholarly ambitions and discover the truth about her father and his connection to the elusive ‘Vast Brontë Estate’.

This grey academia, literary mystery with a dash and a half of romance is creative, brainy, suspenseful and funny; a true delight. Our first person narrator always has a wry quip at the ready which reminded me of a less crass Fleabag ; her fellow characters are usually unamused or simply ignore her but she just cannot help herself. There are many scenes of literary criticism and debate as the repressed and emotionally stunted Sam and the aloof and demanding Orville argue over textual interpretation strategies, authorial intent vs reader experience, literal truth vs emotional truth etc - all of which channels the Rochester vs Jane dynamic to build up some sweet, sweet tension. I especially savored the discussions over the significance and variety of interpretations of ‘madness’ in literature. There are Gothic and Victorian ingredients galore which are a joy to spot and sprinkled throughout are a myriad of Brontë references, settings, quotes¹², trivia and creative extrapolations. Reading¹³ this made me want to take a literature class and I adored all the arguments about how to engage with stories. I laughed aloud many times at Sam’s internal monologue, dry retorts and deeply awkward introverted behavior. The humor, scholarly discussions, literary allusions, forbidden romance, bookish treasure hunt and family mystery inside of dreary, dreamy Gothic setting made me think Lowell wrote this just for me. But, maybe for you too?

Alas, I am deeply disappointed to relate that I cannot find anything about Catherine Lowell after 2018. I would jump to read anything else she writes!

“A new adaptation of Jane Eyre came out every year, and every year it was exactly the same. An unknown actress would play Jane, and she was usually prettier than she should have been. A very handsome, very brooding, very 'ooh-la-la' man would play Rochester, and Judi Dench would play everyone else.”

THE EYRE AFFAIR by Jasper Fforde

In an alternate world where The Crimean War still rages, cloning is commonplace, the ChronoGuard polices time and there are evangelical Baconians going door to door proclaiming the good news that Sir Francis Bacon is the true author of Shakespeare’s works, literary detective Thursday Next finds herself in the middle of a dangerous conspiracy when her Uncle Mycroft is kidnapped and his Prose Portal¹⁴ stolen by Acheron Hades, her former college professor turned archvillain. Things go from bad to worse to bizarre as Thursday’s former fiancé gets engaged, Jack Schitt of the Goliath¹⁵ corporation co-opts her investigation and then Jane Eyre is kidnapped right out of Jane Eyre. Can Thursday save one of literature’s most beloved heroines, the world and her own love life or is that asking too much of one LiteraTec agent?

This is a zany and absurd romp that combines high-brow/low-brow elements in a very funny and clever way. Its got major Douglas Adams vibes¹⁶ and plays with reality, mythology, entertainment, corporate greed, time travel, history, literature and punctuation in a spectacularly entertaining package. You don’t need to know classic literature to enjoy this, but that knowledge will certainly increase your enjoyment. Knowing Jane Eyre will especially benefit you because in Thursday’s world the book ends with Jane going off to India with the detestable St John to be a missionary.¹⁷ Fforde displays great respect for Jane Eyre and its characters and there’s great fun to be had spotting all the easter eggs, references and winks he includes as he “changes” the ending, interjects code words and new vantage points of pivotal scenes from the beloved classic. I loved all the lead up to ‘sweet madness’ specifically. All the nods, references and homages to literature made the book feel interactive; try to catch them all Pokemon style!¹⁸

As stated before, I am not a fan of ‘sequels’ of classic literature where characters like Elizabeth and Darcy decide to solve mysteries or kill zombies and do not count this series among their ilk. The wacky world of Thursday Next is original and wholly unique while the involvement of classic literary characters rewards in depth knowledge of the source material and doesn’t rely on lazy tropification.

This kicks off a seven¹⁹ book series following Thursday Next’s adventures as a JurisFiction Agent inside the book world where Miss Havisham is her crotchety mentor and she encounters a formidable army of Mrs Danvers clones along with many, many other literary characters.²⁰ I own all of these books and love them dearly.

Extra Credit: While on a dorm retreat in college I annoyed my friends by sitting under a tree and constantly laughing at one of the books in Jasper Fforde’s Nursery Crime series. They were just jealous that I was having way more fun than them.

Reality, to be sure, was beginning to bend

READER, I MARRIED HIM edited by Tracy Chevalier

This is a collection of short stories, which isn’t usually my preferred format²¹ but I couldn’t resist an assembly of tales inspired by the line that opens²² the final chapter of Jane Eyre: “Reader, I married him”. Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring and many other novels, compiled 21 stories by 21 authors who “have taken up the line and written what it has urged them to write. I liken "Reader, I married him" to a stone thrown into a pond, with its resulting ripples.” With this iconic line as inspiration, the collection is a bit all over the place. There are a few stories that held the source material close and others that took just that line and flew far away from Jane Eyre’s character, setting, style and theme. A fascinating display of how individual each writer is even starting from the same point. I had to remind myself a few times that they weren’t assigned to pay homage to Charlotte Bronte or Jane Eyre, but to follow the thread of creativity that the line specifically sparked for them. A few stories fell flat or were bizarre but some I truly enjoyed. As a bit of a literalist²³, I gravitated more towards those clearly drawn from the well of the novel, but not exclusively. All the authors have little bios at the end and I was especially interested to read about each one’s connection to Jane Eyre. One author hadn’t read it at all! ²⁴

The fact that from such an unlikely background she became a famous, bestselling writer is heartening news for all would-be writers, for all women— and indeed, for all women writers. That is why I have asked women to contribute to this collection-we have even more reason to be grateful to Charlotte for her ambition and imagination, which paved the way for more women to write and be published. "Reader, I married him" reveals not just Jane Eyre's determination, but Charlotte Bronte's too, and it inspires our own.

My favorites

• Dangerous Dog - though no part of me is an animal person I enjoyed this first person narrative that highlights the power of story with a dash of ‘everything is copy’ vibes.

• Grace Poole Her Testimony - a fun and fanfic-esque point of view

• The Mirror - some juicy meta/gaslight-y things are going on here with slow reveals and an eerie yet cheeky voice.

I couldn’t understand why my husband would have wanted me and a therapist to think that I was unstable, possibly even mad. I’d seen the film in which Charles Boyer does something similar to Ingrid Bergman, but there was an unsolved murder and some hidden jewels in that film, and there wasn’t anything like that, not with us.

• Reader, She Married Me - Twisty and a bit sour but fun to be in Rochester’s POV

• The China from Buenos Aires - a short but rich peek into a people group I knew nothing about with terrific characterization

• A Migrating Bird - emotionally bittersweet with a terrific build up and ending

• Dorset Gap - a ‘banal and profound’ two hander that has sharp and sweet, give and take chemistry between the characters

• The Self-Seeding Sycamore - a small, heartwarming and earnest story that builds excellently and feels quite emotional at times

• Robinson Crusoe at the Waterpark - a good yank on the heartstrings that feels heightened yet very human

The freckled, the fat, the hairy, the veiny, the chubby girls in bikinis, the umbilically pierced, the expertly tattooed, the amateurishly scrawled on, the beautiful, the grotesque, all the Boolean overlap: Ernest thought he’d never felt so tender towards the variety of human bodies. He loved them all. Every bathing suit was an act of bravery.

Jane Eyre is often imitated but I’ve rarely found these to be works of quality. The Wife Upstairs was silly and underwhelming; I just cannot get into these generic domestic thrillers. Jane & Edward was bewilderingly lame and simplistic. I remember many years ago liking Jane Steele fine, but I have very little memory of it now so I cannot recommend one way or the other here.

However! There is a book with some of Jane Eyre’s ingredients that is purely its own excellent thing which we will visit next week. #teaser

---

nora

Have you any Jane Eyre inspired works to share? Who is living in your attic?

1. charlotte bronte (and emily and anne) wrote under pseudonyms so they’d have a higher chance of being published

2. classic indeed

3. “i want much so more than this provincial life" vibes

4. he also uses ‘witch’ as a sort of tender nickname

5. that tracks with her abusive upbringing

6. amen

7. her?

8. what a line

9. this is actually from agnes grey but it was too perfect not to include

10. possessing a “well developed vendetta against the Victorian era”

11. he’s not that much older than her, don’t worry. but there is, of course, some forbidden attraction here so don’t worry about that either.

12. “How do we say goodbye? Shake hands?” vs "How do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane?…I should like something else: a little addition to the rite. If one shook hands for instance; but no--that would not content me either.”

13. and re-reading. i think i’ve read this 3 times

14. a bookworm powered device allowing one to jump inside a book, still very much in its prototype phase

15. imagine if amazon+google+apple+raytheon were all one company and you’re close

16. but more fun because it deals with books instead of space!

17. can. you. imagine.

18. thats a pokemon thing right?

19. wait!? maybe 8!?!

20. a bookworm’s delight!

21. i enjoy them sometimes but rarely seek them out for some reason… i think i like to really dive deep into a story and character inside longer formats but i think i should do more short stories…

22. spoilers i guess

23. much as i’d wish my muscles of metaphor and mystery were stronger

24. what.the.fuck.