The Bronte Quartet Part Three: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

 Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte. 
If you've been following along, you'll know that my opinion of the eldest surviving Bronte sister has slowly begun to be quite... hostile. I mean, not hostile exactly but it's not good. Which is really too bad because I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Jane Eyre when I first read it in sixth grade and then when the remake starring Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikow came out I was IN LOVE. My Instagram is full of references to that adaptation and I'd read the book so long ago, I didn't care to notice the differences. And I don't care what anyone says now, Michael Fassbender will always be Mr. Rochester and Mia Wasikow will always be Jane Eyre. They were just so lovely.

So let's talk about Charlotte Bronte. 
She was the third born, and was sent to the same school for girls as her sisters, Emily, Marie, and Elizabeth. The conditions of this school were poor and they were pulled out of the school a year later but the physical and emotional trauma was already done. Marie and Elizabeth died shortly after leaving the school of tuberculosis and Charlotte used her experiences there to paint the picture of Lowood School where Jane Eyre receives her own education. 
At home, Charlotte wrote her first poem at the age of 13 and would go on to write another 200 poems in the course of her lifetime. She spent a lot of time writing fanciful stories with her siblings, most of the time working on the world "Angria" with her brother, Branwell, while Emily and Anne worked on their own fanciful world of "Gondal."

She becomes a teacher and is very lonely and sad and writes lots of lonely, sad poetry. She writes to the poet Laureate Robert Southey for encouragement and he tells her, "Literary cannot be the business of a woman's life and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure she will have for it even as an accomplishment or recreation."
Why do stupid people exist? Real question. Like, why? Why was this even a belief at that time? I'm really thankful that I live in a time period where we've come far enough that I have the freedoms I do and that I can write and not be afraid to write just because I'm a woman. But it still boggles my mind that people felt this way ever. 
However, Charlotte is like, "well, you fuckin' suck. I'm gonna publish my poetry under a man's name then."
And she does, she convinces Anne and Emily to create an anthology together under male pseudonyms. The anthology doesn't do the best, it only sells three copies overall but this doesn't discourage them. 
Jane Eyre is the first novel published by Charlotte and it was very well received. Once it's discovered, however, that it was written by a woman, people no longer saw it as a beautiful story but decided that it was "coarse" and the reviews of it changed. 
She went on to publish two more books but neither one of them reach the critical acclaim of Jane Eyre. 

She was very quiet and withdrawn, much like Emily, and very short, not even reaching five feet tall. She did marry towards the end of her life but died during pregnancy. Her death certificate reads that she died of tuberculosis but her first biographer and best friend thought it was probably dehydration and malnutrition brought on by the pregnancy. 
She did things like trying to stop the second publication of Anne Bronte's book, calling it a "mistake" and burning Emily Bronte's second manuscript before anyone could read it, and rewriting much of their poetry to make it more acceptable to society.
I feel like she and her sisters were very smart women and she saw this and thought she was giving Emily and Anne a helping hand when she censored them because she'd received so much backlash for wanting to be a female writer. 
I don't think she did anything maliciously and maybe she wasn't a bitch. But at the same time... like grow a backbone.

Onto to Jane Eyre! 

Jane Eyre opens with the introduction of the first ten years of Jane's life. She's an orphan and living with the Reeds, the family of her mother's brother. Although a very wealthy family, Jane is incredibly unhappy due to the fact that when her uncle passed away some nine years ago, she found herself to be a very unwanted child and was greatly mistreated by Mrs. Reed and her three children. 
She's often reminded that she's not pretty and she doesn't have an agreeable disposition and these are the reasons for her verbal and physical abuse. 
After an altercation with her cousin, John Reed, where he throws a book at her head and it cuts open her skull, she strikes at him and is thrown in "the red room" for punishment. 
The red room is a very stately room that's rarely used because it's where her uncle passed away and since Jane is ten and has a very active imagination, she starts to believe that the ghost of Mr. Reed is going to visit her. She sees a light moving towards her and although she tries to tell herself that it's just a lantern moving across the lawn outside she can't help but feel real terror in her heart and she screams, pounding on the door begging to be let out. 
Her nurse, Bessie, does come to her aid but when Mrs. Reed turns up, she claims Jane created the scene on purpose, was faking her fear and locks her back in the red room. This causes Jane to blackout. She next wakes up in her nursery being looked after by an apothecary. They have a nice heart to heart and it is the apothecary that first tells Mrs. Reed that maybe Jane would do well at school. 
The thing I like most about Jane's character during this point in time is that she doesn't allow the constant bullying to break her spirit. She knows she's being mistreated, she understands she's being mistreated and although she does think often and frequently that she's wicked, as they say, and that she should just starve herself to death to get things over with, she never fails to fight back and assert her right to live when the moment calls for it. 

She doesn't say goodbye to Mrs. Reed when she leaves and vows to only miss Bessie as she's going to Lowood Institution. 
Lowood Institution was largely based off of Charlotte's own experiences at school where her elder two sisters passed away due to the poor conditions and tuberculosis. 
Lowood... for lack of a better word, sucks. They're barely fed and the food they are given is inedible. The guy in charge of everything, Mr. Brocklehurst, says this is to teach the girls to live pious lives where they do not yearn for comfortable things and do not require them. 
Most of the teachers are strict and adhere to Brocklehurst's rules but there is one that's kind and extends this kindness to Jane. Her name is Miss Temple and Jane adores her. When the students are unable to eat breakfast because it was burnt so badly, she orders them a meal of bread and cheese.
At Lowood, Jane also makes her first friend. Helen Burns has much a different spirit than Jane does. Where Jane says she has to fight every time there is a slight against her, Helen says it doesn't matter that much. Helen is often disciplined at Lowood for being messy and forgetful and instead of being bitter about it, her peaceful nature accepts the discipline as the way things are and she believes that one day it will be over and that God knows her heart and her faults aren't a reflection of her character.
Jane says she'll never be like that and if someone were to punish her unjustly she'd revolt.

When Brocklehurst visits (as he doesn't reside there, he only visits) he tells everyone that Mrs. Reed said Jane Eyre is the worst among them and a liar and should be shunned. Jane is forced to stand on a stool for hours. Instead of revolting like she said she would, she stands on the stool. 
She receives comfort and encouragement from Helen when Helen walks by her and Jane notices that Helen is wearing a badge on her shirt that says, "untidy" and seems unbothered by it. This strengthens Jane for the entire time she's forced to stand on the stool but the moment she's allowed down and left alone, she weeps openly. 
Helen comes to her to give Jane comfort and says most will have forgotten it in a few weeks and no one hates her, if anything, they pity Jane for what she was subjected to. Jane finds little encouragement in this but she tries to calm down. 
Miss Temple finds the two of them together and invites the girls to her room that evening for tea. Miss Temple and Helen talk for hours about numerous topics and Jane is further encouraged to continue to be her best at Lowood. Miss Temple also asks Jane about her life with the Reeds and Jane confides in her the whole of the story. Miss Temple does an inquest with the apothecary and finding Jane's tale to be true, she announces to the school that Jane is not a liar and shouldn't be shunned. 
From that moment forward, Jane does her best and is happy when her efforts are rewarded. 

Winter gives way to spring at Lowood and although the scenery is brighter and the warmer, typhous ravages the school. Fifty percent of the students die due to the poor conditions they were forced to live in and it's discovered by the general populace what these poor girls were being subjected to. 
In this time period, Jane is separated from Helen Burns and thinks that "consumption" means she'll eventually get better. But one night she encounters a doctor leaving Lowood and she asks about Helen Burns, the nurse with him says that she won't be here long and Jane realizes that Helen is going to die. 
She finds Helen in Miss Temple's room and they have a nice back and forth about how Helen is very comfortable in that moment and she's ready to meet God. They fall asleep together. 
The next thing Jane knows is that she's being carried back to her own room. Helen has died in the night. Jane laments that the best soul she's ever known has passed away. 
Here we skip ahead eight years, Jane is now a teacher at Lowood and content with her life but when Miss Temple gets married and leaves, Jane feels it is now time for her to leave as well. She realizes the spirit of contentment she'd felt just days before was only due to Miss Temple's companionship and now that Miss Temple was gone, she felt compelled to move on.
She advertises her services as a governess and is soon hired by a Mrs. Fairfax of Thornfield to teach a young girl. 
The night before she leaves for Thornfield she's visited by her old nurse Bessie who tells her that someone called for Jane a year after she went to Lowood, he was her father's brother and possibly a wine merchant. They share a nice evening together and then Jane is off to her next phase of life. 

Thornfield. Now. We all know that is where Jane meets Michael Fassbender. I mean. Mr. Rochester. But Jane doesn't know this. She thinks she's meeting Mrs. Fairfax, she thinks Mrs. Fairfax is the lady of the house. 
Mrs. Fairfax is happy for Jane's company and has Jane's room set up next to her own. Jane has never known such comfort and kindness and feels very good about her choice in going there. The next day, Jane learns that Mrs. Fairfax is not the lady of the house and only the housekeeper, Mr. Rochester is the proprietor but he rarely calls so the duties of everything is left to Mrs. Fairfax. 
The young girl Jane is to teach is named Adele and speaks mostly French with very broken English. Jane is fluent in French and feels again like this is a good place of employment for her. 
She and Adele get on very well together and the time passes by smoothly. 
Jane spends a lot of her alone time walking outside, existing peacefully and quietly. She's once again content in her life. 
One night when she's walking outside, she hears a horse approaching, and having the very active imagination that she does, she hides in a thicket thinking at best it's a bandit, at worst it's this demon creature she's recently talked about with Adele. 
A man on a horse and his dog pass by and Jane watches them. The horse slips on some ice and falls, hurting the rider. 
Jane comes to his aid, knowing it's just a man and I guess no longer fearing it is a bandit. 
He's very abrupt and pretty rude and at once denies her help. She continues to insist and he continues to refuse but soon he learns he can't stand without help so he reluctantly accepts her offer. 
He asks her a few questions about what she's doing out there and if she knows the proprietor of Thornfield Hall or if she's ever met him. Jane answers honestly that she hasn't and they part ways.
When she gets back to Thornfield, she's informed that Rochester has arrived and wants to meet her.
Thus begins the back and forth conversations of Rochester and Jane.
Now, I've read other commentaries on these conversations, they're supposed to be smart and quippy and make you think. They're supposed to lay the groundwork of the relationship between Rochester and Jane but honestly, mostly I just wanted Rochester to shut up and get to the point.
It's like he wants to have a debate with her regarding his morality but he doesn't want to give her any substantial information so she can never fully form a real opinion.
So really, it just goes like this- Rochester poorly expositions.
Jane responds that she doesn't understand.
Rochester poorly expositions.
Jane again responds that she doesn't understand.
Rochester decides everyone is tired and it's time for bed. 
Now, he does reveal good character stuff in these monologues but nothing concrete enough to see where he is in the present moment. Instead of making it enticing, it just bored me and I found myself enjoying the story that takes place around him rather than the story that takes place with him.
"My past is dark, I'm so moody, sit by the fire and watch me brood."
Rochester, edgelord of Thornfield.
But Jane likes him. The more time they spend together, the more she likes him for who he is, edgelord and all. 
I think this speaks to her overall character of endurance. Here is a man who wants attention, he wants compassion, he wants love, even but she has to work for it. She's had to work for all the good things in her life, working for this comes natural and might even be comfortable for her. 
Issues begin to arise at Thornfield under the guise of a crazy nurse named Grace Poole. She laughs maniacally behind Jane's door at night.
One night she tries to set Rochester on fire. This is one of those big character moments for Jane and Rochester, he says he owes her his life and she says, "oh it's alright." They hold hands, she thinks she sees love in his eyes.
Jane presses Rochester on why he keeps Grace Poole around and he sidesteps the answer and goes to a month-long party instead.
While he's gone Mrs. Fairfax says he's visiting a very beautiful girl named Blanche Ingram and that he's probably going to marry her.
Jane, feeling bad about herself because she allowed her little feelings to grow for Rochester, draws a beautiful portrait of what she believes Blanche to look like and then draws a very plain portrait of what she, herself looks like and stares at the two portraits next to each other. She does this to remind herself of her station and of what Rochester wants and what she's not.
Then Rochester comes home but he brings the other partiers with him and the party continues. 
This is the part of the book where I started to really get tired of Rochester. His behaviors are annoying, he has the emotional maturity of a thirteen-year-old and he doesn't deserve Jane. Jane is the best. 
First, Jane wants to stay out of the way and away from everyone else but Rochester says she has to sit with the group while they hang out and ignore her. So she continues to endure, watching the courtship between Blanche and Rochester. 
From Jane's perspective, she sees Rochester sneer at Blanche a lot and Blanche is a bitch. Like, there's no way around that. She's mean to Adele, hates Adele, really. She's mean to Jane, leads more than one conversation about how governesses are the worst and Rochester just allows the whole thing.
Um. I'm sorry, sir, the supposed love of your life is being abused for your own amusement right now and you're just gonna stand there? Any of the men from Dracula WOULD NEVER. That's your bar, ladies. If you want to be loved right and loved well, Rochester is not your bar. Johnathan Harker, John Seward, Arthur, and Quincy- that's your bar. 
So then Rochester is called away from the party for a day and Jane is bummed. She laments how he lights up the room, he's the life of the party and everyone else kinda sucks. 
The monotony is broken up by the arrival of an old friend of Rochester's and he's content to wait for Rochester's return. I can't remember his name. I know it's not Sam but he's gonna be Sam from here on out.
Jane, Rochester kinda sucks, but oh well.
Later that night a fortune teller comes to the house and demands to speak to each of the single girls and won't leave until she does.
This scene is done... not well. I really enjoy the concept but I feel like it could have used some work. haha Laura telling Charlotte Bronte a scene needs work. 
Blanche goes first, comes back despondent.
Two other girls go, have a wonderful time.
Then Jane goes and... has a conversation that reads like all the conversations before between her and Rochester. And wouldn't you know! It IS Rochester! In disguise! 
Jane is like, "wtf. You need to stop playing silly games, you have a friend here who wants to speak to you."
I applaud Jane's maturity. 
Rochester is like, "oh alright."
And the night carries on.

After everyone's gone to bed, Jane is awoken by a scream coming from Grace Poole's room and she rushes there... because ya know. She's the protagonist so she has to be there for these scenes.
Here she finds Rochester with his friend Sam. Sam's been biten and stabbed. 
Rochester is like, "dab his wound, say nothing, I'll be back with the doctor."
Jane is like, "We gotta get rid of Grace Poole."
And Rochester is just like, "uh. nah."

The doctor patches Sam up and Rochester gets him out of the house before anyone wakes up. Soon the guests leave as well and Rochester goes on a walk with Jane where he tells her that he's going to marry Blanche because he loves her.
Jane is heartbroken but in her normal, stoic way, she doesn't show it.
Instead, she's called away because her aunt Mrs. Reed is dying and wants to see her.

Now, there's a lot of time devoted to Jane being back at her childhood home. Her eldest cousin, John is dead, Mrs. Reed is dying from the shock his behavior caused her and the two daughters are... broken. The first daughter is a pious bitch and the second daughter is a vapid party girl. Neither one seem to care about their mother very much but they manage to get on with Jane well enough while she visits.
Mrs. Reed still hates Jane but she wants to atone for a sin she committed three years after Jane went to Lowood. 
Apparently, Jane had an uncle from her mother's side that's made a good deal of money and he wanted to give Jane his inheritance when he passes on. But Mrs. Reed told him that Jane was dead. 
Shortly after Mrs. Reed gives this information to Jane, she passes away. There's a small funeral and Jane is back on her way to Thornfield. 
Jane plans on writing to her uncle when she gets back to Thornfield and starts thinking about how she's gonna have to find a new job when Rochester gets married because she won't be able to bear watching him be with someone else. 
When she gets back, her and Rochester go on some walks and finally, Rochester confesses his undying love. 
Now. This entire time, he's been pretending to like Blanche, throwing Blanche in Jane's face and even telling Jane that he's going to marry Blanche. 
So when he says, "Hey, I love you, I want you to be my wife." Jane's upset. She accuses him of lying and mocking her. He's like, "no, I just wanted you to be jealous so I could be sure of your feelings."
Again, this is a sign of emotional manipulation and abuse, if this is done to you, it's not romantic, it's not cool. It's wrong. If you've done this to someone, at best, you're terribly immature, at worst, you're evil. Rochester. You make it hard to like you.
Jane though, Jane is happy. She's like, "great! Let's get married!"
And they start to plan the wedding.
Mrs. Fairfax tells Jane to be careful and Jane is like, "that's prudent advice, I will be careful."
And she is careful. She distances herself from Rochester so that as he tries to love bomb her with gifts and fancy words, gone is his cool, hard exterior, here and now, he's love bombing her with too much affection. She responds by pinching him when he gets too close and telling him that he won't always feel this way and that she'll disappoint him eventually and he'll go back to being moody and broody. 
She writes to her long-lost uncle that she's alive and well and going to marry Mr. Rochester soon. She never hears anything back.
The night before the wedding, Jane wakes up to someone standing in her room, someone huge and wild-looking, the female figure is holding her veil, a fancy veil Rochester insisted Jane wore, she puts it on stares at herself in the mirror. 
Suddenly, the figure tears the veil in two and stomps it into the ground. Then leaps up on the bed and stares at Jane in her face before running off.
Jane is like. That. Was. Not. Grace. Poole.
She tells Rochester before the wedding and he's like, "bad dream."
But the veil is ruined. So he changes his story from just bad dream to Grace Poole coupled with a bad dream. 
Jane isn't satisfied but they decide to go through with the wedding that day. 

This is where the shit hits the fan. 
Ceremony is great, everything is great, Jane is in love, things are wonderful. Then a lawyer shows up with Sam and Sam is like. "Rochester is already married to my sister, Bertha!"
Apparently, Jane's uncle that she'd written to, knew of Rochester and his marriage to Bertha and assumed he was saving Jane from a terrible mistake.
The room is shook.
Rochester relents and decides to let everyone meet Bertha, right and proper. The lunatic ghost of Thornfield. 

It turns out Rochester married her when he was very young, it was a plot schemed by his father to get Rochester some money and everyone knew Bertha was crazy except for Rochester. He was never allowed to spend time with her before the wedding and he married a stranger. The first few years were rough. She physically abused him, made his life hell.
And so he devised this plan to keep her safe and locked up in Thornfield while he tried to pretend the whole thing never happened.
His father died, he got his inheritance, he was rich without Bertha's money, and he existed for fifteen years in a lonely purgatory for fifteen years before he met Jane. And then he was like, "yo, I like this girl a lot. I wanna marry her right and proper."
But he was stuck with Bertha.
And he thought he could marry Jane while still hiding Bertha. 

Jane doesn't take any of this well. 
After an evening of Rochester pleading with her to just run away with him and be his mistress, Jane runs away in the middle of the night with nothing. 
She doesn't know where she's going, she just knows she has to go.
Long story short, after days of wandering, she almost starves to death, collapses at the door of a small house and is rescued by a man named St. John. 
I loved St. John and this part of the story. I didn't love him in the way I wanted him to be the romantic lead, but I loved how he was written and I would have loved to have more of this character. 
St. John has two sisters who are both very smart, kind, and well-read. 
Jane gets on with them very well. For the first time she has friends and time to spend with people who like her and are kind to her. 
She gets a long-awaited rest. 
During this rest, St. John offers her the job of school teacher for the small country town they're in and Jane jumps at it. She still loves and longs for Rochester but she knows it's not right to be with him. 
There's a small storyline of a nice girl whose in love with St. John but he won't have it because she wouldn't make a good missionary's wife and St. John wants to go be a missionary in India.
Now, this whole time Jane has been going by the name Jane Elliot. But St. John is clever and figures out her real name and because of this, Jane learns her long-lost uncle has passed away and she's to inherit twenty thousand pounds. 
She's like holy shit, that's insane. St. John is like, "Yeah, what's even more insane is that I actually know your uncle, he's my uncle, we're cousins. He just hated my dad so he left me and my sisters out of it. But congrats on your new fortune."
Jane can't stand for this injustice and splits the money between the four of them. Everyone is happy.  

Now as this all happens, she's allowed to call the two girls "sister" and she loves St. John like a brother. But he wants a wife. He wants a missionary's wife. He tells Jane she's the perfect candidate and although he might not love her, he thinks they would be a perfect fit for one another.
Jane is like. No. This doesn't work for me. I love you like a brother, I can't marry you.
And he's like, "Well fine."
He pursues this idea a little longer but one night she hears her name being called and after praying, she knows it's time to go back to Thornfield. 


So what's happened at Thornfield while she's been away?
Well, two months after Jane left, Bertha escaped again, set fire to the whole place, burned it right to the ground. During the fire, Rochester got everyone out, tried to get Bertha out, Bertha threw herself off the roof and Rochester lost an eye and a hand when a beam fell on him, leaving him blind and cripple.
From this point on, Rochester is extremely depressed, he only lives with two servants now. Things are bad for him.
Jane decides to play a little trickery on him when she's reintroducing herself to him, pretending to be a servant bringing him water. And he's like, "You sound like Jane."
And she's like, "you got me. I'm totally Jane."
They spend some time together and Rochester confesses that he's sorry for everything he's done. He was horrible to Jane and he asked her to do a horrible thing because he was selfish.
The night Jane heard her name being called, he'd actually petitioned to God to kill him because he believes he doesn't deserve to live anymore. 

They get married and live a long and happy life together.


So what are we to make of this story? 
Jane Eyre is a character built for endurance. And when she endures, she's deeply rewarded. She endures with the Reeds and gets to go to school, she endures at the school and gets to go to Thornfield. She leaves Thornfield rather than giving in to what she perceives as a mortal sin and endures life without Rochester and is rewarded with a fortune and a family. 
Rochester in contrast only gets his reward after he submits himself to endure and repents for his times trying to get away from what he must endure.
His hardships only increase over time, while Jane's seem to increasingly lessen over time. 
It is only when he repents and admits that everything is his fault is he allowed his reward- the perfect match for a missionary's wife. And he is her mission.
Jane is really the only person who can endure and even appreciate Rochester's moody and broody nature and Rochester can only be able to deserve such a gift by finally dismantling the worse parts of his character and turning away from them. 

Charlotte Bronte seems to really be more religious than Emily Bronte, she has a clear moral lesson for us built around God and the servanthood we're called to, although there are mentions of ghosts, there are no real ghosts. Whereas Emily Bronte is like, "oh yeah, ghosts fuckin' exist, my dude" and her moral lesson is found in the strength of the individual and not really in the strength of God or a higher power.
I didn't get as many brain cuddles from Jane Eyre as I did Wuthering Heights. 
It's beautifully written, it has a gentle, enveloping flow but it didn't grip my heart the way Wuthering Heights did. It was easier to put down than Wuthering Heights and it required more overall thought before I could write a review for it. 
However, I found the characters of Jane Eyre to be more palatable than Wuthering Heights. Even Rochester at his worst couldn't hold a candle to Heathcliffe or Cathy at their worst. 
And Jane Eyre was a great protagonist. Loved her. Thought she was the best. 

All in all, five stars. 
Well done, Charlotte, wish you hadn't burned Emily's second manuscript.