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Jane Eyre (Signet classics)
Jane EyreWhile another review on this novel is certainly not required and I doubt that I will say anything that has not already been said I will still forge ahead. While I fancy myself well read this is one of the "classics" that I had ignored until my high school age daughter performed the role of Grace Pool in the musical. It so interested me that I decided to read the book and once I started I literally could not put it down. What a fascinating story! Themes of abuse, bitterness, friendship, betrayal, disappointment, integrity, forgiveness, love, etc. The story is full of intricate plot lines and wonderful and memorable characters. By the end of the book you know these people and you are rejoicing, empathizing, laughing and weeping with them. If you have not read "Jane Eyre" do yourself a favor, turn off the TV, and settle down for a enjoyable and poignant reading experience.
Jane Eyre (Signet classics)
It's hard to imagine a better gothic romance than "Jane Eyre" -- gloomy vast houses, mysterious secrets, and a brooding haunted man with a dark past.In fact, Charlotte Bronte's classic novel has pretty much everything going for it -- beautiful settings, a passionate romance tempered by iron-clad morals, and a heroine whose poverty and lack of beauty only let her brains and courage shine brighter. And it's all wrapped in the misty, haunting atmosphere of a true gothic story -- madwoman in the attic and all.Jane Eyre was an orphan, abused and neglected first by relatives, then by a boarding school run by a tyrannical, hypocritical minister. But Jane refuses to let anyone shove her down -- even when her saintly best friend dies from the wretched conditions.But many years later, Jane moves on by applying to Thornfield Hall for a governess position, and gets the job. She soon becomes the teacher and friend to the sprightly French girl Adele, but is struck by the dark, almost haunted feeling of her new home.Then she runs into a rather surly horseman -- who turns out to be her employer, Mr. Rochester, a cynical, embittered man who spends little time at Thornfield. They are slowly drawn together into a powerful love, despite their different social stations -- and Rochester's apparent attentions to a shallow, snotty aristocrat who wants his wealth and status.But strange things are happening at Thornfield -- stabbings, fires, and mysterious laughter. Jane and Rochester finally confess their feelings to each other, but their wedding is interrupted when Rochester's dark past comes to light. Jane flees into the arms of long-lost family members, and is offered a new life -- but her love for Rochester is not so easily forgotten..."Jane Eyre" is one of those books that transcends the labels of genre. Charlotte Bronte spun a haunting gothic romance around her semi-autobiographical heroine and Byronic anti-hero, filling it with brilliant writing and solid plot. It has everything all the other gothic romances of the time had... but Bronte gave it depth and intensity without resorting to melodrama.Bronte wrote in the usual stately prose of the time, but it has a sensual, lush quality, even in the dank early chapters at Lowood. At Thornfield, the book acquires an overhanging atmosphere of foreboding, until the clouds clear near the end. And she wove some tough questions into Jane's perspective -- that of a woman's independence and strength in a man's world, of extreme religion, and of the clash between morals and passion.And Bronte also avoided any tinges of drippy sentimentality (Mrs. Reed dies still spewing venom) while injecting some hauntingly nightmarish moments ("She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart"). She even manages to include some funny stuff, such as Rochester disguising himself as an old gypsy woman.The story does slow down after the abortive wedding, when Jane flees Thornfield and briefly considers marrying a repressed clergyman who wants to go die preaching in India. It's rather boring to hear the self-consciously saintly St. John prattling about himself, instead of Rochester's barbed wit. But when Jane departs again, the plot speeds up into a nice, mellow little finale.Bronte did a brilliant job of bringing her heroine to life -- as a defiant little girl who is condemned for being "passionate," as an independent young lady, and as a woman torn between love and principle. Jane's strong personality and wits overwhelm the basic fact that she's not unusually pretty. And Rochester is a brilliantly sexy Byronic anti-hero with a prickly, mercurial wit.Of Charlotte Bronte's few novels, "Jane Eyre" is undoubtedly the most brilliant -- passionate, dark and hauntingly eerie. Definitely a must-read.
Jane Eyre (Signet classics)
I ordered this book along with Pride and Prejudice. They are more beautiful in person that in the pictures. Very well made and durable and the paper is thick and high quality so they will hold up even if you read them over and over as I do with my favorites. Jane Eyre is one of my favorite novels. The story is such a wonderful mix of classic romance but with splashes of the dark and supernatural. I highly recommend these gorgeous penguine classics to everybody and I can't wait to order the rest of them for myself.
Jane Eyre (Signet classics)
On October 16th, of 1847, "Jane Eyre: An Autobiography", edited by Currier Bell (pseudonym of Charlotte Bront) was published. It created some controversy at the time, as many believed it was written by a man. The novel was very popular when published, but critical reaction to it varied. Today, it is clearly a classic, the development of a young woman, who does not fit into the stereotype of a nineteenth century woman. She is not submissive, and she struggles to avoid being dependent on others. The original publication was in three volumes, but this Penguin Classics edition is based on the third edition of Jane Eyre, and it is the last edition which Charlotte Bront edited and corrected.The story covers Jane's life from her childhood until her marriage. The childhood chapters can be split into two sections, those where Jane, an orphan, was being raised by her Uncle's family, but her uncle has passed away and her aunt does not like her, but was forced to promise to take care of her. The key parts of this section are Jane's being rejected by the closest thing she has to a family, her morality, and her independence, i.e. her refusal to conform. The second part of her childhood is when she is sent to attend a charity school, called Lowood, where the pupils have to make do with substandard food and clothing. Here Jane finds one teacher who treats her, and the other students, well, Miss Maria Temple. One of the key things in this section is the difference between religion and morality, symbolized by Mr. Brocklehurst a clergyman who is mostly responsible for the appalling conditions at Lowood, and Jane and Miss Temple on the side of morality. Also key is Jane's witnessing her friend, Helen Burns, dying from a typhus epidemic, in spite of her goodness and her submission to the standards imposed by Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss Scatcherd, a teacher as cruel as Miss Temple is kind.The story then picks up many years later, with Jane in position as a teacher at Lowood, but looking to move on. She advertises for a position as a governess and is hired by Mrs. Fairfax. She is to take care of Adèle Varens, a girl who is being taken care of by Mr. Rochester, the master of Thornfield Manor where Mrs. Fairfax is the housekeeper. This section has a lot to do with class, as well as morality. There is the difficulty of Jane falling in love with someone of a different class. There is also the looking down on Jane as being of a lower class, by Mr. Rochester's peers. The morality questions are here to, in the comparison of the higher classes verses that of the lower class. Even Mr. Rochester's behavior is in question, in the events leading up to Jane leaving. Jane also finds out that she does have family left, and when it appears that she is to have everything, she sends a letter to her father's brother. It is this attempt to reconnect with family that causes her to lose nearly everything as it destroys what she thought she was about to have.The next section details Jane's life after leaving Thornfield Manor. Here she loses almost everything, and is on death's door when she is on the doorstep of Moor House. The Rivers, St. John, Diana, and Mary. It is from this state of having nothing from which she recovers almost everything she could want. Here she recovers her health, she is employed again and regains much of her independence. St. John is in love with a woman, but he will not ask her because he is driven to devote his life to religion. He does find out Jane's true identity though, and this results in Jane learning she has family, and wealth that she didn't know she had. She is pressured by St. John to marry him and join him in his missionary life, but she knows that he doesn't love her. She rejects St. John, and instead goes to find her one love, Mr. Rochester. She now has wealth and family, and she learns that tragedies in Mr. Rochester's life have made what was once impossible possible.It is a long and winding road which Jane travels in this novel. Probably best classified as a gothic romance, it deals with numerous issues and the strength of Jane's character serves as a good role model for young women, and for that matter anyone. The Penguin Classics edition is filled with supporting documentation as always. There is a wonderful introduction by Stevie Davies, along with a Chronology, suggestions for further reading, notes on the text, opinions of the press, and wonderful textual notes which enhance the reading experience and understanding of the reader.
Jane Eyre (Signet classics)
Never being a great fan of the Victorian period of English literature, I have always steered clear of the sisters Bronte, Jane Austin, and others of their ilk. It is amazing how much we miss when blinded by prejudice. I not only liked Jane Eyre immensely, but was very impressed by the literary abilities of Charlotte Bronte and regretted that I had not read the novel sooner. Although Bronte did not have the formal education and did not share the literary traditions enjoyed by some of her male colleagues, she grew up in a household in which storytelling was prominent and understood that the first task of any writer is the ability to tell a good story. Jane Eyre is a wonderful creation, a story that keeps the reader's interest from the first, and one in which Bronte introduces to the reading public one of the first truly modern heroines.Charlotte Bronte's novel is a complex and structured work and contains within it elements of romance, picaresque wanderings and a preoccupation for the Gothic themes of mystery and the supernatural. But to describe the work simply as a very good Gothic novel would be to ignore the remarkable characterization that Bronte achieves in the creation of the character of Jane Eyre. Bronte's character is quite unique when compared to other female heroines of the era. Jane is not beautiful and does not enjoy any of the privileges of wealth or social position, and it is clear from the beginning that if Jane is to make her way in the world she will have to do it with a combination of hard work and intelligence, and not be afraid to question accepted social conventions. The decision of Bronte to narrate the tale through the eyes of Jane bonds the reader and the main character together creating an intimacy that is first rate. We share all her hardships and experiences from Gateshead to the final reunion with Mr. Rochester, and sympathize with her moral dilemmas and her indignant stand against religious hypocrisy (a feeling strong enough to have her expound more fully in the preface to the second edition of her novel: "[The world] may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose - to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it - to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but, hate as it will, it is indebted to him").Although the creation of the character of Jane is Bronte's greatest achievement, she is possessed with the talent to write a story that is exciting, mysterious and ultimately rewarding - in other words, a pure classic. Bronte may not possess in full the literary style of some of her contemporaries, but she writes with assurance and surprises the reader with some extraordinary passages, beautiful examples that combine nostalgia, religious mysticism and poetic rhythm into a wonderful prose. The influence of the book is still alive over a century later. Jean Rhys uses the novel as the point of departure for her Wide Sargasso Sea, and groups as divergent as Marxists, feminists, and Horatio Alger types all use the book as part of their lexicon.
Jane Eyre (Signet classics)
Let me just be out with it: I love Jane Eyre. It is my mom's favorite novel of all times and definitely in my (constantly changing) top 5. The Dover Thrift Edition is a wonderfully inexpensive way to get wonderful literature into people's hands, so I am pro-Dover, all the way. But to speak to the novel itself, it's a classic that's been remade into films so many times because it is a great story artfully told. Jane is one of my all-time favorite literary characters, and almost definitely my favorite female one. If you hate romance novels which have the prerequisite of a jaw-droppingly beautiful heroine, let me introduce you to Miss Eyre (though if she were alive today, she might insist on Ms.) Jane is described as "plain" throughout the novel, and this not-terribly-flattering adjective applies to her on several levels (her appearance, her plain-speaking manner, her direct way of dealing with problems). Because of the first-person narration and the abundance of details of her early life, the reader is drawn into a close relationship with Jane, and to know her is to love her. Here is someone I readily admire with her pluck and nerve tempered by a healthy dose of humility. Jane seems like such a real person as we get right inside her thoughts and see her deepest longings, doubts, and fears. To me the most telling scene is (hopefully not too much of a spoiler) when Jane unfavorably compares herself to Mr. Rochester's presumed sweetheart, the beautiful Blanche Ingraham. To cure herself of any flights of romantic fantasy she may be tempted to indulge in over her boss, she forces herself to make two very realistic drawings, one of herself and one of Blanche, and study them closely, hoping to cure herself of the foolish notion that a man might prefer her to gorgeous Blanche. Wow, what a woman! How many of us have the strength of will or character to study our weaknesses in as strong a light as possible in order to disabuse ourselves of notions we fear may be dangerous? Jane certainly doesn't suffer from the too-common (modern?) disease of self-importance, and we see how this, combined with her certain moral compass, guide her to do the right thing(s) even when they are not in any way fun or pleasant. Pick up a copy of Jane Eyre if you haven't read it before and give one of British literature's most interesting creations the chance to win you over.