jane eyre - complete

Tragic love stories, they somehow stir my inner core, but was this one really tragic?  If two lovers, after all has been said and done, find their way back to one another, isn’t that bliss? I won't comment on all that transpired between our intelligent Miss. Eyre and bold Mr. Rochester, but here's the ending wrapped up in a nice little bow for you to envision for yourself.  

Mr. Rochester, Jane's one love, her master, her hero, was rendered blind and armless because he climbed to the roof of his burning home to save a woman; this woman proceeded to jump off the roof and kill herself. This all happened while Jane was absent.  She had left Mr. Rochester because he was dishonest...oops, he just neglected to tell her that he already has a wife, who is actually locked up in the attic of the very house where they live and is the very same woman who jumped off the roof (she was not mentally sound).  Only classics are able to tell such an extraordinary story with such believability and eloquence. Modern day language could never get away with this, or it could, but minus the grace and beauty.

A year passed since Jane left her post as Governess for Mr. Rochester. She found her way in the world and discovered her talents, her voice and realized what she wanted most. They say time heals all, but Jane couldn't forget Mr. Rochester.  She thought of him often and this, or should I say "he", is who she wanted most.

She returned to the home where she experienced feelings of love for the first time.   She wanted to see the one man who suited her.

This passage is so rationally romantic:

"...To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.  We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking.  All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character - perfect concord is the result." (p. 491) 

On her journey back to the home where she was a governess and where she first started to blossom into a woman, she learns of the tragedy of loss and death that had occurred just a few months after she left Thornfield Hall.  When she arrived, she watched Mr. Rochester, without his knowledge, and observed her hero as a blind and crippled man.  Her heart hurt and she wanted nothing more than to take care of him, to be his eyes and to be his guide. She loved him all the same, even more. She was finally fulfilled.

So, albeit, there are many moments, scenes, events that have been left out, but would you call this tragic? Or does your heart feel satisfied?

They went on to marry, have a child, and slowly, his sight began to appear... in one eye.

Here are some passages to leave you with, if only words were spoken like this today – 

"I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth." (p. 490)

"To be privileged to put my arms round what I value - to press my lips to what I love - to repose on what I trust: is that to make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice." (p. 485)

Jane Eyre

Up to Chapter 14

I guess we all struggle with wanting more from life.  More than what our present situation dictates.  Jane is already restless, having spent a short while, some three months, as a governess in Lowood, her mind is dreaming, her vision is expanding.  As a reminder, for ALL my followers, she left the boarding school where she lived from the time she was ten years old.  She is now a confident eighteen.  She left because she felt a yearning for something different, something new.  This sensation is stirring yet again within her.

"...I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character than was here within my reach." (p.114)

The household that she now stays at is called Thornfield Hall.  The owner of the house, Mr. Rochester, has just arrived, he is stern, abrupt, and demanding.  This doesn't seem to phase Jane. Something tells me that there is much more to come between Mr. Rochester and Jane.

Jane Eyre

Up to Chapter 10.

Little Miss Jane Eyre has quite a feisty personality.  Her youth and mental immaturity fault her in not being able to tame it.  In her 12 years of life she has lost both parents, lost her uncle, endured emotional and physical abuse from her foster mother and family, and most recently has lost Hellen, who she befriended at boarding school.  She has endured great loss that only a developed individual can conceptualize.  Cast aside by her "foster' mother and enrolled in an all girls boarding school, she is beginning to flourish. All you need is one human to believe in you and encourage you - for Jane, this was Miss. Temple.  Kind, strict but fair - Miss. Temple has opened her spirit and has given her hope to develop into a deserving and productive human being.

Leave it to a classic to offer some meaningful insights. The hype that is created about new ideas in recent times - it was already said, somewhere, some place, in one of the classics and much more eloquently:

"If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends" (pg. 70)

So - in modern day language -  just believe in yourself and the rest will follow!

Jane Eyre

chapter 3 & 4

The girl is starting to stand up for herself - way to go Jane! There is really only so much resentment, pain, anger, hurt, sadness one can harbor, sooner or later it starts pouring out, and from Jane, it has started spewing.

What I find interesting, or almost as a disconnect, is that the novel is written in first person, through Jane's eyes, and Jane, at the moment, is about 11 years old.  For an eleven year old she has incredible insight, here's a sample of her understanding of childhood and her inability to express the injustice of adults taking advantage of defenselessness children:

Context: Jane was asked why she was unhappy and her inner dialogue progresses as follows:

"How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was to frame my answer! Children can feel but they can not analyze their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the process in words..." ( p. 19)

Can you remember when you were a child and "felt" injustice? Was it possible to protect yourself with words and confidence?

Jane Eyre

Chapters 1 -2

Poor little Jane Eyre.  I would equate her to Cinderella, step child, wicked step mother and as good as she is, it doesn't hold up towards the evilness of some and so Jane suffers.  She isn't connected to the family through blood but through obligation.  Jane was orphaned as an infant, both parents dying. Her uncle made a last dying wish to Mrs. Reed (his wife) to take care of Jane as her own.  Impossible!

She is abused by her wicked little Master John (a real son of Mrs. Reed) and of course rather than John being punished, Jane endures the trauma and with the latest event she has been cast off to the "red room" for punishment.

Here is how she is treated by even the servants of the home:

"Jane, I don't like cavilers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner.  Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent." (pg. 1)