Jane Eyre
1847
- fiction
- romance
- historical"
- man-woman relationships, fiction
- charity schools, fiction
- married people, fiction
- married men
- fiction"
- country homes, fiction
- fathers and daughters, fiction
The story
The novel is set somewhere in the north of England. Jane's childhood at Gateshead Hall, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; her education at Lowood School, where she acquires friends and role models but also suffers privations and oppression; her time as the governess of Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her Byronic employer, Edward Rochester; her time with the Rivers family, during which her earnest but cold clergyman cousin, St John Rivers, proposes to her. Will she or will she not marry him?
What it’s like
Heavy, weather-stained prose with long Victorian sentences that turn inward: a first-person voice that is plain-spoken, watchful and quietly defiant, moving from the cold grey dormitories of a charity school to the candle-lit corridors and wind-battered moors of a rambling country house. The sensory world is damp stone, peat fires, rain on leaded windows, the smell of wet heather and old wood, and Thornfield's secrets arrive in whispers and sudden laughter in the dark. Its vibe is brooding but warm, like a storm seen from a sheltered room: a rainy Sunday under a blanket, or a slow late-night read when the house is quiet. The pacing is deliberate, with long stretches of reflection and self-examination punctuated by sharp, gothic turns. Emotionally it is intense without being lurid. Abuse and deprivation are described with unsparing restraint, and there are a few moments of frightening menace and one fire-lit shock, but no graphic violence and no sexual content on the page. The central arc is a young woman insisting on her own worth and moral independence while learning to love on equal terms, slowly and against considerable odds. For readers who want a serious, romantic classic with a strong voice, a moody sense of place, and a heroine who will not be made small.
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