I read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
Jane follows a heroine's journey from mistreated youth and overachieving boarding school student to governess and school teacher, nearly embarks on a life in service to God as a missionary abroad, falls in love, gets married and ultimately becomes a mother. There are enough plot conveniences, family ties revelations and rags to riches orphans to fill a Charles Dickens novel but the feature that strikes me most about Jane Eyre is the incredible amount of supernatural activity. The folks who brought us Pride And Prejudice And Zombies and Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters would have a field day with Jane's extrasensory perception.
Stranger things than Jane's visions and dreams are happening at Thornfield, though. A specter hovers over Jane's bed and symbolically rends her wedding veil on the night before she is to wed Edward Rochester. But the attack, two attempted murders swept under the rug and unexplained wailing in the attic is not enough to make Jane pack her bags and leave the haunted mansion. Rochester evades Jane's questions and implies Grace Poole is responsible for the mayhem. Despite a clear and present danger to her personal safety, Jane stays until the mystery assailant is revealed and her circumstances become unbearable. On her final night at Thornfield, Jane dreams of a white light (similar to the one that struck her unconscious as a child at Gateshead) that resolves into a human face – perhaps that of her dead mother! – and tells her to flee. Both times, this mysterious light heralds an exodus for Jane. She flees Thornfield sans her possessions and begs for bread before a familiar light leads her cross country to the home of St. John and family.
I have to mention Rochester's young ward and Jane's pupil: the French speaking Adele. She cannot be understood by the monolingual reader like myself. I skimmed the French lines and attempted to infer their meaning by Jane's response and the context of the action surrounding her.
Several years ago I read a novel by Jasper Fforde called The Eyre Affair. Its narrative dovetails with the plot of Jane Eyre in a Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead -way. The protagonist works for a literary police force that patrols the book world. The final conflict with the villain results in the blaze at Thornfield and Rochester's injuries and explains the otherwise unexplainable call that Jane hears while at the house of St. John. Consequently, the original ending in which Jane goes to India with St. John is replaced by this new one which is considered an improvement by all.
Jane follows a heroine's journey from mistreated youth and overachieving boarding school student to governess and school teacher, nearly embarks on a life in service to God as a missionary abroad, falls in love, gets married and ultimately becomes a mother. There are enough plot conveniences, family ties revelations and rags to riches orphans to fill a Charles Dickens novel but the feature that strikes me most about Jane Eyre is the incredible amount of supernatural activity. The folks who brought us Pride And Prejudice And Zombies and Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters would have a field day with Jane's extrasensory perception.
Stranger things than Jane's visions and dreams are happening at Thornfield, though. A specter hovers over Jane's bed and symbolically rends her wedding veil on the night before she is to wed Edward Rochester. But the attack, two attempted murders swept under the rug and unexplained wailing in the attic is not enough to make Jane pack her bags and leave the haunted mansion. Rochester evades Jane's questions and implies Grace Poole is responsible for the mayhem. Despite a clear and present danger to her personal safety, Jane stays until the mystery assailant is revealed and her circumstances become unbearable. On her final night at Thornfield, Jane dreams of a white light (similar to the one that struck her unconscious as a child at Gateshead) that resolves into a human face – perhaps that of her dead mother! – and tells her to flee. Both times, this mysterious light heralds an exodus for Jane. She flees Thornfield sans her possessions and begs for bread before a familiar light leads her cross country to the home of St. John and family.
I have to mention Rochester's young ward and Jane's pupil: the French speaking Adele. She cannot be understood by the monolingual reader like myself. I skimmed the French lines and attempted to infer their meaning by Jane's response and the context of the action surrounding her.
Several years ago I read a novel by Jasper Fforde called The Eyre Affair. Its narrative dovetails with the plot of Jane Eyre in a Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead -way. The protagonist works for a literary police force that patrols the book world. The final conflict with the villain results in the blaze at Thornfield and Rochester's injuries and explains the otherwise unexplainable call that Jane hears while at the house of St. John. Consequently, the original ending in which Jane goes to India with St. John is replaced by this new one which is considered an improvement by all.
