Book Review: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

I’ve often been wary of books written by women. Works like Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights put me off them because of their excessive focus on romance. But I’d never read Charlotte Brontë before and I thought I should give her the benefit of the doubt before passing judgment. So I picked up Jane Eyre which is probably her magnum opus. My most favorite classic is what is known as a “bildungsroman” – or a story which follows the development of a character from a young age right to the end of the book. Such stories are told linearly without the plot jumping all over the place, which suits me nicely. No great leaps of time and distance between chapters. Three of my favorite bildungsromans so far have been “The Way of All Flesh”, “Of Human Bondage”, and “Sons and Lovers”. While I don’t think “Jane Eyre” matches up to their brilliance, it comes pretty close – I was impressed with it in many ways.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

To start off with, the lead character is a strong woman. Very different from Esther Summerson in “Bleak House” that I just finished a little while ago. Unlike Esther, Jane is not a Mary Sue. She has her faults and openly declares her all too human nature. She’s not beautiful and is keenly aware of the fact. She doesn’t aspire to be the typical asexual Victorian woman who doesn’t care about her looks. She is strong-willed, speaks back sternly when her back is against the wall and freely admits to not having enough of a selfless spirit to work solely for the benefit of others. I think given the time and setting in which the novel takes place, this must have been a pretty radical characterization of the lead woman in a novel – especially by a female author which itself must have been something out of the ordinary.

It’s quite a classy piece of work and there were many unusual words which I had to keep looking up using the inbuilt dictionary of my Nook. Lots of Bible references as well which thankfully were explained by the footnotes found at the back. Charlotte Brontë tends to expand into flowery language for long passages which is perhaps one of the only shortcomings I found.

It is also instructive to see how children were treated in those days and how their guardians could legally ill treat them without any social backlash. Doubtless many children are mistreated even in today’s world, but not openly. Another strong theme of the book, and what would in other circumstances be a flaw in Jane’s character, is her open and unquestioning devotion to God and the “duties” which she’s supposed to follow.

It’s interesting to see that even though Jane is not bound by societal norms, indeed having no relatives and no one whose opinion would affect her in the slightest, she is nonetheless bound by the same social strictures by virtue of the Bible. I guess in today’s world it would be very different with people everywhere publicly questioning the existence of God. But Jane – and by extension I suppose Charlotte Brontë – takes the existence of God as a blind given and the infallibility and accuracy of the Bible as the highest truth. In several situations this prevents up from reaching out and taking the happiness that is offered to her and which has been missing in her life so far. At one stage, she totters on the brink of throwing her life away as an ill-suited missionary in India because she is persuaded to believe that it is her “duty to God”.

Thankfully, things work out well in a completely believable way without the author having to resort to absurd coincidences like those found in Charles Dickens’ novels. Brontë ties up the story nicely in quite a touching manner. Unlike the dashing hero Mr. Darcy found in Pride and Prejudice, Jane’s lover Mr. Rochester is not a handsome man and is almost ugly. It is little things like this that in my opinion raise the novel about the regular run-of-the-mill romance. There is a good deal of depth of character in the main actors.

Anyway! Enough about serious books. There’s a beautiful fantasy series which I’ve been itching to pick up for quite a while now called the Mistborn Trilogy and I’m going to gorge myself on that for a while :D

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4 thoughts on “Book Review: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë”

  1. Ah, no comments as yet…

    I read these books eons ago but I do remember liking Jane Eyre…I don’t know why people go on and on about Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Emma etc. …No action, absolutely none…Personal choice, I guess…I don’t like Dickens either – too depressing!

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  2. Bhagwad,

    Kudos for reading Jane Eyre. Not many men I know have read it or would want to read it. It is one of my fav books and I have read it atleast 50 times.

    Another classic that I love is Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff’s love for Katherine is so consuming. For a long time Heathcliff was the man of my dreams (I know sad, teenage was not my most memorable time)

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