Jane Eyre Critical Review

 

JANE EYRE, Charlotte Bronte, 1847 pp DLXVII 568

Arshia  Mehta 

Jane Eyre is an exemplary novel written by charlotte Bronte. Not only does this serve its purpose of bringing to the world Victorian feminism but also the hardships faced by the main protagonist Jane Eyre in her life. Bronte uses her immensely passionate writing skills and brings to us a fine classic with a combination of romance, tragedies and a vaguely happy ending. She has usually depicted her writing as being unconventional but with Jane Eyre, she chose to tread the conventional path. 

The novel begins with Jane being an orphan and having to live with her aunt Mrs Reed and her children. She has to face various challenges in this particular phase of her life. Jane is a very passionate and unconventional child from the very beginning. She questions and reacts to everything with abundant passion. The next phase of her life begins when she is sent to Lowood School. There she meets a girl named Helen who is the very opposite of Jane. Helen bears all the tortures and the blows of her teachers. Soon, Jane is once again left all alone when Helen dies after catching a deadly infection.
Jane then steps into the next and the most important chapter of her life wherein she takes up her job as a governess in Thornfield where she meets the next main protagonist, Mr Edward Rochester. Jane soon falls in love with Mr Rochester and they both decide to marry each other. However, on the day of her wedding by a chance encounter with Richard Mason, Jane comes to know that Rochester is marrying her while already having a wife, Bertha Mason. Jane realizes that she needed to leave the house and Rochester forthwith before everything she once had is shattered into ruins. 
Soon, she fortuitously meets St. John who is a missionary in making. She also meets his two sisters. She then realizes that she had an uncle who left her a lot of money and that the Rivers’ are her long lost cousins. Being the kind soul that the readers are told that she is, she divides the money amongst all her siblings. St. John then plans to go to India as a missionary and he also coerces Jane to go to India and become his wife. While Jane often finds herself reminding Rochester of the importance of Christian morality, she finds the same morality in St. John overwhelming and threatening.
She hears what she thinks is Rochester’s voice, calling her name as if from a great distance. Jane believes that something fateful has occurred. She immediately proceeds to go to Thornfield. When Jane reaches the mansion she is benumbed to see it in ruins. She soon gets to know that Bertha Mason had set the house ablaze several months earlier. She then goes on to see that Rochester had lost his sight and one of his hands while trying to save everyone in the house. She also learns that Bertha Mason hanged herself from the roof and died in the fire. Both Jane and Rochester marry each other and finally find their happily ever after.
Charlotte Bronte has written the novel, Jane Eyre, a masterpiece by pouring her heart and soul into it. However, as a reader, I felt that there are some points to ponder upon. Bertha Mason’s true diegesis is overshadowed by Jane and Rochester’s story. The readers have not been told the actual reason for Bertha Mason going insane. One cannot rule out the possibility that Rochester locking her up in the attic may have been the reason for her going psychotic. Looking at the novel from Bertha’s point of view, many dark secrets may also come up on the surface about Rochester. In the book, Jane Eyre has been shown as just the protagonist of the novel and not the heroin as she too had committed many mistakes in her life. Even though Jane had been judged wherever she went, she judged Grace Poole merely on the basis of her looks. She called her out for having a devilish face. The thought of Jane being a feminist has been ingrained in our minds from the very beginning. However, it is possible to question Jane Eyre’s proto-feminism on the grounds that Jane only becomes Rochester’s equal when he is dependent on her to guide him. It has been regularly told to us at Jane is a woman with very high morals. In the end, she does not know whether Mrs Rochester has died yet she goes back to Rochester. Hence, she sacrificed her morals and her values for the sake of her desires. Jane has been showcased as being extremely unconventional in the beginning, but at last she goes back to Rochester and chooses a life of comfort rather than hardships.
Even after all these years, various questions have still stayed in the minds of the readers. Rochester lied that Grace was the one laughing and shouting when it was his own wife. He also stated that Adele wasn’t his daughter. However, during that time Rochester had lied about his wife so he could possibly also have lied about Adele not being his daughter. This topic was never picked up again in the story and it is still unclear whether Adele is truly Rochester’s daughter or not. It has also been seen various times in the novel that Mrs Rochester only attacks Mr Rochester, but not Jane, such as the burning room of Rochester’s incident. It is unclear why she attacked only him. Was there any secret that the author does not want us to know or has she simply not written about it?

However, despite all these incidents Jane Eyre has proved to be an inspiration for many. Charlotte Bronte, in her novel, Jane Eyre once said, “My world has for some years been in Lowood. My experience has been of its rules and systems, now I remembered that the world was wide and that a varied field of hopes, and fears, of sensations and excitement, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.”