A Classic!. Review on Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

This book is the only book written by Charlotte Bronte. It is about a young girl, Jane Eyre, who was orphaned and lived a miserable life at her uncle’s home. Her aunt sends her to a boarding school where Jane lives until typhus wipes out the school’s population. She is one of the lucky ones who survives. She completes her education and then becomes a governess.

She doesn’t want to be a teacher at the boarding school, so she applies for a job in a house called Thornfield. There she is the governess for Adele Varnes, a young girl and an illegitimate child of the owner of the house, Mr. Rochester. During the first months at the house, Mr. Rochester isn’t ever home, and when he does come, he is moody and strange.

Jane also notices many odd things that happen in the house. At night she hears cries and thuds coming from upstairs and one night she awakens to the smell of fire. She quickly realizes that Mr. Rochester’s bed is on fire. She saves him and they are both puzzled by who could have done such a thing. Meanwhile, Jane realizes that she has fallen in love with Mr. Rochester but is too dignified to admit it either to him or herself.

Mr. Rochester invites some guests over to his house, and Jane is treated like a servant. One of the guests in the young Ms. Ingram whom Rochester is about to marry. Another guest, Mr. Macon, is mysteriously injured during his stay. To add to her troubles, Jane is summoned by her aunt, who is now lying on her deathbed. Her aunt asks Jane for forgiveness because of the way she had treated her. Jane quickly accepts her aunt’s contrite apologies. Also, her aunt admits to her how a few years ago a distant relative of Jane, Mr. Eyre, who lived in Jamaica, had offered to adopt her and she had lied to him saying that Jane had died in the typhus epidemic.

When Jane returns to Thornfield, Mr. Rochester proposes to marry her. Jane is confused at first because he was supposed to marry Ms. Ingram. Mr. Rochester soon proves her wrong, saying that he had never loved Ms. Ingram. She was only marrying Mr. Rochester because of his wealth. He had invited her to Thronfield to make Jane envious. Hearing this, Jane joyously agrees to marry him. That night the tree, under which Mr. Rochester had proposed to her, is struck by lightning and is destroyed.

The night before their wedding, Jane finds someone in her room wearing the bridal veil. The face scares her and she is unable to recognize it. The ghostly form soon runs away and does not harm Jane. Jane decides to report the incident to Mr. Rochester who dismisses it as a mere trick of her imagination.

Jane and Mr. Rochester are about to get married in a nearby church, but their wedding is interrupted by a man. He claims that Mr. Rochester cannot marry Jane because his first wife is still alive. At first Mr. Rochester denies this charge, but soon gives in. He takes them to Thronfield and up to the attic. There Jane sees the same face of the woman who had worn her wedding veil. Mr. Rochester tells the woman is Bertha Macon, his first wife from Jamaica. She had gone mad during the first few years of their marriage and has been imprisoned in the attic by Mr. Rochester for the past 15 years.

After finding this out, Jane is shocked and decides to run away from Thronfield. She becomes a beggar until she is taken in by Reverend St. Rivers and his sisters. Jane lives with then under an alias and gets along well. There she finds out that her relative, Mr. Eyre, has died and left his fortune to her. Furthermore, she discovers that Mr. Rivers and his sisters are her cousins. They decide to share her fortune and Mr. Rivers insists on marrying Jane. However, he admits to her that he doesn’t love her, but she would make a great wife for a missionary. Jane declines his proposal.

One night she has a dream about Mr. Rochester and that he wants her to come back to Thronfield. She feels something is wrong and quickly returns to her former employee’s house. There, her thoughts are proved correct. She learns that Bertha had set the house on fire and Mr. Rochester had lost an arm and his eyesight while trying to rescue her from the flames. Even though Mr. Rochester is disabled, Jane agrees to marry him and takes in Adele.

I found this book very interesting, although some parts of it were boring and extra long. Jane Eyre is considered to be a true heroine of the Victorian time period. Bronte has portrayed her very differently from the conventional women of the 19th century. Jane is rebellious and independent. Jane Eyre is a great book filled with love, mystery, reason and passion.