The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

This section covers a much longer time frame-the remaining 8 years of Jane's time at Lowood and her move to Thornfield Hall.

A typhus epidemic sweeps through Lowood, killing off many of the girls who's constitutions were weakened by a calorie and nutrient-poor diet, by inadequate clothing and heating against the cold weather, perhaps by the damp and mold. This brings attention to the poor and likely corrupt management practices of Mr Brocklehurst and changes are made to turn Lowood into a much better and healthier place for the orphans, and Jane stays on to complete her education successfully and to become a teacher for two years.

Helen Burns dies, not of typhus but of consumption/tuberculosis, and the final scene where Jane creeps into her bed and Helen dies in Jane's arms was quite dramatic-I confess I shed a few tears at that ending.

Miss Temple moves away from the school to marry, and on this occurrence Jane decides that she would like to see more of the world-we are reminded that she has never been anywhere but Gateshead and Lowood School in her 18 years-and so arranges to become a governess, and is hired on by Mrs Fairfax at Thornfield Hall. Her move to Thornfield, her establishment as governess, and her meeting with the rather peculiar owner of the Hall and her employer, Mr Rochester, fills the remainder of this section.

What were your impressions of Jane's life at school-both before and after the improvements occurred and even during the typhus epidemic, and how might her life there have shaped her character?

Do you think that her lot has improved in her move to Thornfield Hall, particularly in the months before Mr Rochester's arrival?

We must assume that Jane has lived in an entirely female society from age 10 to 18. What impact do you think that would have on her interactions with Mr Rochester?

Do you think that the readers of this novel would have been meant to assume that Adele was Mr Rochester's illegitimate daughter?

Please share your thoughts on this section.

In chapter 12, our narrator (author?) says

Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

Sounds like a feminist manifesto to me!

Adria wrote: "Frances that does read like a feminist tract, but also there's a strain of moral principle in it. Lowood was possibly mostly female but it seems there must have been some men about occasionally for..."

That’s true, there would have been men about, I just assume Jane would have had little to no conversation or other way of getting to know them. Also, in a girls school, women would naturally have been in leadership positions with significant authority, so Jane would be used to intelligent women being in charge to some degree, and it sounds that in the later years they ran an effective and decent school (and we see this confirmed in Jane’s accomplishments acknowledged by Rochester).

Frances wrote: "Do you think that the readers of this novel would have been meant to assume that Adele was Mr Rochester's illegitimate daughter? ..."

I don't think they would have been meant to assume it. This is a time when orphans were commonplace and could be placed with quite distant relations if that was all there was, or even just friends of their parents.
A young child being fostered by a bachelor would inevitably lead to speculation that he was really the father, on the part of both readers and his acquaintance (think of Colonel Brandon in Sense & Sensibility being supposed to be Eliza Williams' father), but he could so easily have been an uncle, a cousin or the father's best friend. Jane herself is fostered by a relation by marriage, after all.

Adria wrote: "...did any girls receive final prayers commending them to God? were there apothecaries?..."

They must have gone to church on Sunday - everybody with the smallest claim to respectability did that, and a charitable institution in particular, headed by a clergyman, couldn't have avoided it - unless they had their own chapel and Mr B or a curate held services. I don't think we're told.

But we are told that there is a surgeon, Mr Bates - it's seeing his pony at the door late in the evening that makes Jane realise someone must be seriously ill.

But Frances is right, the girls wouldn't have had any kind of social relations with men, even if they had necessarily come across them in the course of the men's work.

’ “Why are you come here, Jane? It is past eleven o’clock: I heard it strike some minutes since.” “I came to see you, Helen: I heard you were very ill, and I could not sleep till I had spoken to you.”’

Like many episodes in this novel, I knew it was coming, but I couldn’t help but get emotional about Jane’s intrepid seeking out of Helen on her death bed at Lowood.

Despite regulations to the contrary and warnings from the adults around her, Jane took it upon herself to make that visit, sensing that it might be her last chance to see Helen alive. That courageous spirit of hers allowed Jane to take responsibility for her own actions, not considering the consequences, believing in herself to take the right course.

Eight years later, Jane again reacted against ‘authority’ when she insisted on helping Rochester during their first meeting when he fell off his horse and sprained his ankle. Jane had probably never encountered a man like Rochester before and definitely not in the circumstances which prevailed, a darkening evening on a lonely road. And yet…..

’I retained my station when he waved to me to go,
and announced -
"I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this
 solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse."

This meeting is described by both of them as somewhat supernatural. Jane at first thinks the approaching horse is a ‘Gytrash’

’As this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie’s tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a “Gytrash,” which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me.’

And later Rochester tells Jane that…….

’No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse……’

Both of these events, (along with others) have stayed with me, so that when the novel is ever mentioned in conversation, they are always remembered.

’From my seat I could look down on Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose against the west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and clear behind them.’

Charlotte Brontë is said to have created Thornfield Hall from her knowledge of three houses that she had visited.

The first was her friend Ellen Nussey’s home, ‘The Rydings’ in Birstall, West Yorkshire.



This house had the battlements but was only two storeys high.

Another house she visited with her friend Ellen was North Lees Hall in Hathersage, Derbyshire.



This house has battlements and three storeys and is set in rolling countryside surrounded by trees.

The third house looks somewhat different. It is Norton Conyers, near Skipton, North Yorkshire, close to where Charlotte worked as a governess. The house had a rookery behind it.

Frances wrote: "Do you think that the readers of this novel would have been meant to assume that Adele was Mr Rochester's illegitimate daughter?."

I'm just a paragraph or so into the first appearance of Adele: what she tells about her mother, and the song she sings, immediately implies that her mother was a courtesan. Jane Eyre is too naïve to see that, of course, but the readers would.

Frances wrote: "Do you think that the readers of this novel would have been meant to assume that Adele was Mr Rochester's illegitimate daughter? ..."

I actually thought she was his brother's daughter. (His older brother - the one who died)
That's just a guess. Rochester does not seem like the type of guy to have an affair, I could be wrong though.
My first impression of him is not a good one. He is not a particularly likeable character.
If he was just sarcastic, that would be cool, but I don't like his condescending and bossy attitude. Good thing he's not my boss.
Poor Jane, first time she's in the company of a man and he's not handsome or pleasant.

Does anyone else find the all the French they speak annoying?
I'm listening to the audio book, so I have no idea what they are saying.

Ana wrote: "Does anyone else find the all the French they speak annoying?
I'm listening to the audio book, so I have no idea what they are saying."

We've had that conversation in I think a Golden Age mystery group I'm in where either Christie or Sayers peppers their book with french phrases. I speak enough french (being Canadian it's the second language we learn) that I can follow it all but if it were e.g. Spanish or German I know I would find it annoying as well.

Ana wrote: "Does anyone else find the all the French they speak annoying?
I'm listening to the audio book, so I have no idea what they are saying."

It's interesting from a cultural point of view what education authors could take for granted in their readers. ... More than in our days, but then the audience of novels was restricted to middle class.

It reminds of old academic books (not THAT old) where I stumble over - untranslated - Latin and Greek.

I think that in Victorian and earlier times French might have been the Universal Language, that is the language that all educated people who might travel abroad would be expected to know, and was the language of diplomacy, so it may be that writers of that time would assume their educated readers would know enough to be able to understand these simple phrases. I think that role has been supplanted by English now, so perhaps current writers in other languages might sprinkle English words and phrases into their books now without complaint from their readers.

Although I studied French to A level (aged 18), I have not used it much so my rustiness always gives me doubts regarding translations.

One ploy I sometimes use is to have my ipad close by when I am reading, with the text of the current chapter open in the browser (this time I am using this link - http://www.online-literature.com/bron...). If I highlight the sentence or paragraph that is in French my ipad will recognise the different language and translate it back to English.

I am sure android devices will do the same using google translate.

For example (from chapter 14)

‘ Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonte;" then rising,
she added, "C'est comme cela que maman faisait, n'est-ce pas,
monsieur?"’

is translated by my ipad as….

‘Sir, I thank you a thousand times for your goodness;" then rising,

She added, "That's how Mom did it, isn't it,

Sir?"’

Trev wrote: ".. . is translated by my ipad as….."

a very decent translation; note that the French sentences in the text are easy, everyday language (quite different from Gaskell - there's a whole paragraph of untranslated theological French in N&S)

Ana wrote: "My first impression of him is not a good one. He is not a particularly likeable character.
If he was just sarcastic, that would be cool, but I don't like his condescending and bossy attitude. Good thing he's not my boss.
Poor Jane, first time she's in the company of a man and he's not handsome or pleasant..."

Yes, and he plays mind games, too - I can't stand him and I can't think what Jane sees in him!

Ana wrote: "Poor Jane, first time she's in the company of a man and he's not handsome or pleasant..."

"

When it comes to Rochester Jane gives as good as she gets.

Not only does she infer to him that he is ugly but also reminds him that she is his paid subordinate and would expect to be treated that way. That is why he he thinks she is so different - not three in three thousand governesses would speak to him like that.

As for Rochester not being handsome, it helps Jane to feel more comfortable in his presence.

She tells us….

’I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would fire, lightning, or anything else that is bright but antipathetic.’

To echo a comment earlier in the thread, as Lowood was a girls' school and largely run by women, she would have grown up with a certain assumption of capability - compared, for example, to Mrs Reed's daughters who were prepared to be wives and mothers. Perhaps it is this that makes her almost brusque with Rochester during that first meeting.
It's interesting that Jane doesn't feel threatened by Rochester because he's not handsome and remarks she would have felt tongue-tied and awkward had he been. However, one might expect her to be in awe of a wealthy stranger she meets on the road - whereas she actually gives as good as she gets and assumes some responsibility for his welfare.

Pippa wrote: "However, one might expect her to be in awe of a wealthy stranger she meets on the road - whereas she actually gives as good as she gets and assumes some responsibility for his welfare.."

I wonder if she has lost her reverence for wealth given the treatment from the Reeds and the Brocklehursts, and has come to have more respect for hardworking, capable women such as Miss Temple or even Mrs Fairfax, running a household.

In my first reading - *many decades ago* - I failed to see the connection between Jane’s childhood in Gateshead/Lowood and her adult life. I did not like the novel very much, and was not impressed.

I think I understand it a little better now. I failed to see how it was necessary to build Jane’s character step by step - because it was an unusual character for the period.

In my youth in the 60s and 70s, I took her independence, frankness, and insolence for granted. It was just how we were, nothing remarkable about it. In those days, however, I suppose we would have sent Rochester packing instead of falling for him. ;-)

Now, after having read more Victorian era literature, I can appreciate more what C. Brontë had to do and was trying to do. The interesting thing is that Jane Eyre ‘needs’ negative, traumatic experiences to become who she is: we can wonder whether C. Brontë did not see a ‘positive’ way to foster an independent female spirit.

sabagrey wrote: "In my first reading - *many decades ago* - I failed to see the connection between Jane’s childhood in Gateshead/Lowood and her adult life. I did not like the novel very much, and was not impressed...."

Does anyone know how Jane was perceived as a character at the time the book was published? Was her character considered shocking in anyway, because of what we might now consider feminist leanings?

Pippa wrote: "Does anyone know how Jane was perceived as a character at the time the book was published? Was her character considered shocking in anyway, because of what we might now consider feminist leanings? "

a fascinating question ... here's a paper I just found, not yet read -

https://sites.duke.edu/unsuitable/cri...

... I'm sure there are LOTS of scholarly articles out there about the novel and the character.

Pippa wrote: "Does anyone know how Jane was perceived as a character at the time the book was published? Was her character considered shocking in anyway, because of what we might now consider feminist leanings?"

Good question. I imagine she was a somewhat unusual character for the time. She seems too opinionated and passionate.

Pippa wrote: "sabagrey wrote: "In my first reading - *many decades ago* - I failed to see the connection between Jane’s childhood in Gateshead/Lowood and her adult life. I did not like the novel very much, and w..."

Here is a synopsis of a contemporary review of the novel by George Henry Lewes, written in 1847.

’Lewes begins by urging the reader to obtain a copy of the novel and read it immediately. Although Lewes critiques ‘some defects’ (p. 692), ………….. the review continues positively. He particularly praises the novel’s realism, noting that ‘Reality – deep, significant reality – is the great characteristic of the book’ (p. 691). In reference to a specific passage, he continues, ‘It reads like a page out of one’s own life; and so do many other pages in the book’ (p. 692).

The novel’s realism, Lewes argues, is best achieved in its representation of the governess which is ‘not only accurate, but accurate in being represented from the governess point of view’ (p. 692). This latter point suggests that Jane Eyre introduced a new kind of female consciousness to the British novel. Reinforcing this idea, Lewes describes Jane as ‘a woman, not a pattern’ (p. 692).

More generally, Lewes draws attention to the skilled composition of the characters, noting that they are ‘drawn with unusual mastery’. Like other contemporary reviews, Lewes comments on how different the novel is to past or current novels: ‘The style of Jane Eyre is peculiar’ (p. 693).’

The full synopsis and actual text of the review can be viewed here…

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/re...

After the review was published there was correspondence between Charlotte Brontë and Lewes mainly because he stated that the writer was evidently a woman.

sabagrey wrote: "Pippa wrote: "Does anyone know how Jane was perceived as a character at the time the book was published? Was her character considered shocking in anyway, because of what we might now consider femin..."

Oh, interesting link. Opinions seem to be polarised with some reviews praising the characters and realism, and other deploring the message/morality.
"In their opinion, the novel blatantly violates contemporary moral and social codes and aims blows against political, religious, and social institutions at every opportunity. "

Thinking about it, there would have been whole slices of society where women had to work and so probably behaved more freely than the cultivated upper classes who lived by the strictest rules and were more under the thumb of husbands, fathers, and brothers.
So both realism and violation of moral codes could be at play in the novel, depending on the experiences of the reader.

sabagrey wrote: "Pippa wrote: "here's a paper I just found, not yet read - https://sites.duke.edu/unsuitable/cri....."

I just read the paper. It was interesting.

It says most 19c reviewers could not find fault with the writing style. Some found the latter parts of the novel to be too improbable or inferior to the beginning.
Others thought the novel had ‘anti-authoritative’ sentiments.
Many thought Jane’s character was powerful and original because of her deviations from conventional societal rules.
“The heroine herself is a specimen of the bold daring young ladies who delight in overstepping conventional rules” (“The Last New Novel [Unsigned review of Jane Eyre]” 1847). The reviewer even dislikes her character as a child because of her un-childlike bold and confrontational nature.


I agree with all the above, except I actually liked Jane as a child, because she was so bold and passionate/confrontational.

Pippa wrote: "there would have been whole slices of society where women had to work and so probably behaved more freely than the cultivated upper classes ."

... but these slices of society were not those who generally read novels, or read at all. Books were expensive, time was precious (especially for the working class women), and so the audience was mostly middle class and upward.

I am pleased that Jane does not allow Mr. Rochester to intimidate her. She does not flatter him, and although she treats him with respect as her employer, she is not obsequious. Clearly Rochester is a troubled man full of both anguish and anger; he is also dictatorial, abrupt, and, at times, mean-spirited. That he is intrigued by the quiet but intelligent Jane is no surprise, but I do not (and never have) understand her slowly growing attraction to him. His looks are unimportant, but his temperament should warn her that trouble may be ahead. Of course, Jane is completely inexperienced with men from a personal standpoint, so perhaps her feelings are somewhat understandable.

Nancy wrote: "but I do not (and never have) understand her slowly growing attraction to him.."

Jane sees Rochester as a ‘peculiar’ man, but also as a man who has taken an unusual interest in her. I think it is Rochester’s lack of ‘perfection’ in so many ways, that gradually attracts Jane to him.

He has already admitted that he hasn’t lived a life of virtue, far from it.

‘I am a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put on life. ……….. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level. I wish I had stood firm--God knows I do! ‘

Rochester doesn’t boast about his ‘degenerate’ past life, his attitude is almost like being in the confessional and his talk includes a desire to improve. So Jane becomes fully aware of the type of man Rochester has been almost from the first few weeks of her knowledge of him.

Another thing that attracts Jane is Rochester’s perception of her own character. Not only is he interested in her but he has also become aware of her restless spirit.

’…… in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.’

Trev wrote: "Nancy wrote: "but I do not (and never have) understand her slowly growing attraction to him.."

Jane sees Rochester as a ‘peculiar’ man, but also as a man who has taken an unusual interest in her. ..."

Very good points, Nancy and Trev, but I also imagine that Jane is at a stage in life where she will naturally even if subconsciously be looking for someone to love in a romantic/erotic way, and Rochester is the first eligible man with whom she has had any extended contact. His interest in her, combined with his intelligence and interesting and possibly troubled background, make it almost inevitable that she should fall in love with him.

I've just read the chapter where Rochester invites Jane to converse with him (Chapter XIV or XV?) The explanation of her growing attraction seems simple to me - he takes an interest in her life, he asks questions, listens, and responds. He goes beyond the superficial and confides in her. They have a stimulating conversation and he proves himself different to all the men she has met before. These must have been very potent combination to a young woman who had been bullied, overlooked, taken for granted, and told what to do for the entirety of her life prior to that.