Jane Eyre

I often struggle with an inferiority complex when I am in the company of the well-read and literary genius's of Kindred Spirits. (I have to say - this REALLY annoys Melodee) I've always been the number-head, and rarely had time to dig into good literature. Sure, I love a good book, but I read it, put it down and start another one. I rarely think about it or analyze it after the fact. I just finished Jane Eyre a couple nights ago and thanks to the girls' good influence, I have been unable to stop thinking about it. Jane is my hero. Not because she is an extraordinary person, but because she is REAL. I think she is the best developed character I have ever seen in a book. Maybe this is a common thing among girls, but I can really identify with her. You are screaming at her the entire time she is falling in love with the wrong man, but yet you hurt with her when she has to leave him. She epitomizes my attitude (and perhaps the majority of ALL women's attitudes) towards men and falling for them. I'm so smart and logical at the beginning - Jane saw all Mr. Brocklehurst's faults and pitied him and prayed for him. But then something happens, and all of a sudden, I'm in too deep - Jane suddenly could overlook his faults and fell head over heels for him. Her motives are pure. She truly does want to do God's will and everything that is right, but she stumbles and all of a sudden Mr. Brocklehurst is an idol to her. But, through God's providence, she is taken away from the situation and through to the road towards redemption. *sigh* I love it. In my opinion, it is the best love story I have ever read.

AND, like all good books, it is full of wonderful quotes. Here are a few of my favorites (of many!).

"'Sir,' I answered, 'a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; philosophers falter in their wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend, and solace to heal.'"

"Where is God? What is God? My maker and yours, who will never destroy what he created. I rely implicitly on his power, and confide wholly in all his goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me."

"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among stones."

"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"

"My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for his creature: of whom I had made an idol."

Brooke said...

Andrea I know how you feel. I am no literary genius. In the past before I met Melodee and Amanda I only appreciated good-literature for it's wordplay, taking in only the general theme of the books I read. Part of the problem was that I had no one to sport with me and tear apart the books I read. Thanks Melodee and Amanda. Thank you Andrea for reminding me of Jane Eyre and how much I treasure that book. She is definately one of my top ten all time favorite Heroines/Heros.

Amanda says...

I had a really good time reading Jane Eyre a couple years ago with Melodee and some others for a book club; that was the first time, outside of some classes, that I'd "analyzed" lit., but in a good way rather than just criticizing. I realized how much like these characters I can be...even to the point of Jane's idolatry of Mr Rochester, her heart ain't that much different from mine. Or even Mr Rochester wanting something so badly that he would sacrifice anything in his lust for it, ignoring the fact that he had a wife locked up upstairs.

I love how the book ends: "Amen. Come quickly, Lord Jesus"!

Melodee says:

I love this book as well. I had read it a couple of times when I was younger, and liked it. Then I got some crazy idea that it was "too gothic" and that I didn't like it. When we read it for our book club two summers ago I realized that I loved it. I especially love the change in Mr. Rochester. I'm not sure that Jane ever really and truly understands grace, but Mr. Rochester does:

"Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flower - breathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it from me. I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation: instead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are mighty. . . Of late, Jane - only of late - I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. . . "

"I thank my Maker, that in the midst of judgment he has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!"

Amen, Mr. Rochester!