Jane Eyre: A Kinda-Sorta Review
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Classic literature has an eternal appeal in my eyes. Growing up in my teens with compulsory make-up-projects, I always singled out reading as a great escape and in the process grew fonder of making book reviews. I had the pleasure of reading Little Women, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Secret Garden, among other things. Such great stories continue to resonate with me as it takes me back in a time far different from mine and somehow gives me a glimpse of how extraordinary stories they were. I suppose that very experience coagulated my love for the written world and later for period films. While Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is and will always remain as one of the many dearly loved novels I have a high regard for, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, however, is currently on the top of my list. This may sound blatantly sentimental or Miss-Universe-like-answer in its Q&A segment but one thing that is identifiable about Jane Eyre, at least to me, is her atypical strong-willed character with unbending convictions. Jane Eyre, having a disconsolate past, has that resiliency in her that paved her way to a rewarding life in spite of everything she had been through. On chapter 27, with a called-off wedding on her plate and an aching revelation that her beloved Rochester already had a wife, she still managed to listen as he recounts his tragic union with a lunatic and offer pity in the face of deceit.
You would think her unswerving affection for her dear master would shake her strong sense of self and what’s right and wrong by her. No, sir. Some, even in our present time, would go against the world and damned morals all in the name of love. Not Jane Eyre though. Her strength amid weakness, her possession of self-worth and dignity, among others are truly admirable. I’d like to think that she didn't really come back to marry Mr. Rochester. She went back for him out of restlessness and enormous concern as a person who cares. She went back because it was the right thing to do but her thoughts on being his mistress never changed. Her values on all things upright, in my book, are absolutely a winner! If you haven’t read Jane Eyre yet, I highly urge you to. It’s a good read without a doubt and while you are at it, go see Jane Eyre, a film adaptation by the talented Cary Fukunaga.
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