It's good for my English teacher that I never read this in high school, because I would have been a nightmare during discussion. It's the kind of book where, by the last few chapters, I was talking to it; saying repeatedly, "OH MY GOD, STOP SOLILOQUIZING AT EACH OTHER," and "YES, OF COURSE SHE FREAKING DID!"
I love Austen, but I was a little surprised at what a straight-up romance novel this is, and a bad one at that. It didn't strike me as that awful until halfway through; the first half is a perfectly fine British "orphans are treated badly" story. Then suddenly Rochester falls in love with Jane and he CAN'T SHUT UP about how SPECIAL and PRETTY and WONDERFUL she is. Rochester is a rake, who had lots of mistresses, but then he meets unloved, unpretty Jane and he can't live without her, so he instantly reforms. But of course he has a dark secret -- and frankly, he's a dick about it, trying to trick her in to marrying him even though it would make her a polygamist -- so she leaves. At which point I lost all patience with Jane, who'd been okay up until them, because she is DUMB and leaves with no money or plan! I thought she was supposed to be resourceful and smart, but her ENTIRE plan for this is to leave. She's not hysterical or anything. And then she has the nerve to harangue the house keeper for not taking care of her out of Christian charity!
There is also tons of upstairs-downstairs nonsense that I couldn't get past. Jane is a penniless orphan who is unemployed and would have starved to death if total strangers hadn't taken her in, but she repeatedly says she feels "too good" to teach at a country school for poor backwards rural folk.
There is also tons of upstairs-downstairs nonsense that I couldn't get past. Jane is a penniless orphan who is unemployed and would have starved to death if total strangers hadn't taken her in, but she repeatedly says she feels "too good" to teach at a country school for poor backwards rural folk.
Then at the end, because it is That Kind of romance novel, she finds out she actually has lots of money, she is so generous that everyone loves her, and someone else wants to marry her. Only he's an even bigger douche than Rochester, so she goes back to Rochester, who of course has earned her love by bravely rescuing people from a fire and becoming gravely injured, because it is the sort of female fantasy where all she wants is a dude who will spout poetry about her beautiful spirit, and she can nurse and care for his helpless self forever.
Originally posted 2009
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