Cheap Jane Eyre - Illustrated

Jane Eyre along with Charlotte Brontë's sister's Wuthering Heights is a much beloved romantic literary classic.

Personally I don't get it.

In Wuthering Heights I couldn't stand Heathcliff for his moodiness and downright meaness and I found little more to like in Jane Eyre's Rochester- although I will give he's a tad more likeable since he obviously cares for Jane rather than simply being obsessed by her as Heathcliff was for Catherine.


In the story of Jane Eyre, very much unlike what I find with Austen's characters, I couldn't relate to Jane as a character because I little understood her motivations. Sure she endured being cast aside and raised in an institution but much of that is glossed over. She started off with enough steel to stand up to her wretched step brother and step mother but somewhere in the years she lost it, till when she came to Thornfield Hall she almost fades into the background. She falls for Rochester and he her though there's little indication why. Then disaster strikes and rather than corrupting herself morally, she leaves. While away she suddenly becomes an heiress, refuses yet another marriage proposal and then is supernaturally drawn back to Thornfield Hall, hearing Rochester call for her in her imagination. Things have not gone well for Rochester during their separation, but he is now free to marry, and Jane- at last- finds happiness.

A happily ever after, I suppose, but Rochester has little that a modern woman would like and desire despite the fact you get that he genuinely loves Jane. In the end, it was the silliness of the gothic-ness of this novel and it's eye rollingly absurd action that drags the story down for me.

For me the author who does it best, the one who wrote novels with characters that a modern woman can empathize with- despite all the years in between- is Jane Austen.

Oh, the Brontë sisters will remain on my keeper shelf, they are classics after all, but I am quite content knowing I will probably never read them again.Get more detail about Jane Eyre - Illustrated.