All cultures have their myths – tales of gods and giants, monsters and marvels. And no wonder it’s hard to distinguish her from her story, when Jane Eyre’s principal goal is – like Jane’s – to make the world take a nobody seriously.Since the dawn of time, storytelling and the fantastic have gone hand in hand. She’s plain in two senses: frank, as well as unbeautiful. ‘Jane is a Plain Jane – a phrase first recorded in 1912, which may derive from the novel.

It was a controversial best-seller (with some reviewers accusing it of being coarse or fomenting social revolt) from day one. That’s disingenuous Jane Eyre reeks of ambition. Charlotte Bront ë deliberately conflated the woman with the text in the preface she added (still as “Currer Bell”) to the second edition, calling it “a plain tale with few pretensions”. ‘When we say we love it – and everybody I’ve ever mentioned the book to says, with a stern fervour, “I love Jane Eyre” – do we mean the novel or Jane herself? The book was first published in 1847 as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, “edited by” the assumed-to-be-male “Currer Bell”. “What account can you give of yourself?” St John Rivers demands as she faints on his doorstep. Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?” This is just one of many moments in which other characters ask the name of this novel’s protagonist. ‘“Who is this?” asks Rochester, as Jane approaches him. As author Emma Donoghue writes in her introduction, Jane ‘survives all sorts of abuses and humiliations because she is driven on by a sense that she matters, because everybody matters’. In most she is central: a small but wilful figure whose ‘obscure’ life is as profoundly engaging as that of the most dazzling heroine. His illustrations evoke its eerie scenery and the intensity of Jane’s experiences. ‘Everybody I’ve ever mentioned the book to says, with a stern fervour, “I love Jane Eyre”’Īrtist Santiago Caruso’s dedication to the fantastique made him sensitive to the novel’s otherworldliness.

In her fierce meditations on spiritual and emotional dilemmas, and her determination to remain inwardly free when the cruelties and desires of others threaten her integrity, she was a proto-feminist figure quite unlike her pliant predecessors. As a female character, Jane was far ahead of her time. Brontë’s intimate first-person narrative formed a template for later authors, including Joyce and Proust. However, the narrative belongs to Jane, and it is her singularity and the vivid portrayal of her inner life that make this novel exceptional. Its sparse settings resemble those of Wuthering Heights places which not only lend themselves to the novel’ psychological drama, but in which the air crackles and whispers with forces beyond human control. With themes of madness and forbidden knowledge, and a Byronic male lead – the glowering Rochester – Jane Eyre is also a suspenseful gothic mystery.

Hers is a captivating love story that encompasses, among other things, loss, deception, devotion and obsession. Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you – and full as much heart!Īs compelling in character as she is ordinary in looks, Jane Eyre is one of literature’s greatest heroines. As time goes by, however, Jane’ life at Thornfield becomes increasingly unsettled, and strange and ever more frightening occurrences lead her towards a shocking revelation.ĭo you think I am an automaton? – a machine without feelings?. Her petulant but loving charge, Adele, and the housekeeper, Mrs Fairfax, are her sole company, while Rochester remains a distant, mysterious and yet imposing presence. Orphaned Jane emerges from a cold, hostile upbringing at Lowood Institution to take her place as governess at Thornfield, home of Mr Rochester.

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