Jane Eyre Book Review

  “Jane Eyre” is without a doubt one of my favorite books. This novel was written by Charlotte Bronte and published in 1847 as an autobiography edited by Currer Bell, though it is actually a work of fiction.

     Jane Eyre is the story of a girl who is orphaned at a very young age. She is half-heartedly adopted by an aunt by marriage. Jane suffers at the hands of her aunt and her cousins, and later at the hands of the hypocritical headmaster of her school. After school she finds work as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Jane starts to find some real happiness in life. Jane truly falls in love with her brooding and stormy employer Mr. Rochester. It is not long, however, that a series of bizarre and spooky events occur at Thornfield Hall which force Jane to leave and seek her fortune elsewhere.

     The novel is about an intellectual and passionate young woman, who refuses to surrender her strong sense of principles and proves herself equal to all challenges. In this novel we get to recognize the conflicts between love and independence, conscience and passion, and the struggle of a young girl and woman to maintain her self-esteem. The conflicts between love and independence and conscience and passion are brilliantly shown in the relationship between Jane and her master, Mr. Rochester, Jane knows it is morally wrong and against her conscience to love and seek marriage with Mr. Rochester, however it is difficult to control her passion.

    What I enjoyed most, though, was Bronte’s exceptional skill at communicating human feeling by way of metaphor. Taking an example, Jane explains her tormented feelings of leaving Mr. Rochester as being struck with a barbed arrow: « Oh, that fear of his self-abandonment—far worse than my abandonment— how it goaded me! It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it farther in». The entire novel is filled with this brilliant imagery. How deftly and delicately unmasked worthlessness the veneer! How skillfully ridiculed human vices! Bronte is a master of language and it is amazing how one can relate to these described emotions nearly two hundred years later.
    Jane Eyre is a book that I have read again and again; every time it seems a little new. It is impossible to convey in words my sympathy for Jane. Utmost sincerity and honesty endearing, strength of spirit and optimism of the will to life and a passion for justice - is only part of the merits of this young lady. Scary to imagine, through the trials she had to go to find their happiness, but she went through them with dignity. I hope that the men who read this review don’t get the impression that Jane Eyre is a novel written by a woman, about a woman, for women, and appreciated only by female readers. It is about identity, self-esteem, morality. Jane Eyre is a book which everyone should read at some point in their lives.