It is highly likely that, like me, you are a re-reader of Jane Eyre. Why? The melodrama is risible; the coincidences beggar belief; the transformations in situation and fortune are almost like a fairytale. And yet something draws you back. Surely it must be the conviction of Jane’s narrative voice, her flinty unwillingness to be misused, her determination, her luck of survival, her daring to even consider love, but also her resolve not to submit to anything less than the equal marriage of (unfettered) true minds and hearts. It is Jane alone who draws us back. What a curious and singular character she is.
It is certainly true that Jane encounters her fair share of repugnant individuals in her short life. Nothing redeems the behaviour of Mrs Reed or her children, and Mr Brocklehurst is a sorry substitute, fixated as he is on an economic spiritual ideal of education mostly suited for shaping souls for the next life and not the one before them. But Jane also has luck. Whether it comes in the form of the inspirational Helen Burns, or perhaps her best mentor, Miss Temple, Jane somehow attracts the succour of the good and just individuals she meets. Even the otherworldly St John Rivers is counterbalanced by his more amiable sisters.
But of course it is Mr Rochester who fascinates Jane, and she him. He is both ugly in form and, at least initially, ugly in character – officious, peremptory, and dismissive. More ugliness lies beneath, too much perhaps. Rochester tempts fate by enticing Jane into a liaison that can only blacken his character. He tempts fate, and fate intervenes.
Brontë’s world is heavy with the clash of dark and light, good and—not evil perhaps, but—sullied nature. My temperament leads me to prefer Austen, but every once in a while, I find it necessary to come back and re-read this gripping tale. Recommended.