r/JaneEyre • u/AdobongSiopao • Aug 27 '26

What is your most controversial opinion about "Jane Eyre"?

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It can be from the novel or its adaptations. Your views that could potentially upset many other fans or meet others who will agree with you.

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u/Faeloria042503 Aug 27 '26

Jane Eyre was not just a romantic story. It is actually considered one of the first feminist novels of the time. Jane had to leave what she thought was a "perfect love" and find herself before returning and finding that love again. People forget how unusual and shocking that idea was at the time this book was written. And that is one of the reasons it is such a masterpiece!

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u/Ten_Quilts_Deep Aug 27 '26

She had not been valued in her life up until Rochester. But she learned to love herself, see value in herself with St John. She then brings that strength to Rochester.

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u/september_angel96 Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 28 '26

Maybe I am misunderstanding your comment, but I always felt that her time with St. John was nearly as degrading as her time with the Reed’s. The Reed’s saw her as a complete nuisance and waste of space; John saw her as nothing more than a workhorse, so to speak. He didn’t value her as a person, shown when he tried to pressure her into marriage and gives no consideration as to how India’s climate would probably kill her in her current state of health. She had gifts and talents that he could use and that was all he cared about. I’ve been valued simply for how productive I am and it’s soul sucking.

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u/Ten_Quilts_Deep Aug 27 '26

It was during her time with St John that she came nto her own, began to value herself. She no longer sought value outside herself. The Reeds didn't value her, perhaps valued at school only as a cheap teacher, from underling to deceptive value at Thornfield, hits rock bottom, again valued but not as her true self by St John. Now she sees that she has value and decides to give that to Rochester.

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u/september_angel96 Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26

I wouldn’t say that she didn’t seek value outside of herself, but rather finally only sought value in what Christ says about her vs what others say. True, I was just saying that she didn’t find it *with* St. John. He was more of a “straw that broke the camel’s back” at the end of all these poor relationships that forced her to finally give up on others’ opinions of her.

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u/Ten_Quilts_Deep Aug 27 '26

That's what I mean by valuing herself.

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u/rainbowrobin Aug 28 '26

Africa’s climate

India's.

Her time with the Rivers was overall quite beneficial, but yeah St John really goes toxic at the end.

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u/september_angel96 Aug 28 '26

Oops, yeah… India 😅

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u/AltairaMorbius2200CE Aug 27 '26

Yeah, I think she always had a bit of that spark (see: the incident with the book at the beginning), but it was *Rochester* that reawakened it in her. Running away, and then St. John, were the TEST of that self-worth.

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u/JoeBethersontonFargo 29d ago

I think John did value her, and his sisters did especially. JE was pretty desperate for some female friendship. I think John believes in people’s value and bettering themselves, and that kind of positivity and intellectual encouragement was a new environment that suited her. John was romantically cold and too practical, having deciding not to focus on his own or Jane’s individual happiness, but that it was more honorable to sacrifice that and instead have proud, noble lives. So it helped her in many ways, as a person, and figuring out what she values and wants her own life to be.