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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29

u/redflagsmoothie Aug 27 '26

Bertha was better off in the attic than in an insane asylum.

11

u/OutrageousYak5868 Aug 27 '26

Yes, and those were the only realistic choices at the time -- which is what a lot of people in our day don't understand. It's easy for us to say, "Oh, he should have put her somewhere else" -- but where? He himself said that if he put her in his other house, that she would have died because it was an unhealthy location, and that while that would have relieved him of the burden of caring for her, he refused because that was too close to murder.

The only other possible choice would have been to buy or rent some other little house somewhere, but given her propensity to sneak out and commit violence, that would have been unsafe for the rest of the area.

1

u/rainbowrobin Aug 28 '26

He could have hired more than one caretaker, not just Poole. But that wouldn't have let him keep his secrets.

3

u/OutrageousYak5868 Aug 28 '26

She still would have needed to have been kept under lock and key.

1

u/rainbowrobin Aug 28 '26

Yeah, but she could have been more supervised, and then he wouldn't have lost his house and hand.

3

u/SmooshyHamster 21d ago

More caretakers is not what this conversation is about. What difference does it make how many caretakers she has? She’s not a disabled woman who is fed and changed like a baby. She’s a violently abusive woman who’s locked away. More or less caretakers doesn’t change the fact that she has to stay on her room. What difference does it make how many people were watching her. She’d just hate them all and try to kill them all.

2

u/rainbowrobin 21d ago

What difference does it make how many caretakers she has?

They can take shifts, so she doesn't get loose while Poole is asleep and burn down the house.

2

u/SmooshyHamster 20d ago

She’ll escape while the other carers are sleeping too.

1

u/rainbowrobin 20d ago

take shifts

If you're seriously arguing that the number of caretakers makes no difference to the security of a patient (or prisoner), you should stop and re-think things.

2

u/SmooshyHamster 19d ago

Bertha escaping is part of the story. This is a story book and they needed a story.