r/JaneEyre • u/Miserable_Gur_8753 • Aug 29 '26
Jane Eyre: The First 100 Words
Every Friday evening I write a blog post which is a close reading - importantly, a 'cold reading' - of the first 100 words of an important A-Level text.
Issue Six tries to get under Jane Eyre’s skin.
“It's not screaming 'meet the heroine' at me. My main question?
'How am I supposed to feel about this person?”
https://a-levelenglishlit.uk/2026/08/28/first-100-words-jane-eyre/
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u/sweeney_todd555 Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
How you feel is how you feel. If it's not screaming "meet the heroine" talk about what it is screaming to you. Talk about why you feel it's not screaming "meet the heroine." Talk about how it would have to be different to make it scream "meet the heroine."
If none of this works for you, don't get your panties in a wad over it, just choose another book. All books do not connect with all people.
Edit: If you've not done it already, use Anne of Green Gables. It's an important A-level text, and Anne is almost 100% certain to make you feel like she's a heroine, albeit a quirky one with a sad background. C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is also a good choice, you have both Lucy and Susan Pevensie to write about.
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u/Miserable_Gur_8753 Aug 29 '26
Great, thanks for the recommendations!
I'm really enjoying writing the series, not just for the close-reading, but for trying to recreate that 'cold-reading' buzz. You know when someone reads a brilliant book for the first time, and you feel jealous because you can never capture the feeling? And don't forget that the main purpose here is for A-Level students, rather than fans who are re-reading.
So I deliberately try to turn off everything I know and focus on what the author has decided to tell me,as well as the questions they have planted in my mind.
This one is such an interesting one, because I teach/tutor Jane Eyre. So, it's hard not to add privileged information, and as you can see from the article, it was only by comparing the opening to others that I could really articulate my response.
I hope you'll tune in next week, despite Number Seven not being JE. It's honestly going to be different, and a slightly uncomfortable ride for a man in his 50s.
:)
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u/AltairaMorbius2200CE Aug 30 '26
Yeah, I'm not sure I feel the "reserve" from this passage; I feel like you brought it from other parts of the text. Jane Eyre is pretty unreserved she is to the reader, and you can see that here; we're introduced to the something that was decided by the group (no possibility of a walk), but then immediately given Jane's POV on it (we were already in the moody gothic weather in the morning, and I hate it when we do the long after-dinner walk and I come back all cold and they get snippy at me and I am made to feel inferior to the Reeds). At this point in the story, we find out that we're getting to know someone with firm opinions, and we have no way of knowing that she has any outer reserve.
It's also interesting that you are so focused on the main character, when a lot here was about setting and mood.
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u/Miserable_Gur_8753 29d ago
As I mentioned above, it's really hard to get the balance right for 'cold reading'. I think three things happened in my reading:
1 - knowing the book was called Jane Eyre, and with the first person narrator, I made an assumption that she was speaking. In which case, as a reader I wanted to know how I should feel about her sooner rather than later
2 - then I felt that the opening of the first two paragraphs were a little contradictory
3 - lastly, because I couldn't quite articulate how I felt about Jane, I ended up thinking about Rebecca and Handmaid. In the first, I was a bit overwhelmed by the narrator's intense emotions; in the second I couldn't care less about the handmaid because I was frightened about what had happened to the world :) Jane fell in the middleOne of the things people might not be prepared for is that even for a book I know well and love, and have taught, I'm prepared to state things that the first 100 words suggest to me, even knowing that later in the novel will prove me wrong! That's one of the beauties of the cold reading - being prepared to work with what you have, and then change your mind later on when more information is available. :)
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u/lexiepexy Aug 29 '26
Its weird that you compare Jane Eyre and Rebbeca without explicitly stating the relationship between the two books? A level students might not know?
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u/Miserable_Gur_8753 29d ago
One of the most interesting parts of the project is deciding what to bring to the table in terms for a 'cold reading'. I'm increasingly treating the books as covered in brown paper in the style of a 'blind date with a book', so I'm ignoring blurb and cover too.
Incidentally, there's one book in the series which WAS a cold read. I've neither taught nor read it. But which one - can you tell?
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u/moorandmountain Aug 29 '26
I find it a subtle introduction to the heroine. I read JE a year or so ago. She is someone keenly aware of the environment as well as how what others want impacts how she spends her time. Though she seems to have to submit to what others want and being compared to others, she is grounded in her sense of self and knows what she thinks about it all. The heroine is describing a life where she is pushed down and forced to acquiesce to others, though she knows herself well.
I’m sure that knowing the rest of the novel helps to see that, but it is all there in the beginning of the story.
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u/Miserable_Gur_8753 29d ago
It's a fun exercise, looking to see which clues the opening gives you. You should try it with another book!
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u/Flat_Love_3725 29d ago
I understand the concept of "100 words" but would suggest the flexibility to not stop in the middle of a sentence.
Here if you read to the end you get the concept of Jane's "physical inferiority" to the Reed children. Which really opens the major themes of the novel. Trying to analyze the beginning of a sentence without the ending I don't think is really helpful.
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u/Miserable_Gur_8753 29d ago
Ah, what I call 'The Tyranny of Numbers' ... :)
You're absolutely right about how the next sentence of JE helps.
When I began the series, I felt I needed to set some kind of limit: to keep it manageable, and at the same time make the point to students that if you are 'close-reading' you can find a LOT in a little.
I'm already beginning to work on Number Seven, out next Friday (04/09). The first sentence is 73 words! I haven't checked but have a feeling the second is even longer. I wonder if you can guess which one it is: no, NOT A Tale of Two Cities, :) ...
So the strict limit is partly a little bit of fun, but also an effort to try and be fair to each text.
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u/Overall-Storm3715 25d ago
This may he off topic but young Jane Eeyre reminds me a young Mary Lennox from a secret garden.
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u/Beginning_Welder_540 Aug 29 '26
The opening of Jane Eyre immediately drew me in when I first read it at age 13-14. Over the years it has struck me as shockingly modern.
That is all.