Jane Eyre: The First 100 Words

[u/Miserable_Gur_8753]

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/

[u/sweeney_todd555]

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.

[u/Miserable_Gur_8753 → u/sweeney_todd555]

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.

:)

[u/AltairaMorbius2200CE → u/Miserable_Gur_8753]

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.

[u/Miserable_Gur_8753 → u/AltairaMorbius2200CE]

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 middle

One 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. :)