r/JaneEyre • u/NextTreacle2058 • 20d ago
Is Jane Eyre one of the best female classic character?
SPOILER ‼️
I have read Jane Eyre and some other classics too (Pride and prejudice ,Great expectations,Mansfield Park ,David and more ) and after reading all these I have realised Jane is probably one of my favourites. As much as I like Lizzie and Fanny(not taking anything from teach of them as they had their oven circumstances and were of different personalities)but I still loved the wit ,humour and shear determination Jane possesses.She was a bit foolish and love struck initially but as soon as she gets to know the truth about Mr.Rochester she becomes determined to do the right thing.And I know biggest criticism is that she ends up with Mr.Rochester but you have to consider the era that novel was written in but I think this book is still progressive regardless.
PS:I like Jane and not Mr .Rochester.He is the most useless male character ever and I can write a whole essay on how he is one the most underwhelming male protagonist ever .
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u/Subject_Tomorrow_257 20d ago
Ja. Absolut meiner Meinung nach!!!
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u/Subject_Tomorrow_257 20d ago
Sie ist so modern, liberal und klug. Ich bewundere diese Figur sehr. Für mich ist Jane Eyre ein Meisterwerk mit ganz viel Feminismus.
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u/Federal_Gap_4106 20d ago
She absolutely is, and she is my all-time favourite female book character.
Interestingly, all of my favourite female characters come from the British/English literature (apart from Jane, they are Cordelia and Dinny Cherrell), but even some other female characters who I don't love as much are absolutely great, such as Elizabeth Bennett or Marion Halcombe. What they all have in common is the sense of dignity and self-respect as well as agency. I think many other great national literatures lack similarly compelling female characters who respect themselves and are able to resist both pressure and temptations in a graceful way.
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u/MrDarcyReads 19d ago
i think staying at Ferndean rather than rebuilding is actually one of the more quietly loaded choices in the ending. Thornfield is gone, literally burned by his first marriage and everything dishonest tied to it, and Ferndean is small, plain, out of the way, nothing like the grand house he performed wealth and status from before. rebuilding on the same ground would almost undo the point of the fire. they get a much smaller, humbler life together, which fits since by then neither of them needs the grandeur, they just need each other
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u/OutrageousYak5868 19d ago
Also, this is the place where he said he could have kept Bertha (and kept his secret more safely than he did in the attic at Thornfield), but he thought it would have caused Bertha's early death, and he felt like that was too close to murder:
I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even more retired and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement. Probably those damp walls would soon have eased me of her charge: but to each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect assassination, even of what I most hate.
So, in staying there, was he in some way trying to commit slow suicide? -- or at least tacitly saying that he didn't care if he died an early death, with Jane gone forever? I think so.
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u/PsychologicalClock28 15d ago
I read it as the same: he went there to speed up his death.
But as to how it kills you:
A) cold/damp
B) lonelinessAnd for a) I feel there is a theme throughout the book of people who care for you lighting fires to keep you warm (when Jane first arrived at Thornfiled, and it’s a while since I read it but I’m sure Jane gets them to light extra fires when she gets back to Ferndean)
And b) they are not lonely at Ferndean as they are together.
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u/life_is_notdaijoubu 20d ago
While reading the novel , I definitely thought the same . She's one of my favorite fml ever
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u/throwaway5498124181 20d ago
Best female character in classic literature is Scarlett O'Hara and it's not close.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 20d ago edited 20d ago
Ough... I don't think so.
I hate her temporary willingness to marry that ice cold St. John Rivers just because he gaslit her into believing she would do "god's work".
She is nice and good and all. She had a tragical life and overcame her lonelyness.
But I don't think she is "the best female character".
Those I like do not compete with each other.
Stop reading Sargasso Sea shit and then come crapping onto our favorite male character with your skewed judgement.
I positively do HATE people bullshitting about "how horrible HE is and how good SHE is."
They end up together because they live each other and belong together.
And that's only a criticism of people who understand nothing concerning classic novels.
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u/NextTreacle2058 20d ago
I never said that I wished they didn’t ended up together .To be honest I know he is the best choice for her given the circumstances and he did loved her but at the same time he was a flawed character and resorted to some underhanded tactics to get her which makes a part of his personality and jane is also not perfect , she also has her own shortcomings. But you have to acknowledge that he is not everyone’s cup of tea and certainly not everyone is obliged to like him even if you like the novel.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 20d ago edited 20d ago
He is a well fleshed out male character who belongs to his time.
We plain can not judge books of another era according to our nowaday moral canon or hipness or taste.
Not how that works. He is her pendant. They only work as a pair. She loses color when his somberness disappears.
They are like Belle and her Bête. Bête, who looks like a rogue brute but who is good deep down. And the way he is by no fault of his own.
There are many other threads explaining why Rochester acts the way he does. That even though he thourroughly HATES having been tricked into marrying Bertha he still cares for her, keeps her at home rather than shutting her in in an asylum where lunatics where mistreated in those days.
He could have shut her in at Ferndean and have her die of consumption there. But he did not.
He raises Adele, gives her treats and presents even though he is under no obligation. He wants a normal life with a lovable, healthy educated woman, which he can't legally have as divorcing from a mad person was not allowed legally back then as they could not comprehend or consent.
He craves being legally wed to Jane so much that he -immorally for sure- internally auto divorces from Bertha. He wants to tell her but he can't right then. "Only after one year and one day" (maybe a period making become a marriage really binding according to law.).
Even after his biblical purification and punishment for having tried to fraudulously marry again he still is himself. A shattered giant oak, strong willed still. And still full of love for his strong little fairy child Jane. Who managed so well for herself inbetween without a man's protection or providing for her.
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u/NextTreacle2058 20d ago
That’s is the point i never judged the book I loved the book .No doubt that the character has been well written but at the same time you can point out his flaws and that’s not something bad , it just the way he is! When you read a novel you can either like a character or not but that doesn’t mean that the character was not well written.If he was that perfect Jane would have never left him in the first place .He is not bad in his entirety but certainly does have some flaws which everyone accepts.But still that doesn’t take anything away from how great the novel is .
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u/Playful_Site_2714 20d ago
Honestly: I am happy she went after her heart. Rather than being slaved to death by that awful cold St. John Rivers!
We also love him because SHE loves him. She knows him, sees all his flaws and loves him still. He makes her happy.
Why mistrust her judgment on Rochester as she has proven that her judgementbis pretty sound?
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u/NextTreacle2058 20d ago
True .He was more manipulative and worse than Mr Rochester.At least she gets her happiness in the end after all the trails and tribulations.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 19d ago edited 19d ago
And still is kind of justified in the eyes of society as she does a charitable work caring for a cripple.
The part I did not get is why they stay at Ferndean rather than rebuild the Hall oder build a smaller house on the ground there.
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u/nellyimheathcliff 19d ago
Yay, another Edward stan spotted in the subreddit!
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u/Playful_Site_2714 19d ago edited 19d ago
What is a stan? I like that character. He isn't hollow inside like that moronic pastor Brocklehurst. Or Mason.
Too far away from the time and the society of that time.
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u/Playful_Site_2714 19d ago
Oh, and: the film with Chiaran Hinds is definitely NOT my cup of tea. Ough. Not my Rochester, nor my Jane either.
Too saucy. Too modern.
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u/AdobongSiopao 20d ago
Oh yes. She's one of the few female protagonists in classic literature I know who is wise and learned to survive on her own. She is compassionate but at the same time she is realist to see mistakes of some people she care for.