Review of Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is an autobiographical and realistic novel with romantic color. It tells a story from the childhood of Jane Eyre to her encounter and love with Mr. Rochester. The reviews will focus on the personalities of Jane and the artistic styles of the novel.
Jane Eyre is full of passions and fantasies, she equips herself with resistance and perseverance to face various hardships. When she was young, she was bullied and treated unfairly by her aunt Mrs. Reed and her aunt’ s children. She was blamed for every quarrel, even though she didn’t make any mistake. “I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.” Without any love and comfort, she lost into great sadness and despair. She hoped to leave Gateshead. After being sent to Lowood where she entered a school, she suffered a lot. She was punished unfairly, made to be isolated from others. The environment was terrible in Lowood and lots of students suffered severe sickness. But Jane made it through and finally became a teacher.
She believes that if all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends. She rescues herself, she gives her own fresh life, she doesn’t mean to give up because of the pains and sadness. She owns a strong and indestructible heart to support her.
Jane Eyre has a desire for freedom and happiness, as well as the pursuit of a higher spiritual realm. Her thought is not restrained to what a common woman would do in her generation. Turing into a teacher in Lowood, she desires to chase more in the outer world. “It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”
She forms a clear understanding of what a human should do — taking actions. And women have their own rights to do what they want to do, without any restriction and prejudice. Jane has her rights to love Mr. Rochester based on freedom and fairness, to leave him based on morality and her independent mind, to embrace painful Rochester again without prejudice based on her true feelings. She knows what she wants, to be a truly independent lady. She doesn’t follow what St. John defines, she understands what true love is.
The techniques of description of the novel are absolutely wonderful. The author uses a lot of vivid and beautiful environmental descriptions, which foil the atmosphere and reflect the feelings of the characters. For example, when the author describes Thornfield, she goes in this way, “It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields: advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though considerable; a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote.” Apart from depicting the scenery, the author compares it with Lowood and Millcote, highlighting the peace and tranquility of Thornfield. It suggests that Jane is fond of the life in Thornfield.
Moreover, the novel is full of passionate and poetic words, which are expressed by Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. And, in order to equip the novel with classic meaning and mythological connotation, the author repeatedly quotes the Bible, myths, epics, classics, historical allusions and the works of Shakespeare. This method greatly enhances cultural deposits of the novel. For instance, Jane Eyre mentions Solomon’s words, “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” She thinks that the relationships between people affect individual life a lot, if people get along well with each other, it’s acceptable that the living conditions are poor.
I am able to feel what Jane Eyre feels. It seems like travelling with her, talking to her and accompanying her along her entire life. There is no doubt that Jane Eyre has encouraged a lot of readers to pursue what they truly desire for, and Jane Eyre will be undoubtedly famous and brilliant all the time.
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