Reading on Jane Eyre

Both aspects are, of course linked and interwoven throughout the novel. There is also a strong element of realism in the novel, which, married to the romantic aspect, enhances the novels strength. The sense of place is very strong; we are able to experience both exterior and interior settings with startling clarity throughout the story, in a series of vivid deive passages. The central characters are also realistic and their confrontations and sufferings change them in a believable way. Even the unlikely is made plausible, with a unique blend of high drama and perceptive low comedy (the attack on Mason, for instance. The more fantastic romantic aspects; the coincidences; the secrets; the supernatural occurrences, are balanced by the realism, and this is of course a major In the original genre, the heroine would typically be abducted and threatened with seduction, or worse!. There would be a lover - a respectable, well-bred young man - who would endeavor to rescue the heroine and would succeed after many trial. the seducer would be a brigand "Know that I adore Corsairs!" and he would lock the girl up in a remote castle. There was little freedom for middle class women during the period of the Gothic novel, and this was still the case in the time of CB. Marriage especially was often a bargain, whereby fortunes were secured by using the female as a pawn. A womans value largely depended therefore on her sexual purity and she was quarded and secured as a result. Men, on the contrary, were potent and free" lovers and mistresses were common. Ironically the women who provided their services were social outcasts as a result. In Jane Eyre we see elements of the Gothic romance, in that Thornfield Hall and Rochester are described very much in the brigand/castle style BUT Jane Eyre is not abducted by R. On the contrary she chooses to go there of her own free will. AND she is clear in her determination to have Rochester as a husband. Neither is there a gentleman rescuer; St John Rivers may look like a Greek God, but he is neither kind nor benevolent; driving Jane back to Ferndean, not rescuing her from it. The trials which the hero is supposed to undergo in a Gothic romance are in fact undergone by the heroine in Jane Eyre. The bandit Rochester is only skin-deep. Underneath the brooding exterior is a sensitive soul, which a WOMAN frees. In this way we see that CB created rather a daring departure from conventional fiction, although there are still many aspects of the novel which remain true to Victorian convention.