Jane Eyre (Vintage Classics)

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As an orphan, Janeâs childhood is not an easy one, but her independence and strength of character sustain her through the miseries inflicted by cruel relatives and a brutal education system. However, her biggest challenge is yet to come. Taking a job as a governess in a house containing dangerous secrets and a passionate man she finds increasingly attractive, Jane is ultimate forced to call on all her resources in order to hold fast to her beliefs.

Book Description:
Cambridge Literature is a series of literary texts edited for study by students aged 14-18 in English-speaking classrooms. It will include novels, poetry, short stories, essays, travel-writing and other non-fiction.

Features:

ISBN13: 9780099511120
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product details:

Item number (ASIN): 0099511126
Author: Charlotte Bronte
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
ISBN: 0099511126
Manufacturer: Random House UK
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 560
Package Dimensions: 134 x 512 x 780 (hundredths-inches)
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
Publisher: Random House UK
Release Date: December 4, 2007
Binding: Paperback

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Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Jane Eyre
Got it to give as a valentines gift, but ended up keeping it! Very beautiful. Classic

Rating:

- A treasure
I wanted to read Jane Eyre since a long time but couldn't make myself do it. Firstly, because I find classics really difficult to read. Secondly, it's too long. The 490 pages copy I have has very small font and everything is kind of crowded with the next chapter starting on the same page the previous one ends. So when I picked up the book to read I was expecting a very difficult read. But the first 100 pages were a breeze. *contains spoilers* Jane Eyre is an orphan who is living with her aunt, who is not a very compassionate woman, nor are her cousins. She suffers a lot in that house. Jane is a spirited girl, she believes she should be treated fairly and even knows there is injustice in the way her Aunt and her cousins treat her. She also believes in speaking her mind. The Aunt gets tired of her and sends her to an orphanage school at the age of 10 where she spends the next 8 years of her life.' I loved the life she described in the school. This section I found very similar to Anne of green gables. Not that there was anything similar in their circumstances but I found their natures quite similar. "A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should--so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again." Jane works for 2 years as a teacher in the same school before she gets bored with the monotony and decides to explore something else. She applies for the post of a governess and gets a letter from Mrs. Fairfax. When Jane reaches there she finds out that Adele, her pupil is Mr. Rochester's ward and Mrs. Fairfax is the housekeeper. Mr. Rochester is the hero of course. As romance builds up, Rochester proposes to her and on the day of their marriage she finds out that he is already married, albeit to a lunatic. She leaves the house the same night without informing anyone and loses touch with him. She builds a life for herself as a village school teacher and in the end returns to find Rochester blind and his wife dead. What I really liked about the book was that the author seemed to talk to the readers directly. She addresses the readers pulling them into the story very quickly. I found the book a little too descriptive and the language, although very beautiful, very tedious a times. At the very end, when Jane learns of Rochester's ill fate from the manager of the Inn, she decides to go and meet him. I was so excited at this point, I could hardly stay still. I wanted to find out what happened instantly. But again, there were so many descriptions of the path and of the house, I was really irritated. I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then the house--scarce, by this dim light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its front; the windows were latticed and narrow: the front door was narrow too, one step led up to it. I mean hello? At this point I wasn't really interested in reading about whether there were flowers in the path or not. I was way too impatient and I admit I skipped a lot from that chapter. *****end spoiler****** And Rochester? I think he spoke too much. At one point I wanted to say, `Oh stop talking already'. I thought he was selfish and manipulative. I realized that I will love the book more when I read it for the second time. As I already know the story I won't skip anything and I am sure I will appreciate the language even more. Although I loved the book and although it's supposed to be one of the greatest love stories, Pride and Prejudice is still on top of my list. And Darcy is still the yummiest of all the literary heroes.

Rating:

- Classic Must Read
This is one of my all time favorite books. A must read for anyone who enjoys this period.

Rating:

- Flawed
It seems that the basic purpose of the character Jane Eyre is to suffer nobly and then eventually succeed. Both elements are highly problematic as presented. Her noble suffering acts to undermine her actual character, making someone that reacts the same to most of the challenges--stoic, determined, largely silent, resigned. This required attitude makes her too much of a blank slate, too reactive, with insufficient personal details to be memorable or seem like a complex psychological portrait. One gathers that Bronte was trying to subvert common norms in representation of woman, by making Jane a lot plainer and less accomplished than was the usual style. She may have made a major improvement in this, and as discussed below there are some interesting elements to all this, but the basic result undercuts the character's agency too much. Jane can work as a symbol, she does not work as a person, and the novel is too deeply linked to her consciousness for that to be a passable loss. As well there are major pacing issues and apparent questions on the larger arc, with much of the first hundred pages and the last hundred and fifty being off-tangent to the necessary interactions for the particular story. Still, it was hardly the worst or most difficult work to get through. For much of the first two hundred pages I found it moderately enjoyable, without thinking it was very good. I was reading it as a dark comedy, framed by a blank protagonist in a fundamentally ridiculous situation. The humor--genuine though presumably unintended--came from the contrast of the stylized language forms and general etiquette focus and how cruelly people acts. See in particular the treatment of Jane in the devil child scene, in the way that's she stiffly defends herself as opposed to how the school argues she's a literal follower of the devil, and how that's a bad thing. Amusing, in a twisted sense, at least as I took it. Where I stopped being able to do this was precisely the point that the horrid and creepy Mr. Rochester became crucial to the story. He was a fundamentally twisted, harsh and disturbing person in his own right, and the eventual arc of the book where Jane does marry him and this is apparently a good thing fatally undermines the book. The way Jane plods on is problematic in itself, but it's what he ultimately plods to that is truly wrong. Rochester's focus on pride and control, his lies, his age, his borderline-deranged manner of fixating on women, the fact we have only his own word on the true story with his first wife, all these make Jane's eventual marriage with him very far from a happy thing. Yet the book seems insistent to regard it in this light, as if Rochester's injury has in itself transformed his character enough that Jane waiting on him for the rest of his life a satisfying resolution. It's the ending scenario that makes the conclusion of the author and the whole structure of the narrative less than even good. Nevertheless, the novel is an accomplishment in a number of ways. That it exists at all, that early in the nineteenth century a woman could be published. Furthermore, it's extraordinary that she was able to include so centrally in her work a protest and anger against the systemic condition of women of her time, and that both elements have been perpetuated down into the present. Creepy as some of the above subtext is, that's a worthwhile development amidst what was a pretty terrifyingly close-minded century. There's also some interesting stuff at work with religion, class and attitudes in the nineteenth century context, Jane occupying a bit of a hybrid position in all of these, not affluent nor truly destitute, not tightly religious or a firm skeptic. The hybridity of her position is very revealing to a lot of norms that we might not see in novels of the period, as her very existence in the text portrays social structures even while it undermines them. Jane Eyre the character and book are transgressive in certain ways, then, and the way this plays out is interesting. Yet, I find this appealing and informative more in my hat as historian than as a reader. The book is quite revealing of the cultural context of the author, but that's going to be the case for almost every book ever published, and it's notably less effective in framing the context for its invented narrative, cast of characters, and atmosphere. I could forgive a lot more in this book, and even come to value much of it, if it weren't for that ending that pushes the whole thing into a disturbed romance. However the book does, and so let it rest. Jane Eyre reminds me of and is better than: Bronte's Wuthering Heights Jane Eyre reminds me of and is worse than: Shelly's Frankenstein

Rating:

- Tragic, beautiful, and romantic, a classic!
I love this book! It's one of my all-time favorites. It resonated so well with me when I first read it as a teenager. How to be true to yourself, independent, and make the best of your life no matter the circumstances. And of course, the romance between Mr. Rochester and Jane was so beautiful. I wanted someone to love me like that one day! I love how she was able to stand up for herself to Mrs. Reed her cruel aunt, the evil Mr. Brocklehurst, her self-righteous and controlling cousin St. John, and even her beloved Mr. Rochester when he would have her go against her moral fiber. It was wonderful to learn more about Charlotte and her life and how much shows up in her novel. It made this reread even better!