Mr. Rochester... Part 2

I did not want that ending. I wanted Jane Eyre to be as depressing in ending as it was during its peak. I shouldn't have expected anything different (how immensely uncharacteristic of the literary period if it had been), but that does not change the fact that I wanted Charlotte Bronte's tale of love, deception, and love again to be more about deception in the end than about love.

I cannot lie though, I felt, for a moment, a few pages of disbelief as it seemed that Miss Eyre was going to marry another man out of anything other than complete and total love. It felt like it was impossible for a woman so particularly characterized as a woman as principle to do anything but that which absolute principle supported. And I did not want to read it happening - I was frightened; and for it to have happened without her meeting her real love once more! Why! that would simply be unacceptable.

Thank goodness it did not happen that way (though if this were a modern novel, with modern themes on humanity, I am sure it would have - my how we seem to have lost those rose-coloured glasses with which we once allowed ourselves to envisage our species).

I appreciated the romantic theme of the novel a great deal more than I anticipated - and how it, though similar to other works from the period, is a bit more particularly defined. In its way of honouring true love above convenient love or practical love, it made the female protagonist a strong and demanding individual, educated and smart and powerful in her relationships. This is similar to other major works from the period, such as Pride and Prejudice, but, unlike Pride and Prejudice, we are aware of the protagonist's love throughout this novel. Nothing is hidden. And she is confronted with a choice in the end, not given the thing that she desires most in a final few rousing chapters without a considerable fight.

The ability of the author to outline the different ways that we can love others, and the lengths we are almost willing to go for those we love in ways other than romantic, was really quite impressive. St. John Rivers, a character introduced late in the novel but who becomes intimately involved in outlining the theme, is a perfectly executed foil to Mr. Rochester (indeed, this perfection comes in one of the last moments of extended dialogue in the novel, between Mr. Rochester and Jane, in which you cannot help but laught.) Charlotte, like many of the authors of her time and locale, was quite the observer of the human condition - of that there is no doubt.

She was also, clearly, quite attached to darkness, superstition, and deception. Though the first chapters of the novel come off as a criticism of the church, the last few chapters and the introduction of St. John Rivers seems to affirm the church as a home of good-hearted persons (just with a few bad eggs in the carton). Moreover, odd events take place that are always raising the hairs on the back of your neck as you are reading - attempts at murder, suicides, cataclysmic destruction of estates. Laughter, or cackling, at night. Beckoning voices that are coming from nowhere but calling you to somewhere. How intriguing that love and superstition are exalted into the same sphere - given the same book to reveal themselves.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Jane Eyre. She was a fascinating character, as were many of the others in the story. A hero of sorts - whose world was being thrown into a confusing state of flux. And at times the story is written in this manner - there were moments where the dialogue and the writing made me delirious with confusion. And the characters, the dialects, and events which bring them together - all features worth praising. A highly, highly recommended read.

And now onto something decidedly more modern - Yann Martel's latest novel about truth, Beatrice and Virgil.