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JANE EYRE BOOK CLUB…PART FOUR!

In a word: BERTHA.

I'm dying to hear what you all made of Mr. Rochester's wife, locked in the attic for the rest of her days, referred to as a "monster" and a "vampire", "discolored" and "lurid", who crawls on all fours like an animal, who can't seem to stop trying to escape (odd, that: when being trapped in an attic is SO NICE) and setting the house on fire.

Bertha Mason Rochester has been well-examined by history already, to be sure. Some of you have already mentioned Jean Rhys's incredible novel "The Wide Sargasso Sea", which tells Bertha's story from her own point of view. (Weirdly, I read this novel 20 years ago, never having read "Jane Eyre", which is just sort of dumb of me. But it's a great book! You should all read it next, in the proper order and with the proper context!) And those of you who have read it more recently than two decades ago…please comment!

Some of you may have also read the 1979 feminist classic "The Madwoman in the Attic", which discusses Bertha, among other sort of unsettling characters in women's literary history. The authors posited that 19th century writers only had two choices when creating female characters — devils and angels. The modern feminist position was that we must somehow destroy this duality, as it keeps women basically trapped in only one of two personas — they are either howling in the attic, or smiling contentedly in the kitchen. Neither of which depictions is a whole human being. One is what men fear; the other is what men desire. (Or maybe men fear and desire both? I dunno. I don't even know how current this theory is. I'm just glad I am neither.)

In order for Jane Eyre to be an angel, in other words, it has been theorized that she must have an opposing devil, against which to set her own purity. Mr. Rochester basically says as much, when he talks about hunting all over the world to find a woman who is the EXACT opposite of his detested spouse…a dangerous dating strategy for anyone, if I may add. (GET SOME COUNSELING BEFORE WRITING THAT "MATCH.COM" AD, MR. ROCHESTER!)

All that said, I am not convinced that Charlotte Brontë meant for Jane Eyre to be seen as a pure angel. Jane is a hard and flinty chick — far from docile, far from sweet, far from fluffy, far from obedient. I've met some saccharine sweet "perfect" women in Victorian literature, and Jane ain't that. She's a bad-ass, actually, which means that she does not, in my mind, meet the criteria for the Victorian feminine ideal of "The Angel in the House". (Nobody who tells a minister that the best way to avoid going to hell is to avoid dying can be THAT pure, right?)

What do you all think?

There is also a theory that Bertha's madness sure looked like the symptoms of syphilis …which one reader today already noted she could have received from her dear husband Rochester (what with his history of sleeping with French Opera dancers, and all.) If this is the case, Bertha's story is even more tragic than we thought.

One way or another, Bertha disturbs. She disturbs us today for perhaps different reasons than she disturbed readers in 1847, but she still disturbs. It is disturbing to imagine a man locking his wife in an attic, simply because he can. It is disturbing furthermore for the racial and colonial undertones of Bertha's native wild sensuality vs. Rochester's British masculine power. (He liked her wildness well enough when he wanted to have sex with her; then he couldn't take it and got rid of her…)

I wonder how you all felt when it came to Bertha? I wonder if any of you have ever felt LIKE Bertha? I wonder how you felt about how Jane feels about Bertha? I wonder what you think Charlotte Brontë meant for us to think about Bertha?

Do tell!

Yours in reading,
Liz

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

JANE EYRE BOOK CLUB…PART THREE!

OK, I've been holding back till noon (my time) but now I can't resist anymore.

Can we talk about Mr. Rochester?

Friends, may I just ask…what the HELL, with this character?

I think I was expecting him to be a sort of Mr. Darcy-like figure (brooding and challenging, but basically a solid guy) but seriously? Mr. Rochester is a HOT MESS.

(I say this with admiration, by the way. He's quite the personage and I enjoyed every page of him. WELL DONE, Ms. Brontë. Well done.)

But still. A mess! If I were Jane Eyre's worldly older auntie or friendly divorced next-door neighbor, I would be like, "Honey, really? Think about this guy. Think about it seriously…"

Because there are gloomy Byronic poetic heroes, (and we all go through a phase in our lives when we love them — and by the way, this image is a portrait Byron himself, who could easily have modeled for Rochester in every way) but then there are guys who are just friggin' catastrophes. And Rochester is the train wreck of all train wrecks.

Let us review our beloved Mr. Rochester.

He's moody, sullen, emotionally unstable, heavy-hearted, accusatory, self-pitying, self-absorbed, deceptive, and a touch overly-dramatic. (Which is fine — again, we've all fallen in love with that sort of guy at some time or another.) But he's also an attempted bigamist, whose history with women is dicey at best. (His taste runs, prior to Jane, to promiscuous opera girls, fallen women and dangerous gorgeous island types.) Never does he take any personal accountability for the fact the he picked those women; he merely complains about how they wronged him and ruined him. (I am utterly unconvinced that Adele is not actually his kid, by the way.) He marries for money (and still, childishly, blames his daddy for not leaving him the family fortune…DUDE, GET A JOB!) and then blames everyone for having deceived him that Bertha is mad. He convinces himself that locking that poor woman in the attic is the height of responsibility and compassion, and then he lies to everyone about it — Jane most of all.

The lying is what really gets me, and I found myself furious — once Bertha's existence is revealed to Jane — that he never apologizes! And Jane never asks him to apologize! (Her complaint with him is that he's married; not that he's NUTS.) Not only did he lie to Jane, but when she told him about the terrifying woman who had come into her bedroom in the night to rip up her wedding veil, he accuses JANE of being mentally unstable, of imagining things. ("It's all in your head, sweetheart" — the refrain of every compulsive liar.) THEN, when Jane threatens to leave him, he pulls out every stop in the Crazy-Guy handbook (from self-pity to emotional manipulation to a threat of violence) while never once saying, "Yeah, honey, sorry about all this…I can see how this whole situation must be kinda tough of you, too…" No — it's all Me, Me, Me, Poor Little Me.

Then when Jane does leave him, he becomes a total wreck. (And I mean this even before he is physically injured.) He doesn't go out there in the world and better himself in any way, or make amends, or try to be a better man. He just folds up and falls apart in a dark funk of despair. While brokenhearted Jane, meanwhile, goes out in the world (with NOTHING, mind you) and finds a very productive and very noble new life for herself. (I've seen a lot of divorces that roll like this, by the way.) While I like the idea that the woman in this story is INFINITELY stronger than the man, I'm also a bit alarmed at what a loser Rochester is.

(I'm not even getting INTO the scene where he dresses in drag.)

On the other hand, I kind of dig it — from a reader's perspective — that's he such a damn weirdo. It's such a strange sort of "hero" for Brontë to choose — so very much against romantic type. I've never met anyone quite like him in such a big and important novel.

And the chemistry between Jane and Rochester, from their very first scenes together is RED HOT. This perhaps took me by the most surprise. I love my Lizzie Bennet, but she never had a conversation with Mr. Darcy that was nearly as kinky and freaky and sexualized and frankly WEIRD as the way Jane talks to Rochester, and he to her. (If they are anything in bed like they are in dialogue — WHOA!) Jane can handle him, is what I'm saying. What's more, she can torment him and knock him around a bit and control him. Also, she loves him, sincerely. We get this right away. She likes this screwed-up and broken odd man. I feel her satisfaction when they finally end up together. It couldn't be any other way. But do we like him for her? Is it any of our business?

(I guess it is our business, since we are THE JANE EYRE BOOK CLUB!)

So open it up, everyone. Rochester! WTF? DISCUSS!

(ps — Does Brontë take Rochester's arm and eyes at the end to punish him for being sort of a prick? Is that the ultimate in novelistic passive-aggression?)

Liz

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

JANE EYRE BOOK CLUB…PART TWO!

Thank you everyone, for your thoughts and comments so far about Jane. I wanted to introduce the question of AN ORPHAN'S RESILIENCE. Where does Jane's fortitude come from? The girl starts out with nothing in life — no family, no friend, no beauty, no wealth…with none of the currencies that generally give a person status. And yet she somehow armpit-deep in self-assurance and power. Born that way? Formed that way?

Is she strong because she is an orphan? Or despite it?

And can we talk specifically for a minute about the rich literary history of being an orphan? Have you ever noticed how many of our favorite literary characters are orphans? Let me list just a few of literature's most famous motherless children:

Oliver Twist
David Copperfield
Dorothy Gale
Annie
Harry Potter
Anne Shirley
Heidi
Huck Finn
Tom Sawyer
Tarzan
Mowgli
Pippi (well, she has a VERY absentee/drunk dad, but still…)
Peter Pan
The Boxcar Children
Madeline
Cinderella
Snow White
Sarah Crewe (from Secret Garden)
The kids in Narnia (de facto orphans: no mom around)
Frodo Baggins
James (of the Giant Peach)
…and, of course, our own JANE EYRE.

And there are more still. (Anyone who can think of another, do feel free to add to the list!)

Why is this? What attracts us about orphan tales? We know what orphans lack, but what do they HAVE? What is their advantage, their strength, their allure? Why do we keep telling this story again and again?

Could Jane Eyre have been Jane Eyre within the context of a solid nuclear family?

What does her resilience teach us about our own often less-than-ideal childhoods?

Discuss! I am listening with attentive eyes!

xo
LIZ

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

JANE EYRE BOOK CLUB…PART ONE!

Dear ones, the great day has arrived.

It is time to discuss Jane Eyre.

I shall begin, and then — please! — jump in, everyone! Respond to me, respond to each other, respond to critics, respond to anything you like. I will try to post another comment every hour to keep the conversation going. I can't wait to read everyone's thoughts…

LET'S GO!

Let's start by discussing the character of Jane herself…

I would first like to say that I offer my apologies to Ms. Charlotte Brontë for never having read her quite wild and galloping novel, and for having somehow decided it was not worth reading because it would be moralizing, dull and simpering. Which means that I thought Jane herself was moralizing, dull and simpering. (Somehow I had conflated her in my mind with "The Little Match Girl." How? I have no idea.) I COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE MISTAKEN.

Jane Eyre is a remarkable creation. She is not quite like any other literary heroine I have ever encountered. There is a beautiful and twisted strangeness about her, and I am absolutely with Mr. Rochester when he asks, late in the book, "You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?" The question is worth asking, because she is so very unusual, so difficult to pin down. I found from the start that Jane had a odd, kinky, dark, unsettling vibe about her. She's "good", I suppose, but her goodness is cloaked in a prickly, stubborn, combative and almost aggressive personality — and I LOVED it.

I would not call her humble, no matter what her upbringing. I felt that Jane was always well aware of her special existence, aware that she was sort of better than everyone else — stronger, keener, brighter, tougher, worthy in some indefinable way. This is why she gets to tell her own story — because she herself feels intensely that her own story has value. Her circumstances may have been dreadful, but she still manages to hold herself in the highest regard. It's not arrogance, exactly but it's DEEP self-assuradness, which can sometimes feel almost spooky, coming from somebody so ignored and overlooked and (in society's eyes) so disposable. She will NOT be disposed of. She refuses to be overlooked.

She keeps describing herself as small and plain, but I had trouble believing that she really thinks of herself (in spirit, at least) as either tiny or insignificant. (I also don't think she minds her looks. I think she likes her smallness and plainness, as it is wonderful disguise for her electric and vibrant mind; she can be underestimated, and then make her play, without anyone seeing her coming.)

Even in her earliest and most abused childhood, there is nothing of the victim about Jane. Even as the Reed family is abusing her, she's thinking that they basically suck and thus she holds them in utter contempt. She is more contemptuous of them than she is fearful of them. (They can smell it, too — her contempt — and it only makes them hate her more. You can almost feel sorry for them. I would not like to be on the receiving end of Jane Eyre's diamond-hard disdain!) She knows she's better than the treatment she gets in her early years at Lowood, and doesn't rest until, indeed, she IS treated better. Later on in the novel, she knows she's better than the ridiculous society ladies who come to Thornwood and flirt with Rochester. (She's jealous of the attention Rochester gives to Miss Ingram, yes, but she still thinks Miss Ingram is basically a loser.)

Verbally Jane is adept at throwing conversational darts with unbelievable precision, even as a child. When she says that she prefers "rudeness to flattery", I don't think it's because of some deep Christian humility or fear of praise; I think it's because rudeness is way more interesting, and she would rather play rough than have dull, canned conversation. This is why she digs Rochester — because he's never boring, and she can go nine rounds with him verbally, in a way she cannot with anyone else. In the absence of interesting engagement, she remains silent — not because she is shy or retiring, but because she would rather say nothing than engage in boring conversation….just as she would rather marry a weird-ass, emotionally and physically damaged passionate man than marry a perfectly respectable, classically handsome, and utterly dry missionary.

Jane demands an interesting life, thus she gets one.

Good for you, Jane Eyre.

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF HER.

Tell me why you love her — if, indeed, you do love her.

Tell me how you see her.

Let us begin!

xo
Liz

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via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall