Told you I'd be back! It's finally time to start our new reading material:
Jane Eyre. This classic novel by Charlotte Bronte (still have no idea how to do the double dot over the e thingy, sorry) was published in 1847 under Charlotte's male pseudonym, Currer Bell. She had to pretend to be a man to get published. What utter bullshit. Anyway, let's get to it.
Chapters 1-3
It's important to note that this book is being told as an autobiography. An older Jane is looking back
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| Book selfie! |
and narrating her life. I'll refer to older Jane as Narrator Jane when it is necessary.
Young Jane is sitting inside on a blustery, stormy day. She is glad of the weather, as she doesn't like to take walks. I can relate. Very slowly, she starts to release information about her life to the reader. There are three other children in the house, to whom she feels inferior. There is Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed. She lives with them and their mother, Mrs. Reed, who is Jane's aunt.
The other three children are currently seated with their mother, excluding Jane. Mrs. Reed keeps Jane at a distance because she is a sullen child. Mrs Reed wants her to, "acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner," and until she had done so, "she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children." How, exactly is Jane supposed to cheer up if she is excluded? How the fuck is that supposed to work? When Jane asks what she has done to deserve this treatment, Mrs. Reed tells her she doesn't like people who ask questions, especially children who ask questions. She basically tells this little girl to shut up and go away. This is her caretaker, mind you. Also, Jane is 10 and both her parents are dead. Fuck you, lady.
Jane goes to a different room to read a book about birds. She sits in a window seat and pulls the curtains around her to read Bewicks's
History of British Birds. She doesn't really care for reading it, she enjoys the pictures of the birds. The illustrations are all of exotic birds in far away places. She first mentions the sea-fowl on their "'solitary rocks and promontories' by them only inhabited." This is a direct reference to Jane herself, who is alone. She is abandoned in a desolate place. Sure there are people around, but they are actively cruel to her, as you will soon see.
