Jane Eyre - book review

Reading the Victorian novels and pre-era is often a good experience in general and I also love reading novels usually written by the classic authors like Austen, Brontes, Dickens, Thackeray and others who would love to see this soaring reception for their works even centuries after… I would love to share my review of the novels I have read and I would love to start it with Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre is a timeless classic which arouses different kinds of emotions in the readers when they read it and it surely offers the free play of interpretations without and presumptions and critics have been happy finding a playground like this!

There is enough meat in the novel and it offers a very substantive plot which features the central characters in the form of Jane Eyre, the novelist’s mouthpiece and the leading lady coupled with Mr. Rochester, the leading male protagonist and we have many other characters who play major and minor role including the twisting tale of Bertha Rochester.

People call it feministic view on life; some other call it romance; some call it a psychological novel but I do have my own views – Jane Eyre is a tale of love told by a lady who knows how a woman feels when in love because she must have been in love sometimes in her life! Jane Eyre is a tale that tells us how falling in love can change even our strongest and stiffest views about things and how love can bring about a dramatic change in our views on various things. Jane Eyre’s love for Rochester is pure and un-demanding and so is Rochester’s for her However, Rochester is seen, by some critics, as a cheat who keeps Jane in darkness about his first wife Bertha. This is not, however, justified.

Bertha is the character who has been at the centre of the critical experiments and laboratories of theories have been built on her base. Feminists cry foul with her and even some conspiracies have also been ascribed to her character. However, I will just ignore all that and tell my readers that the novel is so good and you must read it. You will have the elevated language which is the soul of classical works which you often miss with the modernist authors… just go ahead and have your read!