Metacognition: Jane Eyre

Alright, well, I set out to make a post as long as Jane Eyre to entertain you, as I know you have no other amusement. My wish did not come into fruition, though, as other stupid things like math homework called out to me. So, in a very much abridged form, I present you with some thoughts on this novel.

I'll just get this out of the way immediately: I was slightly intimidated (not, like, scared or anything) of Jane and her story before we began. Before we started this 'unit,' Jane Eyre was nothing more than an orange-covered hunk of paper in the bottom of my closet. The very bottom. The only remarks I had heard on the book were that Jason Chen himself had read the book at an early age and had found it completely boring. What a goof.

Then, as we began our unit, I was excepting another dive into the literary heart of darkness (do you like that one?). Yes, Joseph Conrad's book was very hard for me to read. So, I was sure that we were in for more complex, thick English language and a lethargic story.

The first few readings were, at least to me, a little difficult to pay attention to. I would read about Jane's cousins and then begin thinking about the Christmas ten Christmases ago, or I'd breeze through a paragraph wondering if anything major had happened (if Jane died, I wouldn't have known). I was, at the story's start, very excited by the scarcity of reading quizzes.

As the book progressed, and Jane's angst-filled childhood came to a close, I felt the book locking in a bit more. The narrative took interesting turns, and Jane's story started to, in the very slightest manner, capture my attention. In terms of language, my fears were met with a relative lack of difficulty and thoughts of Brontë writing the story knowing that I'd read it and didn't want it to be too complex. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what she did.

In terms of Brontë and Jane being nineteenth-century (our now commonplace pseudo-adjective for her), the only notice I had of it was in setting and character interaction. Obviously, when she goes into depth on bonnets and other silly articles of clothing we can't really relate. Also, when Rochester and Jane converse, we see that he is in a position superior to hers. This hopefully isn't the case in most relationships in our culture, so I found this to be slightly irritating.

Far beyond and more in-depth than the language and character structure, however, are the themes of the novel. I find that, in the same way that Romeo and Juliet's are still applicable, Jane Eyre's come through and shine with modern meanings. Teacher talk: A great piece of literature will have ideas that can last forever, even if the characters or situation don't. So, to me, Jane Eyre and Rochester died some time in the late 1860s of cholera. St. John went out to sea in order to return to England, but was tragically lost on a island. ABC continues his narrative on Tuesday nights at 8:00pm.

In a final move to think about my thinking before I regress to writing stories, I guess I didn't connect with the story. The events in Jane's life didn't really matter that much to me, in terms of what I could get from them. But the themes that Brontë implanted in her characters resonated for me, and I think that's what matters. Culturally, we are very, very far away from where we were in the 19th century. On the basic human level, though, that's a very small window of time and very little has changed. Thus, we still love in the same way and we still hold emotions in a similar fashion. SparkNotes won't tell you that.