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Selected Works of the Brontë Sisters: Jane Eyre - Villette - Wuthering Heights - Agnes Grey - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most popular works of English fiction. Although Charlotte Brontë's heroine is outwardly plain, she possesses an indomitable spirit, and great courage. Forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order which circumscribes her life when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious, sardonic Mr Rochester.
Villette is based on Charlotte Brontë's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels. It is a moving tale of repressed feelings and cruel circumstances borne with heroic fortitude. Rising above the confinement of a rigid social order, it is also a story of a woman's right to love and be loved.
Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's wild, passionate tale of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and, wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, he leaves Wuthering Heights. When he returns years later as a wealthy man, he proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries.
Agnes Grey, Ann Brontë's deeply personal novel, is a trenchant expose of the frequently isolated, intellectually stagnant, and emotionally starved conditions under which many governesses worked in the mid-nineteenth century.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall shows Ann Brontë's bold, naturalistic and passionate style. It is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious 'tenant' of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband.
Villette is based on Charlotte Brontë's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels. It is a moving tale of repressed feelings and cruel circumstances borne with heroic fortitude. Rising above the confinement of a rigid social order, it is also a story of a woman's right to love and be loved.
Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's wild, passionate tale of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and, wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, he leaves Wuthering Heights. When he returns years later as a wealthy man, he proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries.
Agnes Grey, Ann Brontë's deeply personal novel, is a trenchant expose of the frequently isolated, intellectually stagnant, and emotionally starved conditions under which many governesses worked in the mid-nineteenth century.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall shows Ann Brontë's bold, naturalistic and passionate style. It is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious 'tenant' of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband.
1376 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Charlotte Brontë
2,059 books18.6k followersCharlotte Brontë was an English novelist, the eldest out of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. See also Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë.
Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, the third of six children, to Patrick Brontë (formerly "Patrick Brunty"), an Irish Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Maria Branwell. In April 1820 the family moved a few miles to Haworth, a remote town on the Yorkshire moors, where Patrick had been appointed Perpetual Curate. This is where the Brontë children would spend most of their lives. Maria Branwell Brontë died from what was thought to be cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters and a son to the care of her spinster sister Elizabeth Branwell, who moved to Yorkshire to help the family.
In August 1824 Charlotte, along with her sisters Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth, was sent to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire, a new school for the daughters of poor clergyman (which she would describe as Lowood School in Jane Eyre). The school was a horrific experience for the girls and conditions were appalling. They were regularly deprived of food, beaten by teachers and humiliated for the slightest error. The school was unheated and the pupils slept two to a bed for warmth. Seven pupils died in a typhus epidemic that swept the school and all four of the Brontë girls became very ill - Maria and Elizabeth dying of tuberculosis in 1825. Her experiences at the school deeply affected Brontë - her health never recovered and she immortalised the cruel and brutal treatment in her novel, Jane Eyre. Following the tragedy, their father withdrew his daughters from the school.
At home in Haworth Parsonage, Charlotte and the other surviving children — Branwell, Emily, and Anne — continued their ad-hoc education. In 1826 her father returned home with a box of toy soldiers for Branwell. They would prove the catalyst for the sisters' extraordinary creative development as they immediately set to creating lives and characters for the soldiers, inventing a world for them which the siblings called 'Angria'. The siblings became addicted to writing, creating stories, poetry and plays. Brontë later said that the reason for this burst of creativity was that:
'We were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we had known from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition.'
After her father began to suffer from a lung disorder, Charlotte was again sent to school to complete her education at Roe Head school in Mirfield from 1831 to 1832, where she met her lifelong friends and correspondents, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. During this period (1833), she wrote her novella The Green Dwarf under the name of Wellesley. The school was extremely small with only ten pupils meaning the top floor was completely unused and believed to be supposedly haunted by the ghost of a young lady dressed in silk. This story fascinated Brontë and inspired the figure of Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre.
Brontë left the school after a few years, however she swiftly returned in 1835 to take up a position as a teacher, and used her wages to pay for Emily and Anne to be taught at the school. Teaching did not appeal to Brontë and in 1838 she left Roe Head to become a governess to the Sidgewick family -- partly from a sense of adventure and a desire to see the world, and partly from financial necessity.
Charlotte became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to biographer Elizabeth Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness." She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855.
Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, the third of six children, to Patrick Brontë (formerly "Patrick Brunty"), an Irish Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Maria Branwell. In April 1820 the family moved a few miles to Haworth, a remote town on the Yorkshire moors, where Patrick had been appointed Perpetual Curate. This is where the Brontë children would spend most of their lives. Maria Branwell Brontë died from what was thought to be cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters and a son to the care of her spinster sister Elizabeth Branwell, who moved to Yorkshire to help the family.
In August 1824 Charlotte, along with her sisters Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth, was sent to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire, a new school for the daughters of poor clergyman (which she would describe as Lowood School in Jane Eyre). The school was a horrific experience for the girls and conditions were appalling. They were regularly deprived of food, beaten by teachers and humiliated for the slightest error. The school was unheated and the pupils slept two to a bed for warmth. Seven pupils died in a typhus epidemic that swept the school and all four of the Brontë girls became very ill - Maria and Elizabeth dying of tuberculosis in 1825. Her experiences at the school deeply affected Brontë - her health never recovered and she immortalised the cruel and brutal treatment in her novel, Jane Eyre. Following the tragedy, their father withdrew his daughters from the school.
At home in Haworth Parsonage, Charlotte and the other surviving children — Branwell, Emily, and Anne — continued their ad-hoc education. In 1826 her father returned home with a box of toy soldiers for Branwell. They would prove the catalyst for the sisters' extraordinary creative development as they immediately set to creating lives and characters for the soldiers, inventing a world for them which the siblings called 'Angria'. The siblings became addicted to writing, creating stories, poetry and plays. Brontë later said that the reason for this burst of creativity was that:
'We were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we had known from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition.'
After her father began to suffer from a lung disorder, Charlotte was again sent to school to complete her education at Roe Head school in Mirfield from 1831 to 1832, where she met her lifelong friends and correspondents, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. During this period (1833), she wrote her novella The Green Dwarf under the name of Wellesley. The school was extremely small with only ten pupils meaning the top floor was completely unused and believed to be supposedly haunted by the ghost of a young lady dressed in silk. This story fascinated Brontë and inspired the figure of Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre.
Brontë left the school after a few years, however she swiftly returned in 1835 to take up a position as a teacher, and used her wages to pay for Emily and Anne to be taught at the school. Teaching did not appeal to Brontë and in 1838 she left Roe Head to become a governess to the Sidgewick family -- partly from a sense of adventure and a desire to see the world, and partly from financial necessity.
Charlotte became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to biographer Elizabeth Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness." She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 3, 2022
This is a selection of five novels by the Brontë sisters and it'd be more appropriate for me to review each of those novels separately.
What I can share now is the ratings I gave to each novel in this collection as well as my ranks from the most to the least favourite one:
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë with ★★★★★
2. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë with ★★★★★
3. Agness Grey by Anne Brontë with ★★★★☆
4. Villette by Charlotte Brontë with ★★★★☆
5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë with ★★½
My review for the condition of this book as a whole
This book is a nice selection of novels by the Brontë sisters which can be a great way to introduce them to people who have never read their works. When it comes to the selected novels, I think they did a great job by putting the most challenging one in the middle of everything!
The book itself is perfect to read at home as you walk through the literary worlds created by these great authors more than a century ago. It's not something to carry around with you though, so if you want that, try the e-book version instead.
The only problem I've got with this is the lack of consistency in the structure of the book. Table of Content is something pretty important most especially in a big book such as this one yet only three out of five novels in this selection have it.
On the whole, experiencing literary journeys written by three women who, as sisters, are close in relations but quite far apart in terms of writing styles in one single book? It's a treat!
Picture credit: unsplash.com
September 23, 2010
#2 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Read: 1 August - 22 September 2010
I wonder if someone, through the centuries, had committed suicide whilst reading this. Depressing slow plot with no loveable characters at all (mind you I didn't even had a slight sympathy whatsoever for Heathcliff ha!).
Note: baca bareng Qui, yg kelar jauh lebih dulu dari aku hahaha
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#1 jane eyre by charlotte brontë
Read: August 2008
a story about a young girl, a dependant - as mentioned in the book - who grown up unwanted by her late uncle's rich wife. she's been bullied, both physically and mentally but she's able to stand still. she may be plain and solitary, but you'll notice it right away that jane would not let anything passed her eyes unnoticed. her plainness attracted people to her, especially the famous mr. rochester.
charlotte brontë here was a bit cynical towards the british socialite living standards here, though in a polite way. i really love it when she called the wind or the moon as a she. it's written in rich english language. it's pretty fair to be equipped with a webster or an oxford dictionary. just in case!
***
kisah seorang perempuan muda, yatim piatu yang dibesarkan oleh bibinya namun tidak pernah diinginkan. selalu diperlakukan buruk, baik fisik maupun mental, namun dia tidak pernah menyerah. jane eyre mungkin seorang perempuan sederhana dan terbiasa menyendiri, namun matanya tajam dan memperhatikan setiap hal yang terjadi di sekitarnya. kesederhanaannya dan juga kecerdasannya yang membuat orang tertarik padanya, terutama mr. rochester.
charlotte brontë sepertinya sedikit sinis, walau dengan cara yang sopan, terhadap pola hidup kaum kaya inggris saat itu. aku suka ketika dia menyebutkan angin atau bulan sebagai dia, begitu indah terdengar. karya ini juga ditulis dalam bahasa inggris yang kaya jadi tidak ada salahnya siapkan kamus anda.
Read: 1 August - 22 September 2010
I wonder if someone, through the centuries, had committed suicide whilst reading this. Depressing slow plot with no loveable characters at all (mind you I didn't even had a slight sympathy whatsoever for Heathcliff ha!).
Note: baca bareng Qui, yg kelar jauh lebih dulu dari aku hahaha
-------------------------------------
#1 jane eyre by charlotte brontë
Read: August 2008
a story about a young girl, a dependant - as mentioned in the book - who grown up unwanted by her late uncle's rich wife. she's been bullied, both physically and mentally but she's able to stand still. she may be plain and solitary, but you'll notice it right away that jane would not let anything passed her eyes unnoticed. her plainness attracted people to her, especially the famous mr. rochester.
charlotte brontë here was a bit cynical towards the british socialite living standards here, though in a polite way. i really love it when she called the wind or the moon as a she. it's written in rich english language. it's pretty fair to be equipped with a webster or an oxford dictionary. just in case!
***
kisah seorang perempuan muda, yatim piatu yang dibesarkan oleh bibinya namun tidak pernah diinginkan. selalu diperlakukan buruk, baik fisik maupun mental, namun dia tidak pernah menyerah. jane eyre mungkin seorang perempuan sederhana dan terbiasa menyendiri, namun matanya tajam dan memperhatikan setiap hal yang terjadi di sekitarnya. kesederhanaannya dan juga kecerdasannya yang membuat orang tertarik padanya, terutama mr. rochester.
charlotte brontë sepertinya sedikit sinis, walau dengan cara yang sopan, terhadap pola hidup kaum kaya inggris saat itu. aku suka ketika dia menyebutkan angin atau bulan sebagai dia, begitu indah terdengar. karya ini juga ditulis dalam bahasa inggris yang kaya jadi tidak ada salahnya siapkan kamus anda.
Read
October 23, 2015I have not altered the descriptions of the books from the other edition, except to correct the spelling of Anne Bronte's forename. So I can't warrant the aforesaid descriptions: I will add my own descriptions as I go, though I'll have to take them one at a time.
I'll start with matters unique to this edition.
The cover picture on this edition, (selected, according to the back cover, by Robert Mathias), is designated as "A detail from Haworth Church And Parsonage By Gordon Home, an illustration in 'Yorkshire', 1908, Mary Evans Picture Library, London, UK".
This edition contains only the texts of the novels. There's not even a 'note on the text': but I note that the texts are nothing like well-edited, and contain wrong punctuations, spellings, etc corrected by the authors themselves in their manuscripts: but there's still evidence that there was some editing. For example, Ellis Bell used fairly broad Yorkshire dialect in Wuthering Heights. In later editions, Charlotte amended the text to more standard language--and it seems to have been Charlotte's version that was followed in this version.
This is a very large volume, and there are better copies of all the contents in other editions. I would recommend this edition only to people with limited shelf space, because it does contain full texts, and, though it is very big, it contains only 1376 pp. For readers struggling with the often obscure vocabulary of the Brontes (according to one note, the OED contains at least one word ONLY known from one of Anne Bronte's books), it's probably not the best place to start.
One general note: there's a tendency to describe the Brontes as 'Victorian' writers. This is not the case, unless one separates Victorianism from Victoria. All of the Bronte children were born before Victoria, and were educated in literature from the Regency and Georgian periods. They did make some concessions to Victorian concepts and phrasing: but this was not their heritage, and not their own ethos.
CONTENTS:
JANE EYRE:
Ashleigh Brilliant once commented that his life had been influenced by many books he hadn't read. Most people have heard of Jane Eyre, but few seem to have read it with any thoroughness.
To begin with, Jane Eyre is one of the first of the Bildungsromans. As such, it has been heavily influential--David Copperfield, for example, was serialized very shortly after Jane Eyre became a bestseller, and was evidently heavily influenced by Jane Eyre.
It is not an accident, after all, that Jane Eyre devotes the first 10 chapters (of 38) to Jane's life in her 10th year. To people of the nineteenth century, most of the trouble is not about the chapters describing Jane's life from the time she's about 18 to late in her 20th year. The main controversy arose from Charlotte's depiction of what was quickly recognized as the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, and of the founder, Reverend William Carus Wilson (depicted in Jane Eyre as Lowood and The Reverend Mr Brocklehurst). There was a lively debate between partisans on both sides. Defenders of the Clergy Daughters School and of the Reverend Mr Wilson tended to argue that Charlotte was very small when she was at the school (she was nearly nine when she left, after the deaths of her two older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth), and that her judgement ought not be taken as unimpeachable. But it wasn't. One of the details which Mrs Gaskell did not publish generally, but did mention in letters, is that the Cowan Bridge school had only one four-hole outhouse for about 500 people, (pupils, staff, and faculty). Which would go a long way toward explaining why the school was forced to move in 1830 (the Brontes had left in 1825), due to an outbreak of typhoid.
Other objections concerned the depiction of the pupils, faculty, and supervisor--but again, Charlotte's descriptions were pretty firmly confirmed by contemporary witnesses. For one, people questioned the depiction of the untidy angel Helen Burns (generally recognized as strongly based on Maria Bronte, Charlotte's oldest sister). They argued that no 15-year-old could possibly have been so precociously wise and saintly as Helen was depicted. But Maria was ELEVEN when she died: and witness accounts recognize that Charlotte's depiction was apt. For example, people who knew Maria as a seven-year-old state that she could and did read and intelligently discuss parliamentary debates.
Jane Eyre is divided into five 'location' segments. Dividing the book this way enables it to be discussed as five different books, with different foci and styles: so I'll deal with each separately.
Section I: GATESHEAD:
We begin by seeing Jane as a 10-year-old 'orphan' (though her parents were dead, and also her Uncle Reed, she still had extended family: see below for more detail) being raised with cousins by her aunt (by marriage), Jane Reed. Little Jane describes (fairly credibly) being bullied by family and servants. Even the relatively benign Bessie tends to spend a lot of time chiding Jane. Part of the reason is that Bessie is somewhat abrupt, because (it's argued) of her youth and liveliness: but she dares not similarly rebuke Jane's cousins (note that throughout the book, Jane encounters reflections and resonances. Thus the cousins in this section are contrasted with the Rivers cousins in the Moor End section--and both sets of two sisters and a brother, of course, take some of their characteristics from Charlotte's surviving siblings)--so she focuses on Jane, who is defined as fair game. But by the same token, Bessie is more sympathetic with Jane than any of the others, and, in the end, becomes the most proud of how Jane turns out, especially in contrast with her Reed cousins.
The Gateshead section ends with Jane facing a truly traumatic experience. It's based partly in her own superstition (one aspect of her education that had NOT been neglected in a child largely self-educated in this period was superstitions), and also, most likely because she was starved and abused on the day of the trauma.
After the trauma, Jane is examined by an apothecary, who tries to offer an alternative to her present situation. He suggests that she seek out her paternal relatives (whom Jane has been told were poor, lowly people--a foreshadowing of the 'surprise' ending). Jane refuses, because she doesn't see how the poor have means to be kind. She confesses that "I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste."
The apothecary suggests that Jane be sent to boarding school, which Jane agrees to. Mrs Reed also agrees to it: but she sets out to poison Jane's future by slandering her to her new companions. Jane, after questioning the proposed operation by which her heart of stone will be replaced by one of flesh and blood, confronts her Aunt with the injustice of the slanders, rebukes her, and announces that she will tell people what she suffered, and will never again call her Aunt.
Jane's departure to Lowood marks the true end of the Gateshead section: but be prepared for the reprise, as an interlude in the Thornfield section.
SECTION 2: LOWOOD
As noted above, this was the most contentious section of the book contemporaneously: but this was, in large part, because the locales, characters, and conditions described were within living memory, and camps arose espousing both sides of the controversy (about whether Cowan Bridge was really such a bad place overall).
Comparing the school as described herein with other contemporary depictions of boarding schools, it's frankly credible that things were really as bad as Charlotte depicted them.
But it's also fairly clear that, as bad as things were, Jane was better off at Lowood than she had been at Gateshead. Yes, she was hungry (at one point she refers to Barmecide feasts (meaning, it turns out, imaginary), which Jane used to dream up to get to sleep). Yes, she was cold. Yes, she was bullied, both by the 'great girls', and by faculty and staff, and (in anticipation, and later in horrible reality) from the hypocritical Mr Brocklehurst (note especially the ironic contrast between the pupils in their plain brown 'Holland pinafores' and with forcibly straightened or shorn hair, and the elegant Mrs and Misses Brocklehurst). Yes, and worst, Jane loses the first true friend she's ever had to death.
All these yeses, and yet... Jane finds that she likes learning (which shouldn't be a surprise, because she had evidently read widely and voraciously at Gateshead, although she finds Helen's tastes in reading materials somewhat dry). She finds true friends, supporters, and protection against bullies to some degree. And she develops what amounts to a filial love for Miss Temple.
She also begins to mature. It's not surprising that a ten-year-old is immature: this is pretty much true by definition. But even in the child there are interesting intimations of the pixieish woman she's to become. The comment the bemused Jane makes about the burnt porridge which even inanition could not make edible ("Thanks being given for what we had not got...") is a good indication of the amused detachment the older Jane uses to such effect.
Jane settles in at Lowood, and even Helen's death doesn't introduce dissatisfaction enough to unsettle her. But when Jane, who at 18 has been a teacher's assistant for two years, loses Miss Temple to marriage (she takes it for granted that Miss Temple will then retire--but why?), she loses her contentment, and begins looking around for a new situation.
Jane's belief that freedom was not possible (even prayer, she conceives, falls echoless) leads her to pray for a new servitude. So she advertises for a situation as a governess.
The question of why Gateshead has any relevance to this quest is an odd one. Jane, at 18, is (or should be) an emancipated adult. Why the trustees of the school feel a need to consult Mrs Reed is baffling. Jane doesn't understand it, Mrs Reed doesn't understand it... But it does have one impact. Bessie comes to visit Jane while Jane is packing to leave. She gives Jane her approbation, gets a forwarding address, and gossips with Jane about her Reed cousins. Then she wishes her well, and bows out--for the present.
Section III: THORNFIELD:
When people discuss Jane Eyre, they tend to focus almost exclusively on this section. This is understandable. When I first read this book, late in prepubescence, I tended to focus on this section so much that I'd read the Thornfield section twice before I went on to the rest of the story.
Charlotte herself was affected the same way, apparently. She recounted writing the whole Thornfield section in one marathon session, in a sort of fever while she was watching over her father's recuperation after cataract surgery (without anaesthetic! People tend to underrate what a tough codger the Rev Patrick Bronte was, even at the age of 70.)
Yet even though the focus on this section of the book is just, there's still an unfortunate tendency to underrate its complexity. It's this section, for example, that caused Virginia Woolf to describe Jane as 'always a governess and always in love'. But by my count Jane is a governess for about a year (perhaps a bit more, if you count the time she spent as a teacher, both before and after Thornfield--but not more than four years, anyway). As for being always in love...about half the book is about Jane in love: and this excludes the first subsection of the Thornfield section.
Section 3, Subsection i: ARRIVAL AT THORNFIELD TO MR ROCHESTER'S ARRIVAL:
There are few useful dates in Jane Eyre. But on her arrival to Thornfield, there's one clue: the portraits in the pub are of "The King and the Prince of Wales". This places the date before 1820, unless the 'Prince of Wales' is the future William IV (in which case, it was before 1830).
Jane is comfortably situated as a governess (much more comfortably than Charlotte herself ever was). She likes her pupil (though she's not infatuated with her). She gets on well with most of the staff, including her immediate boss, Mrs Fairfax (the widow of Mr Rochester's maternal cousin).
Is she satisfied? Well, no. She really wanted freedom. She might have settled for comfort and security--if she weren't nineteen, and bored. She could (it turns out) probably have made it as an artist: if she weren't a woman. This section includes some of the most feminist statements in the whole book: but they're also objections to the idea that caste and class should decide one's destiny.
SECTION 3, SUBSECTION ii (MR ROCHESTER'S ARRIVAL-JANE'S RETURN TO GATESHEAD): Mr Rochester makes a cometary entrance--almost literally, as he falls from his horse on a frozen rill. He finds Jane astonishing, but she finds him scarcely less so--his moonlit arrival conjures back the fairy tales Bessie used to tell. It's more the Newfoundland dog Pilot that Jane associates with the old tale of the Gytrash.
The next chapters deal with Jane coming to know Mr Rochester, on a not very intimate basis. He constantly finds her intriguing. She not only paints astonishing pictures; she also tilts arguments fearlessly with Mr Rochester. I'm always reminded of Charlotte's Aunt Branwell, who in many ways resembled Jane in character.
Jane thinks she understands Mr Rochester, but learns later that he's been manipulating her--or trying to. Even without knowing this, she senses mystery which has been under control during Mr Rochester's absence, but which shows signs of erupting at his return. After Mr Rochester's bed is set afire, he leaves to bring the house party.
The house party at Thornfield, consisting of people like Blanche Ingram, livens up the house. Mr Rochester plays the gracious host--in his own gruff way. This section also includes a scene in which Mr Rochester plays the role of a gypsy beldame, and tells Jane's fortune.
The arrival of Mr Mason, followed by his mysterious injury and hasty departure, thrill Jane with the idea that perhaps she can be Mr Rochester's rescuer: but she still can't quite grasp what she'd be rescuing him from .
SECTION 3 SUBSECTION iii: THE RETURN TO GATESHEAD
Jane has almost lost sight of her Reed relatives, when Bessie's husband comes to tell Jane that her Aunt Reed has had a stroke, and, intent on clearing her conscience before death, is calling for Jane. Jane's cousin John has killed himself, and Georgina and Eliza have become estranged. Jane tries to make peace with her aunt, but Aunt Reed can't manage real repentance. Nevertheless, her confession does do Jane some good, because Jane learns of an uncle she'd never heard of before, who wanted to adopt her as his heir. She's a little old for adoption, but she does want to establish contact with her uncle. Then she's delayed in her return to Thornfield, because Eliza and Georgina, though they're alienated from each other, each call on Jane to assist them in their preparations for their futures.
SECTION THREE, SUBSECTION iv: THORNFIELD AGAIN:
By the time Jane left Thornfield, she was pretty sure that Mr Rochester did not love Blanche Ingram--but was planning to marry her anyway. When she returns to Thornfield, Jane begins to think that he might even be in love with HER.
She tries to convince herself that she's romancing: but in a famous scene that has come to be considered representative of the book as a whole, Jane confronts Mr Rochester, and discovers that it's her own 'realism' that was the most fantastic. Mr Rochester admits that he loves Jane, and proposes to her. She refuses to believe him: but he manages to convince her.
The next few chapters involve Jane trying to place herself on a more stable footing. To her, it's not enough that Mr Rochester loves her: she has to place herself in a position where he has no power over her. Although she loves him devotedly, it's in this period that she comes up with the idea of reestablishing contact with her uncle (her father's brother), in hopes of ending up with a competency of her own.
Preparing for the wedding (and trying to escape portents of dread), Jane begins to feel more and more detached from hopes of the (as yet visionary) 'Mrs Rochester'.
With reason, it turns out. Jane's uncle lives in the Caribbean--and knows Mr Rochester's in-laws there. Mr Mason comes to England with a lawyer, and reveals the existence of Bertha Mason Rochester--mad, but still alive.
In the extremely painful interviews afterward, Mr Rochester explains his thinking to Jane, and gives a more detailed description of his marriage, right out of college, to a woman he really didn't know. Even in the strongly anti-divorce environment of the England at the time, many people were strongly impressed by the way the very young Mr Rochester had been manipulated into vows he was unable to recant.
Jane is sympathetic, but unrelenting. She convinces herself that she has no choice but to leave regardless of the impact leaving has on anyone (including herself). The sensible thing to do would have been to talk to the lawyer, and retreat to her uncle. Then she can make further plans. Instead, she flees with no plans or resources at all. Which brings us to:
SECTION iv: MOOR END COTTAGE:
Having been supernaturally warned to flee temptation (Jane often denies she is superstitious, and repeatedly proves that she is), Jane goes off more or less at random, making no provision for where she will end up. But she's evidently fallen into a current in probability.
Frankly, Jane's description of the hardships she suffers is not very convincing. She's been hungry before, after all--and she has been imperfectly protected from the weather. Granted, her depression would have reduced her stamina; still, she ought not have been reduced into such paralytic stupor in less than three days.
Having been spurned by the servant Hannah, and later rescued by St John Rivers, Jane is nurtured by Diana and Mary Revers--essentially the reverse side of the depiction of Jane's Reed cousins.
She is grateful for the help given her, but she nevertheless resents Hannah's original rejection. When Hannah asks Jane not too think too hardly of her, Jane replies "But I do think hardly of you...and I'll tell you why--not so much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I had no 'brass' and no house..."
Jane accepts a role as a schoolteacher in a charity school for villagers. She is not happy in this role--but she argues that it is the best she can expect, given the catastrophe which has wrecked her first hopes.
Jane has explicitly given a false name (not very false--it has the same forename and the same initials), and she states that this is to start life afresh. At first nobody suspects her identity--but then St John realizes that the stranger at his door was in fact his own cousin. Jane learns that she is an heiress, and that her cousins have been shut out of the will. She remedies this scrupulously, and brings her female cousins back from their exile of poverty. But she can't dissuade St John from his determination to become a missionary. I have to disagree in the strongest terms, btw, with the idea that what St John plans is a good thing--but Jane does not.
SECTION V: FERNDEAN
Jane is strongly tempted by St John's call on her conscience--until she gets a psychic distress call, and answers it. The rest is summing up.
(See other edition for the other books).
Merged review:
I've had to split the review, because Jane Eyre took up too much space. So I'm still reviewing the edition I have, but have just moved the other books to this edition.
Strictly speaking, Jane Eyre should be followed by Shirley. Bu
I'll start with matters unique to this edition.
The cover picture on this edition, (selected, according to the back cover, by Robert Mathias), is designated as "A detail from Haworth Church And Parsonage By Gordon Home, an illustration in 'Yorkshire', 1908, Mary Evans Picture Library, London, UK".
This edition contains only the texts of the novels. There's not even a 'note on the text': but I note that the texts are nothing like well-edited, and contain wrong punctuations, spellings, etc corrected by the authors themselves in their manuscripts: but there's still evidence that there was some editing. For example, Ellis Bell used fairly broad Yorkshire dialect in Wuthering Heights. In later editions, Charlotte amended the text to more standard language--and it seems to have been Charlotte's version that was followed in this version.
This is a very large volume, and there are better copies of all the contents in other editions. I would recommend this edition only to people with limited shelf space, because it does contain full texts, and, though it is very big, it contains only 1376 pp. For readers struggling with the often obscure vocabulary of the Brontes (according to one note, the OED contains at least one word ONLY known from one of Anne Bronte's books), it's probably not the best place to start.
One general note: there's a tendency to describe the Brontes as 'Victorian' writers. This is not the case, unless one separates Victorianism from Victoria. All of the Bronte children were born before Victoria, and were educated in literature from the Regency and Georgian periods. They did make some concessions to Victorian concepts and phrasing: but this was not their heritage, and not their own ethos.
CONTENTS:
JANE EYRE:
Ashleigh Brilliant once commented that his life had been influenced by many books he hadn't read. Most people have heard of Jane Eyre, but few seem to have read it with any thoroughness.
To begin with, Jane Eyre is one of the first of the Bildungsromans. As such, it has been heavily influential--David Copperfield, for example, was serialized very shortly after Jane Eyre became a bestseller, and was evidently heavily influenced by Jane Eyre.
It is not an accident, after all, that Jane Eyre devotes the first 10 chapters (of 38) to Jane's life in her 10th year. To people of the nineteenth century, most of the trouble is not about the chapters describing Jane's life from the time she's about 18 to late in her 20th year. The main controversy arose from Charlotte's depiction of what was quickly recognized as the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, and of the founder, Reverend William Carus Wilson (depicted in Jane Eyre as Lowood and The Reverend Mr Brocklehurst). There was a lively debate between partisans on both sides. Defenders of the Clergy Daughters School and of the Reverend Mr Wilson tended to argue that Charlotte was very small when she was at the school (she was nearly nine when she left, after the deaths of her two older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth), and that her judgement ought not be taken as unimpeachable. But it wasn't. One of the details which Mrs Gaskell did not publish generally, but did mention in letters, is that the Cowan Bridge school had only one four-hole outhouse for about 500 people, (pupils, staff, and faculty). Which would go a long way toward explaining why the school was forced to move in 1830 (the Brontes had left in 1825), due to an outbreak of typhoid.
Other objections concerned the depiction of the pupils, faculty, and supervisor--but again, Charlotte's descriptions were pretty firmly confirmed by contemporary witnesses. For one, people questioned the depiction of the untidy angel Helen Burns (generally recognized as strongly based on Maria Bronte, Charlotte's oldest sister). They argued that no 15-year-old could possibly have been so precociously wise and saintly as Helen was depicted. But Maria was ELEVEN when she died: and witness accounts recognize that Charlotte's depiction was apt. For example, people who knew Maria as a seven-year-old state that she could and did read and intelligently discuss parliamentary debates.
Jane Eyre is divided into five 'location' segments. Dividing the book this way enables it to be discussed as five different books, with different foci and styles: so I'll deal with each separately.
Section I: GATESHEAD:
We begin by seeing Jane as a 10-year-old 'orphan' (though her parents were dead, and also her Uncle Reed, she still had extended family: see below for more detail) being raised with cousins by her aunt (by marriage), Jane Reed. Little Jane describes (fairly credibly) being bullied by family and servants. Even the relatively benign Bessie tends to spend a lot of time chiding Jane. Part of the reason is that Bessie is somewhat abrupt, because (it's argued) of her youth and liveliness: but she dares not similarly rebuke Jane's cousins (note that throughout the book, Jane encounters reflections and resonances. Thus the cousins in this section are contrasted with the Rivers cousins in the Moor End section--and both sets of two sisters and a brother, of course, take some of their characteristics from Charlotte's surviving siblings)--so she focuses on Jane, who is defined as fair game. But by the same token, Bessie is more sympathetic with Jane than any of the others, and, in the end, becomes the most proud of how Jane turns out, especially in contrast with her Reed cousins.
The Gateshead section ends with Jane facing a truly traumatic experience. It's based partly in her own superstition (one aspect of her education that had NOT been neglected in a child largely self-educated in this period was superstitions), and also, most likely because she was starved and abused on the day of the trauma.
After the trauma, Jane is examined by an apothecary, who tries to offer an alternative to her present situation. He suggests that she seek out her paternal relatives (whom Jane has been told were poor, lowly people--a foreshadowing of the 'surprise' ending). Jane refuses, because she doesn't see how the poor have means to be kind. She confesses that "I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste."
The apothecary suggests that Jane be sent to boarding school, which Jane agrees to. Mrs Reed also agrees to it: but she sets out to poison Jane's future by slandering her to her new companions. Jane, after questioning the proposed operation by which her heart of stone will be replaced by one of flesh and blood, confronts her Aunt with the injustice of the slanders, rebukes her, and announces that she will tell people what she suffered, and will never again call her Aunt.
Jane's departure to Lowood marks the true end of the Gateshead section: but be prepared for the reprise, as an interlude in the Thornfield section.
SECTION 2: LOWOOD
As noted above, this was the most contentious section of the book contemporaneously: but this was, in large part, because the locales, characters, and conditions described were within living memory, and camps arose espousing both sides of the controversy (about whether Cowan Bridge was really such a bad place overall).
Comparing the school as described herein with other contemporary depictions of boarding schools, it's frankly credible that things were really as bad as Charlotte depicted them.
But it's also fairly clear that, as bad as things were, Jane was better off at Lowood than she had been at Gateshead. Yes, she was hungry (at one point she refers to Barmecide feasts (meaning, it turns out, imaginary), which Jane used to dream up to get to sleep). Yes, she was cold. Yes, she was bullied, both by the 'great girls', and by faculty and staff, and (in anticipation, and later in horrible reality) from the hypocritical Mr Brocklehurst (note especially the ironic contrast between the pupils in their plain brown 'Holland pinafores' and with forcibly straightened or shorn hair, and the elegant Mrs and Misses Brocklehurst). Yes, and worst, Jane loses the first true friend she's ever had to death.
All these yeses, and yet... Jane finds that she likes learning (which shouldn't be a surprise, because she had evidently read widely and voraciously at Gateshead, although she finds Helen's tastes in reading materials somewhat dry). She finds true friends, supporters, and protection against bullies to some degree. And she develops what amounts to a filial love for Miss Temple.
She also begins to mature. It's not surprising that a ten-year-old is immature: this is pretty much true by definition. But even in the child there are interesting intimations of the pixieish woman she's to become. The comment the bemused Jane makes about the burnt porridge which even inanition could not make edible ("Thanks being given for what we had not got...") is a good indication of the amused detachment the older Jane uses to such effect.
Jane settles in at Lowood, and even Helen's death doesn't introduce dissatisfaction enough to unsettle her. But when Jane, who at 18 has been a teacher's assistant for two years, loses Miss Temple to marriage (she takes it for granted that Miss Temple will then retire--but why?), she loses her contentment, and begins looking around for a new situation.
Jane's belief that freedom was not possible (even prayer, she conceives, falls echoless) leads her to pray for a new servitude. So she advertises for a situation as a governess.
The question of why Gateshead has any relevance to this quest is an odd one. Jane, at 18, is (or should be) an emancipated adult. Why the trustees of the school feel a need to consult Mrs Reed is baffling. Jane doesn't understand it, Mrs Reed doesn't understand it... But it does have one impact. Bessie comes to visit Jane while Jane is packing to leave. She gives Jane her approbation, gets a forwarding address, and gossips with Jane about her Reed cousins. Then she wishes her well, and bows out--for the present.
Section III: THORNFIELD:
When people discuss Jane Eyre, they tend to focus almost exclusively on this section. This is understandable. When I first read this book, late in prepubescence, I tended to focus on this section so much that I'd read the Thornfield section twice before I went on to the rest of the story.
Charlotte herself was affected the same way, apparently. She recounted writing the whole Thornfield section in one marathon session, in a sort of fever while she was watching over her father's recuperation after cataract surgery (without anaesthetic! People tend to underrate what a tough codger the Rev Patrick Bronte was, even at the age of 70.)
Yet even though the focus on this section of the book is just, there's still an unfortunate tendency to underrate its complexity. It's this section, for example, that caused Virginia Woolf to describe Jane as 'always a governess and always in love'. But by my count Jane is a governess for about a year (perhaps a bit more, if you count the time she spent as a teacher, both before and after Thornfield--but not more than four years, anyway). As for being always in love...about half the book is about Jane in love: and this excludes the first subsection of the Thornfield section.
Section 3, Subsection i: ARRIVAL AT THORNFIELD TO MR ROCHESTER'S ARRIVAL:
There are few useful dates in Jane Eyre. But on her arrival to Thornfield, there's one clue: the portraits in the pub are of "The King and the Prince of Wales". This places the date before 1820, unless the 'Prince of Wales' is the future William IV (in which case, it was before 1830).
Jane is comfortably situated as a governess (much more comfortably than Charlotte herself ever was). She likes her pupil (though she's not infatuated with her). She gets on well with most of the staff, including her immediate boss, Mrs Fairfax (the widow of Mr Rochester's maternal cousin).
Is she satisfied? Well, no. She really wanted freedom. She might have settled for comfort and security--if she weren't nineteen, and bored. She could (it turns out) probably have made it as an artist: if she weren't a woman. This section includes some of the most feminist statements in the whole book: but they're also objections to the idea that caste and class should decide one's destiny.
SECTION 3, SUBSECTION ii (MR ROCHESTER'S ARRIVAL-JANE'S RETURN TO GATESHEAD): Mr Rochester makes a cometary entrance--almost literally, as he falls from his horse on a frozen rill. He finds Jane astonishing, but she finds him scarcely less so--his moonlit arrival conjures back the fairy tales Bessie used to tell. It's more the Newfoundland dog Pilot that Jane associates with the old tale of the Gytrash.
The next chapters deal with Jane coming to know Mr Rochester, on a not very intimate basis. He constantly finds her intriguing. She not only paints astonishing pictures; she also tilts arguments fearlessly with Mr Rochester. I'm always reminded of Charlotte's Aunt Branwell, who in many ways resembled Jane in character.
Jane thinks she understands Mr Rochester, but learns later that he's been manipulating her--or trying to. Even without knowing this, she senses mystery which has been under control during Mr Rochester's absence, but which shows signs of erupting at his return. After Mr Rochester's bed is set afire, he leaves to bring the house party.
The house party at Thornfield, consisting of people like Blanche Ingram, livens up the house. Mr Rochester plays the gracious host--in his own gruff way. This section also includes a scene in which Mr Rochester plays the role of a gypsy beldame, and tells Jane's fortune.
The arrival of Mr Mason, followed by his mysterious injury and hasty departure, thrill Jane with the idea that perhaps she can be Mr Rochester's rescuer: but she still can't quite grasp what she'd be rescuing him from .
SECTION 3 SUBSECTION iii: THE RETURN TO GATESHEAD
Jane has almost lost sight of her Reed relatives, when Bessie's husband comes to tell Jane that her Aunt Reed has had a stroke, and, intent on clearing her conscience before death, is calling for Jane. Jane's cousin John has killed himself, and Georgina and Eliza have become estranged. Jane tries to make peace with her aunt, but Aunt Reed can't manage real repentance. Nevertheless, her confession does do Jane some good, because Jane learns of an uncle she'd never heard of before, who wanted to adopt her as his heir. She's a little old for adoption, but she does want to establish contact with her uncle. Then she's delayed in her return to Thornfield, because Eliza and Georgina, though they're alienated from each other, each call on Jane to assist them in their preparations for their futures.
SECTION THREE, SUBSECTION iv: THORNFIELD AGAIN:
By the time Jane left Thornfield, she was pretty sure that Mr Rochester did not love Blanche Ingram--but was planning to marry her anyway. When she returns to Thornfield, Jane begins to think that he might even be in love with HER.
She tries to convince herself that she's romancing: but in a famous scene that has come to be considered representative of the book as a whole, Jane confronts Mr Rochester, and discovers that it's her own 'realism' that was the most fantastic. Mr Rochester admits that he loves Jane, and proposes to her. She refuses to believe him: but he manages to convince her.
The next few chapters involve Jane trying to place herself on a more stable footing. To her, it's not enough that Mr Rochester loves her: she has to place herself in a position where he has no power over her. Although she loves him devotedly, it's in this period that she comes up with the idea of reestablishing contact with her uncle (her father's brother), in hopes of ending up with a competency of her own.
Preparing for the wedding (and trying to escape portents of dread), Jane begins to feel more and more detached from hopes of the (as yet visionary) 'Mrs Rochester'.
With reason, it turns out. Jane's uncle lives in the Caribbean--and knows Mr Rochester's in-laws there. Mr Mason comes to England with a lawyer, and reveals the existence of Bertha Mason Rochester--mad, but still alive.
In the extremely painful interviews afterward, Mr Rochester explains his thinking to Jane, and gives a more detailed description of his marriage, right out of college, to a woman he really didn't know. Even in the strongly anti-divorce environment of the England at the time, many people were strongly impressed by the way the very young Mr Rochester had been manipulated into vows he was unable to recant.
Jane is sympathetic, but unrelenting. She convinces herself that she has no choice but to leave regardless of the impact leaving has on anyone (including herself). The sensible thing to do would have been to talk to the lawyer, and retreat to her uncle. Then she can make further plans. Instead, she flees with no plans or resources at all. Which brings us to:
SECTION iv: MOOR END COTTAGE:
Having been supernaturally warned to flee temptation (Jane often denies she is superstitious, and repeatedly proves that she is), Jane goes off more or less at random, making no provision for where she will end up. But she's evidently fallen into a current in probability.
Frankly, Jane's description of the hardships she suffers is not very convincing. She's been hungry before, after all--and she has been imperfectly protected from the weather. Granted, her depression would have reduced her stamina; still, she ought not have been reduced into such paralytic stupor in less than three days.
Having been spurned by the servant Hannah, and later rescued by St John Rivers, Jane is nurtured by Diana and Mary Revers--essentially the reverse side of the depiction of Jane's Reed cousins.
She is grateful for the help given her, but she nevertheless resents Hannah's original rejection. When Hannah asks Jane not too think too hardly of her, Jane replies "But I do think hardly of you...and I'll tell you why--not so much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I had no 'brass' and no house..."
Jane accepts a role as a schoolteacher in a charity school for villagers. She is not happy in this role--but she argues that it is the best she can expect, given the catastrophe which has wrecked her first hopes.
Jane has explicitly given a false name (not very false--it has the same forename and the same initials), and she states that this is to start life afresh. At first nobody suspects her identity--but then St John realizes that the stranger at his door was in fact his own cousin. Jane learns that she is an heiress, and that her cousins have been shut out of the will. She remedies this scrupulously, and brings her female cousins back from their exile of poverty. But she can't dissuade St John from his determination to become a missionary. I have to disagree in the strongest terms, btw, with the idea that what St John plans is a good thing--but Jane does not.
SECTION V: FERNDEAN
Jane is strongly tempted by St John's call on her conscience--until she gets a psychic distress call, and answers it. The rest is summing up.
(See other edition for the other books).
Merged review:
I've had to split the review, because Jane Eyre took up too much space. So I'm still reviewing the edition I have, but have just moved the other books to this edition.
Strictly speaking, Jane Eyre should be followed by Shirley. Bu
December 31, 2010
A one stop shop, but way too big!!!!!
January 28, 2017
I have been working my way through the works of these amazing women for the last two weeks on audio book. They transport me to places that make my heart sing. They give me hope I may still find my Mr Rochester or Mr Markum or Heathcliff!
Each story is so full of so many feelings it actually makes my heart race and drop. Such passion, such misery, such joy. I am captivated by every word. My heart is stirred. My skin tingles. So descriptive, feelings and emotions are so raw. At times they leave me quite breathless!!
So full of wonderful quotes, my top ones are Wuthering Heights - "I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy and free" - "Whatever our two souls are made of, his and mine are the same." And The Tennant of Wildfell Hall - "What is it that constitutes virtue, Mrs. Graham? Is it the circumstance of being able and willing to resist temptation; or that of having no temptations to resist?"
I could go on.
Need start a collection of these books to my bookshelves to read at a later date.
Maybe I should holiday in some desolate spot where I can hear the wind calling.
Each story is so full of so many feelings it actually makes my heart race and drop. Such passion, such misery, such joy. I am captivated by every word. My heart is stirred. My skin tingles. So descriptive, feelings and emotions are so raw. At times they leave me quite breathless!!
So full of wonderful quotes, my top ones are Wuthering Heights - "I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy and free" - "Whatever our two souls are made of, his and mine are the same." And The Tennant of Wildfell Hall - "What is it that constitutes virtue, Mrs. Graham? Is it the circumstance of being able and willing to resist temptation; or that of having no temptations to resist?"
I could go on.
Need start a collection of these books to my bookshelves to read at a later date.
Maybe I should holiday in some desolate spot where I can hear the wind calling.
to-read-long-term
July 9, 2011I'll probably review them separately (I've already read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights), but I have this edition in my possession.
July 19, 2011
Enkel het eerste verhaal gelezen
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews