Jane Moore

Advantages: Classic Victorian text
Disadvantages: Is it really deeply conservative?

...Although this book is undoubtedly a classic, and I do like it, I have often pondered over the interpretation of it. Many see it as a feminist text - Jane ending up the master of the ultra-macho and slightly nasty Rochester. But I fear that Charlotte Bronte was deeply conservative in her heart. I have to confess that I fall down on the Emily Bronte side more - the wild and windy moors, the disreguard for convention and religion. After all, why should Jane go with Rochester at all? He is a complete bastard who locked his wife in the attic, which is seen as a metaphor for man's fear of women's sexuality. And how does Jane conquer this? By domesticating him. Social convention and "proper" values win out over freedom and sexuality. Is Jane allowed to be sexually free? Does she want to be? Even she is repulsed by this side of women's nature... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Fire fuel
Disadvantages: Teachers make you read it

...random attacks on the rest of the house. In one of the attacks she nearly burns the house down, blinding Rochester. Anyway, Jane and Rochester are going to get married but oh no wait, Bertha's (the crazy wife) family turn up and tell everyone about Rochester. Jane runs away and lives in poverty then gets taken into a house. The man there is very nice and then bang! he tells her that she has inherited 20000 pounds. She wants to share the money. She then leaves, walks across the moor and is called on by Rochester (quite conveniant that they both stumble across the same moor) and they live happily ever after. Please email me to thank me on how much money and time I have saved you from not reading the money.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Well written, more than a romance
Disadvantages: you want to know what happens next and a few characters need more description

...can empathise and understand events as they happen. I'm a sucker for dramatisations of classics like this and i loved the recent TV adaptation, although I would have chosen a different actress to play my Jane Eyre - maybe Samantha Morton. Read the book first. Despite loving adaptations, you need your own interpretation of books like this, and reading it after you've seen the TV version is never the same. I'm not sure why, but i think this is a winter book. Read it when its raining outside, dark and dismal. It has an air about it of being lost on a moor somewhere (at one stage Jane is) and i think it would better suit that reading time than on a beach in the sun. The language is very understandable and digestable. I would think that anyone who can read the English language reasonably well will cope with this book.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful