From the Bookshelf of Reading the Classics…

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë

Start date: September 1, 2013

Finish date: September 30, 2013

Discussion: Past Group Reads

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* Washington Square - Reading Schedule
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What Members Thought

Jun 07, 2013 Nikhilesh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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Wonderful way to get really close with the author and the context of the book. I admired the book and reading Adrienne Rich and Sandra Gilbert essays, the letters and contemporary reviews from the Quarterly Review just made me appreciate the book even more. Its great way get more out of the story.
Adrienne Rich is very good in her essay, she is particularly feisty repudiating Woolf's take on the book, which really made me laugh. One important distinction, Adrienne makes without explaining - she c Wonderful way to get really close with the author and the context of the book. I admired the book and reading Adrienne Rich and Sandra Gilbert essays, the letters and contemporary reviews from the Quarterly Review just made me appreciate the book even more. Its great way get more out of the story.
Adrienne Rich is very good in her essay, she is particularly feisty repudiating Woolf's take on the book, which really made me laugh. One important distinction, Adrienne makes without explaining - she calls her Bertha Rochester not Bertha Mason, and quite rightly so. But I ask myself, why didnt it strike me as odd that in many places she is called Bertha Mason. Do we deprive her place as a wedded woman and are not even conscious about it? The essay by Sandra Gilbert is nothing less that incisive.
More and more I am convinced that critical study and argumentative and skeptic evaluation of any book, no matter how you like or hate it leads to more value for the reader. I loved the book, but almost a fortnight later I am struck with the question: "Why did Jane go back to Thornfield when she wasnt really aware that its been set on fire and Bertha is dead?" I wasnt convinced, like I am never convinced of supernatural intuitions of voices leading a person to his or her destiny. So what was is REALLY about?
Reader, its all there in the book. Her childhood, her chance remarks on poverty, cleanliness, God, death, her dreams and nightmares, the madwoman in the attic,forgetting her purse in the carriage, ....small and big things lead her to the place where she and only she will decide her own destiny and place in this universe. Critics have wondered if Jane is a hypocrite, has she bowed in the end to Rochester's wishes, how convenient was it that Charlotte did away with Bertha and brought on symbolic castration of Rochester. I dont think its true at all. One would mistake to consider St. John Rivers, his siters and Oliver Rosamund as expendable characters in the novel. The are very impotant to change that Jane undergoes. I think Jane was brave to insist on a conscience, to seek conflict rather than seek love. She underwent a change in Moor House, cleaning and renovating it, self sufficiency as a teacher there teaching poor, rural, unsophisticated children there was a constructive process for her which made her ready for a relationship and its unknown challenges (by that I mean Rochester tomorrow becoming demanding and selfish). This edition helped me answer many questions I had in my mind. Not just that, the essays are a joy to read, quite inspiration in themselves.
I would recommend this edition to those who like to go deeper into the symbols of the tales, who get a thrill out of significance of symbols used by authors who want to get across to the reader because in their time they just could not afford to be seen as dissenters and rebels. I think there is such beauty in that which liberal atmosphere of this millennium can never match. ...more

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