jane eyre question

[schmerica]

Yesterday I was going through all of my books, deciding which few ones I absolutely required to have at school with me for the next few weeks, and I came across my copy of Jane Eyre. The book was a mass-market paperback, and I've read it enough times that it's showing many many many signs of wear, but it's been quite a while since my last reread -- I can't remember exactly when, in fact.

This got me thinking, and thus, poll question:

[Poll #411701]

I can picture Ray responding to it in a very "what the fuck?" way -- "His place burns down and he goes blind? What the hell kind of ending is that?"

Fraser, I think, would love it. A lot.

Also? Jane Eyre is SO much better than Wuthering Heights, omg.

Comments

[aerye.livejournal.com]

His place burns down and he goes blind?

Well. Yes. I imagine Fraser can find much to relate to in this ending. ::g::

It depends on a certain degree on perspective. This is, after all, a story about Jane, not a story about Rochester. So yes, my vote is for happy ending, because for Jane there is self-realization, there is choice, there is independence, and there is Rochester--on her terms.

[aerye.livejournal.com]

Except, y'know, with Jane, it's not about the happy. It's about those other things I listed, which don't exactly equate with "happy".

Hmm.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Bingo. Just as for Fraser, it's not about the happy either. Or at least in my cosmology. *g*

And to me the key thing with Jane (as with Fraser) is that, for all her passionate nature, she is sustained ultimately by principle and judgment. She maintains the right. *g* I managed to locate something I posted a while back about Jane Eyre and Fraser -- "[It] strikes me as a very Fraserish book--the story of an orphan, shunned, reviled, and misunderstood, sustained by principle and an ultimately unshakeable determination to hew to her own understanding of who she truly is."

And then I was looking at some comments on an altogether different Jane-Eyre related entry (http://www.livejournal.com/users/katallison/36231.html), which led me to a remarkable post (http://www.livejournal.com/users/debchan/84237.html#cutid1) by debchan that made me think about Fraser re-reading Jane Eyre in a whole different way while lying in the hospital post-Victoria. Ouch.

[aerye.livejournal.com]

Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man being injured by the breach?

Oh, wow. Ouch indeed. Oh, ouchy ouchy smarts.

Seriously, someday I want to spend hours talking about this book with you.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Hmm, indeed. They don't exactly equate, perhaps, but ... a necessary foundation for happiness? I don't think it's exactly that they're more important than happiness, because I don't think the happiness would have existed without them. Rochester might have had a grand time living in sin off somewhere, but Jane could never have.