Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: The Ultimate Gothic Love Story?

It has to be said that this world-famous book is indeed not suitable for the vast number of Chinese people to read. Fundamentally speaking, it is completely culturally inappropriate. Moreover, the reason why world-famous works are unique and have outstanding contributions is that they have their roots in historical and cultural backgrounds. However, if you put aside those things, reading classics is no different from reading popular books.

If you read classics if you don't have the slightest understanding of the culture of those periods, you will still not make any progress even if you are 40 years old. Some [elderly people] like to make fun of something [such a profound book as a classic is not something that children can understand], and then these elderly people think that when they reach a certain age and can understand it, they read it, and then say that it is a good book and a great book. It is truly a touching book. As a result, Balabala pulled out a bunch of thoughts that I could pull out when I was 10 years old. What's the progress? Whether you can read or not really has little to do with age, what matters is experience. Even if you are 40 years old, you are still uneducated and cannot understand anything. So some people like this [children can’t read it, but they will understand it when they grow up] have spent the past 30 years completely feeding dogs.

In the literature class, I took recently, in the analysis of "Jane Eyre", not a single sentence discussed the superficial character analysis of "unswerving love", "stubborn character", and "xx who insists on justice". The paragraph analysis I received in China was all weak, such as how a line expresses the character's personality. This kind of thing is subjective and retarded. But in fact, apart from the obvious story content of the novel itself, there are many more interesting things.

I saw many people’s comments saying that they were moved by this story. An ordinary girl was abused since she was a child. When she grew up, she met a rich man with an ordinary appearance and a strange temperament. The two fell in love, but in the end, they killed each other. The crazy wife secretly kept by a rich man was revealed, and then the heroine left "angrily". Later, he met a distant cousin unexpectedly received a huge inheritance, and became a rich man. Suddenly one day she went back and forth to her lover's manor, only to find that the building was empty and the house had been burned down by the mad wife, who fell to her death. The heroine's lover is blind and lame and cannot take care of himself. Then the heroine and the hero lived a happy life together.

Everyone is generally appreciating how noble the heroine is and how immortal this unwavering love is. That's right. But this is only part of "Jane Eyre". Just such a storyline. To be honest, many novels on the market that are passable have more complicated plots than this, but why can't they surpass "Jane Eyre"? (Don’t say that books become more valuable as they get older, like wine...) I think that if readers are only captured by the superficial plot, it is no different from reading popular novels on the market. If you can't understand the difference, then you might as well read Guo Jingming. I have to admit that Guo Jingming's book is slightly better in terms of the bloody plot.

I also took a class about Jane Eyre in my domestic literature class. At that time, I remember what the teacher explained that Jane Eyre was a perfect fusion of literature and popular novels, with a unique story setting. It was no longer a love story between beautiful men and beautiful aristocrats. You are right, Jane Eyre appears to be a popular novel and is favored by ordinary housewives. Just like our current book by Guo Jingming. One characteristic of the popular novels of that period is that like Si Ye's "Little Times", most of them talked about the love and hatred between aristocrats/rich people. The characters are all handsome and talented, and they all have happy endings. However, the setting of "Jane Eyre" is a love story between ordinary middle-class Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, a declining rich man who is not good-looking and has a bad personality. This was very unique and eye-catching among popular novels at the time.

But this is not just a popular novel. Next, I will analyze why. Maybe these things are also missing from contemporary popular fiction, and I mean maybe. But I think there is a big difference between literature and popular novels. It is a pity that many good literary works have declined due to a lack of commercial sense. But Jane Eyre at that time did a very good job, of integrating the two very well. But I also have a feeling that if Jane Eyre were published today, it might very well be lost. The road of contemporary novels is actually more difficult to move forward.

In short, the book Jane Eyre was not only favored by ordinary people at that time, but well-educated people also appreciated or disputed this book.

[Reason for bestseller: compassion]

A best-selling novel must arouse resonance and sympathy among readers. Jane Eyre's narrative method is the first person. The first person can immediately bring the reader and the author into a one-on-one mode, which is the narrative method that can most impress the reader. Jane Eyre begins as a children's story, and most readers will sympathize with the misfortune of young children. Regarding the narration of childhood, I always think of Zhang Yueran's "Narcissus Has Gone as a Carp". When I think about it carefully, these two books are very similar. Perhaps Zhang Yueran was influenced by a lot of "Jane Eyre".

The protagonist of this book is Jane Eyre, a woman, and the narrative begins with Jane Eyre's tragic life. Different groups of readers will have different views. In the case of this book, most of the readers are women, so Jane Eyre's own story will resonate with the majority of female readers. The description of Mr. Rochester does not arouse much sympathy, although he is also a very miserable person. At least as a woman, I don't actually pay much attention to Mr. Rochester.

[Background, emphasis on class, nobles, and poor]

The time of this book is around 1847. The turning point with previous literary works is that we are now in the romantic period. The so-called romanticism does not refer to romance in love but to romance in love. It means that the works tend to focus more on people’s real lives. Literary works and artistic works of this period began to reduce the description of religious elements and focused more on individual people and more on people's own characteristics and life.

The West has a strong concept of class division. Starting from this period, many middle-class women had a lot of free time to read leisure books. This was Jane Eyre's main readership. Because middle-class women are educated and some middle-class men occasionally read popular novels, there are not so many people in higher classes who read popular novels.

During this period, due to the increase in the number of the middle class, the main readers of literature were the middle class, so the description objects of literature were mainly the middle class. In the middle class, there are also those who have money and those who have no money, but in terms of class classification, they all belong to the middle class. This class division is not determined by money, but largely by race, skin color, and mainly by family origin. A woman's status is determined by the status of the nearby man. For example, if Jane Eyre is raised by her uncle, her class will follow her uncle's family. If she leaves with her lower-class relatives, her class will also become lower class.

As mentioned before, novels before this time would describe the love lives of many nobles. Such novels were more idealistic, like the lives of princes and princesses. Due to the changes of the times and the increase of the middle class, the carrier of the novel has gradually become more suitable for people in real life---that is, the middle class like Jane Eyre. As a result, the novels of this period began to gradually adopt this style: novels that use ordinary or down-and-out middle-class people as carriers and can resonate with readers.

As a Chinese, I don’t have very strong feelings about race and social class. But the performance in Jane Eyre is very strict. The concept of social class was deeply rooted in Western countries at that time and has continued from that period (earlier). Although Jane Eyre had no father or mother, was very poor, and lived a life of abuse, she still resolutely said: I will never live in a poor family of the lower class, and I do not want to become a member of the lower class. This concept is not just "I don't want to live a poor life", but the bloodline is strictly imprinted on her and cannot be disobeyed. Even if she ran away penniless in the later period and almost starved to death on the streets, she still did not want to become a lower-class beggar begging for food. Although she is already in a worse financial situation than the lower class people, her identity is firmly middle class. This class concept is very strong.

[Racial Superiority]

This book touches on racial issues a little bit, but it's not obvious. From here we can see the concept of race and racial superiority that Europeans had from that period.

Race is a characteristic that is unique at birth, cannot be changed, and can be seen at a glance. To put it bluntly, white people, black people, and yellow people are like this. In Europe at that time, white people were pure blood, and they were very demanding about blood purity. The same is true for the hierarchy, with white people at the top and other races at the bottom. The second classification criterion is assets. In other words, if a black man is the richest man in the country, but he is black, his social status is still lower than that of the poorest white man. However, one way to change one's social class is to get married. Therefore, there will be a phenomenon of wealthy non-white women marrying poor people. In fact, it is the unhappy marriage between Mr. Rochester and Bertha in Jane Eyre. At that time, Rochester was unable to enjoy the family's property, so his family deceived Rochester into marrying Bertha in order to get money from Bertha's family. As for why the wealthy Bertha married the poor Rochester, there are two scenarios. One is that Bertha has a genetic madness, and the other is that Bertha can change her social class through this marriage. This is also a basis for later generations to infer that Bertha is non-white.

In later details, several statements about Bertha also showed signs of this. Jane Eyre's description of Bertha uses "she is as white as a vampire, with purple lips..." and other color adjectives. Later, in Mr. Rochester's description, Rochester describes Bertha as "naturally cruel, vulgar, and unteachable." This description was later used as an argument to infer that Bertha was non-white. Jane Eyre's color description metaphors represent people of color. Rochester's description expresses that the inferior races have impure blood and are born with bad nature. Yes, this is blatant racism. But this was also a very prevalent notion of racial superiority at the time. The white man's sense of superiority is a historical inheritance and deeply rooted.

[Religious background, Jane’s religious views]

It is inevitable that Western literature and artistic works cannot avoid the influence of religion. Compared with that period, which was a big era of religious rule, I don’t know much about religion in detail. I can only say a few superficial words about the impact here.

As mentioned above, the works of this period began to tend towards individualism and less praise of religion. There is also some denial of religion in the book Jane Eyre, but it is not obvious. However, it can be seen that the author Bront? has some objections to religion. Two religious figures who are very important to Jane appear in the book: Helen and St. John. Both men were very devout believers, but both ended in death. It seems as if the author is saying: If you believe too much, you will die. Jane's cousin Eliza in the book later also entered a nunnery, which is also a satire on religion.

As with this book, there are many things to say about religion. It is also said that God is the center of the book. Mainly because the description of St. John in the last paragraph at the end of the book is too incomprehensible. Maybe the author wanted to die if he said too pious words, or maybe it was Jane's own prayer to God, asking for forgiveness.

[Characters in literary rhetoric, mirrored characters, double corresponding characters, contrast between light characters and dark characters]

Many Western masterpieces use the rhetorical technique of mirror contrast extensively. I don’t know what it should be translated into in Chinese. It means that one character will have another. A character corresponds to an image. For example, in Shakespeare's "Hamlet", Hamlet's mother and Ophelia are corresponding images. It's even more obvious in Jane Eyre .

Jane Eyre's two relatives, the Reed family on her mother's side, had a boy and two girls, and the boy died. There was a man and two women in the River family of my father's house, and the man died. What’s even more interesting is that the eldest son of both families is named John. Very obvious contrast. The characters also mirror each other: the three children of the Reed family have bad conduct, while the three children of the River family have good conduct. In particular, the two Johns form an extremely sharp contrast. (Perhaps it is not just a comparison, they may represent two sides of a complete person)

In addition, the most wonderful reflection is the contrast between Jane Eyre and the mad woman Bertha. There is a saying that the mad woman Bertha is actually the dark side of Jane Eyre. Let's recall each situation in which Bertha appeared. Every time Mr. Rochester made Jane Eyre unhappy during the day, Bertha would come out to cause trouble late that night. I showed up three times in total, and they were all very considerate, nothing bad at all. In other words, although Jane Eyre did not show anger every time Mr. Rochester provoked Jane Eyre, in fact, Jane Eyre's dark side - Bertha showed Jane Eyre's anger and came out to cause trouble in the middle of the night. In fact, Jane Eyre and Bertha also form a sharp and strong contrast. They are two completely opposite people, both in appearance and inwardness. Maybe racially different too.

[Ending, St. John, HE or BE]

Most people think it is a happy ending when they see the ending. But in fact, and very strangely, the last paragraph of the epilogue does describe St. John and ends with his death (similar to an atonement) prayer. Isn't it weird and offensive? It is said that the author wanted to express his negative views on religion.

But there seems to be another theory.

For example, throughout this book, Jane Eyre looks at the world from the first-person perspective. Why did it suddenly change to a description of St. John in the last paragraph? The key is that St. John was not in front of Jane's eyes at that time. How did Jane manage to describe it from the first sight? It is said that this confession may be Jane Eyre's own confession. Because the happiness she has now is based on Bertha's death. In terms of social factors, she was the one who received the inheritance and was in a leadership position economically, which also conflicted with the social class at that time.

Another possibility is that Jane Eyre heard the prayer of St. John through her sixth sense. This supernatural phenomenon appears many times in the book.

[Supernatural phenomena in Gothic novel style]

Gothic novels mainly refer to supernatural phenomena in novels. This style was very popular at the time, such as ghosts, vampires, and the like. The same is also used a lot in Jane Eyre. Ever since Jane Eyre was locked up in the red room as a child, she said she saw ghosts. Listen to Bessie talk about the omens of dreams about children. There is also a dream at night when staying at Rochester's house, about Bertha's supernatural phenomenon (there are allusions to ghost stories about the castle). Although many have already been addressed and answered. But there are some that have not been resolved. For example, in the last part, Jane Eyre heard Mr. Rochester calling her name from a very distant place, and after Jane answered immediately, Mr. Rochester, thousands of miles away, also heard it. This is an unresolved paranormal phenomenon. However, it also explains how the prayer of St. John appears in the last paragraph. Perhaps it was also transmitted to Jane's ears from thousands of miles away in this way.

The above analysis is the background factors and historical value other than the superficial story. What were the thoughts and ideas of people at that time, the composition of society at that time, and the trends in literature and art. and its various uses in literary rhetoric? These all create the special value of Jane Eyre, rather than just telling an intricate story.

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