1. Blanche Ingram shares many similarities of person and personality with Bertha Mason. In selecting her to make Jane jealous, is Mr. Rochester also offering Jane a chance to see that she wins out over Bertha via proxy?
2. Bronte excels at writing witty, flirtatious dialog. Look especially at the scene where she asks Mr. Rochester for leave to return to Gateshead.
3. Fire is a key image in Jane Eyre, but it is a bivalent symbol. Sometimes, as with hearth fires, it's a positive thing, but then there's also the volcano imagery that's twice used of Rochester is a very dark and hellish sort of way. Jane at one point remarks that she's drawn by this fiery undercurrent and is tempted to "stare into the abyss" without fear, an unnervingly diabolic image.
4. The three pictures in Bewick's British Birds seem to furnish the inspiration for Jane's three Miltonic paintings that she shows to Rochester later in the book.
5. Jane, as a character, really does act and think like a nineteen-year old.
6. Jane Eyre is a novel that has its heroine constantly seeking a via media between strong opposites. There's Eliza and Georgiana, Brocklehurst and St. John, or St. John and Rochester, but who pairs off with Helen Burns? Is it Miss Temple, Jane, or does she not have a pair?
7. The novel's more fantastic elements are held up by a strong vein of psychological realism. There's a lot to read between the lines here, especially in terms of navigating abuse and dependency.
8. Why is Jane the only one of the household staff who doesn't know that there's an invalid at Thornfield. Even the charwoman knows! Is it because they don't know if she'll stay very long and might bring news of the scandal beyond the confines of Milcote?
9. Jane can't fix the "Byronic Hero" (Mr. Rochester), only God can do that. This could have been a story about a good woman reforming a wayward man, but Bronte's too clever for that. Both Jane and Rochester need to die to themselves and give up on one another, that God then chooses to bring them back together is seen as a mercy, not a necessity.
10. Re the "mistakes" in the book: are they all just a matter of Bronte's ignorance, or can we place them on Jane as an inexperienced narrator?
To see earlier musings on Jane Eyre, look here.
Comments
Interestingly, in terms of asking "what is to be done with George Gordon," Gaston Leroux offers his own take in "The Phantom of the Opera" where the heroine is allowed to "save" the Byronic Anti-hero, but only by giving up her own happiness. Leroux explicitly links this with Christ in the name of his heroine, Christine, and by having her read "The Imitation of Christ" as she sits in the Phantom's lair. A compare and contrast of the two Christian approaches to the Byron question might be fruitful. We could also throw in Emily Bronte's approach to the Byronic Hero in "Wuthering Heights" (the Byronic Hero won't let God save him).