Jane Eyre Book Review

For this review I chose the book 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte. I chose this novel because I greatly enjoyed the book 'Pride and Prejudice' and wanted to find a book with a similar writing technique. I also wanted to challenge my reading ability to help prepare for 5th year. The brilliance of Bronte is clearly seen in this novel as you can't help but to get drawn into the story as the world that you know around you quickly disappears, only to be replaced by the foreign world of England in the 1800s.

The novel begins with a 10 year old Jane Eyre struggling to deal with the trials of being orphaned and being left in the care of her cruel Aunt, Mrs Reed and her spoiled children, John, Eliza and Georgiana. From the very beginning of this book we see that Jane must deal with hardship and inequality. Jane is intelligent, honest and fair. It is these attributes that get her sent away to a strict school for girls. During her eight years at Lowood School, Jane blossoms into a strong and sensible young woman and later finds herself in the new position of governess to the french ward of a Mr Edward Rochester, named Adele. Over the course of the next few months, Jane enjoys her stay at Thornfield, even with her having to overcome mysterious events in the house, the prejudice of Mr Rochester's friends and potential wife, Blanche Ingram and most important, dealing with her developing affections for Mr Rochester. She even goes so far as to say that Thornfield "is my home-my only home".

Besides Jane, the other main character in the novel is of course Mr Rochester. When he first entered the story, I found that he was very mysterious and hard to read. He is strong, intelligent and sometimes can be really witty. I liked the character but personally throughout the book I found it easier to relate with Jane rather than him. I think it could be due to the fact that Jane was alot closer in age to myself than Mr Rochester was. I often found myself siding with Jane and sympathising with her, especially in the middle of the book where Mr Rochester and Jane got closer but then the horrible mystery at Thornfield began to unravel, causing Jane to flee desperately.

My favourite character in this novel was Jane. I found her a very strong heroine especially for the way that women were generally portrayed in that time period. I liked the way that we got to see Jane grow up from an unhappy girl to and independent woman from the feeling of alienation from her family to the happiness that she felt at Thornfield. Throughout the novel she learns to balance love and freedom. I also liked that Jane didn't hold back her opinions of the different social-classes that were all over England. Although Mr Rochester was seen as her superior in several ways, she never held her tongue on pointing out his faults, which often made him laugh. I found the character Jane funny, optimistic and very likable, she always acted with dignity and tried to never to anything wrong or that would cause others pain.

I found the novel of "Jane Eyre" a good read, I sometimes found the writing style difficult to understand, and sometimes the plot a bit lacking. Overall I would recommend this book to those who like to challenge their English skills but I would advise that readers be prepared for a long read. I found this book took a long time to finish as you often have to revise what you have read to fully understand the meaning of the language used in this novel.