And when he tempts her to go live in sin with him in Europe, she escapes through the only means available to her-by running off to the surrounding moors, though it probably means she will die in those wilds. Rochester, grills her, she responds with strong opinions and engages in spirited debates. As a child, she has a temper and a will, even though she’s punished harshly for it. She’s constricted by the society she lives in-she needs to keep a stifling job as a governess or else starve to death-but she makes it clear she’d rather starve than sacrifice her will or stifle her intelligence. Female characters in early Victorian novels were usually portrayed as either sugary too-good-to-be-true angels or fallen women seeking repentance. Their career opportunities outside of marriage were limited to underpaid servants and schoolteachers. At the time, women had little say outside family and home. A voice that was revolutionary in 1847 when Charlotte Brontë published it. The swooning romance between a rich man and a poor orphan, and the shock of the mad wife secreted in an attic.īut I think most of all it’s the voice of Jane herself: a young woman with an extraordinary sense of her own worth and independence. The gripping plot: part Gothic romance, part coming-of-age story. What is it about Jane Eyre that has made it a blockbuster for over a hundred and seventy years? The breathtaking writing, yes. Jane Eyre for the Modern Age by Lindsay Marcott

Playing Dead by Lindsay Maracotta