I liked Jane Eyre a lot more than I liked Wuthering Heights. I thought that the
story was a lot more gripping and that the heroine, Jane, was a lot more
interesting. She was much more strong-willed than Cathy was in Wuthering Heights, and wasn’t afraid to
speak her mind. That kind of female character back then, was rarely heard of
and I like that Charlotte Brontë knew that and so Brontë created Jane because
of that knowledge. I admired how Brontë portrayed Jane as intelligent, honest,
and plain. It made her seem like a normal human being. Nowadays in shows and
movies, the female leads are always perfectly fit and beautiful, with no flaws.
However, Jane has flaws, she isn’t beautiful, but she is intelligent and knows
who she is. And in my opinion that is what makes her a great heroine. That’s
what heroines should be like. It’s what is inside that counts. Jane challenges
prejudices against women and the poor.
Now Rochester is the stereotypical
male lead in the beginning of Jane Eyre.
He is wealthy, passionate, and has a dark secret. He’s what draws the reader in
and more importantly, draws Jane in. He gives the novel suspense and is
probably the main reason people want to read the rest of the novel. I don’t
mean that in a disrespectful way, but the mystery Rochester brings gives the
novel more of a purpose to be finished. Most people wouldn’t admire the book as
much if it was just Jane going around being intelligent and plain.
The quote, “Women are supposed to be
very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for
their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do;
they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as
men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged
fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making
puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.
It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or
learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.” is my favorite
quote in the entire book. It shows that women are equal to men and that it is
pointless to condemn them because they have as much strength as men and should
be respected just as men are.
I think it’s interesting how Brontë
advocated for equal rights and respect for men and women and yet she had to
publish Jane Eyre under the male
pseudonym of Currer Bell. Back then it was illegal for women to publish books.
So Brontë had no choice but to publish the novel under a male pseudonym. I
respect her though for doing everything she could to prove that women were just
as strong as men. In Jane Eyre, Jane is shown as being in complete control of
herself, and with that she can be in control of her surroundings and those she
encounters and deals with. In Wuthering
Heights, Cathy thinks that she is strong, but in reality, she lets every
one control how she feels and how she acts. She lets them control how she
handles situations and that is not a good example of a strong woman like what Charlotte
was trying to portray with Jane.
I liked this book. While I don’t
like cliché love stories, I liked this one because it portrayed a strong and
powerful heroine. For the time period in which this novel was written, strong
women were never portrayed in stories or in real life, so I really respect the
fact that Charlotte Brontë portrayed one anyway.
