Wuthering Heights...and the other Brontës

Post by **Lalaith** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 2:52 pm

How funny, Prim. Our church secretary's name is Shirley--and he's a man, though a very effeminate one.

Well, you deserve something funny, Impy, after two Bronte books.

And I agree with vison. Rochester was desperate for love, having wasted his early life on frivolity and then being saddled to a mad woman. Jane was also desperate for love, having grown up without any. The very ugliness of their backgrounds (one brought on by the person's own actions, one brought on by others and by circumstances) makes you appreciate their love, even with all of its flaws and ugliness.

(To me, that is often a more realistic view of love than you usually find in "romance" novels.)

Lali

Post by **axordil** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 3:23 pm

To me, that is often a more realistic view of love than you usually find in "romance" novels

And yet in its time, this WAS a romance novel. How much of love that we deem "realistic" derives from the spin romances have put on it over the last few centuries? It has always seemed to me that while perhaps the essential core of the emotion may be the same, all the means of expressing it have been mutated through literary and dramatic handling, where the primary purpose is engaging the reader, not necessarily giving an objective view of reality.

How many happily married couples are there in Chaucer or Shakespeare? In Milton or Austen for that matter? They may be there, but they fade into the background behind the unhappily married ones, the comically mismatched ones, and above all, the ones not yet coupled.

Post by **vison** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 3:28 pm

Happy marriage is the kiss of death. Remember "Rhoda"?

Happy anything isn't going to sell books or movies or TV shows. I wish I could remember the exact quote: happy familes are all the same, but . . . .

Anyone remember the rest?

And would anyone want to read "The Further Adventures of Jane and Rochester"? Like those horrible Gabaldon books?

Post by **axordil** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 3:31 pm

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Anna Karenina, Chapter One, first sentence.

Post by **vison** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:20 pm

axordil wrote:
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Anna Karenina, Chapter One, first sentence.

Thanks! For the life of me, I couldn't remember it.

But, you know? I think he got it exactly backwards. I thought so when I first read it and experience hasn't changed my mind.

Post by **axordil** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 7:24 pm

vison--

I tend to agree with you, actually. My experience is that there are many narrow paths to happiness, and one giant gully to unhappiness.

Post by **Impenitent** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:41 pm

Oh, I think there are lots of paths to unhappiness; just once you get there, it all feels just as black.

As for the modern version of romantic love vs the (slightly) earlier version of it....that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about love; that thing defined by a certain selflessness. Rochester lacked that, and in spades.

Post by **Frelga** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 6:49 am

I re-read Jane Eyre just recently after something like 20-year break. I liked her much better than I did as a teenager.

The thing about Jane is that she is not what she is supposed to be. An orphan raised by cruel step-family is supposed to be meek, pious, all-forgiving. But Jane is feisty, she demands her due, she hits back and screams curses. As a young woman, she retains that sense of self-worth while retaining a realistic, self-critical picture of herself. She is artistic, intelligent, practical and determined. And she is not pretty.

The one redeeming thing about Rochester is that he falls in love with Jane's spirit, while rejecting the more conventionally beautiful and socially advantageous match. The way he plays with Jane is despicable, but she is more than equal to him. The strength of her character allows Rochester to play both the romantic hero and the Gothic villain.

My favorite part in the book was the way Jane keeps Rochester in check after their engagement. Not because it would be sin, ruin and fate worse than death to sleep with him, but because she can see very shrewdly that if she allowed him to treat her as another of his kept women, he would very quickly lose respect for her.

St. John is a brilliant character as well, and he falls in love with Jane as she is supposed to be, the pious and self-sacrificing orphan. He fails to see the passionate woman that she is, more fool he.

In the end, the author punishes Rochester for his sins quite cruelly, and emphasizes once more that her characters love the inner beauty of each other. Interestingly, instead of conventional "virtuous and poor girl marries rich prince" ending, Jane only marries Rochester when she is not only equal to him in spirit but also quite wealthy herself.

vison wrote:But, you know? I think he got it exactly backwards. I thought so when I first read it and experience hasn't changed my mind.

I think so too. But then his marriage was an unhappy one.

Post by **Impenitent** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:49 am

St John did NOT fall in love with her; that is the most chilling thing about him. St John's decision to marry Jane is an entirely rational, logical, cold decision. The love he feels is an objective, theoretical love - the love of a good christian minister towards another sinner. It's a generic, passionless love - if it can be called love at all - and that is why she refuses to go with him.

I found St John to be the absolute masterstroke in that book. A brilliant, cold, clear depiction.

Post by **axordil** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 4:31 pm

How can love be both passionate AND selfless?

Post by **vison** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 4:59 pm

It can't. But the wickedness, if there is any wickedness, is due to the nature of the "selfs" involved. Sorry for the spelling but "selves" just didn't do it.

And I also thought St. John was "hot" for Jane and covering it up. Not "in love" with her, but seeking, among other things, a "moral" outlet for his animal urges.

Post by **Frelga** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:20 pm

Well, but if it were true, he could have married the resident hottie and outletted his urges quite morally and safely. Of course, he recognized in Jane the strength of character that would allow her to follow him, so he could fulfill both his religious fervor and his physical needs.

I loved that Jane thinks she might have followed him as a co-worker, if he didn't make physical demands on her. That's what I like about her character - she has very good human insight and she knows what sort of things she can't tolerate.

She really is a modern woman placed in a Gothic novel. Quite a relief from a typical Mary Sue heroine.

Post by **vison** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:27 pm

Frelga wrote:Well, but if it were true, he could have married the resident hottie and outletted his urges quite morally and safely. Of course, he recognized in Jane the strength of character that would allow her to follow him, so he could fulfill both his religious fervor and his physical needs.

I loved that Jane thinks she might have followed him as a co-worker, if he didn't make physical demands on her. That's what I like about her character - she has very good human insight and she knows what sort of things she can't tolerate.

She really is a modern woman placed in a Gothic novel. Quite a relief from a typical Mary Sue heroine.

Well, if he didn't want sex, he could have taken one of his sisters along. Anyway, he was an excellent character, as a character in a book. But I think we've all known people like him in real life and they give you the creeps.

Post by **Túrin Turambar** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:01 am

I just finished reading Jane Eyre. I did get a little bored around the middle, but on the whole I thought it was very engaging. Intense without being melodramatic, gothic without being absurd, and quite economical (I think that Charles Dickens, for example, is a better technical writer than either Bronte but he can waffle). At the very least, it was more entertaining and made more sense to me than Wuthering Heights did.

Am I right in pronouncing Jane’s surname as ‘air’ rather than ‘ee-ree’?

Post by **Impenitent** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:25 am

You know, I've never thought about it; I've always pronounced it "air".

and what was your opinion of St John?

and of Rochester?

Post by **Inanna** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:34 am

I've always pronounced Eyre as Eye-er. Heh.

Post by **Túrin Turambar** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:55 am

Impenitent wrote:and what was your opinion of St John?

I thought him a fairly nondescript character.

Impenitent wrote:and of Rochester?

I found him very sympathetic. Maybe I can just relate to him on some sort of level better than many others here.

Post by **vison** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:57 am

I went to school with an Eyre and it was pronounced Air.
I don't know if all Eyres are Airs, though.

Lord_M, your taste is impeccable. Wuthering Heights is not half the book Jane Eyre is, and I, too, found it mostly incomprehensible and boring.

Post by **Impenitent** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:50 pm

I"m still trying to figure out how Cathy and Heathcliffe could possibly be considered such legendary lovers; they seemed quite hateful, towards others as well as towards one another.

Post by **Elentári** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 2:43 pm

a love hate relationship actually represents a stronger bond than a simple love relationship does. I think we find couples who can't live together but can't live apart more fascinating - think Taylor & Burton