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Lecture on Jane Eyre (Volume 3, Chapters XXVII-XXXVIII) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-11-04 21:15:18
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Content

'Reader, I married him…'

It is with heavy hearts that we draw to the close of Jane Eyre. The end of this tremendous novel, but certainly not the end of our loving engagement with Charlotte Brontë.

In today's discussion, we are meditating upon love, sympathy, separation, pity, crisis, conscience, identity, sensationalism, marriage, independence, redemption, reunion, and much more.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 reaching the end of Jane Eyre
  • 2:00 conflict, crisis & conscience
  • 4:00 on Jane’s pity for Rochester
  • 6:00 Rochester’s pain at separation
  • 7:00 the influence of Milton’s Satan
  • 8:00 honour, bigamy & sensationalism
  • 10:00 unjust paradigms around honour
  • 12:00 divorce in the 19th century
  • 14:00 on Jane’s defence of Bertha
  • 15:00 love, birds, & feeling sympathy
  • 17:00 literary characters vs real people
  • 20:00 ‘because I was of a good race…’
  • 22:00 Rochester’s reasons for loving Jane
  • 24:00 Charlotte Brontë’s romantic fantasy
  • 27:00 the conflict raging within Jane
  • 39:00 separation, temptation & regret
  • 32:00 chaos, crossroads & identity crisis
  • 33:00 the character of St John Rivers
  • 34:00 on Charlotte’s proposal rejection
  • 35:00 Edward Rochester vs St John Rivers
  • 38:00 when Jane inherits her fortune
  • 40:00 Charlotte Brontë’s fairytale
  • 42:00 St John Rivers’ proposal to Jane
  • 44:00 voice of independent womanhood
  • 45:00 ‘a cold, hard, ambitious man…’
  • 47:00 ‘I did not love my servitude…’
  • 48:00 on poetry, symbolism & dreams
  • 50:00 Jane’s rejection of St John Rivers
  • 51:00 ‘I scorn your idea of love…’
  • 53:00 Jane as revolutionary character
  • 54:00 hearing the voice of Rochester
  • 56:00 on telepathic communication
  • 57:00 ‘my time to assume ascendancy’
  • 58:00 ruin, reunion & redemption
  • 1:00:00 ‘Reader, I married him…’
  • 1:02:00 on the ending of Jane Eyre
  • 1:03:00 expressing my gratitude for you
  • 1:04:00 how to keep Charlotte in your life
  • 1:06:00 how to approach a Jane Eyre reread
  • 1:07:00 what did you make of this novel?

Questions to Consider:

1) What did you make of the novel's ending?

2) What will you remember most from your journey through Jane Eyre?

3) What area connected with Charlotte Brontë are you now most keen to explore?

4) How would you persuade another to read Jane Eyre? And what advice would you give to facilitate a meaningful reading experience?

And please do share with us your impressions and favourite passages from this incredibly special work of literature.

Congratulations on reading Jane Eyre, everybody!

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Comments

Anonymous

I wish I had a longer time to respond to this thread. Sadly, i have to end Patreon for the time being. That being said, Jane Eyre is still my favourite haunt. I love love love this story, but I am a first time reader. I have watched every adaptation and I buy shirts, and sweaters and little bags with her face or quotes from the book. Yes, this is embarrassing for me to admit. My life hasn’t allowed me to embrace my reader heart. I have to say this about Jane now because it is the first time I have seen it, or realized it. She is co-dependent. At least that is how she comes across to my 20th century mind. She is getting her passion and drive and self worth from being needed and desires and in helping a broken man. Please don’t hate me for this conclusion. I probably need more time to marinate over this idea but I think it is very possible that Charlotte could’ve been co-dependent as well…but of course this psychological diagnosis didn’t exists yet. Either way, I know now why I loved Jane all these years. Thank you for the club. It was amazing! Thank you Ben for your voice and your mind.

Harry Summers

Dear Ben, I experienced something recently that made me think about your maxim that we must “live the Great Books.” There is a documentary on Netflix called Escaping Twin Flames that is about a cult that preys on desperate men and women by telling them that they have a “Twin Flame” (soul mate) and that they must at all costs pursue them, even if they are dangerous or uninterested in them. The documentary exposes the dangers of believing wholeheartedly that there is only one person you can be with because it leads to staying in abusive relationships or getting a restraining order from multiple aggressive advances. While watching the show, I had the thought that if these men and women had read Jane Eyre in their lifetime, they would not be so susceptible to these schemes and dangerous ideologies. At the end of Chapter 17, Jane has the famous resolution to “draw in chalk [her] own picture, faithfully; without softening one defect,” and then to “delineate carefully the loveliest face [she] can imagine; paint it in [her] softest shades and sweetest hues, according to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram.” In this scene, Jane has admirable discipline by holding herself in sharp contrast to Blanche. Her self-evaluation is rooted in logic and reality, and she holds onto self-respect by affirming that she will live in truth and not fiction. If she instead decided to live disconnected from reality and fawn over her master, a man well above her social station, she would be debasing herself and leaving herself vulnerable to manipulation. However, by being an intelligent, grounded, and disciplined woman, she draws the love and admiration of Mr. Rochester. She is delighted to marry Mr. Rochester, but when his secret is revealed, she tells him in chapter 27: “Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical—is false.” Again, Jane prefers to live in reality. She will not toss out her principles to be with Mr. Rochester, whom I imagine she would consider her Twin Flame. She is not so easily tricked and manipulated to lead a life beneath her, and this discipline is precisely her most admirable trait. She controls her own destiny and will choose the life she wants, even a life without her Twin Flame. When she finally does end up with Mr. Rochester, she asserts proudly in the first line of chapter 38, “Reader, I married him.” A man does not control her; instead, she declares her will over her own life. For these reasons, Ben, by reading Jane Eyre and living it, one can protect themselves while seeking a partner from the dangerous schemes and contrivances of those who prey on naivety and desperation. Regards, Harry

Sunny

I can't get over how good the writing is. She portrays yearning and passion in a way that I did not expect to resonate with me. But wow! some of the phrases just make me stop in my tracks. I already feel like I want to read it again. But, I think I'll side step to Wuthering Heights.

Ryan Daut
>>195414710

I too just binged this and followed the back catalog lectures. Charlotte has a rare gift with words, up there with Virginia Woolf and Vladimir Nabokov as all time English language wordsmiths. A shame she died so young.

Daryl

I was seriously blown away by the strength of this work. I think it's really important in life to try and be authentically yourself and to have that integrity of character and spirit. It's so difficult to do this day in and day out, and I admire Jane enormously because of how consistently she achieves this despite all the challenges of her situation, and of course the challenges of her time for women and girls. There are various moments throughout the novel where it would have been much easier for her (in the short term) to just go along with the wishes of others, or to do something out of character (such as taking the necklace that Rochester gifted her), but she just doesn't do it. One moment that stood out to me was a relatively smaller one in the context of the whole book, and that is when Jane challenges the housekeeper Hannah for her attitude when Jane was near death. I was amazed not only because of the way Jane challenged her, but also for the way she forgave and understood the situation, and became friends with Hannah afterwards. Perhaps this could be contrasted with Jane's earlier forgiveness of her Aunt not having such a positive outcome for their relationship. Overall, I feel the book is a great example of a character striving for authenticity and integrity and being rewarded for this through strong relationships with others, and peace of mind with themselves. In this way, Jane Eyre is an aspirational character for me. As a side note - I'm continually amazed at how many soap opera like turns seem to happen in classic literature! I didn't expect that at all when I started on my journey to read more of these types of books.