Jane Eyre (World Digital Library Edition)   (eBook - Adobe PDF) (eBook)

Jane Eyre (World Digital Library Edition) eBook Description

When it was first published in 1847, Jane Eyre was remarkable for its portrayal of a thinking, feeling woman who is rich in individuality and passionate in her desire for a full life. And as contemporary readers the world over can attest, the novel has lost none of its fire. The story of Jane Eyre’s metamorphosis from a frustrated, lonely orphan into a compassionate, self-confident, independent woman is a gripping one, made powerful by an elaborate plot that is purposefully executed and a writing style that is as fiery and morally impressive as the novel’s heroine.

Jane herself recounts the story of the physical and moral oppression she endures as a child in the home of her hateful aunt and cousins, and later at the harsh boarding school she is sent to; of her employment as governess at Thornfield Hall, whose enigmatic owner; the gruff yet kind Edward Rochester, Jane finds fascinating; of the admiration and love that develops between them and that fate takes away; and of Jane’s eventual evolution into a whole woman, after enduring poverty and isolation once more.

Impressively, Charlotte Brontë succeeds in fully expressing Jane’s character and in working out completely the themes that are so integral to her spirited heroine: love, independence, and forgiveness.

Excerpts:
From Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE

THERE was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question. I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner, — something lighter, franker, more natural as it were — she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”

“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked.

“Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners: besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”

A small breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room. I slipped in there. It contained a book-case: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near, a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.

I returned to my book — Bewick’s History of British Birds: the letter-press thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank.

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