Click me for Part 1
Jane Eyre: Courage and Forgiveness
I was a little envious of how Jane Eyre found her new job. She wrote an advertisement and a week later she receives a job offer? I wish I can find a job that easy. I had probably sent hundreds of resumes in several job application platforms within the duration of this pandemic and only received one email reply of interest. Hmm, I must have done something wrong?
But, back to the story. This is how Jane found her new servitude, a good solid 16 hours away from everything she knew for the last eight years of her life, in a town called Millcote. Jane had such a brave soul, uprooting herself from her safe place and into the unknown. Maybe, the fact that she has nothing much to lose, fueled this courage, this leap of faith.
Finally arriving at Thornfield, Jane had thought Mrs. Alice Fairfax, an elderly widowed lady who warmly welcomed Jane on her first night, to be the owner of the house and that she would be teaching her daughter Ms. Fairfax. The next morning however, Mrs. Fairfax, patiently explained that it was Mr. Rochester who owned the house and Jane will be teaching Adele Varens, Mr. Rochester’s ward, and she, Mrs. Fairfax, was merely the manager (head housekeeper I suppose).
Jane felt the stirring of hope in her new surroundings. She knew that she will be able to find happiness in this three-story high, picturesque, manor-house, but she expected that there will be hard times too. Still, that was okay, it was a new chapter of her life that had many possibilities.
October, November, December flew by so fast. Jane got used to her role as governess and was able to tame her once lively but unwilling and spoiled little pupil. After a while, Jane again felt the stirring of discontentment. Everything became a routine, stagnant and as Thornfield was a few miles away from town, there wasn’t any source of excitement or challenge that could stimulate Jane’s abilities, which I can honestly relate, more now on the 50th something day of quarantine (I can’t tell dates any longer). Jane’s uneventfully life was only occasionally broken by the mysterious, maybe haunted, passage with two rows of small black doors beyond the attic on the third floor. She would sometimes ponder of the rightness of Mrs. Fairfax’s explanation that the weird noises (grim laughter, odd whispers, etc.) she, from time to time hear, was from Grace Poole, a housekeeper who is in charge to mend and sew.
One chilly January morning when the Jane couldn’t stand the dullness any longer, she set out to post Mrs. Fairfax’s letter, walking the two miles to Hay. Her silent journey was then interrupted by a “metallic clatter and tramp, tramp noise” which signaled that a horse was coming her way. She glimpsed of a great black and white dog (which she compared to Bessie’s old story of Gytras), alongside a giant stallion, and its rider passed her. Somehow, I knew that something significant would happen as I read these lines. Like when the princess finally meets her prince and it happens to be January, you know, new year,
Bringer of the wind of change.
Before Jane could get any further, she heard a sliding sound. The tall steed slipped on ice and both the horse and rider was on the ground. Jane stubbornly helped the unwilling rider, who had sprained his ankle, back to his horse and they both went her way. This Jane’s first encounter of her master Mr. Rochester, although she hadn’t known it yet at that time.
Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester, owner of Thornfield, but rarely visits, described by Mrs. Fairfax as unimpeachable and peculiar. At first, I kind of thought of him as harsh, talk intelligent nonsense (although maybe it’s me who doesn’t understand old English?), hates kids (he often gets annoyed with Adele and doesn’t want her near), arrogant, very pessimistic and yes, extremely peculiar. Yet this peculiar man warmed up to Jane and often ask for her company. I think Mr. Rochester found Jane’s frank innocence as refreshing. There was one time when he caught Jane observing him for a long time and he bluntly asked her if she thought him handsome and she blurted out “No” which made me splurt out the hot cocoa I was drinking. Jane was able to evenly match this proud man, who she can trade quick rebut during conversations and she had gained he his trust. That trust was fairly evident when Mr. Rochester shared with Jane the story of Adele, which explains his apparent dislike towards the little girl. He once fell for a French opera-dancer named Celine Varens, whom he lavished with gifts and a room in an expensive hotel. He caught her with another man and found her true ill feelings towards him. Jealousy and betrayal of a man had resulted Celine to lose everything. A few years later, she abandoned her child. Mr. Rochester said that his former lover claimed that Adele was his daughter, but he didn’t believe it since she did not bare any resemblance of him, yet he took her under his wing. He may be strange, and tough but this reflects Mr. Rochester true kind soul.
Like the Greek god of the West Wind, Zephyrus, Mr. Rochester brought warm spring to Jane’s dull and cold days. He also increased the mystery of the third floor. One night, Jane was awoken by a noise and the next thing she knew she was extinguishing Mr. Rochester as he and his bed was engulfed in fire, saving him from burns, or worse. As I reread the book, I think this is where we got a glimpse of Mr. Rochester's feelings for Jane and as for our protagonist, I believe she had long since fallen for him but doesn’t want admit it, remembering her place as a mere servant. Her suspensions of Grace Poole, who wasn’t dismissed from her duties as she believes the later was started the fire, added to Jane’s confused feelings.
Mr. Rochester likewise brought excitement and motion to the dormant Thornfield Hall as he returned weeks later after the fire with distinguished guests where Jane met Blanche Ingram, rumored as the “soon to be wife” of her master. Beautiful, elegant, disrespectful and a gold digger (can you tell that I hate her?), Blanche tried to leech her way up towards richer society by playing the “accomplished lady of rank”, but Jane saw right through her and, although she knew that there is no way in the world that a man could not be enthralled by Blanche beauty, she often mused that the lady will not bring happiness to Mr. Rochester. Of course, she can’t do anything about it, she can see it in her master that he was quite interested with the impostor.
One plot twist that had me scratching my head, when Mr. Rochester played the old “fortune teller”. It was later explained in the book that it was his plot to spread false information to Blanche (that the Rochester’s fortune was not as abundant as it appeared to be) and to gauge Jane’s feelings for him. It had me wondering was there no other way in getting the desired aftermath? The plot seemed to be way out there and doesn’t connect well with the whole story, but that’s just me. After the charade, the smile wiped clean from Mr. Rochester’s face and he grew pale when Jane mentioned that there was a visitor named Mason who arrived from Jamaica. Jane was perplexed to why her master had such a reaction towards their newly arrived guest.
Jane kept pondering on the connections of it all days later, after she has given her assistance to Mr. Mason to flee unnoticed in the crack of dawn. Many questions were left unanswered, but there was another incident that had occurred that had made Jane temporarily leave her master’s side.
For many years after Jane left Gateshead to go to school in Lowood, not once was she ever been sent for, nor heard anything from her aunt and cousins. Now it seems, Mrs. Reed had asked for Jane to come to her death bed. I thought Jane could finally get the closure she needs to end one bad chapter of her life. I imagined her being embraced with open arms. Mrs. Reed had seen the error of her ways and she would ask forgiveness for all the sufferings she had caused Jane. Her children will no longer ridicule Jane and accept her as family.
Oh, how wrong I was. John Reed, who at a very young age, had already shown problematic behaviors, had died. He had bad vices, was in deep debt which caused his mother to be troubled so much that caused her health to decline. Jane’s other cousin Georgiana Reed, grown up to be as to what I had expected her to be: vain, selfish, and lazy. One improvement I can say is towards Eliza Reed, she had decided to offer her service to the church and will soon be taking the veil.
Mrs. Reed was blinded with favoritism is what I had written in Part 1 of this book review, but in the last moments of her life, we learned that Mrs. Reed’s dislike towards Jane runs much deeper. She said she had twice done Jane wrong, which she admitted that she regretted. The first was to keep her promise to her husband in treating Jane as her own daughter. Of course, she had failed this matter quite drastically. The second, she had kept an important knowledge to Jane: three years ago, Jane’s uncle John Eyre had written to Mrs. Reed to express his desire to adopt Jane. She wrote a lie and claimed Jane had already died in Lowood. She regretted them, yes, but Mrs. Reed had never found it in herself to make peace with Jane.
“It was too late for her to make now the effort to change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever hated me—dying, she must hate me still.”
And it was truly sad. Jane, kindhearted Jane, forgave here aunt full heartedly and was able to move on from her painful past.
Continuing on the new chapter of her life, Jane came back to Thornfield three weeks late to the date she promised to return. Excitement in her heart, she walked and thought good thoughts toward the inhabitants who would be glad to welcome her home like Mrs. Fairfax and Adele. But who was she kidding? Jane knew that the only welcome that will make her very pleased was from her master. Happiness will be brief, naturally. Mr. Fairfax had said in a letter that Mr. Rochester has already set the preparation of the wedding in motion. Jane would have to leave. She will no longer have a place in Thornfield, but at least she could see her love one last time.
And there he was. Sitting in one of the stone steps with a book and a pencil in his hand, writing.
End of Part 2
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