So, it's been a great run. I've enjoyed following my following Septemb-Eyres and am sorry to see this project end The other bloggers have taught me a lot about Jane Eyre. Between the people who experienced it for the first time and the bloggers like me, who got to see new things in a favorite story.
This week we finished reading Jane Eyre and everyone got their happily ever after. Jane, in the space of a year or so, made great strides. She left school and took her first steps into the real world as the governess at Thornfield. She fell in love, got closure from the Reeds, found out her love was returned, got her heart broken, lost her little mind, picked herself up, found a family, inherited a fortune, turned down a second marriage proposal (it counts, no matter how odious St. John Rivers is), found her way back to her soul mate and even though he's not the man he once was, he's still the one she loves and they get to spend their lives together. Have you ever seen those stress calculators? They assign a numerical value to the stressors in your life and then you add them up and you find out how stressed out you are. Jane's number would be through the roof.
Jane endures so much. The fact that she can put up with St. John Rivers makes her deserving of a medal, if you ask me. The man is infuriating. While his desire to do real good in an unforgiving climate is commendable, his belief that he can make a decision like that for someone else. The fact that he turns into a big, jerk, wishing and threatening an eternity of misery for someone who disagrees with him is enough to get him right up to the top of my literary shit list. Who does that? It's so rotten, so short sighted and close minded that it makes me want to scream.
But, the total romantic in me, loves the idea that she could be so connected to Rochester despite all that she's been through, she can sense when he needs her and she would drop everything and run to help him. She didn't have any kind of agenda. She went to say goodbye to the life she had at Thornfield, before she agreed to go to India with St. John, to a loveless marriage and a probably very short life in a very inhospitable climate for her.
No matter how many times I read this book, I am always so excited through every moment of this section of the book. Jane discovering that Thornfield is a ruin, not knowing if anyone survived the fire, finding that Rochester is alive, but injured living in seclusion, keeps me on the edge of my seat. The reunion, the recovery, the family, the ending that Jane deserves, was just what I wait for every single reading.
So, that brings us to the end, once again, of Jane Eyre, one of my all time favorite books. Reading the books in the increments we did, covering each major part of Jane's life, one at a time, worked out really well. I had no choice but to slow down and really focus on each part of the story. Watch Jane grow, see all the ways that she remains true to herself from the moment we meet her until she realizes she's got everything that she wants.
Okay, what are we reading next?
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