Jane Eyre

Max Hellerstein Ms.Adamcyzk

Jane Eyre Essay

Jane Eyre was by far my favorite piece of literature we’ve read in the A.P English course. It was not the typical love story at all, and finally we get to see the not over exaggerated love story come to fruition, but rather actions depict the emotions that flare more than spoken word. The story begins with an interesting, but recognizably typical story. Girl who can’t relate to most people, born in to a super religious lifestyle with the family who isn’t really hers mixed with the beginning of adolescence.

Jane however truly segways through her life which is quickly sped up to beginning of adulthood when she begins to be involved with a man named Rochester. Initially, Rochester a presitgous, not necessarily loved, authority figure in Jane’s life becomes what would be her lover. This relationship although at first questionable, makes sense because of the fact that Jane has never really been exposed to intimacy with a man before, as a matter of fact, this story tells the underlying tone for how women get themselves caught up with the wrong people.

At first Jane is madly in love, and becomes fallen for Rochester, Rochester seizes this opportunity and everything is butterflies for a short period of time. Little did Jane know, Rochester, married already, would ruin their chances of ever being together. Jane playing the female in distress becomes heartbroken. This is something that we could say is the opposite of most books, and stories. Most of the time, this story would take place and they would be together and live happily ever after, the largest challenge would be that it would be society v.s them. In this case, it is society + Rochester v.s Jane.

It is for that reason, I loved the book and kept me interested. That we we’re not playing out the typical story. Similar to movies in popular culture today such as 500 days of summer, where the whole story it is the man chasing the women and in the end, the relationship doesn’t work out. I think this book was ahead of its time, it is really not until now that we are breaking the barriers of story telling to a more realistic approach. This is why documentaries haven’t really come about until the 1980’s. People wanted to read these stories to escape from reality, not to relive it. Therefore these love stories and dramatic endings would make for more entertaining exciting people who we wish we could be. Or who we think we can relate too.

I am digging in to a larger picture here, and that picture is that humans don’t like reality. This is why we look for ways to escape it through different mediums, whether it is through movies, books, drugs, running, whatever it may be. We want to feel like we can get away from the problems or realities in our life just for a brief period of time to grasp this lifestyle we think about before we go to bed at night staring at the ceiling.

This inevitably doesn’t have to do with self esteem, or economic situation, I think everyone has their own insecurities which in a perfect world wish they could fix. It doesn’t help that we see commercials and billboards that represent something we want, but that isn’t the only reason. Life is a game of keeping up with joneses and wanting what we can’t have, we are humans, and that’s just how we think. Jane Eyre did exactly the opposite, she gave you reality, she gave you the clear underlying truth that men have bad intentions, women fall into things unknowingly, and people do really stupid things to get what they want. In short, Jane Eyre is no different from any love story in reality.