Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen have such a similar style of writing that I get confused between them pretty often. I really liked Bronte's story telling approach though. It's maybe a little more sophisticated than Austen's. The backstory of Jane's childhood was so crucial to who she was as a character, and Austen tends to just summarize.  The moment with Helen when Jane is angry and confused as to why Helen didn't defend herself shows an intelligence uncommon for girls their age to possess. It almost makes the rest of the novel confusing, because that sort of sense of justice and higher level thinking doesn't prevail in a lot of situations. I wasn't convinced that Rochester was such a good choice for her either. He's so messed up and suspicious, and strange. Jane seems worth more than that, and I think she lets her inferior status get in the way of that. Women always seem to be in their own way in these novels. It kind of makes one realize that authors don't see women in the best light. If we're too virtuos we're godlike prudes, and if we're too sexual we're whores. If we're too smart our logic prevents us from seeing the truth or acting quickly, and if we're stupid we're just stupid. It's a little frustrating. The happy marriage ending was sort of uninteresting because I thought Bronte didn't make a strong enough argument that Rochester isn't a schmuck.