Discussion Questions

*From Barnes and Noble Classic Edition of Jane Eyre:

1. William Makepeace Thackeray, knowing nothing about the author of Jane Eyre, immediately wrote to a friend, "It is a woman's writing, but whose?" What do you think tipped him off?  Is there anything about Jane Eyre that strikes you a especially characteristic of "women's writing"?

2. Thackeray also said that he was "exceedingly moved and pleased" by Jane Eyre.  Evidently, even if the novel is by a woman, it is not only for women.   What in the novel could be described as appealing to our humanity rather than our gender?

3. Jane Eyre has been read as a proto-feminist protest against the conditions of women in Charlotte Bronte's time and place.  Is that reading justified by the actual text? If so, does tje protest still resonate in this time and place?

4. That have been critics who said that most Victorian novels are built on either the Marriage Plot or on the Inheritance Plot.  At the end on Jane Eyre the heroine is an heiress and, as she writes, "Reader, I married him."  But Bronte has decided to blind and maim Rochester, and to burn down the house that is the visible sign of his prestige and power.  Do you think Bronte cut Rochester down to size for Jane's sake- to make the happy ending happier still?

Spoilers!