Reactions to Jane Eyre

Oh, man, where to begin? Quite a book, that Jane Eyre was. I'll be the first to admit, I didn't like the book at first. It took a while to develop, and I'm the kind of guy that doesn't really get into a book until it really takes off.

The book was a good one, but to be honest, if the unit is about coming of age, I really didn't think that Jane Eyre fit with the unit very well. Sure, she does grow up and change as the story moves along, and maybe it's just me, but as I read the book, I wasn't really instilled with this sense of coming of age. That would really only come afterward in the loosest sense, and only sometimes, when we discussed the book as a class. If the meaning was about coming of age, I got totally lost in what I was reading about and didn't see anything about that.

Perhaps this book just shouldn't be taught in the class. Again, maybe it's just me, but I didn't really get much out of the book other than "Well, I guess it was a good book." That and its being almost too much of a read for us to get through...I think the class would be better off choosing a different book. It was, however, the kind of book I might suggest for an independent reading. I know I sound like a broken record when I say I'm not sure about the theme of the class as a whole, or if all the independent readings connect to a larger idea, but if those books don't exactly have anything in common, Jane Eyre would be a good one to add to the independent reading list.

One other thing. About the ending. I didn't mind it, really, except for the little bit about Jane and Rochester hearing each other's voices. The ending would have been perfectly fine without that little tidbit, and it seemed to be just a little bit too much. Jane was going to find out what happened to Rochester anyway, so it's not as if she needed that little extra "Jane, Jane, Jane!" to get her going. It struck me almost like a bit of a deus ex machina, and personally, I think Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre at a level that should have been above such trivialities. But I digress.