Book 10: Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte

Start Date: March 1, 2013
End Date: July 1, 2013

I thought that this was a good book. It was a pretty easy read, and I'm happy the way it turned out. The story was very long, starting from when she was a young child living with her Aunt who hated her. She lived with this family who did not like poor Jane, and always made her life a living hell. Finally her Aunt didn't want to take care of her anymore, and sent her off to a horrible boarding school. In this school, Jane became very well learned and educated. But she lived in torturous living conditions with barely enough food or clothing. After one winter when many girls died, the school got a major overhaul and it turned into a nice school. Jane graduated and ended up staying to become a teacher. Here she was happy for many years. Eventually she left to go become a governess for a young girl in a house. This job she enjoys, but soon falls in love with Mr Rochester, the master of the house. They were about to be married, when it was found out that he was actually married to someone else, a crazy lady who he kept locked up in the 3rd floor. Even though she loved him, Jane didn't want to become a mistress to a married man. She ran off into the middle of the night to some far away town. She almost starved to death there wandering around for 3 days and nights with no money, food or shelter. She landed on someone's door step who was nice enough to take her in. This family she got a long great with. She ended up going to the man of the house, St. John, up to a school in a small town to become a teacher. Here she found out that her rich uncle had passed away and left her with 20,000 pounds. Also at the same time she found out that St John and his two sisters were actually related to her. They were cousins. They had a plan to all live together and live happily ever after. St John started to train Jane, unbeknownst to her, to become his partner on his journey to India to do Gods work. He proposed to marry her, even though he didn't love her, but so she could join him to India to help with his work. Jane didn't want to marry someone she didn't love. She took this opportunity to go back and check on Mr Rochester to see how he was doing. She found him blind with one hand, both he had suffered after his house burned down, killing his wife. Jane decides to stay with Mr Rochester, he proposes to her again, and they are married as soon as can be. He ends up getting his vision back in his right eye, they have a baby, and all is happy in the end.

I'm so happy that Jane went back to Rochester. They loved each other so much, but because of the law back then, they couldn't be married, since he was already married. I guess they didn't have divorce back then?  She ran away because she didn't want to love a man who she couldn't marry. St John was a real pain to read about. I get it that some people believe their mission in life is to 'do the work of God' but he shouldn't have tried to push it on Jane.  She was obviously not happy at all when he was 'training' her. It was more like   he had some strange psychological hold over her and was using that to get her to do his bidding. I'm happy she had the courage and strength to deny his proposal. She would've never been happy in India. I love that she went back to Rochester. They were meant to be together.