More Words: This novel is a masterpiece. Books that are good enough to study should have study questions. So I've come up with a few questions to spend time thinking about.
Study Questions
- Why can't Jane live with Mr. Rochester as his mistress? And the parallel question, why does she offer to accompany Mr. Rivers to India as his secretary but not as his wife?
- How is Jane's love for Helen similar to her love for Mr. Rochester? What does she feel for Mr. Rivers?
- What makes Jane Eyre so different from Pride and Prejudice?
- How does Charlotte Bronte define good or bad in her characters?
- Is Jane really an elf/faerie? Who is she?
- What words were threaded throughout the text?
- Was the finale satisfying?
- Which do you think better, love in this world or glory in the world to come? Must a person give up one to achieve the other?
Quotes:
He made me love him without looking at me. p203
Alas the readers of our era are less favoured. But courage? I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay; they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again on day. Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed! Genius banished! No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the though. No; they not only live, but reign and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell - the hell of your own meaness. p427
This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort. p284
Hush, Jane! you think to much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, to vehement: the sovereign Hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than other creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the reace of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us, and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angles see our tortures, recognise our innocence (...) and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with destress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness - to glory. p45
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