Harry Potter and Jane Eyre

A few days ago we found an article where the question 'Will kids read Brontë in the Harry Potter age?'. Interestingly enough, an article from Style has led to something akin to an answer.

Libby Gruner, who teaches Victorian literature and children’s literature at University of Richmond, included Harry Potter novels in her curriculum until she found that most of her students had already read them. But in the past year, she brought back the sixth book for a class on children’s literature and theology.
“If you read the books, they’re actually very similar to Lewis’ ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,’” she says. “There is a deeper magic and that magic is love, which is a very Christian belief.”
Gruner has also written an article entitled “Good, Evil and Harry Potter,” comparing Harry to Jane Eyre and Holden Caulfield. Each is a coming-of-age novel in which the hero fights against hypocrisy or evil or phonies. Certainly Rowling has tapped into the mythic qualities of the hero’s journey. But does Gruner have any complaints about Rowling?
“She uses too many adverbs and she uses stereotypes; the family structures are very, very traditional,” she says. “From a feminist perspective, I hope we see more of Ginny and Hermione in the last book. I’ve been wondering what Mrs. Weasley is doing during the day now that all of her kids are in school. Certainly she is as good of a wizard as her husband.”

The article in question, 'Good, Evil and Harry Potter' can actually be read online on Literary Mama as posted by Libby Gruner:

On September 12, 2001, I taught a Victorian literature class. Or, I was scheduled to do so. I met my class -- still stunned, still in shock -- for what was to be our final day of discussion of Jane Eyre. It's one of my favorite novels, revealing something new to me each time I teach it. That morning, I sat on a desk in front of my class and told them I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to teach them, in the face of such horror, such destruction. I asked what they wanted to do, and they talked a little bit about not knowing what to do, or how to do it. Many of them had friends and family in New York, New Jersey, DC. One was on the road to her family in New York; although the whole campus had been cautioned to stay away, she simply couldn't. It didn't seem like a time for obedience, to the rules, the cautions, or -– especially -- the syllabus.
But there we were with a book in front of us, and I knew that later in the semester we'd want to have talked about it -- if there was a later in the semester, which in the moment seemed far from certain. So, uncertainly, I began to read aloud to them, favorite passages from the book. Jane Eyre, that classic of adolescent angst and maturer longings, is a novel well aware of evil and cruelty but still determined to seek beauty and truth. I find myself drawn even now to the scene in which Jane finally confronts her master:
"Do you think I am an automaton? -- a machine without feelings? …Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? -- You think wrong! -- I have as much soul as you,-- and full as much heart!"
I love that passage for its clarity and anger, but also for its implicit recognition that we all have soul and heart. There are flawed human beings in Jane Eyre, but they are all worthy of at least that small acknowledgement. (Read more)

The New York Times has a review on The Art of Memory and looks a tiny bit more into its Brontë references.

As Ms. Ramirez moseys through various fairy tales — at first hurling books down from an overhead walkway, creating plumes of dust — the librarians move in and out of the stories. Now they are the Brontë sisters, now Bluebeard’s bride and her sisters. (Claudia La Rocco) (Picture credits: Ryan Jensen. Source.)

This dance piece is on stage in New York through July 21.

Slayground interviews author Simmone Howell. We read the following towards the end of the interview:

Finally, what are ten of your favorite books?
That's too hard. Instead, I will tell you the books on my bedside table: [...]
The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte - Daphne Du Maurier

Lovely! If you're curious about this book now, here's a link to a review we posted early this year.

And finally Old Izi's Room reviews Wuthering Heights in Spanish and wishes there were more books like this one.

Categories: Books, Dance, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights