It's Jane's House

The last issue of Bitch magazine (#42, Noir Issue (Winter 2008) | p. 70) contains an interesting article about Jane Eyre: It's Jane's House: We Just Live In It. Bronte, feminism and the gothic tradition by Sarah Seltzer.

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will." Jane Eyre (1847)

When we think of Jane Eyre, we think of its darkness: the creepy mansion, the imprisoned lunatic, the brooding master, the horrible fire. But behind those gothic elements, Charlotte Bront‘'s novel is a perfect storm of opposites: a feminist tome with a passionate love affair at its core, a subversion of gender norms that concludes in marriage, a terror-fest that offers hope to female readers.

Jane Eyre’s images are so memorable, and its power as a “woman’s tale” so far-reaching, that it retains a presence on today’s bestseller lists. It’s the foremother of a literary tradition in which gothic interiors and sinister doubles comment on the female experience.

From obsessive mystery Rebecca (1938) to postcolonial Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) to publishing hot property The Thirteenth Tale,(1996) female authors endlessly recycle Jane Eyre’s elements. This summer, Justine Picardie’s buzzed-about Daphne further highlighted Jane’s imprint on a sisterhood of readers and writers. The authors of these books are just some of the literary women who’ve taken up pen in response to Jane. They may question the book’s marriage wrap-up or its Victorian mores; but women writers are as drawn to Jane Eyre as Jane is drawn to her sardonic true love, Mr. Rochester. (Read more)

We are very grateful to the author, Sarah Seltzer for sending us the link.

And yet another article about the Brontës has appeared in the Spanish magazine Qué leer: Las hermanas Brontë. Un trío de ases (pages 98 to 101) by Carles Barba.

Not a bad approach albeit with several minor and not so minor mistakes (Branwell dying at 27, Charlotte marrying an 'old friend' of his father's, etc...).

The illustration on the left which accompanies the article is by Joan Cruspinera.




Categories: Jane Eyre, Journals