Didactic Jane

A Sweet Life discusses the film Avatar and uses Jane Eyre to make a point:

Limitations, too, whether deliberately or involuntarily taken on, open people’s awareness to mortal frailty and the majesty there is in living with it. At the end of the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, the imposing and romantic Rochester is made “blind and a cripple” in a massive fire that destroyed his manor, Thornfield. When Jane returns to him after a year-long estrangement and sees the scar on his forehead and “mere stump” where his hand once was, she says to Rochester that, contrary to his concern that his wounds are repellent, she “is in danger of loving you too well for all this.” He confesses that his injuries have forced him to give up vain pride in his strength. Although he welcomes her “ministry,” their two bodies become shelter for each other: she sits on his knee as they talk in the woods, and later he uses her shoulder as “prop and guide” as they head home.
I would not wish blindness or loss of limb or chronic illness on anyone as a real-life lesson in vulnerability. There are other ways to put one’s self in another person’s shoes or wheelchair, and these include film, literature, personal accounts, and honest conversation. The virtual world — if enlarged by all the attributes that comprise variation in the human form — might also offer us a partial entrance. (Jane Kokernak)

Xomba also uses Jane Eyre for didactic purposes in an article entitled 'How Jane Eyre is a Role Model for Post-Modern Girls'.

Another on-screen reference comes from The New York Times review of the latest adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma.

The opening omits Austen’s famous first line describing her heroine as “handsome, clever and rich.” Instead, in a few quick visual strokes, it paints a Brontë-like tableau of 19th-century hard knocks. (The screenwriter, Sandy Welch, also wrote a recent “Jane Eyre.” ) (Alessandra Stanley)

More pop culture, as the Galway City Tribune writes once more about singer Albert Niland.

Shortly after that, his live solo acoustic recording of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights gained him national prominence on the airwaves.

You can listen to his cover here.

Lijia Zhang's Socialism is Great! is still being reviewed by some news outlets such as Front Page Mag.

But Lijia was a free spirit to a fault — and ambitious to boot. She first exercised rebellion by soaking up as much Western culture and literature as possible, such as secretly reading Jane Eyre and Great Expectations, and eventually through forbidden meetings with lovers (recounted in such frank detail that one hopes at least some were given pseudonyms). (David Forsmark)

And The Times Literary Supplement reviews Incest and Influence: The private life of bourgeois England by Adam Kuper and focuses again today on the subject of marriage between cousins.

Unknown Chicago posts about the relationship between Katherine Hepburn and Howard Hughes and mentions Katherine Hepburn's role as Jane Eyre in passing.

As for the blogosphere: Between Book Covers posts about Jane Eyre and Rincón de Jennifer (in Spanish) reviews Wuthering Heights. Starlets Past & Present discusses the roles of Margaret O'Brien, Peggy Ann Garner and Elizabeth Taylor as young actresses playing Adèle, young Jane and Helen Burns respectively in Jane Eyre 1944. Republic of Lions briefly considers what would happen were Mr Rochester and other literary heroes to meet.

Finally, today in Perú with the Trome newspaper you can get:

'Cumbres borrascosas', una historia de amor apasionante y de la que se han rodado varios filmes, es la segunda entrega de la colección 'Libros bilingües de película', que Trome publica para que refuerces tus conocimientos del idioma inglés. La podrás adquirir este viernes a solo 5 soles, más el cupón de descuento. (Google translation)

Categories: Alert, Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Theatre, Wuthering Heights