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Stories That Change Us
A lively discussion between four friends and authors as they breakdown the most popular fiction from the last century. Join us as we identify the key aspects of storytelling, character development, and social analysis that have caused these stories to resonate through the decades and, in doing so, help novice and seasoned writers craft bestselling fiction of their own.
Stories That Change Us
Episode 9: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
As inconspicuous as novel can be, when one thinks of classic literature that unequivocally nails the power of sympathetic villains, landscape as emotional foreshadowing, and reflective monologues that are insightful and entertaining, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte should be a firm contender on every list. Come and immerse yourself in the secrets of the beautifully understated, delightful Victorian classic.
Moderated By: Melissa Grace
Question: what is a story that has changed your life?
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Hello and welcome to episode number nine of Stories That Change Us. I'm Melissa Grace and I'm here with some of my fabulous writer friends,
Micah Leydorf:Micah Leydorf
Laurel Thomas:Laurel Thomas., and
Kat Lewis:And Kat Lewis.
Melissa Grace:Today we are discussing Jane Eyre.
Micah Leydorf:Kat's doing a little dance over here.
Laurel Thomas:Happy dance, happy dance.
Kat Lewis:Very excited for Jane Eyre.
Melissa Grace:Um, it was written by Charlotte Bronte. First published in 1847 under the pen name Kerr Bell. Which was ambiguous as far as gender, purposefully. It was first person, the first person narrative that it was written in was innovative for its time. It's been translated into 50 languages. It is cited as an early feminist novel. I have heard from around the table that the 2006. Is it a miniseries or a
Kat Lewis:miniseries, a miniseries
Melissa Grace:that that is the thing to watch because Rochester and Jane are both strangely hot. We don't know, so maybe it fits the book. But, anyway, that I thought was just hilarious. It was made into a Broadway musical. And starting in 2012 is what the, my online source said. But anyway, I just thought that was the most hilarious thing. I would think that would be generous. I mean, I just cannot think of how you would make a musical out of this story, out of this.
Micah Leydorf:Oh, they made a musical out of Sweeney Todd, so who knows?
Melissa Grace:And also Les Miserables. I mean, you know, there are, somebody probably looked at that and said, what? What are you doing? But anyway,
Micah Leydorf:that's true. That's true. Who looked at Victor Hugo's, you know, like three inch novel and said, you know what? This would be great on Broadway.
Melissa Grace:Yes, true. Um, similarities to Bronte's life. She worked as a government governess. Lowood's school was based on Bronte's experience, which broke my heart when I read that. Her father sent her and her sisters away to the clergy's daughter's school after his wife died. And Charlotte was only 5 years old. The dastardly schoolmaster Brocklehurst. Um, was based on a real guy. And when Jane Eyre became a success, he recognized himself in the character and she had to write a formal apology to avoid a lawsuit.
Micah Leydorf:Wow.
Laurel Thomas:My goodness. Way to go.
Melissa Grace:I was going to say that means she captured him. She did it well Well, the format that we follow here at Stories That Change Us. We all have a favorite quote. There are so many, like, every passage is so quotable.
Micah Leydorf:Well, since we were just talking about the earlier years; because, you know, this novel is kind of divided into her childhood and then her time as a governess and in her time with Mr. Rochester, kind of a couple of different sections. My quote is maybe from that era. I kind of like this. So this is a little bit longer. It says, no site so sad as that of a naughty child. He began, especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death? They go to hell was my ready and orthodox answer. And what is hell? Can you tell me that? A pit full of fire? And should you like to fall into that pit and to be burning there forever? No, sir. What must you do to avoid it? I deliberated a moment. My answer when it did come was objectionable. I must keep in good health and not die. I love that.
Melissa Grace:Well spoken.
Micah Leydorf:So I felt like, you know, again, talking about storytelling techniques, I felt like that little exchange, you know, just conveyed so much about her character. And again, when you talk about this being An innovation for its time in the first feminist novel. So you have this, um, Heroin who is not like, not like the others, right? That we read before, like What? She speaks her mind. She speaks up. She's not following the,
Kat Lewis:protocol, and for it to be like shown so early is like a little girl. You think about like Pride and Prejudice, where we start out with Elizabeth Bennett, who is clearly a grown woman, who is fighting against the norms of society. But like Jane Eyre, This girl is thoughtful. She's intelligent. She's not going to hide it. She's not going to shrink herself. She's very, we see that at like eight, 10 years old, right? Yes.
Melissa Grace:Yes.
Kat Lewis:Yeah.
Melissa Grace:And I feel like that Bronte does give us a very good encapsulation of her character there. She's very pragmatic. You just don't die.
Micah Leydorf:That's how you don't think about it for a second. I guess that's my option because you're telling me I'm naughty.
Kat Lewis:And honestly, this is one of my favorite novels, but I recognize how it can feel a little bit like trudgery trying to move through all of Jane's thoughts to moments of like clear action, right? So, so there's two quotes that stand out to me is, is my favorite. One this is coming from Mr. Rochester's perspective, and he says, every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own. In pain and sickness, it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure. And if it were broken, it would be my treasure still. And I love that because Rochester is an unapologetically moody character. He's unapologetically depressed and apathetic, but I just love how, Even in him declaring her importance to him. We still get like a really like a tangible taste of who he is and the lens that he lives life through. But I also like, like the extremeness of that. Like, you know, in a 21st society where women are like, don't objectify me. And like, there's more to me than my body. Da da da da da. I love how he focuses on like her mind. He's like, your mind is what I fell in love with and your mind is precious to me. Yeah. That stood out to me. But then also my favoritest line ever. In any, you know, I know that the Pride and Prejudice opening line, a man, you know, in, in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Okay. Sure. But I love, I love the very last line of Jane Eyre, which is no, I think it was like the first line of like the last chapter, which is reader. I married him.
Melissa Grace:Well, I, I have to say that even though we spend a lot of time in her POV, she doesn't, um. We don't turn like I feel like that's what that's kind of the term I think of when I think of revisiting the same emotions over and over and over again in a way that's really tiresome I didn't feel that way when I Finished reading this. I felt like it was all relevant and interesting information that we were getting and not just repackaging the same emotion over and over again. I Will share my favorite quote and It is a another from when she was a little girl very early in the book I could not sleep unless it, and she was talking about her doll was folded in my nightgown. And when it laid there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy believing it to be happy. Likewise, because it just stated for us that she's hungry for love.
Micah Leydorf:Right. And for the people who haven't read it, she was an orphan. The quintessential redheaded stepchild, you know, there's the other than., just like in Harry Potter, that being just that treated just horribly and, and, or Cinderella, you know, that whole trope
Kat Lewis:cared for under obligation. Right. And then the second that her aunt could like offload her to a boarding school, she did.
Melissa Grace:There was another line in there that I liked a lot, something to the effective if I was,"at all charming at all pretty at all, any of the things you value, you would love me".
Laurel Thomas:Wow. Okay, well, this is so when they first, they declare their love to each other. Then Mr. Rochester's like, okay, get out the carriage. You're going to have the finest silks and we're going to go here and there. And I'm like, I think that's the first foreshadowing that this would end very badly. If this romance continued right here and right now. I think that Mr. Rochester would have been tempted to take over, because that was his nature. That would not have worked with Jane. So, She says,"In other people's presence I was as formerly deferential and quiet, any other line of conduct being uncalled for. It was only in the evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He continued to sin for me, punctually, the moment that The clock struck seven, though when I appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms such as love and darling on his lips. The best words at my service were provoking puppet, malicious elf, sprite, and changeling. And I, I love that she had, somehow she crafted a romance that would have been doomed if the heart had not changed.
Kat Lewis:Okay, can we talk about talk about the difference between Jane Eyre and Cinderella, because the first half of the book, and especially when Rochester proposes, it seems like that Cinderella moment, right? And, um, I think what you're saying, Laurel, is essentially like, um, Jane did not sacrifice her individuality and it ended up being, you know,
Laurel Thomas:she saw it and recognized it as a yoke, just as surely as she had been yoked in other.
Kat Lewis:Yeah so we so we compare that to Cinderella who there's so many Cinderella spin offs of like what happened when Cinderella goes to the castle and accepts this gilded cage. And Jane, I think very much perceives that this man will lavish with me with jewels and he will lavish me with like luxury But at the cost of my voice, right? It was her voice that he fell in love with.
Laurel Thomas:And not that he was aware of that Kat. I don't think that he was aware of that on a gut level or a core level. I think he genuinely obviously loved her, but he was not aware of something working in his character that would have destroyed that relationship. Which I, when I read it as a teenager, I was like, Oh, what
Melissa Grace:get the pretty dresses. Yeah.
Laurel Thomas:I know. And I was like, why would I remember thinking, why do we have to go to this other setting, with other kind of boring girls? And this guy, who's a real religious kind of statue, like why right? And again, just
Micah Leydorf:to fill in the people who haven't read on the plot that, um, so when it doesn't work out with Mr. Rochester, because we find out what, wait, the last minute he's actually already married to a crazy woman who's locked in the attic. And Jane
Kat Lewis:and who's trying to kill Jane twice by now
Micah Leydorf:And so Jane decides she's tempted for a second, but then she decides hmm. No, I do love him But this is against my morals. I can't do this. I can't just like live like husband and wife even do the fairy tale. Because that's not right. So she leaves. Which is all
Laurel Thomas:very tempting and, and she writes it as very tempting, which I thought was authentic.
Melissa Grace:I agree. And so she leaves, she just very abruptly leaves and runs into this home where they take her in
Micah Leydorf:that's where we get the, the two sisters and the brother who has to be a missionary.
Melissa Grace:Yes. Right. But I just have to say, I, one of the things that; to me the theme of the book was that she respects herself and she sees herself as worthy of love. And she doesn't refuse him after she figures out that he is married just because it is against her principles, which it is, and rightly so, and all that. But she says, he's going to come to have contempt for me too.
Laurel Thomas:Yes.
Melissa Grace:If I, because he's talked about having these mistresses in the past and how now he's like, ugh. Don't even like to think about those trashy ladies or whatever. And yes, she just valued herself too much to put herself in that position.
Laurel Thomas:And really, I think his heart could have gone that way again. You know, it didn't at the end, but he was a changed man. So wouldn't it have been tragic for him to go unchanged into this relationship That really was such a a redemptive relationship. I mean, in all the best ways, right? In all the sweetest, most honest ways, it was redemptive.
Melissa Grace:So was him trying to put all the fancy clothes on her? Was that, did it have a deeper meaning? Was, was it trying to change her,
Kat Lewis:so just for context for the readers. So before Mr. Rochester proposes to Jane, he spends a lot of time in the book entertaining the kind of upper echelon crowd. He thinks that because Jane has only known destitution, that she wants to be raised to that same level of frivolousness, of perceived lightheartedness. And maybe he's trying to turn her into what all these other shallow women have wanted to be. Cause he does kind of ward off the attentions of Blanche another, a woman who has her eye on him and she is decked out in the finest everything. She's got a dowry. She's got all the things and she's looking at him as a checkbook. And maybe that's his character arc is he goes from being perceived only as a checkbook to being perceived as somebody who's worthy of love. Like I fell in love with her mind, but she didn't fall in love with my checkbook. She fell in love with my mind too.
Laurel Thomas:Right. And I don't think that he knew her. I mean, he was drawn to her, you know, the fact that she was honest and fresh and surprising, you know, drew him, but I don't think he knew her. And it wasn't until, you know, the very end when she comes back, he realizes really who the heart of that young woman is. And she is a strong little woman and she's equally as strong as he is.
Kat Lewis:Yeah. Mrs. Fairfax even says something to the effect of like, I didn't think you to be a young woman to be so overwhelmed. And I think that maybe it's touching on all these things that this is a strong man with a strong personality. And I don't know if you really know what you're signing up for.
Laurel Thomas:I like, I believe that too. I got that.
Melissa Grace:See, I never, I never saw that. I saw him needing to come to the end of himself. Which, you know, he does at the very end
Micah Leydorf:But let's compare him to A Long Fatal Love Chase, but there's obvious comparisons right here. So yeah, you have Tempest who is a bad, bad, bad man, bad man, who essentially the same thing. He wants the same thing. He wants to marry. He's not free to marry. And he's trying to trick her and he does trick her; versus Rochester who is a sympathetic character And he truly loves Jane and I don't know he might even be rationalizing He is saving her from having to go against her morals by not revealing So that you know that she doesn't have to make that decision and they can both be happy.
Kat Lewis:One of the things that Charlotte Bronte does really well in the story as far as storytelling techniques is I do think that Rochester is the villain in this story because Rochester forces her to, it forces all of these preconceived moral values, he puts into the test, right? Um, I do think that he's like a soft villain. Maybe this is one of those books where it's like, man versus self, like it's Jane against herself, but I do think that Rochester is kind of the change engine. But let's talk about like creating, especially for the romance writers in the room, creating a sympathetic villian to where we understand that Rochester's motives are twisted but we also feel bad for the guy. He too was tricked into this marriage with this crazy lady. Maybe all he's ever known is trickery when it comes to relationships. And so we, as the readers feel the conflict We see the woman's heart is like, man, I see his depression. I see how being married to this woman is a self fulfilling generational cycle that he has just looped into. And so the woman's compassionate heart wants to say, I want to be the solution. But Jane decides to lean on that moral premise that says
Melissa Grace:moral premise and her self worth
Laurel Thomas:Yeah. And I, I think though, there was more character arc too, because when she realizes St. John does not love her and she says, you don't love me. And he said, you know, that's not required in this relationship.
Micah Leydorf:And again, just to fill in the plot, that was the wannabe missionary brother who proposes to her a kind of a, a platonic deal of, Hey, we'd be great missionaries together, you know.
Kat Lewis:And he saves her. This is, this is also like her, her, you know, the, the emotional pool. Yeah. He, so Jane leaves Thornfield hall because she's like, I can't marry Rochester. And I also know that I'm too weak to be in your presence. So I have to go. Right. And then she proceeds to wander the, the moors for a couple of days, a couple of weeks. And St. John this wanna to be missionary is the guy who scoops her up, saves her from the moors,
Micah Leydorf:so I was just going to say, Kat, what you just said about that she realized, okay, she doesn't want to do this=And I can't be in his presence. Talk about a lesson for modern audiences is yeah. Like, okay. If we, if you want something, like I say, if you want to like, if you want to save yourself, right. For a more important relationship; don't be with people who don't want to like you need to remove yourself from the people, places, and things that are going to, pull you down the wrong path. So I think that's, that's a really good,
Laurel Thomas:it was a beautiful portrayal of real temptation, like the real kind. He loved her. He loves her and she knows it. And yet she can't stay. And she knows that too. I just thought it was just beautiful and authentic that the author would put Jane in that place and that all the things that she lost in leaving. And I think, you know, when, when we know in our hearts, we're in a relationship that is not right. And yet we say, but I'll lose this and I'll lose this and I'll lose this if I leave, that's a real portrayal of how temptation works, right? Yeah. It's not a simple choice.
Melissa Grace:Well, other truth about society or the human experience that are explored or confirmed or challenged in this novel. I just looked at it so completely through the lens of legalism versus grace. Grace marked her relationship with Rochester in his, in his presence. I thoroughly lived and he lived in mine. And then the legalism came with, there was legalism with Broel Hearst. There was legalism with sin John. Um. To me, he was the embodiment. I mean, to me, I felt like she was writing him as the embodiment of legalism.
Laurel Thomas:Okay.
Melissa Grace:Because Jane says of St. John, I daily wish to please him, but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature. Stifle half my faculties, rest my taste from their original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. I mean,
Micah Leydorf:it's a really stark contrast.
Melissa Grace:It was just so interesting to me that, I mean, they went on and on about how, handsome St. John was. And all she could see was he doesn't have a husband's heart toward me. And I love that because that's a, that she actually used those words because that's a theme that I talk about. Yes. Yes.
Micah Leydorf:In your book. I love that, that you're I didn't see that parallelism, but when you pull it out like that, it's really obvious, Melissa. But there's so many words in this book.
Laurel Thomas:Tell them a little bit about your story so that they know where we're getting these parallels. So your, your novel is about. Part of it is about a husband's heart. What does that look like?
Melissa Grace:Yes. And what does it look like? It's a dual storyline, uh, with an American woman, a single woman who's adopted a baby from China and then also following the the Chinese birth mother. The baby's birth mother is praying and asking God to give her baby a father. And so on the American side, we see her dating and when all she really wants is to be left alone. And she has experienced a lot of relationships where the man just has not loved her, has not chosen her. And she'll finally find somebody who has a husband's heart toward her. And I really believe that that is a supernatural gift. It is a gift that God gives to people who believe in him, acknowledge him and people who do not, that it is just a special grace gift that he puts in men. To love a woman that way.
Laurel Thomas:And they can be very imperfect like Mr. Rochester.
Melissa Grace:Yes, very imperfect.
Micah Leydorf:That is what I love about this story. Is it's not, Oh, these two beautiful people finally end up together, which I like those stories too. You know, we love Pride and Prejudice. We love Mr. Darcy. We love Jane. They're both beautiful. They got together. Great. And Cinderella and Prince Charming, all the things, but Oh, Oh, Mr. Rochester and Jane, these, imperfect people who have a great love for one another and through all obstacles, stay true to themselves and to that love. Like how much more satisfying and joyful is that?
Kat Lewis:I think about, something that the, this author does really well. And what I relearned about storytelling technique was this idea of creating stories that are so true to the deep need of the character that they become burned into the brain of the reader.
Melissa Grace:I like that.
Kat Lewis:And I think about that reunion scene with Jane and Rochester, and I love how Bronte could have written this very dramatic, yeah, very flowery, I'm going to fling the doors wide open and Rochester, I'm here my love, you know, no, that's not what she did. She stays true to Jane's character and Jane kind of like walking in and playing a little trick on him. I love that scene. And when she finally speaks and he immediately reaches out and like latches onto her hand. And like, that is the moment that I live for in this story. What is it about like these Edwardian era novels that have like these little hand moments. Like in the 2008 Pride and Prejudice, like we have that hand flex,
Micah Leydorf:the hand flex,
Kat Lewis:the hand flex.
Laurel Thomas:They're not bodice ripping, you know, they're just. Passion. There's passion there.
Micah Leydorf:I want you to repeat what you just said though, Kat. I thought it was so good about, um, repeat what you said about like the deep need of the character being fulfilled.
Melissa Grace:She stays true to
Kat Lewis:Yeah, like as an author, writing these powerful pivotal scenes that are the deep need revealed, the deep need realized, the deep need finally like satisfied, that like The reader has been so aware of those things that when we get to this really beautiful, sweet moment of like the deep need of both of these characters.
Micah Leydorf:So how do you see that, that scene fulfilling their, what deep need do you see being fulfilled in that?
Kat Lewis:So I think one for Jane, I think like the deep need of like, Being able to be loved as her true self, right? Not loved as the submissive wife. Not, you know, she harasses him. She does. She says, yeah, he was
Laurel Thomas:really good looking. He's really smart. Really incredibly talented and all the things
Kat Lewis:she said. She says this, um, I think to send Jane when she refuses St. John because St. John criticizes her for her. continued love for Mr. Rochester.
Laurel Thomas:Yes.
Kat Lewis:And she says he was the first one to love what he saw.
Laurel Thomas:Yes.
Kat Lewis:And so I see that confirmed in her willingness to still reach out to him, knowing that he's now destitute, that he's no longer the man that she once thought he was. We see her need confirmed in the passion that's still felt between the two of them. His deep need is confirmed probably because his need is the exact same, right? To be known and loved and seen as you truly are. Because I think he even says something to be effective. Like he knows he's kind of barking at whoever's in the room and he's like, I know I'm an ogre. I know I'm a troll now, you know? And so for like this moment of like these two characters who have been misused and abused and have found each other and then thought they lost each other. I think that's why that scene is so powerful. We thought that we were done with Rochester. We thought that she had given him up. Right. And that's why that scene is like burned. Right. And that's where that hand clutch is like, Oh my gosh, like it just gives me all the feels because I'm like, you know what? No, they're not rolling around in the bed. They're not, he didn't, you know, he didn't pull her into his arms and like ravage her. Something as simple as your presence is what I desire.
Melissa Grace:Right. Right. Yes.
Kat Lewis:Again, but creating scenes that like are so powerful and we've waited for. The reader has waited for this. Like the character has waited for this. that when we get there, if I don't remember anything else about Jane Eyre, and I remember so much about this book, like that scene is forever etched into my little closet romance brain.
Melissa Grace:It. Well, what other aspects of the craft of writing were done really well in this book?
Micah Leydorf:Okay. So I, okay. This book has a lot of words. It has a lot more words than like books these days. We know as again, authors, the publishers just don't put up with the amount of words that used to be acceptable in a novel. But I am a self professed Anglophile. I love all things English. So I love The way that the landscape plays into and the setting plays into the story. It's almost like another character or maybe even more than a character this gothic, you know, romantic feel of the moors and the wind and these, these manor houses and all of that. And so I feel like she does an exceptional job. I'm gonna go ahead and read it. And I think that's a really good job of pulling all that into the story because it's you know, we just talked about Wrinkle In Time last month. And it's very stark. Like you, we made the comment, Melissa, there's not a lot of setting. And so I love how she does that. Like this story happens in this place and this place affects the story and it couldn't happen just somewhere else. You can't just pick up this story and stick it in america in, Oklahoma, where we're based
Kat Lewis:represent the emotional landscape of the characters, right. And I think it's interesting that, like, we in the story in this kind of wooded cottage full of greenery and life and newness. Whereas, like, the moors were like this cold, desolate place. We end the story in this placeful loop that's surrounded by life and continual seasons. You're so right. You cannot put Jane Eyre in modern suburbia and it have the same effect. Like, you just can't.
Laurel Thomas:And that would be my favorite, is that it is universal. Even though it's so specific, you know, the genre and the time element, you know, it was flawless, of course, but the, the characters, the themes, the conflict were all universals. I think that whole switch over into that other part of the setting, into that other area that was a long way from Thornfield was actually very effective because Jane needed to figure things out and she saw herself reflected and she saw a loveless relationship and what that looked like with St. John. Anyway, what I thought of as a teenager was an interruption in the story, I think was a really valid and powerful second setting that Jane had to go to, to get out of that environment to be able to see the things that she needed to see.
Melissa Grace:Well, what I thought was really strong about the story was as writers, um, just the very simplest building block is your character's arc and the changes that they go through, through the story. But the way I saw this story is that she did not change. Bronte used the same the plot, Jane's circumstances where she, her circumstances changed from penniless to independent to wealthy; but her inner belief that she was worthy of love did not change. And it was like the plot was about testing Belief
Kat Lewis:that is an excellent example of a flat character arc that works,
Melissa Grace:right? Yeah
Kat Lewis:I would not have thought of that personally but looking at Jane's story. I'm like, yeah, she doesn't change. She does not
Melissa Grace:she is the same person When she reunites with Rochester as she was as a little child talking to Aunt Reed telling her off saying, you know, you don't love me. I could lie and say I did love you, but um, so what I thought of with the time with St. John was that that was the final test about, are you, am I worthy of love?
Laurel Thomas:That's good
Melissa Grace:because he says to her, you were formed for labor, not for love. And that's what she's heard over and over. That's right. And that was the final temptation to say, Oh, you're right.
Kat Lewis:I also think that like this author's opening and closing image is so, so, so strong. And honestly, I keep envisioning the 2006 many BBC miniseries in my head. I'm like, no, you're in the book, you're in the book. But like what you were saying in the world about like the lack of family and the lack of warm, loving family to the abundance of family, right. And, just this opening image of Jane cowering against a window because she's afraid of the family that she's surrounded with. To being surrounded by like this warm, loving, you know, I think those two, those two images are very, very powerful. And if you only read chapter one and the end chapter, you're gonna be intrigued and say, How did we get here?
Laurel Thomas:That is so good. The thing that I noticed too, that I thought spoke to any culture, the weakest part of Jane, was not being valued and not being loved, and yet, on the inside of her, she developed this core. I am worthy to be loved
Melissa Grace:it was there from the beginning
Laurel Thomas:and she stands through incredible trials with that and yet I think that I've heard in my culture that you know if you've been in an abusive situation or you've maybe been in a situation of neglecting or maybe repeatedly you've been told over and over that you were worthless and that you were not loved
Melissa Grace:and she was
Laurel Thomas:and she was and yet that belief that she was worthy to be loved became a core. It became like more deeper almost like a gut thing It was almost like I think of that verse that says that he causes our weakness to become our greatest weakness to become our greatest strength. That, you know, that place where she was so hammered actually becomes a defining element about Jane that we love. The quiet Jane who will not be moved from the reality that she is worthy to be loved.
Kat Lewis:That's so good. Yes.
Melissa Grace:Well, let's wrap up with our character roulette. We'll put everybody in a pot. We've got Aunt Reed, we've got Rochester and Jane, we have characters from her early childhood though. Also, we have Helen at the school, we have the two cousins. I don't remember their names.
Micah Leydorf:We have her ward. Was it Adele? Adele. Yes.
Kat Lewis:Mrs. Fairfax. Yes. We've got the two. Blanche.
Micah Leydorf:Blanche.
Kat Lewis:Blanche. Um.
Micah Leydorf:Oh, the crazy woman.
Kat Lewis:The crazy woman. Oh yeah, that's right. Yes. Bertha. Bertha. Yes. characters.
Melissa Grace:Okay. All right. Micah.
Micah Leydorf:Okay. Who am I drawing out? It is. Oh, it's Sinjin. Oh, okay. I think I'm pronouncing it. So again, this is the handsome, religious, pious, missionary wannabe, husband wannabe, who's kind enough to take her in, but doesn't really Love her.
Kat Lewis:He's very, he's a very harsh character. He's very stark. His worldviews is very black and white.
Micah Leydorf:And I love that Melissa's pulled out that he apparently is the personification of, legalism. So, okay, let's look at, and we've talked, we've talked a lot about him already.
Laurel Thomas:I think the thing that she, that is really artfully crafted about him is that Jane sees his heart. beyond the legalism because when Mr. Rochester says, well, is he an unfeeling monster? She's on the contrary, but he keeps his passions so tightly and that they never, they're never allowed out. She has a really, she, she has a really well rounded perception of him so that he doesn't come across as just a flat
Micah Leydorf:You know, what I like is the fact that I like what you just said there, Laurel, but also, she shared her inheritance. Like, okay, I'm not going to marry you because you don't love me and I'm not going to even go serve over there with you or, you know, Maybe it's a brother and sister kind of that was the possibility. She suggested that. She's like, okay, I might do that, but I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna marry you, but I am gonna give you a quarter of my inheritance. Like, again, I'm going to accept you as my daughter. My family and my cousin, and I'm not going to say you're like, you say this horrible monster. And so I do love that. I feel like there's almost a, I don't know. I'm kind of tend towards the analogy and the metaphor kind of the 1st vision of things. That's just how my mind works. But I think about like, you know, um. When you talk about legals and grace, my mind automatically goes to like the church, like the American church and like, okay, this denomination swings towards the grace and this one swings towards the legalism and all that stuff. It's like, you know what? We don't have to like vilify the other, the other. We can just acknowledge like, okay, you know, maybe that's, these are your strengths. These are your weaknesses, but let's all try to, um, does
Melissa Grace:she does that. I don't feel like I am not as generous towards St. John as readers are not as generous as, um, as Jane was. But, um, yeah, I, I love what you're saying though. It's that pragmatism that never waivers in her. She's, she can see people clearly good and bad.
Kat Lewis:Jane as a character. I think that she amplifies the spaces because she, there's something to be said about, and this is so beautifully portrayed in this mini series that we're, that we're talking about, um, the power of like silence and revealing, not only revealing the characters of the people around you, but giving those characters an opportunity to blossom. I mean, Rochester even kind of says that he's like, You just sit there and you stare and you pull the secrets of my soul out of me, right? And I feel like specifically with Sinjin, and we even kind of see it in, in Sinjin's interactions with Jane. Like he goes from this very cold, haughty person to steadily warming up, right. And making jokes with her and making observations about her. Right. Um, you know, that really kind of show you that he's like, okay, I don't have to necessarily be this highly pious, uh, untouchable priest person with Jane. She won't let me, right. She's going to call me out, but it's, it's going to be this very kind of gentle wooing into self. And I think that maybe like one of St. John's jobs in the, in this novel is like highlighting that what she is, what she allows herself to do for St. John is what is the thing that has been cultivated inside of her that allows her to do that for herself.
Laurel Thomas:So it's because she, because she honors being loved herself, she will release that for others. Is that what you're saying? She'll release that mindset or that heartset for other people.
Kat Lewis:Just with her presence. Right. Like Jane's not a super. We see her as super talkative because we're in her head. She's really not a talkative person. But just through a presence that's nonjudgmental, through a presence that seeks to understand, right? She does release a lot of freedom that's cool.
Micah Leydorf:Well, I think that if you haven't read Jane Eyre, that you're definitely going to want to.
Kat Lewis:It's a must. Yes. You must.
Melissa Grace:Or at least see the musical.
Kat Lewis:Spare us.
Melissa Grace:Well, thank you for listening and spending this time with us. Um, yes, I agree with Micah. Go read Jane Eyre if you haven't already. We'll see Talk to you again soon. Bye! Bye guys!
Laurel Thomas:Bye bye!
