Jane Eyre is a parentless child who is thrust upon her reluctant aunt and her cousins when she is very young. Tolerated only because her uncle asked his wife to take care of her upon his deathbed, Jane grows up miserable, emotionally starved, and lonely. When presented an opportunity to be sent away to boarding school, she seizes it. With the help of a solid education, Jane forgets the misery of her childhood and eventually makes a career of teaching. Something still seems amiss, though, and Jane takes a governess position in hopes of finding it. [Jane Eyre] is the story of her search for meaning in the midst of seemingly chronic solitude.

This is one of those books that people are constantly referring to and touting as a classic, so I thought I'd put off reading it for long enough. I was severely disappointed. For one thing, the book is sorely in need of an editor. The characters frequently speak of themselves in the third person, and Bronte seems to have no idea how to use quotation marks. She often writes things like "Did I have a good night's rest?" he asked when she really meant to write "Did you have a good night's rest?" he asked or just Did I have a good night's rest? to describe a character's question without quoting him directly. I don't know if it was just my edition, a mark of the era it was written in, or author error, but it was really distracting.

The main character, Jane, was unlikeable. She seemed to be so rational at first, but then makes a string of rash decisions that show her to be emotional at best and downright stupid at worst. She was sensible enough to see through a man's empty promises and deplorable character and spurns him, but falls in love with him and later changes her mind anyway. She refuses to be loved if love means to be owned and changed to suit the owner's whim, but is unable to resist for long. Her intelligence is mentioned several times by several characters in the story, yet she turns out to be utterly ruled by emotions. When Jane refuses to be in a relationship in which she would have been taken care of financially and been rendered unable to pursue her own career, I applauded her. But somehow she ends up with someone who needs and depends on her absolutely. I guess Bronte thinks it's okay for a man to be dependent on a woman, but not for a woman to be dependent on a man. This bothered me.

Mr. Rochester, too, is a scoundrel. He is supposed to be the love of Jane's life, but without giving too much away, he is exactly the sort of man one would expect Jane Eyre, soundly educated and purportedly sensible, to stay away from. Yet Jane falls head over heels in love with him, submitting to and serving him despite his dismissal of her in a disturbingly misogynistic way.

I can't even say anything good about the plot. It is simple, predictable, and too neatly resolved. Bronte's method of tying up all the loose ends involves too much sheer luck to be at all realistic, although sadly even these seemingly coincidental turns of plot can be foreseen long before they should be.

Amateurish plot, poor characterization, confusing and contradicting thematic expression-- I hated this book, and only finished it because I couldn't believe such an awful book could be hailed a classic. I'm glad I read it, if only to finally and decisively cross it off my TBR list and to know never to read it again. ( )