The Jane Eyre Novel
The Jane Eyre novel is about a young woman who has a strict background that begins with being raised by a harsh aunt. The young lady Jane gets an opportunity to go away to school, and the news excites her as she will be able to get away from her aunt; she then soon realizes that school is not as great as she expected. After a series of troubled scenarios in school involving her principal and friends, Jane finally decides to be a teacher and she ends up falling in love with a man known as Mr. Rochester (Bronte 43).
Mr. Rochester as the Villain
Mr. Rochester in the Jane Eyre novel turns out to be the villain of the story. It is revealed that Mr. Rochester was once married, and is holding his lunatic wife captive in his house during his wedding with Jane (Bronte 96). This story is similar to that of chapter three of Foster's How to Read Literature like a Professor in the sense that the villain of the tale masks his true nature. Foster explains that all human beings can be cruel in the same way that villains can be compassionate (Foster 9).
Symbols in Jane Eyre
Foster asks the question of why has it become so common for writers to use phrases like "it was a dark and stormy night." According to chapter nine of Foster's book (Foster 15), the use of symbols like fire or rain encourages of pushes characters to do things that they could not have willingly done by themselves without enforcement. In Charlotte's book, Jane Eyre she uses fire as a symbol for a new beginning. Jane has attempted severally to get away from Mr. Rochester, and for some reason she always found herself running back to him. In the last scene, fire is used to help Jane break ties with Mr. Rochester who burns together with his first wife.
Works Cited
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre: an autobiography. Vol. 1. Smith, Elder and Company, 1850.
Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature like a Professor. HarperCollins, 2013. http://www.greeleyschools.org/cms/lib2/CO01001723/Centricity/Domain/2228/howtoreadliteraturelikeaprofessor_ft.pdf
