{"id":5884,"date":"2021-02-26T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T17:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/?p=5884"},"modified":"2021-02-26T12:00:10","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T17:00:10","slug":"a-fresh-perspective-on-a-classic-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/?p=5884","title":{"rendered":"A Fresh Perspective on a Classic Romance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Kristi Rolf<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been one to re-read books. The fact that I will never be able to read every great book that exists pains me, so I usually avoid spending time returning to familiar books. However, I recently found myself hankering to revisit \u201cJane Eyre,\u201d a classic that I had dubbed my favorite book after reading it in tenth grade. Four years later, I still remembered how the story captivated me, so I decided to read the novel once again during winter break.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was enthralled once again by Charlotte Bront\u00eb\u2019s iron-willed heroine, the twists of fate that haunted Jane\u2019s life and the story\u2019s eerie atmosphere. While I still love Bront\u00eb\u2019s writing and the stormy aesthetic of this story, I was aghast at many aspects of Jane and Rochester\u2019s relationship. As a sixteen-year-old, I found the courtship between a young governess and her master to be deeply romantic and exciting. At twenty I recognized dangerous red flags. The vast difference in maturity between the two makes their relationship unequal at its very core. Jane Eyre is a teenager who has spent her years in exactly three places: her Aunt\u2019s home, a boarding school and Thornfield Hall. Edward Rochester, on the other hand, is a middle-aged man who has spent years traveling throughout Europe and the West Indies. Jane Eyre is a notoriously independent and capable heroine, but a mature character cannot make up for limited experience in the real world. The different levels of experience between the two mean that Rochester\u2019s pursuit of Jane is predatory and inappropriate.<\/span><\/p>\n

The unhealthy imbalance between the two lovers completely escaped my perception when I was a sophomore in high school, but as a sophomore in college, I was quick to recognize the danger. My experiences during the intervening years taught me to recognize patterns that my younger self would not have noticed. Similarly, Jane herself goes through a period of rapid growth in the middle of her story. During a year spent away from Mr. Rochester, Jane must truly fend for herself and within a few months, she weathers enough significant personal events to rival the formative adventures of Rochester\u2019s younger decades. When the pair are finally reunited, they meet on more equal ground. Jane\u2019s character has been fortified by the experience she gained during their separation and Rochester\u2019s ego has been deflated by his hardships.<\/span><\/p>\n

Returning to a favorite book proved that a fresh perspective can completely change my perception of a story. If I ever reach the bottom of my stack of books to read, I will gladly return to other favorite stories to look at them with new eyes. I can\u2019t wait to see what I uncover.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Kristi Rolf I\u2019ve never been one to re-read books. The fact that I will never be able to read every great book that exists pains me, so I usually avoid spending time returning to familiar books. However, I recently found myself hankering to revisit \u201cJane Eyre,\u201d a classic that I had dubbed my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-5884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-summer2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}