{"id":265,"date":"2011-08-11T07:59:41","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T14:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rjjblog.maryjanesfarm.org\/wordpress\/?p=265"},"modified":"2011-08-11T07:59:41","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T14:59:41","slug":"a-plain-jane-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/265","title":{"rendered":"A Plain Jane"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This week, my bookish brain is fixated on Jane Eyre (pronounced AIR). You know I can never resist another Jane, let alone a good story about raising a Jane. Well, a new film version of the book<\/a> was released a few months ago, and it sure does\u00a0look intriguing. But Jane Eyre isn\u2019t all romance and intrigue, though there\u2019s plenty of that.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"In the inimitable Charlotte Bront\u00eb novel, readers witness Jane going from poor and mistreated orphan to long-suffering student at a harsh boarding school. Neither trial diminishes her resolve. And she continues to be patient and honest throughout adulthood. She takes a post as governess for a good, but troubled, man, Edward Rochester, and finds herself torn between her desire for happiness and her high moral standards. Yet through everything, this girl who started out very much broken by life (a Cinderella of sorts) remains self-reliant and positive about the state of human nature, and here\u2019s a twist. Jane isn\u2019t the stunningly beautiful heroine to whom we\u2019re all accustomed. In fact, she comes right out and says it: she\u2019s plain. A plain Jane. But this doesn\u2019t make her desperate or less inclined to value herself. Jane is proof that no matter how we\u2019ve been hurt, we must remember our own worth and believe that we deserve to be happy. To me, that\u2019s anything but plain. I can\u2019t help but wonder how Bront\u00eb would feel if she knew that her book had inspired 60-plus motion pictures, countless musical productions, radio and television versions, and literary adaptations. She published Jane Eyre<\/em> in 1847 under the gender-neutral pseudonym “Currer Bell,” and the book became an instant success. In a literary climate where writing was considered unladylike and female authors were deemed crude, Bront\u00eb had wanted neither undue criticism nor false flattery. She consented to come forward as Jane Eyre<\/em>\u2019s author in 1848, when false information about Bell began to circulate. If you haven\u2019t already, you can read Jane Eyre<\/em> online<\/a> at Project Gutenberg<\/a>. If you\u2019ve already read it, have you watched the equally classic screen version produced in 1944? If you love older, period movies, it\u2019s a classic not to be missed. If my count was correct, the adult Jane wore only two dresses the entire film. That would never do now. In the 1983 BBC version as well as the 1996 version, Jane, the governess, had added to her wardrobe. (I liked the BBC version because there\u2019s a \u201ckindly mum\u201d who is good to the adolescent Jane.)<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/div>\n

An avowed fan of anything Jane Eyre<\/em>, what else might I like? Forgive Me<\/em> by Amanda Eyre<\/strong> Ward is next on my list\u2014no relation to our Jane, but it looks like a good book. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And the minute any of you watch the newest version of Jane Eyre<\/em>, go ahead and spoil it for me. Is it as good as it looks in the trailer?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, my bookish brain is fixated on Jane Eyre (pronounced AIR). You know I can never resist another Jane, let alone a good story about raising a Jane. Well, a new film version of the book was released a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[109,157,371,767,777],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-glitterati","tag-books","tag-charlotte-bronte","tag-glitterati-literati","tag-review","tag-romance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}