Jane Eyre: Why We Keep Reading It (Feat. Princess Weekes) | It’s Lit
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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte was there for the weird girls, the quiet ones who watched and listened, the ones who pined away for someone to accept them in all of their weird, dark glory.
But in the nearly 175 years since its publication, the collective definition of what it means to be “a woman on the outside of society” has changed and expanded dramatically-and yet here we are, still dissecting Charlotte Bronte’s words and gravitating towards Jane as a
protagonist.
For those of you who have never read Jane Eyre or enjoyed one of the 8000 films, television, stage, or radio adaptations not to mention countless literary retelling here we go.
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.
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My highschool teacher once pointed out that, at least to Victorians, Rochester was meant to be seen as a good guy because he kept Bertha in his house rather than just tossing her into a bedlam house which would have been much, much worse than the attic in that era.
Yeah that was my understanding too from covering both books at Uni
Yeah and I think people often forget that..it really isnt that I do not criticize Rochester, I totally see his faults, but for his time he was being very kind.
People too easily criticise past actions and norms and hold them to today’s standards. It shows a lack of insight and understanding of humanity’s culture and customs as they evolve. For the example of Jane Eyre, mental hospitals were any but healthy for their patients. But at the time ‘polite society’ told people to ship away embarrassing members of your family. For him to keep Bertha in the house and not lock her away was unnatural.
And one more note;
Bertha freeing herself by burning down the house and leaping to her death is not a ‘you go girl’ moment but a tragic outcome for a mentally ill woman whom needed help and care.
it's literally in the book. also there was no divorce at that time. but petty doubling down on infantilising white women is more important than research when we don't want to process our own internalised adultification.
Mr. Rochester with his whining about the food and the temperature and the bugs is literally every British man ever 😂😭
Yet constantly finds himself in the very places he whines about. How odd!
@@malirabbit6228 lmaoooooooo accurate
Or any spoiled men/males/boys 🤣 i speak from having to deal with my own dad for these issues 🙄 super annoying and amusing
@@msk-qp6fn amen.
Isn't it Byronic?
Don'tcha think?
*It's RED FLAA-EE-AAAAGS!!!*
On your wedding day!
Highly underrated comment 😂
We need a full version of this. Brilliant!
🎵 Mrs. Fairfax's advice that you partially take. But who would've thought -- he's married. 🎵
Bloody brilliant! 😂😂😂
Considering what mental institutions were like at the time, I'd say being kept in an attic with a caretaker, was far preferable. And for its time, it was that rare book the spoke of a woman's longing for independence. We also don't choose who we fall in love with - with just do - and at least, Rochester respected Jane's intellect. It's a book that was before its time, at the time. I love the book, simply because it's so well written. If you want to talk about a messed-up romance, read 'Wuthering Heights' by Charlotte's sister, Emily, which I love even more.
Also the love between Jane and Rochester was finally possible when they started to be equal
I still think that Wuthering heights is not a romance novel is a book about abuse and obsession
@@MariaRodriguez-dx6sm That, too.
@@operacz_9327 Heck yeah! I think that if he'd been single when they first tried to get married the relationship would have deteriorated crazy fast
Yes! I said the same about the asylums, back then. The attic was much preferred and if Bertha was dangerous, she needed some sort of wrangling.
I feel like I have to add one thing to your critique. I can't condemn him for what he did by putting his wife in the attic. Hiding her from others yes, but putting her up there for her safety, I can't. I work in mental health, I have a degree in psychology, and I've taken the history of psychology. I know what mental institutes were like at that time.
People who were put in asylums were put away for life for things like pms, or being gay, or simply not wanting to be married. They put people on display for entertainment for visitors to raise money. It was rare for a person to have meat more than a couple times a month. And they didn't exactly have meat alternatives at that time. Individuals were more likely to die of tuberculosis in institutes than anything else. Another common reason for a woman to die while an institute was well then labor, years after entering the institute. You can do the math on how that might have happened.
If there's any part of what he did that was even remotely kind, it was putting her in the Attic where she was probably well fed and attended to as best as they could. She had a better life than she could have ever hoped for if he had done differently. Condemn him for everything else including going after a woman when he knew he was married. but not for putting her in the attic. At any other time in history after you would be right, but at this point in history, it was the kindest thing he could do. Which says a whole hell of a lot about that time.
THIS
I'm *so* glad you said this, when people criticize Rochester I feel like it's because they don't know history. Mental hospitals of that era were a horror show and divorce was practically impossible, so... *what were his other options?*
P.S. He still should have been upfront with Jane.
@Amierane could you please elaborate?
@Amierane I have read it, what solution, drowning her ? Divorce wasn't a option back then.
I don't even think it's fair to condemn him for any of his other actions in the novel. He certainly didn't "go after" Jane. He legitimately fell in love with her, and she him. Divorce wasn't an option, and he knew that if he told her the truth, she would leave him (as she did). He was an incredibly depressed, miserable man who was nearly as much a victim of society as she was.
I remember reading a smaller version of Jane Eyre, meant for people learning English as foreign language, and thinking it was a horror story that got lost at adaptation. Imagine my shock when I got a copy of the full text and found out people consider it a love story.
People also say Wuthering Heights is a love story. Honestly, it seems like the Bronte sisters were each trying to be more and more like, "No, these are abuse narratives, stupid people!' So Anne just straight up gave us domestic violence in Tenet of Wildfell Hall
It’s gothic fiction.
@@kenshinhimura2322 i see a lot of gothic influences in the novel, but the “love” part of the story and the “happy ending” take over and push the book away from the traditional horror in gothic literature. For me, Jane Eyre is a Bildungsroman that takes advantage of gothic tropes (the haunted mysterious house) and subverts it (real woman, no supernatural elements) to further the plot and explore how women lived in Jane’s times.
@@annieboookhall Still haven’t read anything by Anne, but a lot of people have recommended me that book. Maybe I’ll give it a try.
@@luizappicanco Gothic and romance are not mutually exclusive though.
“I ask you to pass through life at my side-to be my second self, and best earthly companion.” Reader: we love Rochester for his quotes. Not merely because we are sad, weird brunettes.
Or blondes. Lol.
I'm sorry, I still love Rochester because he's like a real, flawed human being who's made terrible mistakes, been an ass and done the wrong thing many times, he's not a cartoon hero. I think that's why he endures, unlike Heathcliff who's just angry & vengeful all of the time. Rochester has depth, he's not just gloomy/angry all of the time. He's funny and goofy too. There's more to the character than the mistakes he's made, like hiding his wife (even if the attic was kinder than mental institutions at the time) and making people think he was still single! He's not perfect and he does get punished for his actions. His character grows and changes. I think that's why he endures!
Saying Rochester is problematic character as a criticism is kinda funny? Because he was written as problematic, people are problematic and do horrible stuff.
@@operacz_9327 truth.
If you read the novel closely, a lot of the time Rochester is telling the truth but in terms Jane doesn't understand. He will attempt to tell her the truth, Jane will give him a conditional response, and then he turns sardonic, covering up his moment of revelation with a lie. Pay attention to the second conversation, the gypsy bit where she tells him about Mason, and the post-Mason attack walk in the garden.
@@barbarabrown7974 oh, yes! You're so right! But in Jane's defence, some of his metaphors were pretty tough.
@@etherealtb6021 And Jane states that she doesn't understand riddles or enigmas in the gypsy scene. The whole charade game was designed for Jane as the audience.
Victorian novels can be both fascinating and rather SMH-inducing, can't they?
I read this as S&M and i was very confused
@@jackcullen5085 me too 😭
Princess is serving LOOKS this week!!
She always looks good, but she is styling on us for this one, what a delight.
Honestly I love that Bertha burns thornfield hall. It is the only way to put Rochester in his place (while also making him disabled! Isn’t that karmatic justice?)
Karmic 🙂 (although karma in itself implies poetic justice)
I think that's kinda the point. He doesn't get a pass for his behaviour. He is punished.
It's rather like the Hayes code. Characters who do wrong have to be punished, although in Rochester's case, it is a pretty strong case of self-delusion/denial. I also consider that Rochester never progressed beyond the denial part of grief. "I made horrible marriage decision when I was young to someone I have nothing in common with. She's also mentally ill, and I cannot legally get out; therefore, in order to cope, I deny that I am really married." Now if Rochester were a better person, he would have made lemonade out of lemons and used his money and energy toward helping the mentally ill. But Rochester's coping mechanisms were denial and avoidance. Does that make him an awful person? Not necessarily. As someone who took care of a mentally and physically disabled relative, I will say that it is a daunting challenge, not to be taken lightly. Stronger people have been crushed under the challenge.
To be fair to Rochester, it was either attic, or a victorian mental asylum.
I love Jane Eyre and had a lot of thoughts after reading WSS. I appreciated the author’s premise that one’s life and circumstances can “make one crazy”. As a counselor, I really appreciated that it was called out in WSS that the situation was awful and tragic, and sometimes our situations do contribute to us being “crazy” (mentally ill).
While I can see the argument for WSS being about the characters of Jane Eyre, there are enough distinctions between the characters that I don’t think it’s fair to judge Rochester by the behavior of the Englishman in WSS. He is an ass and had many flaws, which deserve discussion and discourse , but he was a person in a system that truly left no options.
This video doesn’t touch on the writing trends of the time to be slightly horror, as there was a fascination with the macabre. It also leaves out his family pressure to marry bc he was the second son. I wish you’d mentioned the empathy Jane feels for Bertha after she realizes what has happened. She literally leaves it all bc she has no place there. It is such a moment of heroism to walk out on one’s life, possibly the only act of protest available to her.
I have come, now as an ol’ married lady, to love the “first wives” of Jane Eyre and Rebecca and to truly see them as the captivating tragic victims of patriarchal and colonial societies. I remember those characters, certainly they are more memorable than the male leads of those books. I think these are books that explore the ways women are put in positions to be oppositional and how wrong that is.
my my i love Princess but this comment is so much more nuanced than the whole video. I know it's only 17 minutes long but it seemed to be more about WSS than Jane Eyre and why her story speaks to many people today. To go trough the life without love o another and to reject it in the name of self love and self respect it's a real bravery. And that's why I love this book.
@@operacz_9327 Yes this is the reason why I loved the book! You put this point very well!
Years ago I listened to the semi-autobiographical "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books"
by NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan. The thoughtful folks in this comment thread would appreciate her perspective on this genre. It's stuck with me after all these years.
Ok, Jane Eyre is one of my favourite books, but I just can't with your tongue-in-cheek reading of those passages! Why are these serious passages suddenly hilarious?
because when you were never allowed to be sensitive, you must take revenge on those who seem to have it better. side with the machos and feel real superior.
3:42 I remember the version with Michael Fassbender, where I think they added in the line that Bertha would've been worse off in an asylum so he "spared her of that."
Yeah, but you could've provided better care for her, Rochester.
I think it was mentioned in book too
That's in the book. Chapter 17. He also describes how he wanted to provide a safe and comfortable environment for her. I mean, it was the 19th century.
@@liv97497 all of this. He still could've treated her better personally, but he did do the best for her care, at the time.
My main beef with Rochester is the basic one: He should have just been honest with everyone that he was married and that his wife was mentally ill. It's not so much that he kept her locked up with a caretaker in a time when antipsychotic meds and therapy didn't exist. It's the fact that he hid her and kept her secret. Probably would have made his life easier, and not just in terms of how he lied to Jane.
@@thatjillgirl 100% and that's why he must be punished to deserve our heroine, who is always honest about herself.
The book was written in a time where asylums were extremely awful for those suffering from mental illnesses, divorce did not exist as an option and there was no public knowledge of how to deal with mentally ill people and a lot of shame/taboo! So I think Rochester did not do too bad with his wife though he should have told Jane much much earlier about her and all his other flaws don’t make him too likable. But we should take the era it was written in (and about) into account when judging the actions of the characters in this book 🤷♀️
THANK YOU
Yes,thanks for sharing your thoughts
I imprinted on this novel when I was 13 and didn't see the problematic aspects. Now I see them vividly, but the novel still has a special place in my heart. Jane is amazing. She ALWAYS does what she believes to be right, regardless of the cost. She gives up the man she's in love with and faces destitution because of her moral code.
I can't help but notice that all the positive female characters in this novel are paragons of virtue (Helen Burns, Diana & Mary Rivers, Miss Temple), while all the positive men are deeply flawed: Mr. Rochester, St. John. I suspect that Jane's eventual home at Moor House, with three virtuous women and one flawed man, was a disguised version of her own household.
"He's Byronic..don't ya think"? You are utterly brilliant.
bertha kind of has a right to be upset after being locked in an attic alone and miserable watching her husband fall in love
Kind of has a right to be upset about being imprisoned in an attic for TEN years! ? ! Kinda ? Either she does or she does not. To be so unclear about a human beings foul treatment says a lot.
In reading the book,I find no reference to Bertha being "locked up for ten years "in fact the passage way to the attic didn't even have a door on it until some time after Jane arrived .Besides ,there has to be a little more than anger to SET YOUR HUSBANDS BED ON FIRE WITH HIM IN IT and ATTACK YOUR BROTHER WITH A KNIFE WHILE SCREAMING ABOUT DRAINING THEIR HEARTH sooooo yea ,take from that what you will
Um, she literally could have been in an asylum or Rochester could have murdered her crazy tush to get her off his hands. Comparatively she was living the life or Riley with her full time maidservant in the attic.
This reminds me of how the webseries version attempted to address the Bertha storyline in modern day. I can't say it was the best take, but it was an interesting watch. Having Rochester be the sympathetic male lead whose past (narrated by himself, so possibly unreliable) involved losing control of his life, from his wife's mental illness, to his family's company, to Bertha's family wanting to avoid scandal and Rochester converting the attic to a private, top-of-the-line mental ward for her and definitely contrasted just how much modern attitudes and treatment of such situations was definitely an interesting compromise between faithfulness of the text and modernisation.
If I was that kind of crazy in that time period, I would rather be locked in an attic with a dedicated attendant than go to one of their mental hospitals. Locked in an attic isn't a good vibe, but at least it's somewhat sanitary/supervised.
I always have viewed Bertha as more of a literary device than a full character - Helen Burns falls into that as well. It's not great to have a woman of color as a plot device than as a character, but I think that some books need devices/archetypes to fill some of the roles so the story works.
Bertha is not a woman of color. She is Creole- a white British woman born in the colonies.
I'm amazed at how well this book holds up. I love the first chapter, then it does drag just a tad, but as soon as Jane and Mr. Rochester start talking, the novel takes off. It's a phenomenal character study infused with romance and suspense.
A lot of critical readings take the tack that Jane and Bertha are two sides of the same coin. The feminine energy that is or is not acceptable to the society of the time. They have the same passion and are trapped in different ways.
I found WSS to be meh in terms of writing quality and characterisation, even allowing for age difference and interpretation. That's a pet peeve of mine with fanfiction, if the characters don't feel accurate to the original text. It didn't help that I read it straight after JE.
When I was in college and read jane eyre and Wide Sargasso sea, like ten years ago, we talked about all this. But there are more sides to the story. I guess all of us students then thought the book racist for how it treated the woman in the attic - whatever name you want to use. But, there are more readings of the book. Some scholars discuss if the woman in the attic is jane because the woman is all those things that jane was told she was in her childhood. A metaphor more than another character completely. (Rochester sort of looks at jane as a different exotic being too in his dialog to her) Then there are other readings of the book, more about how janes story is very similar to the life of the author. I think most that read the book might... want the books to have a better ending. That the madwoman would be respected and treated properly. That the white woman would not marry the Byronic man and live independently yet not be lonely. But, that's sort of the tragedy of it too. There were no such options... and I always took away that that tragedy was a big part of all the Bronte sister's books.
I also feel it is sort of... traditionalist to be so negative toward the romance parts. Because society, when the books were published, was sort of the same. It shamed women for wanting romance. It is sad that this thing is still going on. Still today, people are very invested in regulating what type of romance is allowed to be yearned for by women... (more so than by men of course....) -
In short, I like the video, it is a good repeat of some of all these takes on the book. I wish more of all the takes would be included though. There is a lot more to say.
wow, that was incredibly nuanced! made me realise that jane going back to rochester (not knowing that he was a viable husband - to her standards - now) is actually an act of emancipation, of trusting her experience over what her childhood traumata were telling her... breaking free from internalised gaslighting basically ❤
I literally just finished reading this book, so this is timely.
I disagree with this video so much honestly. living in a decent attic with an attendant is SO MUCH better than being sent to one of the era's mental 'hospitals'
it makes absolutely no sense when I see critics like this. obviously nowadays Bertha would receive much better mental health care but THE NOVEL ISN'T SET NOW
Hmm. Asylums were much worse than attics. Divorce was not available. Like it or not, Mr Rochester was trying to behave decently by the standards of the time. He almost died trying to save Bertha when she succeeded in burning the house down. Marital fraud is still perpetrated to this day and is now cause for annulment or divorce. Dislike Mr Rochester all you like but do so for the right reasons.
one only needs to look to Bedlam
this and it was pointed out in book
IA...I'm a little hmmmm also.
I very important point and one I hadn't considered before.
Not to mention that he also had the option of sending her to be looked after at another house he owned, with much less risk that his secret would be discovered, but he thought the damp air would be harmful to her health, so he kept her at Thornfield.
I remember being so surprised as a 12 year old reading the ending where she marries mr Rochester. Its been years since I read the book but I vaguely remember there being a kinder man who liked her and being baffled that she didnt like him back. Then again I always read Helen as the real love of Jane's life bc honestly no other relationship in the book was as compelling.
I do agree that Helen was absolutely the truest love of her life and the loss that definitely shaped her the most. From what I read into it, marriage to John seemed like a false liberty. She would physically be travelling with him to many places, but she would always have to be shackled to his side and his mission. She would be herself but instead an extension of her husband and a representative of him. Her relationship with Rochester was instead defined in him delighting in her wit and independence.
@@fridalighjemdallen7283 exactly!
You could say Jane made the right choice at the end. Rochester was now in a state where he was dependent upon somebody, and as his legal wife, Jane had the say in how his money was spent, what kind of life they'd live. She lucked out in her inheritance, but I can see why she'd want to go with a secure source of income, which rich men like Rochester were, in Victorian England. When the alternative was going to India with a man who likewise didn't respect her, or continuing to struggle on her own, she made the logical, if sad, choice.
Besides, I love Jane Eyre. One of the very few working class heroines to this day.
Read it for the first time in 6th grade while chain smoking cigarettes and feeling so hardcore and misunderstood 🤣😩
😂 the aesthetic tho
Maybe a fanfic where Jane and Bertha/Antoinette end up together?
Your literary legacy awaits you.
I was JUST thinking the same thing!
Just this year (2024), L.L. McKinney wrote “Escaping Mr. Rochester”, where Jane and Bertha are Black and they develop a sapphic relationship!
Rochester is a cad, but both he and Heathcliff, the brutal antihero of Wuthering Heights (by Emily Brontë, Charlotte's sister), defined masculine appeal in literature for many years. It's only in the last decades of the 20th century that these fierce, cruel, untamed males yielded their place to Mr. Darcy and the more civilized, normal, gentlemanly heroes of Jane Austen. The Brontës took the villain of Gothic novels, added a pinch of Byron and pinch of Milton's Satan, and turned him into a wildly romantic figure whose morals were less important than his sex appeal. When I first read Jane Eyre, all of forty years ago, I thought it was the most romantic love story. Through the years, I came to empathize with Bertha, who never gest a chance to tell her own story, to see Rochester as the liar and manipulator that he is (without losing his status as a great literary creation and I still love him and like him better than Darcy, but that's just me), and to admire, love and fear Jane even more. She is magnificent and ruthless in her pursuit of independence and what she considers her rightful place in the world, strong enough to bring down both Rochester and St. John, and somewhat scary in her triumphant possession of the maimed Rochester. The seduction of the novel, for me, lies in Charlotte Brontë's emotional and pyschological honesty: anger, grief, desire, ambition, a sense of injustice, contempt, resentment, rebellion, love, pride, and the determination to conquer and dominate her world are expressed powerfully, frankly, with a fierceness that shocked her contemporary criticis and made her a bestseller overnight. Jane Eyre is a flawed, eccentric, splendid, wonderful book, and, if books have gender, this book is a woman.
I love this woman's take on literature. It's accessible and she's got a fresh take. I always look forward to her videos.
This channel is the work of group of twisted intellectuals. I love all your content, particularly the literature classes since I am myself MA in English literature and a lover of all that is dark and Gothic. I must say few university lectures are as interesting and informative as your videos. Angela Carter's fairy tales would tie into this video perfectly. Keep up the good work :)
While I enjoyed this analysis, I think it totally deviates fron the reason of why we love the novel and Jane, just by been herself, is a great character. The only criticism I can make is that though Rochester contributed to Betha's downfall it is stated in Wide Sargasso Sea, that since her early teens she was not mentally stable and she slowly worsen. Also, yes, Rochester didn't help out, but did spare her the terrors of a mental institution of the time.
Sitting here in my Doc Martin's, loving this book and the righteous criticism of its flaws.
Hell yeah! Jane Eyre is lovely and I love seeing Princess host. ☺️
One of my fav gal pals! Thank you PBS!
Perfectly put. I stand by my 22 year old mentality that neither "suitor" were worth her energy. She should have nabbed Diana and Mary and run off into the woods.
So happy you covered two of my favorite books. Great video!
Didn't he pop Bertha in the attic because she was getting dangerous? I applaud him for not just chucking her in the asylum (even though I know that was partly to keep his own name from getting gossiped about)... those were baaaad places. Still are for the most part. He definitely should have told Jane though when they started falling in love.
If you read the novel closely, there were times he tried to tell her, but in terms she did not understand.
@@barbarabrown7974 I agree! 🙂
I saw this on my notifications and I came running. This is my fav novel
All respect and love to Lindsey Ellis, but PBS needs to drop the "featuring" and give Princess full credit as the host of this show.
Not legal to divorce an insane spouse in those days. It was quite legal to divorce an unfaithful spouse, as Bertha was described; therefore, it was quite in Rochester's incentive not to have her declared insane. If we look at how the mentally ill were treated at the time, Bertha receives better treatment than most. Mental illness was considered a stigma, and the mentally ill were hidden. It was fairly common, even 50 years ago, to institutionalize the mentally ill. Do we necessarily treat the mentally ill better these days? Is abandoning the mentally ill to the streets really helping them? As far as The Wide Sargasso Sea is concerned, should it be considered cannon or just fan fiction? There are aspects about the timeline and the characters that in out of sync with Jane Eyre.
This video made me laugh so much! Thank you for covering this, love me some Princess
It’s lit 🔥 is such a great series. I admire and adore your analysis of these famous literatures. And I love your humor to death. Thanks for taking the time to create It’s lit 🔥
I just watched bookslikewhoa's video essay on Jane Eyre's ending so seeing more Brontë content is fortuitous.
Thanks! Excellent analysis 🥰✌🏽🙏🏽
Thanks for sharing the video!
I love these videos so much !!
I had to read Jane Eyre in 9th grade, found it incredibly boring, though the red string conversation always stuck with me, as did when Jane threw her book at her aunts head. But most of all, I was fascinated by the idea of Bertha. Even my 9th grade mind could tell that she was underdeveloped and had the potential to be so much more. Maybe someday I'll read Wide Sargasso Sea, but for now I'll dream of a fanfic where Jane discovers Berthas story earlier on and breaks her out, they escape, and Jane gets Bertha the help she needs.
I think it was her awful cousin who threw the book at Jane's head. The string connecting them is a visceral sense memory.
This analysis is very interesting, but a little troubling to me for one reason : when the word "race" was used in the novel, I always understood as a synonym for "family". As in Bertha and Rochester both come from wealthy families and therefore could be a good match, financially and socially, for each other. So maybe there was a whole aspect to Bertha's character that I wasn't aware of, but I simply imagined that her otherness and her difference came from the fact that she didn't fit the norm, the mold of how women were supposed to behave in her time period.
Also, while Rochester locking her up is definitely inexcusable, I still have to point out that the understanding of mental illnesses in the 19th century was... Not very good. So she wouldn't have gotten much consideration, and it would have been expected of her husband to just... Keep her, but hide her. Divorce existed, but it's debatable that it would have worked, so, tragically, her dying is the only way to get Rochester and Jane Eyre married.
Infidelity was a valid reason for divorce in the mid-19th century -- insanity was not. Note that in Downton Abbey, Lady Edith was in a similar situation as Jane was -- and Downton Abbey was in the 1920s. Once Bertha was declared insane, Rochester could not divorce her
Actually, Rochester was being kind according to the time and what people did with mentally ill family members: they sent them to Bedlam. I assure you, Bertha's life would've been much shorter and much more miserable there.
It's unfortunate, but depending on what mental illness she would've had, there's nothing more Rochester could've done in Victorian England other than just make her comfortable with a competent attendant. He even has her live in Thornfield rather than his other property because the air wouldn't be good for her lungs in the other place, even if it would make his life MUCH easier to just hide her away in another property and make her into someone else's problem until she dies. If nothing else, he had a sense of duty towards keeping her alive and as healthy and comfortable as possible.
It's not love or affection, but he felt a sense of obligation.
Maybe if she had BPD or something similar, she might've been able to get meds NOW and live a semi normal life by keeping up with a strict med regiment and keeping up with a psychiatrist. Back then? No way, it's either the attic or the bedlam.
Even loving families eventually would've sent their ill relative to bedlam simply out of sheer self-preservation. As sad as it is to say, being someone's caregiver is emotionally and physically and mentally exhausting. Go to any caregiver forum and you'll note that most of the common themes are something like "I've been caregiving for X amount of time and I can't take this anymore, I'm nearing a severe burnout and there's no one who can help me, advice?"
Even if Rochester had a professional attending to her, it's not pleasant at all to live in the same roof as someone who causes problems all the time.
So, on that end, criticize Rochester all you want for lying through omission and the marital fraud. But the Bertha thing? I can honestly say that I would've just sent her to another property after the first year just so I wouldn't have to live with someone who is one psychotic episode away from attacking me.
I just finished writing a 20 something page paper on these two books and its really cool to see we have read all the same sources lol.
Love all of your videos. This is one of my favorites
I cheered when you started talking about "The Wide Sargasso Sea"
Fantastic, thank you.
Well having read about the real life story (but much more recent than the novel period) of a woman who's mother and brother left her for decades in a boarded room with scraps, rats and other bugs simply because she wanted to marry a man that they didn't like, beneath their station I think but a respectable person, Rochester with the flaws you've pointed out still does not sound that bad for the time tbh. I imagine Bronte must have heard of a situation like that to include it since I imagine it was common for ppl to be "crazy" since just being a little different was a no no.
Great job!
Hey, I absolutely adore your videos, but if it's possible, could y'all match the subtitles a bit more with the text being said, it is a bit hard to understand
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH
Glad to see such strong representation for the 2006 BBC miniseries, my fave and the one that got me to read the book 💙
I really appreciate you giving justice to Bertha in this episode. When I read “Jane Eyre,” I was rooting for Jane the whole time because I liked how she became her own woman after going through so many obstacles. But after watching this, I definitely wish that I paid more attention to Bertha because she sounds more interesting than I originally thought. Hmmm...just when I thought that “Fifty Shades of Grey” was the only fanfic in literature that managed to get past the publishing gate, ha ha! Thanks again for making this.
There's not really much of Bertha to pay attention to in the original text. She's a phantom who was subsequently given a revisionist take by Rhys.
I spent the entire book loving Jane and being deeply disappointed in her romantic choices.
Jane Eyre: This Ain't It, Chief.
Love this!!
Jane Eyre is an emotional horror. The thrilling and horrific elements are not created through supernatural or unexplainable events, but through the manipulation of a colonialist and frankly mentally unstable mind (please don't tell me that mr Rochest is totally sane). From my point of view this is very compelling, and I like that he eventually becomes a sort of freak.
Omg I used that anthology you quoted from for my book report in high school! 😄
I am reading Wide Sargasso Sea right now. Read Jane a few months ago
This video about Jane Eyre/Wide Sargasso Sea reminded me of The Stranger/The Meursault Investigation and I'd love to see your take on that one!
2:10 Nice reference to A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Love love LOVE Princess Weekes!
Did you use Rebecca Hall to represent Bertha in Wide Sargasso Sea? I love that.
To be fair to Rochester, I don't blame him for the keeping Bertha locked in the attic. In the time the book was set, he didn't really have any more humane options. She suffered from some kind of mental illness that needed medication and therapy that didn't exist at the time, and her illness caused her to act dangerously toward herself and others (see the many times she tried to burn the house down, the time she tried to stab her brother, the time she threw herself off the top of the burning house, etc.). The options were pretty much send her to an asylum, which would arguably have been more cruel, or keep her confined in the house with a minder, as Rochester did.
Now where Rochester royally screwed up was in keeping Bertha a secret. She didn't need to be hidden from the world in shame. He could have been open about the fact that he had a mentally unwell wife who had to be kept at home for her own and others' safety. But he didn't. He hid her, ashamed of and disgusted by her, and deceived almost everyone he knew about her, including the woman he loved and wanted to marry.
Bertha deserved better than Rochester gave her, for sure. I don't think he fully did his best by her, the way he told himself and Jane he had. But I can definitely see where someone of that time would not know what else to do but keep her locked in a room.
I really didn't like to read as a teenager until I hit this book. I looooved reading about Jane growing up and rooting for her to be happy. I spend every moment outside of school devouring it. I also distinctly remember wanting her to end up with none of the dumb af men around her 😂.
I have literally just started reading Jane Eyre so I don't know if this is perfect timing or if I should finish it before I watch this video.
I recently read The Wife Upstairs a modern retelling of Jane Eyre by Rachel Hawkins. It slayed!
I loved it!
I love PW's punchlines so much!
Because it is wonderful.
What do you think about and do Sanditon?
Never cared to read these classics but this series makes me actually interested in them
Fun fact, my step-dad and her father are from the same village in northern Ireland.
Rathfriland isn’t a village. It’s a market town. Close relatives of her family still live there, actually. My father grew up down the road from them, and the children of the family at the time were friends with my aunts. They’re good folks.
what a happy coincidence
While preparing my thesis I had a burn out where I stopped and listened to the audiobook, watched the movie and then the miniseries all in one day
If you're going to have a burn out, this is a way to do it. I applaud your choice of reset.
Perfection.
I choked with laughter at “haha suck it”
I hate Rochester but I also hate the whole joke about the underseasoned food joke. Nasal seasonings, like horseradish, onion, and garlic are more common in Northern/Southern Latitudes, while heat spices are more common closer to the equator, where you would need to sweat all the time. The food isn't underseasoned, it's seasoned differently.
To Eyre is human to forgive is....Divine? (Happy pride month.)
I really don't agree with the interpretation of Rochester. He isn't a bad man, he took care of Bertha the best way he knew, the mental institutions at that time were horrible. Rochester isn't perfect, but he does love Jane, for her intellect. And interpreting Rochester by the actions on a book written 100 years later by a different person is not fair to the character and story written by Charlotte Bronte.
The problem is that part of this discussion is about The Wide Sargasso Sea -- not Jane Eyre. Should we consider WSS to be cannon? Or should we consider it to be fan fic? There are several things that don't mesh about the timeline and the characters. Yes, Rochester is a bit of a jerk, but he also has some good qualities, which is what makes him human. Also often he tries to tell Jane the truth, but she doesn't get it, and then he backs off. Pay attention to some of their odd, early conversations for clues.
WSS is not canon, it’s fanfiction that second-wave feminists fell in love with without taking into account that Bertha is in “Jane Eyre” as a physically abusive pyromaniac. And sending her to an asylum at the time would have been to sentence Bertha to a slow, horrible death like Helen experienced.
who's the person in the video at 13:40?
@7:45 Pause after the Alexa prompt and cancel before continuing. I had my Sonos turned all the way up earlier and suddenly ‘The World’s Smallest Violin’ by The Koreatown Oddity started bumpin’ so loud Alexa would not respond to my ‘Alexa cancel’ shouts.
Hilarity for me but maybe not for others.
I read it for the first time in high school, you know, 25 years ago. One of the English classes had it on their syllabus. Not mine though! I read it for fun. I'm just as glad. Any book I read for high school English I hated. I love reading, but required reading sucks the fun out of any book for me. I struggled a bit with the sentence structure and language (paragraph long sentences?? aaaah) it might have been a bit dense for a 16 year old but ultimately I loved it.
Your outfit is perfect.
I have difficulty with people critiquing Jane Eyre not only because it’s one of my favorite books currently but because it was immensely important for me when I first read it. I was about thirteen and I saw myself so much in Jane in a way that I had never really seen myself in a main character before. Her quiet sadness and desire to feel at liberty within herself struck a chord with me. I never read it for the romance btw, I read it for Jane. It also set me off on a path of reading more “literary” books. I’ve gotten better at accepting criticism of this book now that I’m older (why else would I have leaped on this video as soon as I saw it?) but I still struggle with my previous admiration for everything about it and my current understanding of the piece.
Edit: Your impression of Rochester was excellent lol!
Did this video set off anyone else’s Alexa unit? It turns out that there’s a song called “The World’s Smallest Violin”!
Please do the tenant of wildfell hall 🙏
Lisa Simpson's betrothed Hugh Parkfield is written like a Bronte character
Why would you say something so controversial yet brave
This was really eye opening. Thank you
We STAN Princess! More Princess please!! Love her content
Great episode! Only downside is that the subtitles don't match what Princess is saying, so hard of hearing or deaf viewers are left guessing what her brilliant asides are.
I really enjoy these videos and Princess' presentation. Thank you for your work, and I'll be looking forward to the next one.
Can we get "crazy, philandering, lying bag of hammers" on a coffee mug? I would pay good money for that, PBS.
FYI if it's a name St John is pronounced Singe-en. I don't know why.
I'm pretty sure it's the local accent of the characters saying it.
@@rachaelknudsen8801 No really it's pronounced Singe -en. Go and look at the Rowan Atkinson scene in Four Weddings and a funeral if you don't believe me.
Okay. I had no idea.