Chapters 1-3

 HEYYY! This is your leader for the day, Janhavi. I just read the first 3 chapters of Jane Eyre and now I'm going to try to analyze them with you all. Kinda confusing - kinda shocking so let’s jump right in! Hopefully I’m doing this whole thing righttt!

Also side note I have no idea how to type the fancy “e” in Bronte so bear with me it's going to be Bronte without the fancy “e” this whole time. :)

Also another side note..I really found that the footnotes helped me gain new insight on what Bronte was saying so if you aren’t using those already they might help you too! 

This is a big thing I didn’t realize about the book until later but it's possible you might have picked up on it- either way I think it's important we establish this since it will help us understand why Bronte does what she does. So in chapter 3 on the top of page 25 it says “But I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did: while rendering my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities”. Okay now read the footnote it says “the elder Jane…”. Do you get what elder Jane means? What does this mean about the point of view? If you didn’t realize this about the point of view earlier how does this change the way you were viewing things happening in the book? This was a big AHA moment for me. Why do you think Bronte chose to write her book in this style? 

Now considering the point of view we explored in the last paragraph think about this: In Chapter 2 from page 20-21 we see the main character being really afraid of this moving light- this seems like a random unnecessary detail at first…but this is Lit and we know there are never just random details in a book-they definitely are serving some sort of purpose. According to the footnote this moving light appeared in one of Bronte’s other books as a motif. Do you think we will continue to see more about this moving light in the future chapters? What do you think this portion indicates about the point of view? What was the author trying to show by describing this moving light with such detail?

In Chapter 2 on page 18 we see Jane questioning why she's always being put down compared to the Reeds. She doesn’t really understand why she is always the one who ends up being punished. What’s your take on this? According to the societal views of the time that the book was written in, what makes the Reed girls (Georgina and Eliza) better than Jane? Building on that previous question I can't help but see a resemblance between Jane’s story and Cinderella’s story. However, what is the striking difference between the two? What is setting her apart from the idyllic princess’s story? Maybe this difference will help us understand why people in Jane’s society don’t like her. 

While describing John Reed, Jane describes “he twisted…at the sheep” (18). What do you notice about Jane's description here? Why is this style significant? Why do you think the author chose to use this particular structure and syntax?

Another thing I noticed throughout this reading was that Bronte makes sure to include the specific titles of the books Jane is reading. In chapter 1 on page 10 Jane is reading Bewick’s “History of the British Birds” and later on page 25 in chapter 3 we see her reading the book “Gulliver's Travels”. Do you think these book titles are meant to symbolize something? Also, what is Jane learning about by reading these books- is it noteworthy? 

On page 27 we see the author include this poem and I don’t really understand its importance tho. What do you think? Right away I'm seeing the repetition of “the poor orphan child” what is that trying to convey to us as readers?

Also, Jane mentions that she “scarcely knew what school was” (30) but I’m not really sure…was not going to school typical for women of her time? Also did a lot of women know how to read? Or does Jane have this unique ability? 

And, despite not having gone to school that much, how does Jane have such extensive knowledge/interest about books? 

Anddd in the first scene we see Jane violently hurt by John Reed for reading his family’s books…who do they actually belong to? Are they Reed girls allowed to read these books?

Also during this time was it normal for books to have a female protagonist like Jane? How is the title of this book related to this?

Okay so to finish off, here’s another exciting thing…not directly related to the text but I think this may be important to the overall message of the book. At first glance to me the front cover of this book looks like a woman braiding/playing with her long hair. But when I looked at the bottom of the back cover of this book it says the artwork is called Only a lock of hair. Wait what? It looks like she has more than just a lock of hair. So when I searched up more info about this artwork this is what I found: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/only-a-lock-of-hair-205593. Why do you think this particular artwork was chosen for the book Jane Eyre?! Could this be foreshadowing something? Or is this symbolic?