Reviews tagging Infidelity

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë

18 reviews

ggcd1981's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

Escrever uma review de clássicos é sempre difícil para mim pois não tenho nenhum insight inovador sobre a obra, assim me limito a escrever sobre minha experiência de leitura de Jane Eyre. O livro é guiado pela personagem Jane Eyre que narra a sua vida ao leitor. A personagem conta os eventos que a formaram e a tornaram, do meu ponto de vista, uma mulher forte, resiliente e independente que viveu sua vida de acordo com suas próprias escolhas e código moral. Jane, que é descrita como de aparência comum, é inteligente, honesta e simples, forçada a lidar com a opressão, a desigualdade e as dificuldades impostas as mulheres no século XIX. Embora ela se depare com uma série de indivíduos que ameaçam sua autonomia, Jane sempre consegue se afirmar e manter seus princípios de justiça, dignidade e moralidade. Ela dá valor a realização intelectual e emocional, assim como acredita na igualdade de gênero e social desafiando os preconceitos vitorianos contra as mulheres e os pobres. Por sua narrativa conhecemos diversos personagens que marcaram sua história:
SpoilerA Sra. Reed, a tia cruel de Jane, que a cria em Gateshead Hall até Jane ser mandada para a Escola Lowood aos dez anos. Mais tarde em sua vida, Jane tenta a reconciliação com sua tia, mas a idosa continua a se ressentir dela porque seu marido sempre amou Jane mais do que seus próprios filhos; Helen Burns se torna a primeira amiga íntima de Jane em Lowood. Ela suporta sua vida difícil na escola com uma dignidade passiva que Jane não conseguia entender. Helen morre de tuberculose nos braços da protagonista; Adèle Varens é a primeira e única pupila de Jane como tutora em Thornfield. Ela é uma criança francesa esperta, embora um tanto mimada. O Sr. Rochester a trouxe para Thornfield depois que sua mãe, Celine, a abandonou. Embora Celine tenha sido amante de Rochester, ele não acredita ser o pai de Adèle. Ao fim da narrativa descobrimos que a garota após crescer se torna uma boa companheira para a protagonista; Edward Rochester, empregador de Jane e mestre de Thornfield, é um homem rico e apaixonado com um segredo que fornece muito do suspense do romance. Sr. Rochester é não convencional, pronto para deixar de lado as boas maneiras, a propriedade e a consideração da classe social para interagir com Jane de forma franca e direta. Ele é imprudente e impetuoso e passou grande parte de sua vida adulta vagando pela Europa na tentativa de evitar as consequências de seus erros da juventude. Seus problemas são em parte o resultado de sua própria imprudência, mas ele é uma figura que desperta empatia porque sofreu por muito tempo como resultado de seu casamento precoce e impensado com Bertha. Sr. Rochester, apesar de casado, parece nutrir profundo e sincero amor por Jane; Bertha Mason, a esposa oculta de Rochester, é uma personagem POC, bela e rica que infelizmente se tornou insana, violenta e bestial. Ela vive trancada em uma sala secreta no terceiro andar de Thornfield e é guardada por Grace Poole, cujos ocasionais acessos de embriaguez às vezes permitem que a enferma Sra. Rochester escape. Bertha eventualmente queima Thornfield, se atirando do telhado para a morte nas chamas; St. John Rivers, junto com suas irmãs, Mary e Diana, St. John (pronuncia-se “Sinjin”) serve como benfeitor de Jane depois que ela foge de Thornfield, dando-lhe comida e abrigo quando ela está doente e desamparada. O personagem é ministro da paroquia de Morton e é caracterizado como frio, reservado e muitas vezes controlador em suas interações com os outros. Porque ele é totalmente alienado de seus sentimentos e dedicado exclusivamente a uma ambição austera de natureza religiosa, St. John serve como um contraste para Edward Rochester. A proposta de casamento de St. John a Jane é o último obstáculo que a protagonista enfrenta para retornar a seu amado e por fim viúvo Sr. Rochester na conclusão do livro. 
 Esta obra é um clássico gótico, isso está claro na atmosfera da narrativa. Gosto bastante de histórias góticas e Jane Eyre não me decepcionou. A escrita de Charlotte Brontë é excelente e no Audiobook que escutei a atriz Thandie Newton conferiu uma ótima interpretação do texto da autora. O enredo em alguns momentos me deu a impressão de dispersar, mas isso é compreensível pois o foco da obra é aprofundar a personagem Jane Eyre à medida que a mesma se depara com uma diversidade de obstáculos pessoais. Em alguns momentos houveram soluções convenientes para os problemas de Jane, mas isto não me impediu de gostar da história. O livro tem um clima de mistério, especialmente no que diz respeito a esposa escondida, mas infelizmente já tinha recebido o spoiler. Imagino que teria sido ainda mais intrigante ler sem saber antes da existência de Bertha. A narrativa é lógica, porém, como havia mencionado, em alguns momentos soluções por demais convenientes desafiaram um pouco essa lógica. Gostei de Jane Eyre, tanto da obra quanto da personagem, contudo, uma ressalva que faço, deixando claro que é uma questão de preferência pessoal e não um defeito do livro, é que teria preferido que Jane tivesse recusado a oferta de St. John de forma mais assertiva. Ele havia se mostrado um pouco manipulador e eu gostaria que o “Não” de Jane viesse dela mesma e não tivesse sido uma consequência da descoberta de que Rochester havia se tornado viúvo e debilitado e necessitava da ajuda da protagonista.
Como mulher Jane Eyre foi uma obra que me inspirou e apesar de tão conhecida, eu tive o spoiler sobre a esposa, a maior parte da história que não conhecia me manteve interessada em seu desenvolvimento. A importância da obra é clara e gostei da experiência de leitura. Dou 4.75 estrelas apenas porque faltou a sensação especial que um livro 5 estrelas merece. 


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vcriveros's review

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emotional hopeful slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0


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gnomee_k's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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liz_e's review

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funny mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

This book is wild. It’s an earlier Twilight. It tries to be feminist, but it’s. It’s something. 

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flowergirlannaaaaaaa's review

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slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Jane Eyre, while widely regarded as being an iconic feminist novel, is nothing groundbreaking. The protagonist, Jane, is a very dull one to follow, especially given the extremely slow pace of the book. Rochester, her love interest, is abundantly older than her and extremely manipulative. Bronte takes an abundance of time embellishing her text with description--while it is pretty prose, it amounts to little more than that. My main issue with the book, however, is the blatant way
SpoilerBertha Mason, one of the characters, is handled. She is written off as unfeminine, insane, and disgusting, and is frequently juxtaposed to Jane. It seems as though Bertha's exclusive purpose within the story was to be a plot device: her agency is only relevant when it comes to developing Jane and Rochester's toxic romance. If Bronte wanted to write a trendsetting feminist novel, she should have done so by not weaponizing lack of femininity and mental illness as a means of degrading any woman close to Rochester other than her beloved protagonist. Bertha was his lawful wife, but Rochester decided she was 'too Black' and 'too unfeminine,' to be around, so he locked her in his attic and was confused when she began acting genuinely erratic and hostile. Bronte portrays her repeatedly as a monster rather than as a person. It was painfully obvious reading that book that those who hail it as iconic and inclusive refuse to acknowledge the flaws in the "happy ending." As a segway into that, Jane is seen to have no flaws throughout the book, other than her lack of ability to exit a toxic relationship, which isn't at all portrayed as a flaw in the text. On the contrary, Bronte treats Jane's return to Rochester as a 'deeply sympathetic act.' This only further promotes the widespread mentality of the time that women must give up and devote their lives to men 'out of the kindness of their hearts,' regardless of how much abuse they endured. He tried to trick her into committing bigotry when she did not consent. He held his past suicidal thoughts over her head to justify how he locked Bertha in his attic for decades (and our 'feminist' protagonist took no issue with the notion of locking 'unfeminine' women in attics). He threatened Jane. He intentionally flirted with other women just to make her jealous. And yet she still went back to him. Why? 'Because of true love?' That is not feminist by any stretch, it's just a bad romance novel. Jane also is never seen struggling to cope with her trauma or lashing out, because 'God forbid an accurate portrayal of mental illness, or just God forbid a woman being mentally ill. God forbid having a protagonist like Bertha.' The "happy ending" is a mary sue protagonist being put on a mantle with a horrible husband, and it sure as hell isn't happy for Bertha, who commits suicide towards the end of the book. And look, maybe Jane didn't know that Bertha was dead when she went back to Rochester, since the suicide happened beforehand. But Charlotte Bronte sure as hell did. She made the conscious choice to have Jane and Rochester be wed immediately after Bertha Mason kills herself. It leaves an incredibly bitter taste in my mouth to know that the female character most fucked over by the patriarchy, Bertha, was only treated as an obstacle so the male and female lead's relationship wouldn't be 'too easy.' I listened to someone suggest once that she 'killed herself so Jane and Rochester could be together' and wanted to vomit.
And you know what, maybe I'm just a random person on the internet that very passionately hates the way this book is received, but a spin-off book called "Wide Sargasso Sea" was written many years later by an entirely different author. It handles many of the topics I just addressed and
Spoileris unafraid to portray Rochester's manipulative, controlling disposition from a lens that isn't rose-tinted. Bertha Mason is the main character, and it's the (different) author's take on how she came to marry Rochester, be abused by him, and go insane.
I would highly recommend reading it.

All in all, I found this a highly boring and uninteresting read. Once again, the prose itself was gorgeous, but that's all I can say in its favor. I wouldn't hate this book so much if it weren't for the reputation and reception it tends to have. I had to read this for a feminist literature curriculum and was embarrassed by how terrible the feminist themes were executed. It made me sick to read what felt more like a blatant attack on feminism. Yes, it was original for its time, but that's where it ends. Stop teaching that this book is the pinnacle of feminist literature, old or new.
SpoilerTeach about the history behind neurodivergent, 'unfeminine,' 'unruly,' and colored women (people in general, but especially women) being shoved into asylums that equated to torture facilities because they didn't fit the mold.
Teach about the way people with genuine mental illness were treated and still are treated. 

3/5 from me exclusively on the basis of significance and prose.

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bookish_readings's review

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0


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annapox's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0


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uchuflowerzone's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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veganecurrywurst's review against another edition

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dark emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

Jane Eyre truly revolutionized fiction and paved the way for modern day literature. Most books were not  written in first person perspective, but Charlotte Brontë used it to create a sense of intemacy. 
Jane Eyre tells the story of a female protagonist looking for agency and meaning. 

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!”

Jane Eyre is active and fights back and stands by her values. 

“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.” 

And although I am not a big fan of Rochester (
SpoilerI feel terrible for his 1. Wife
), I do enjoy their lovestory.

“Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.”

It's just so beautifully written. 

“If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.” 

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juuliaestrella's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25


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