History YMMV / JaneEyre

* FairForItsDay: When taught as a proto-feminist work, some readers may [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny find it disappointing,]] as the broad strokes of the story -- ending in marriage -- seem unsatisfying. But viewed in the historical context, Bronte's heroine ceaselessly fights for her agency and independence. As a small child she rebukes and corrects Mrs Reed, at a time when this simply was not done.[[note]]As in, it would not even have occurred to a child to speak or even think such things, or to an adult that a child ''could'' think or speak this way. This is why Mrs Reed says "it was as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice".[[/note]] She runs an ad in the paper to get a job, and when her employer tries to make her his mistress, she gets the hell out of Dodge and slogs through the wetlands, without recourse to known friends or places. When she gets settled, she helps with a school for peasant ''girls''. She refuses to marry a man she's not in love with. And when she does settle down in marriage, it is a match of passion, and intellectual and fiscal equality. Everything Jane does, she does on her own terms, without compromise.

* HollywoodHomely: Rochester and Jane are described as "unattractive" and "plain", respectively, but both pass up on more attractive potential mates to be with each other. Most adaptations cast attractive actors anyway, with Rochester played by dashing older gentlemen and Jane played by attractive women in somber attire.

* TheWoobie: Helen Burns. She's a young orphan who is humble to the point of self-deprecation. She is verbally and physically abused by Miss Scatcherd, including [[DisproportionateRetribution whipping her]] for letting her mind wander during class. She never stands up for herself or protests, because she believes in TurnTheOtherCheek. And then she gets sick and dies a painful death from consumption in the arms of Jane, her only friend. The main comfort she clung to in her short, miserable life was that things would be better in Heaven.

** Is Helen an example of IncorruptiblePurePureness, or is she an ExtremeDoormat too concerned with the afterlife to bother trying to accomplish anything in life?[[note]]Bronte fans sometimes ask this about Maria Bronte since Helen is known to be an exact portrait of Maria according to Charlotte.[[/note]] In total fairness to Helen, it's heavily implied that she's already dying and knows it even when Jane first meets her, adding a hint of potential fatalism into her character.

** Mr. Brocklehurst, in his over-the-top way, illustrates a change in how we see child development. He lectures all of Lowood about how Jane is a liar and must be shunned. To modern readers, mendacity in a child, while not good, is not as bad as sadism (which John Reed shows). But to the Victorians, lying was the ''worst'' vice that you could find in a child, a [[EnfantTerrible marker of an inherently evil character]]. Leaving aside, of course, that Jane ''isn't'' a liar to begin with, that Brocklehurst immediately took Mrs. Reed's word as the final word, and that even a liar has the right to a fresh start and a chance to start over at a new school.

* MemeticMutation: The "Reader, I [X] him." line from the last chapter is a classic one.

* DiagnosedByTheAudience: Unlike Bertha Mason, whose variety of generically "mad" symptoms challenge modern readers who are trying to figure out what her mental illness would be in modern terms, the way Helen Burns describes her problems with learning map pretty well to [=ADHD=]. Specifically, she can only pay attention to subjects she's already interested in, her thoughts "rove", she's disorganized, forgetful, and she reads other books in dull classes. This is likely because Helen was directly based on a real person (Maria Brontë, Charlotte's deceased sister) and kids had ADHD in the 19th century too--it was just imputed to willful misbehavior rather than a legitimate issue.

* ValuesDissonance:
** Possibly the most blindingly obvious instance in 19th century English literature is the case of Bertha Mason being locked up in the attic for being mentally ill. Worse, the very first really humane asylums for the mentally ill were being opened at the time and place the book is set (Yorkshire in the 1810-1820 period). Rochester could have afforded to pay for getting Bertha a place in one out of his pocket change with nobody knowing who she was. Granted, "humane" is a relative word here--a lot of nineteenth and even twentieth century institutions still turned out to be pretty grim places. Hence, even if better asylums were starting to open, the impression of asylums basically behind BedlamHouse was hard to shake off, and it's not inconceivable that some people would still think it preferable to keep an insane relative at home, though Rochester clearly could have made ''some'' more effort into taking good care of her. And there are shades of Jane's thoughts on the way she's treated as being more in line with with the modern view that mental illness is like any other illness and people who suffer from it need help and compassion when [[WhatTheHellHero calls him out on his behavior]]:

** Rochester dressing up as a fortune teller involves him [[BrownFace darkening his face with makeup]]. This detail is removed in most adaptations and is a likely reason why the scene is often removed entirely.

* MemeticMutation: The "Reader, I X him." line from the last chapter is a classic one.
* PrecisionFStrike: For the era in which it was written, the use of the word "Damn" as an expletive was on par with a book today using the F-word. Doubles down by also having a woman be the author in an era when such language was never heard coming from females.

* FairForItsDay: When taught as a proto-feminist work, some readers may [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny find it disappointing,]] as the broad strokes of the story -- ending in marriage -- seem unsatisfying. But viewed in the historical context, Bronte's heroine ceaselessly fights for her agency and independence. As a small child she rebukes and corrects Mrs Reed, at a time when this simply was not done.[[note]]As in, it would not even have occurred to a child to speak or even think such things, or to an adult that a child ''could'' think or speak this way. This is why Mrs Reed says 'it was as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice'.[[/note]] She runs an ad in the paper to get a job, and when her employer tries to make her his mistress she gets the hell out of Dodge and slogs through the wetlands, without recourse to known friends or places. When she gets settled she helps with a school for peasant ''girls''. She refuses to marry a man she's not in love with. And when she does settle down in marriage, it is a match of passion, and intellectual and fiscal equality. Everything Jane does, she does on her own terms, without compromise.

--->'''Zelah:''' Everyone remembers the Rochesters; nobody remembers the Janes.

** Mr. Brocklehurst, in his over-the-top way, illustrates a change in how we see child development. He lectures all of Lowood about how Jane is a liar and must be shunned. To modern readers, mendacity in a child, while not good, is not as bad as sadism (which John Reed shows). But to the Victorians, lying was the ''worst'' vice that you could find in a child, a [[EnfantTerrible marker of an inherently evil character]]. (Leaving aside, of course, that Jane ''isn't'' a liar to begin with, that Brocklehurst immediately took Mrs. Reed's word as the final word, and that even a liar has the right to a fresh start and a chance to start over at a new school).

** There's this casual anti-Semitic slur:

** A young woman in her late teens marrying her boss who’s about forty obviously would be frowned upon today as well. However, women marrying older men was very common for much of human history. It would also make sense for Rochester to marry a much younger woman (Blanche is 25) since he doesn’t have any legitimate heirs and someone closer to his own age would have a hard time having children since 40 back then was very old to have a child at all, let alone a first one. Bronte herself likely died of pregnancy complications from her own late first pregnancy at the age of 38. Mr. Rochester was said to be based on Constantin Héger, Charlotte's former teacher in Belgium [[TeacherStudentRomance whom she had deeply attached with]].

!! Film and TV adaptations:

In general:

--->'''Zelah''': "Everyone remembers the Rochesters; nobody remembers the Janes."

** Like in many books of the time, the word "ejaculate" (and derivatives) is used extensively as an alternative for "said".

** Rochester at one point describes Blanche as an "extensive armful."

** What would Jane have done if, when she came back to Thornfield after hearing Rochester’s voice calling for her, she had found it intact and Bertha still alive? Would she have left again once she was assured that Rochester was well, or would she have become his mistress after all?

** Possibly the most blindingly obvious instance in 19th century English literature is the case of Bertha Mason being locked up in the attic for being mentally ill. Worse, the very first really humane asylums for the mentally ill were being opened at the time and place the book is set (Yorkshire in the 1810-1820 period). Rochester could have afforded to pay for getting Bertha a place in one out of his pocket change with nobody knowing who she was. Granted, "humane" is a relative word here--a lot of nineteenth and even twentieth century institutions still turned out to be pretty grim places. Hence, even if better asylums were starting to open, it's not inconceivable that some people would still think it preferable to keep an insane relative at home, though Rochester clearly could have made ''some'' more effort into taking good care of her. And there are shades of Jane's thoughts on the way she's treated as being more in line with with the modern view that mental illness is like any other illness and people who suffer from it need help and compassion when [[WhatTheHellHero calls him out on his behavior]]:

*** Between the amount of literary analysis surrounding race and gender as it pertains to how she is depicted and {{Perspective Flip}}s such as ''Literature/WideSargassoSea'', Bertha Rochester has practically inspired an entire cottage industry of Alternate Character Interpretation almost single-handedly.

** Is Helen an example of IncorruptiblePurePureness, or is she an ExtremeDoormat too concerned with the afterlife to bother trying to accomplish anything in life?[[note]]Bronte fans sometimes ask this about Maria Bronte since Helen is known to be an exact portrait of Maria according to Charlotte.[[/note]]