READING JANE EYRE

In the March 11, 2011, issue of Time a new movie version of "Jane Eyre" is reviewed.  This Jane, played by Mia Wasikowska,  is much plainer than the glamorous Joan Fontaine who starred in the 1944 version. Time reports Mia uses little make-up “to concentrate the viewer's attention on her watchfulness, she is less the sum of what she looks like than the way she looks at the world; she is Jane Eyre."  http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2058367,00.html#ixzz1HM0h1Lzf

I wonder which of my Jane Eyres she is?  Is she the one I imagined when I read Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre for the first time in the late 1950s? As a teenager my Jane Eyre was darkly romantic. I remember hiding out with her, in the back yard, away from my little sister.  When I reread Jane Eyre as a young mother, however, she became more self sufficient, more mindful of her surroundings and how to deal with them. Chapters were snatched between cooking dinner and driving to pick up my children at ski slopes. I wonder if I revisited the novel now with my FRIENDS Book Club, would my Jane Eyre change once again? Of course she would. We would admire her adaptability, her resilience.

As a staff development teacher I often found teaching this concept of reader context to teachers difficult. During high school and college we had been advised to listen to the critics and the professors who seemed to certainly grasp a better understanding of Jane Eyre, the character, than we did. Now we were the teachers. How could we ever be persuaded to hand over interpretation to the reader: demonstrating how to use her context, her prior knowledge, her own setting to discover rich meaning?

But gradually the shift happened. In 1987 I read and studied with Nancie Atwell who in her groundbreaking book, In the Middle, discusses talking about books in the classroom like we used to at the dining room table. In the early nineties my excited principal, Suzanne, came into my classroom to tell me about Oprah choosing a book, having a Book Club. “Just like your Literature Circles.” Now book conversations, talks, clubs are everywhere.  At least once a week my daughter Beth calls to talk about books. We compare, disagree, mourn, cry, and happily insist we see our characters clearly.  And we do. Jane Eyre doesn’t change, but the way we read her does.