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What Women
Want: Jane Eyre's Guide for Guys
by
Marilyn Green Faulkner
"All
works of genius are contemporaneous both with their own times and
with ours."
The story is
told of a man who, having freed the proverbial genie from a bottle,
was granted one wish.
"I'd like you
to build me a bridge to Hawaii," he said. "I love to go to Hawaii
and that way I could just drive there whenever I want."
"Master, think
again," warned the genie. "Such a bridge would be almost impossible
to undertake. Think of the depth of the pilings, the massive job
of construction! And a bridge like that would be hard on the environment,
filling the ocean with yet more waste and debris. You have only
one wish. Don't squander it on something selfish. Use your wish
to better mankind or to improve yourself at least."
"Well, replied
the man, perhaps you are right. There is one thing I lack. I don't
understand women. I have had two failed marriages and my third one
is in trouble. I don't understand why women act the way they do.
Why do they get angry over such trifles? What do they mean by those
long silences? And how about that look? What does that
mean? I know if I could just understand women my life would be better,
so that is my wish. Genie, make me understand what women want."
"Master," replied
the genie after a long pause. "Were you thinking of a two or a four-lane
bridge?"
The success
of such books as "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"
and movies like "What Women Want" attests to the fact that
men and women have trouble understanding each other. Conventional
Victorian literature did very little to increase that understanding,
concerned as it was with creating an ideal feminine and masculine
image to which characters were largely faithful. Heroes were brave,
strong and full of action. Heroines were beautiful, passive, selfless,
and seemed to faint a lot! Then came Jane Eyre, a novel
written by a quiet parson's daughter living a secluded life in the
Yorkshire moors. Jane Eyre stunned Victorian society with
its plain little orphan heroine, devoid of social status or graces,
who stubbornly refuses to take her assigned place in the hierarchy.
Instead of being grateful for the family who raises her, she despises
them for their cruelty and hypocrisy. She utterly rejects the Calvinist
Christianity that is used to justify starving and freezing schoolgirls
to bring them into submission. Above all, she craves action, and
grows bored and restless when life holds no challenge for her. What
kind of a heroine is this? The instant success of the novel proved
that, contrary to the beliefs of publishers at the time, the female
reading public was waiting for just such a heroine to arise.
Jane Eyre
was published under a nom de plume, as were all the books written
by the famous Bronte sisters. Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte called
themselves Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell respectively, and had good
reason for doing so. After a time of relative freedom for women
in publishing, the Victorian age brought new restrictions on feminine
roles. Writing was not considered an appropriate activity for a
lady, and there was little chance that these novels would have been
accepted under a female name. The book was immediately attacked
by critics for its insistence on the idea that personal fulfillment
is an acceptable goal for a woman just as it is for a man. Though
this seems hardly revolutionary stuff to us today, the tone of the
heroine shocked polite society. Mrs Rigby, a popular columnist of
the day, wrote of the orphan Jane Eyre:
"She has inherited
in fullest measure the worst sin of our fallen nature - the sin
of pride…and she is ungrateful too. It pleased God to make her an
orphan, friendless, and penniless - yet she thanks nobody, and least
of all Him…on the contrary, she looks upon all that has been done
for her not only as her undoubted right, but as falling far short
of it." (Quarterly Review 84, December 1848)
What shocked
the world about Jane Eyre is the same quality that shocked
polite society about Joseph Smith, a contemporary of Charlotte Bronte's
who also faced some pretty scary ministers. Rather than accepting
the rigid doctrines that a degenerated form of Christianity held
out, both chose instead to look within and Heavenward for a new
definition of truth. Jane Eyre is a deeply spiritual person who
longs for a life of usefulness and service. She is, however, unwilling
to accept the harsh cruelty of her masters as treatment that is
naturally due her as an orphan. She persists in believing that she
should be treated on an equal level with others, and is willing
to treat them in the same way. Above all, she longs for a spirit-to-spirit
relationship with a partner who knows her as she knows him, with
whom she can share a productive life. She does not wish to be owned,
coddled or catered to, nor does she wish to sacrifice her life in
serving a brutish tyrant. She seeks a partnership of mutual respect
between equals. This was not what Victorian society prescribed,
but it must have been what an overwhelming number of women really
longed for, because Jane Eyre was embraced by the public
immediately and has been an enduring favorite ever since. As Joyce
Carol Oates said, "It is, in its directness, ruefulness, and scarcely
concealed rage, startlingly contemporary and confirms the critical
insight that all works of genius are contemporaneous both with their
own times and with ours."
Guys, if you
want to know what women really want, read Jane Eyre.
Jane Eyre is
the February book for the Best Books Club. Join the mailing list
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