anyway Jane Eyre is the most depressing novel i’ve ever read. what do you mean Jane got her happy ending??? This is horrifying. We constantly call other books from that time period revolving around strong heroines (such as Anna Karenina or, yet again, Madame Bovary) depressing, or horrible, but really i’d rather be Emma or Anna than Jane tbh. And like… yes, technically, it’s worse for them to commit suicide rather than marrying “the man they love”, because everything is always better than suicide i mean but… i’m talking about the effect on the reader. Idk i just feel like seeing the heroine you’ve spent so much time with, who suffered and struggled for her happiness, committing suicide is… well, at least if makes you question things about your own reality. you realize that women (even if theyre relatively privileged – Anna is nobles, both are cis, straight (until further notice), pretty etc.), if they dare to have personal wishes and aspirations, are driven to “madness”, despair and, ultimately, death. and it IS infuriating. 

meanwhile, Jane Eyre… we’re so conditioned to expect a “she married him and they lived happily ever after” happy ending that, we when get it, that we don’t see it, at first, for what it is: an horrifying fate. Jane is so strong. She’s witty, smart, talented (a really gifted artist), optimistic, brave and resourceful. she deserved so much better than becoming the maid or nurse aka unpaid servant of a garbage man omg. 

im sure plenty of people already pointed that out – but i think one of the reasons, if not the main, Jane Eyre resonates so much with women is that we’re essentially in front of the two choices young women have. (i’d say “young straight women” but since thats what women are meant to be…). you’re either 1) a saint and a martyr, never questioning your hard life conditions, (and she’s smart! and she is NOT docile! i want to point that out. it’s not about her personal qualities) like Jane, meaning you can, after many struggles, get your happy ending; or 2) the mad woman in the attic, a “beast”, a “monster”, a mad arsonist (also – don’t forget racism, since shes from the Caribbean). Then your fate is horrifying: locked up, literally tortured in your own house, ignored by your husband who is ashamed of you, literally mad with pain. 

so first of all: all women, or at least most of them, feel like we’re constantly at the verge of madness, monstruosity, and this isnt an academic paper so im too tired to develop but… of course the first wife acts like a counterideal. be a Jane, dont be a mad woman in the attic, a monster. ok.

but what if youre the good kind of girl? what if you’re a Jane? the best you can hope for is to get married to an irritable man and be at his service for the rest of your days. 

and i know straight women who have it worse! Rochester made progress. he respects Jane a bit more, at the end. but, still…. Jane deserved better. 

tl;dr: the fact we think Jane Eyre has a happy ending is horrifying and really telling about the misogyny of our society