Jane Eyre Review

1)  If I was in Jane's shoes, I would leave.  I would do this because Rochester never told her that he had been married, and probably was never going to tell her until "a year and a day" after they had been married.  Also because if he lied about that fact, rather large to say the least, what else is/would he lie about.

2) My final reaction to this novel would be that of neutrality.  It wasn't the best book I've read, and I sort of enjoyed it. It was definitely better than Catcher in the Rye in the fact that it actually went somewhere and had a good plot line, but it drags on way to much.  The descriptions got to be overwhelming and I had to start skimming them or I would fall asleep while reading it!  The reading assignments were manageable, but sometimes were a bit overwhelming.  The one thing that didn't work, was that it seemed that people were having problems keeping up with the book and that made class discussions a little difficult.

3)  I think that this book should be taught in College, but not necessarily College Literature. I feel this way because Cather in the Rye was a really raw book, and Jane Eyre was too.  So to read them back to back makes the reading get to be really dull and boring. So, spacing the two apart might help students get through them a little easier and have a slight break between them...maybe start with Catcher, then do short stories, then do Jane Eyre, the one week could make all the difference.  Also, with annotating, it really took away from the quality of the book and the reading.  When you can just sit down and read to enjoy the book, it makes the reading fun and relaxing. But when you have to look for things to highlight and annotate, it completely takes away from the reading, makes it more like chore, and when you want to go back and reread it, it makes it difficult.  I think that if we could just read the books and not have to annotate, more people would be able to keep up with the readings and find the books more enjoyable.  Also, this could potentially completely reverse some people's opinions about the books because of the fact that the readings would be a bit more like leisure and less like chores.