Jane Eyre and Oates
As Oates says, Jane Eyre is a reflection of real life because it has a voice that is true to life, and that is what distinguishes it from other tales, including fairy tales: it is the material of legends and fairy tales, perhaps; yet also, sometimes, this time at least, of life. For we are led to believe Jane Eyres good fortune because we are led to believe her voice (Oates). Thus, Jane Eyre is as the title proclaimsan autobiography; a fictional autobiography, yesbut no fairy tale. Jane Eyre is a first-person account of a womans own journey to becoming a wife and mother, as Oates points out. The elements of the story are fantastical at times, which is why it resembles the fairy tale genre (that and the fact that it has a fantastical ending that seems very much like the and-they-lived-happily-ever-after endings that we have come to associate with fairy talesbut why shouldnt Jane have such an ending? She suffered so much in her life, and for the goodlet her have her happiness). Jane Eyre can be considered a Gothic Romancethat is fine;...
Truth is what makes fairy tales ring, as well. It is what makes every story ring and stay ringing long after the
generation in which it originated has passed. The...
…or classifications; they can be useful, as the mind appreciates ordering and understanding differences and similarities. But one should not be puritanical about it. There is more in heaven and
earth than is dreamt of in anyones philosophyas Hamlet put it to Horatio. There is more to Jane Eyre than any simplistic classification can ever articulate. Let it be so, and accept the
mystery (as the Coen Brothers suggest in A Serious Man). Or, as Jane herself puts it: Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. Surely there is no harm in lightly classifying Jane Eyre, but lets not forget…
