【Editor's Recommendation】
"Jane Eyre" is Charlotte's famous work and her masterpiece. Through the bumpy life path of an orphan girl, it has successfully shaped a female image of an uneasy status quo, not willing to be humiliated, self-respecting and self-loving, self-reliant, self-reliant, dare to fight, dare to pursue, it reflects the frank outpouring, call and rebuke of an ordinary heart, and the desire, pursuit and longing of a lowercase person to become a capitalized person. In today's view, such a story, such a protagonist, may not have much novelty and uniqueness. However, nearly 150 years ago, in Victorian Britain, the aristocratic rich and the rich in society were full of ambition, the priests and priests were "divine grace", the hierarchy was strict, the customs were numerous, money was supreme, and the patriarchy was supreme, and in literary works, gentlemen and ladies gathered together, and feasts and balls were repeated. Suddenly, among the many beautiful and handsome heroes and heroines, a small woman with no wealth and no appearance was drilled, with a novel and unique concept, a strong and stubborn personality, who dared to criticize religious undertakings, ridicule social customs, despise status and financial resources, advocate equality between men and women, and have sincere feelings, straightforward and frank, no wonder that once "Jane Eyre" came out, it caused a sensation in society, and the literary circles rushed to comment. Praisers shout "unique", "novel", "real" and "touching", and detractors scold "low-level" and "rude". However, for more than a hundred years, "Jane Eyre" has been able to survive and endure, and Jane Eyre has been able to live among people, perhaps because the main purpose of this book is to tell people: a small person, relying on his integrity and ingenuity, as long as he perseveres and struggles hard and bravely, it is possible to break through many obstacles and achieve his goals.
【Introduction】
Jane loves her parents early death, living in her uncle's house, she is obedient, but still beaten and scolded, and finally one day her fear and patience reached its limit, and then developed to fight back against her aunt in person. Her aunt sent her to an orphanage, where she later became a governess at Mr. Rochester's house. Mr. Rochester has a quirky temper, but after a period of contact, Jane Loves falls in love with him. During this experience, Jane Eyre grew further and became more enthusiastic, self-respecting, and stubborn. However, while they are at their wedding, Mason breaks in and points out that the mad woman in the castle's top-floor cabin is Mr. Rochester's wife. Reluctant to be a mistress, Jane Eyre left Thornfield and came to a remote place where, with the help of a priest, found a career as a village teacher. When the priest proposed marriage to Jane Eyre, she remembered Mr. Rochester, and by the time he rushed back to Thornfield, the castle was in ruins. The mad woman set fire to the building and fell to her death, and Rochester was also injured and disabled. Jane Eyre found him and was shocked, and eventually married him and lived her ideal happy life.
【About the Author】
Charlotte Brontë was born in 1816 to a clergyman's family in Yorkshire, north England. Due to the early death of his mother, he entered the society early, worked as a tutor, and finally devoted himself to the road of literary creation. Her two sisters, Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë, were also writers, and the three were known in literary history as the "Brontë Sisters".
In 1847, Charlotte Brontë published the novel Jane Eyre, which caused a sensation in the literary world. There are also works such as Shelley, Villette and The Teacher. Charlotte Brontë is good at describing natural scenes with lyrical brushwork, and her works have a strong emotional color.
【Content Appreciation】
chapter
On that day, it was impossible to go out for another walk. Yes, we spent an hour strolling through the bare bushes in the morning, but from lunchtime (as long as there were no guests, Mrs. Reed always ate lunch very early), the cold wind of winter blew up, followed by gloomy dark clouds and bone-chilling cold rain, so naturally there was no way to go outdoors. It makes me happy, I've always disliked walking far away, especially on cold afternoons. I think it's terrible to go home at the cold twilight, my fingers and toes are frozen, and I have to be scolded by the nanny Betsy, which makes my heart feel very unhappy. Besides, he felt weaker than Eliza, John, and Georgina of the Reed family, and he felt inferior. Eliza, John, and Georgina, whom I just mentioned, were all in the living room, gathered around their mother. Mrs. Reed leaned back on a couch by the fireside, surrounded by several precious children (neither quarreling nor crying at this time), looking very happy. Well, she wouldn't let them get together like that. She said that she regretted having to ask me to stay away from them, unless she heard it from Betsy and witnessed it with her own eyes, I was really trying to develop a more innocent and easy-going disposition, a more lively and lovely demeanor—that is, more relaxed, frank, and natural—or she said that nothing would allow me to enjoy the treatment that only contented and happy children deserved.
"What did Betsy say I did?" I asked.
"Jane, I don't like people who love to find fault and find the roots; besides, it is a little undeserved for a small child to dare to talk back to adults like this." Find a place to sit. If you can't say something flattering, don't make a sound. ”
Next door to the living room is a small breakfast room. I slipped into that room. There's a bookshelf there.
I quickly found a book and deliberately picked one with a lot of illustrations. I climbed up to the window seat, shrunk my feet, and sat cross-legged like a Turk, pulling the red curtains of the thick corruged tweed almost closed, so that I was enshrined in this shrine-like double hidden place. The heavily pleated scarlet curtains blocked my view to the right, but to the left were bright glass windows, which protected me from the cold weather of November and did not completely isolate me from it. As I turn the pages, I occasionally look at the view of a winter afternoon. In the distance, there was only a white mist, and in the near distance, there was wet grass and trees under the wind and rain. The continuous cold rain swept through under the drive of a fierce cold wind. I looked down at my book again—I was looking at Beauik's Illustrated History of the Birds in England. In general, I'm not very interested in the textual part of the book, but there are a few pages of introductions, and although I'm still a child, I can't turn them over as empty pages. It talks about the places where seabirds often inhabit, the "lonely rocks and headlands" inhabited only by seabirds, the coast of Norway, from Cape Linnesnes at the southern end to the north cape in the north, and countless islands are dotted with islands.
There the Arctic Ocean rolled up a huge whirlpool,
Roaring around the desolate islands of the polar region,
And the turbulent waves of the Atlantic Ocean,
Inject into the windy and rainy Hebrides.
It is impossible to turn over without noticing, as well as to the desolate coasts of Lapland, Siberia, Spitsbergen, Novaya Ventje, Iceland and Greenland, and "the vast Arctic, the cold, uninhabited areas, where the snow is frozen all year round, and after thousands of harsh winters, it has become a solid ice field, crystal bright, like the cascading peaks of the Alps, surrounding the earth's poles, making the cold more concentrated in its infinite power." I have my own ideas about these miserable white areas, which, although hazy, like all the seemingly incomprehensible concepts that vaguely appear in the child's mind, are surprisingly vivid. The words in these pages of the introduction are closely related to the illustrations that follow, making the reefs that stand in the rough and splashing seas, the broken boats stranded on the desolate shores, and the ghostly cold moon that looks down on the sinking boats from the cracks in the clouds all the more meaningful.
I can't tell what kind of mood hung over the deserted cemetery, where there were inscriptions on the tombstones, a gate, two trees, a low ground surrounded by broken walls, and a crescent moon that was rising, indicating that it was dusk.
The two ships were moored on the surface of the stagnant sea, and I believed that it must be a ghost at sea. The devil pressed the package on the thief's back from behind, and I hurried over the page. It was a terrible scene. The same is true of this one, with a black monster with a long horn on its head sitting high on the top of a rock, looking at a group of people around the gallows in the distance.
Each painting tells a story. For a child like me who doesn't have a strong understanding and a lack of appreciation, I often find them mysterious, but they are also very interesting, just like the stories Betsy sometimes tells. On winter evenings, when she was in a good mood, she would move the ironing table to the fireplace in the children's room and let us sit around. While ironing Mrs. Reed's picked frills and ironing the brim of her nightcap out of the pleats, she tells little stories of love and adventure to satisfy those of us who are engrossed and eager to hear the story. Most of these little stories come from old myths and more archaic ballads, or (I later discovered) from Pamela and Henry, Earl of Moran.
While I was on my knees with Bjuyk's book, I was so happy at the moment, at least not in me. I wasn't afraid of anything, I was afraid that someone would disturb me, but someone would bother me so quickly.
The door to the breakfast room was opened.
"Hey! Miss Melancholy! John Reed's voice was calling. Then he suddenly stopped making a sound and found that there was obviously no one in the room.
"Hell, where did she go?" He then said, "Lisie! Georgie! Joan wasn't here.[he was calling his sister. Tell mom that she ran outside in the rain – this bad thing! ”
"Thankfully I closed the curtains." I thought to myself, and at the same time desperately hoped that he wouldn't find out where I was hiding. John Reed himself must not have been able to find out, he was a man whose eyes were not pointed and whose mind was not sharp. But as soon as Eliza looked into the door, she immediately said, "She's on the window seat." Quasi-yes, Jack. ”
I hurried out, and I shuddered at the thought of letting this Jack drag it out.
"Do you have anything?" I asked nervously.
"It should be said, 'Do you have anything to do, Young Master Reed?' "That's his answer." I want you to come over. He sat down in an armchair and made a gesture for me to come over and stand in front of him.
John Reed was a fourteen-year-old student, four years older than me, and I was only ten. According to his age, he was too tall and fat, his complexion was gray and unhealthy, his face was wide, his eyebrows were thick, his eyes were wide, his legs were fat and his arms were strong, and his hands and feet were very large. He always devoured when he ate, and as a result, his liver was very hot, his eyes were dizzy, and his cheeks were loose. At the moment, he was supposed to be at school, but his mother had taken him home for a month or two, saying that it was "because he was not in good health." His teacher, Mr. Miles, asserted that he would be fine if his family sent him fewer pastries and sweets. But the mother could not listen to this harsh opinion, preferring to hold a more elegant view, blaming John's bad face on overwork, and perhaps on homesickness. John had little affection for his mother and sisters, and had a bad feeling for me. He bullied me and abused me, not two or three times a week, not just once or twice a day, but continuously. Every nerve in my body was afraid of him, and as soon as he approached me, every muscle in my bone would twitch with fright. Sometimes I was stunned by him, because whether he intimidated or tortured, I had nowhere to complain. None of the servants wanted to offend their little master in order to help me deal with him. Mrs. Reed was completely deaf and dumb about this, and she never saw him hitting me or hearing him scolding me, though he often beat me in front of her and scolded me. Needless to say, he beat me up and scolded me more times behind her back.
I had become accustomed to John's obedience, so I went to his chair. He stuck his tongue out at me for three minutes before he could break the base of his tongue. I knew he was about to hit me, and while I was worried about being beaten, I stared at the ugly and disgusting face of the person who was going to hit me. I don't know if he saw my thoughts in my face, because he didn't say a word and suddenly punched me hard. I staggered and took a step or two back from his chair before I could stand.
"I'm because you dared to be so rude when you called my mother back." He said, "It's because you're sneaking around behind a curtain, and because of the ghostly look that came out of your eyes two minutes ago, you rat!" ”
I'm used to hearing John Reed's insults, and I never want to talk back, all I think about is how I've been beaten up after the insults.
"What are you doing hiding behind the curtains?" he asked.
"I'm reading."
"Bring the book."
I went back to the window and took the book.
"You're not qualified to touch our family's books. My mom said, you're a person who depends on others to support you. You don't have any money, and your dad didn't leave you a penny. You should beg for food, you shouldn't be here to live with our superior children, eat the same meals as us, and wear the clothes my mother paid for. Today, I want to teach you a good lesson, and you dare to open my bookshelf. These books are all mine.
The whole house is mine, or rather, in a few years. scram! Stand in the doorway, not next to the mirror and the window. ”
I did so, and at first I didn't understand what his intention was, but when I saw him lift the book, sweep it up, stand up, and look like he was going to throw it at me, I screamed, and instinctively flashed to the side, but it was too late, the book was thrown over, hit me, I fell to the ground, my head hit the door, broken, blood flowed from the broken place, and the pain was terrible. By this time, my fear had exceeded its limit, and the other psychology had the upper hand. "You vicious bad boy!" I said, "You're like a murderer... You're a slave overseer... You are like that Class of Roman tyrants! ”
I have read Goldesmith's History of Rome and already have my own views on people like Nero and Caligula. I had secretly compared John to them in my heart, but I never expected to say it so loudly.
"What! What the! He shouted, "How dare you say such a thing to me?" Eliza, Georgina, did you hear that? Can I still tell my mother? But I'll do it first..." He pounced on me. I felt him grab me by the hair and grab my shoulder, and he was already fighting a lawless outlaw. I think he's a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a few drops of blood running down my head all the way down my neck, and I felt some severe pain. These feelings overwhelmed my fear for a moment, and I went crazy and fought with him. I don't know exactly what my hands are doing, except to hear him scold me, "Rat!" rat! And yelled loudly. The helper was beside him, and Eliza and Georgina hurried to call Mrs. Reed, who had already gone upstairs, and by this time she had arrived at the scene, followed by Betsy and the maid Abbott. We pulled away. I could only hear them saying:
"Oops! ah! Such a spill dared to beat up Young Master John! ”
"Who has ever seen such a bad temper!"
Mrs. Reed added, "Drag her to the Red House and lock her up." Immediately four hands grabbed me and dragged me upstairs.
……
