I picked up a classic I last read in college -- Jane Eyre -- and read a short bio of the author. She had fallen in love with a married man. She wrote a novel that reveals classic fog talk. The WS views the BS as a "maniac," someone who stands in the way of his happiness.

I reread this novel with a very different perspective from when I last read it, from the perspective of a BS trying to understand how her husband could have been so cruel and thoughtless and the OP could have been so cruel and thoughtless. They both had to turn me into someone who didn't deserve to have been born, someone who was less than human.

This novel was turned into a movie, which I haven't seen.

Cherishing

Hi Cher,

I have often found "infidelity" plot lines in movies and books that I missed when I read them prior to being a victim of infidelity.

Note that Jane Eyre is a sequel to the story of how the male protagonist(WH) met the BW. I believe it is the Sargasso Sea or something like that.

Who

I read Jane Eyre when I was in sixth grade, so yes, I'm sure I'd have a different perspective if I reread it now. The information about the author is very revealing though isn't it? The BW is depicted as "insane"....wow....It's an OW's dream....ha.

okay, not to be a "Lit major" here- and I wasn't, but I love this era of novel and have read many many novels of this era, both by the Bronte sisters and other "Gothic" writers.

This is the era of the gothic novel, haunted castles and ghosts, mad people, imprisonment, Byronic heroes, etc.

Charlotte Bronte, according to her biography, WAS in love with a married man, however nothing happened, of course.

the book "The Wide Sargasso Sea" was written as a "pre-qual," but NOT by Charlotte Bronte. It explicitly says in Jane Eyre that "madness" ran in the family and was not shared with Mr Rochester until after the marriage so that he would still marry her.

Also, she was in love with Mr Heger, the married man, in 1843-44, Jane Eyre was not written until 1847 (after two other books, Villette and The Professor) were written.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Adultery is so obviously reprehensible that, I believe, those who have affairs have to justify their behavior. Jane Eyre gave me some insight into how people might justify their affairs.

My husband's lover's husband told that his wife had said I was crazy. I don't dispute that I probably looked crazy given how I was treated. I questioned my own sanity and started going to therapy because I was so upset about his friendship with this woman.

Cherishing