Why Jane Eyre is most definitely a YA novel
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë was the first book my grandmother read out loud to me when I went to live with her at the age of 12. I expect she thought that reading about a girl who had also lost her parents might give me comfort. Because of my age, it was the young Jane with whom I identified, the Jane trapped in the haunted “red room,” the Jane forced to go to the horrible Lowood School.
I didn’t read the book as a teen. I wish I had. If I’d read it then, I might have identified with the restless, not-quite-formed Jane – the 18-year-old young adult who is the main character for most of the book.
Countless young women have done so and found inspiration in the poor and plain governess who refuses to be overcome by a world that is constantly trying to subjugate and belittle her. Jane Eyre is a book about finding one’s identity in the face of such adversity; it is a book about coming of age; and for this reason I believe it fits perfectly into the category of a young adult novel. It is, after all, about the concerns of a young adult.
Becca Fitzpatrick: 'As a teen, I was in love with Heathcliff. As an adult, he terrifies me'
Read more
But is Jane a young adult? some might ask. Wasn’t an 18-year-old fully an adult by the standards of the day? Charlotte Brontë writes of a character balanced between childhood and maturity. In fact, she uses the tension of this balance again and again to give her story energy.
Right before she meets Mr Rochester, the man who will become her great love, Jane is on a secluded path when she is frightened by a sound:
Jane Eyre is a book about finding one’s identity in the face of such adversity; it is a book about coming of age
“In those days I was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give.”
The fact that Jane is a “maturing youth,” taking her first steps into a wider world, makes her story particularly resonant for young adult readers. Young adult writing is often about firsts –first sparks of love, first kisses, first great disappointments. Jane Eyre, who has never seen a city, who has barely spoken to a man, is the quintessential young adult in this regard; everything is new to her.
I know that many people who don’t read YA will balk at the suggestion that Jane Eyre is a YA novel. After all, Jane Eyre is great literature! There is plenty of great literature on the YA shelf, I assure you, and I challenge anyone who doesn’t believe me to read The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation by MT Anderson, or Exit, Pursued by a Bear by EK Johnston, or Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick, to name a few in a list that could take up my entire word count for this article.
The 100 best novels: No 12 – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
Read more
However, I suspect an even stronger reason adults might object to calling Jane Eyre a YA novel is because it explores female desire so openly. Jane Eyre does not contain explicit sex, but it does have an earthiness that shocked its Victorian readers. Jane struggles to untangle feelings of lust from feelings of love. She wonders what it would be like to marry her cousin St John, a man who admires her, but does not have “a husband’s heart” to give her, and she frankly considers what it would mean to consummate a loveless marriage with him, ultimately finding the idea “monstrous”. There has been much discussion lately about how much sex is appropriate in YA, but I’d argue that fiction is the safe place young people need for exploring questions like the ones Charlotte Brontë poses about sex, attraction, and the true meaning of love.
Of course, Brontë did not intend the book to be published for a teen audience. How could she? YA as a marketing category would not exist for another century. However, it’s hard to imagine she would have disapproved on the basis of its subject matter. She had been allowed to read widely as a young adult, and at 18 was herself enamoured with Byron and Shakespeare.
I know that many people who don’t read YA will balk at the suggestion that Jane Eyre is a YA novel
In the end, the most important question in determining whether or not Jane Eyre is a YA novel is: What is the best age to read this book?
Although I didn’t reread Jane Eyre as a teen, I did finally read it again as an adult, many times in fact, and I love it. The book can be enjoyed at any age — but the same can be said of YA literature in general. According to a 2012 study, more than half the buyers of YA books are over 18.
Surely the best time to read Jane Eyre is as a young adult. When better to read a book preoccupied with deciding who one is going to be for the rest of one’s life? After that, there is nothing preventing a reader from enjoying it again… and again… and again.
Have you read Jane Eyre? What do you think: YA or not? Tweet us @GdnChildrensBks and let us know your thoughts!
Lena Coakley’s Worlds of Ink and Shadow (A Novel of The Brontës) is available from the Guardian bookshop.