Yesterday as my students came in for class, I heard various declarations:

“I LOVE Mr. Rochester!”

“I used to like him but now I am mad at him.”

“I feel so bad for him.”

“I HATE Mr. Rochester!”

This morning as I prepped lessons for today, my advisees trooped in — all talking about Jane Eyre. Another girl entered the room and said, “I am the lone wolf in my class. I am the only who loves Mr. Rochester.” Huge debate erupted about how he perpetuates the patriarchy, about how he wants Jane to express herself, and about how he has been trying all along to control her.

As they left, one student said she would like to have a class-wide debate (meaning the entire class of 2017 which numbers some 70 students) but would be afraid of the violence that would ensue because other students have such strong opinions.

Ever since the students met Mr. Rochester, they have been weighing his personal defects, his charms, his male chauvinism, his passionate love of Jane, his mysteriousness, his arrogance, his deception of her. I scarcely have to even teach my class. They arrive with their own insights, passages to analyze, and strong opinions. What is also interesting is how they step back from their own ideas about the text to examine how they see the male gender in general. For example, one student announced that the school’s students have the reputation in the region as being “the man haters.” A couple of girls objected to this characterization and said they just wanted to be treated as equals — like Jane wants to be Rochester’s equal when they stand at God’s feet after death.

As I listened and listen to them talk about the novel — so engaged, so vehement, so passionate, so insightful and intelligent — I am struck by how the novel was accepted (or barely tolerated) at my previous co-ed school, which is no slouch when it comes to academic rigor. I taught the novel once there in the fall of 2007 to a group of seniors, many of whom I had taught the previous year. Some of them read the novel; some read the summary on the internet. A couple of the boys I know really read the book because they talked to me about it later after they graduated as a favorite book. I think all the girls in the class read the book; however, they never spoke up about the characters in the way my current students do in this single sex school. The girls at the co-ed school held back. They did not talk about Mr. Rochester and his character. They did not express approval or disapproval of him or his relationship with Jane. They did not criticize Jane for loving him or for leaving him.

Not the way my current students do.

It seems to me that when these girls read, they become Jane for that expanse of time. They feel her emotions utterly and some are in despair that she has run away from Rochester.  They are not afraid to express their feelings and ideas in class or in their lounge or in the hallway. They are not shy about tacitly admitting that the characters are as real to them as if they were people standing next to them. For some, Jane and Rochester are more fully realized and understood than some of the people they meet everyday because Bronte has so exquisitely drawn the characters, set up the situations, and warped the tension and emotion.

I wish Bronte could have known how much these girls care about her creations, Jane and Rochester.