I went to Afternoon Tea at a movie theater yesterday. Three teas were given, along w/ a scone, a cucumber sandwich and a lemon lavender sweet cake.
The 2011 version, directed by Cary Fukunaga is a beautiful Gothic love letter to Charlotte Bronte's novel, Jane Eyre.
The last time I read Jane Eyre was at 13 or 14. I thought Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester was really mean and I thought Jane Eyre was annoying because she kept being a smart-ass and never backed down. I wanted her to wilt like all the other romance stories I had heard from my youth. This wasn't following the protocol, my 14 y/o self thought.
Obviously, my perceptions of the novel's tale has changed since middle school. I now see Rochester as a charming old romantic and Jane as a strong woman figure in literature. I like that she does not so easily fall for Rochester's moves, I like that she is independent and makes her own life happen on her own. And - i like that despite all the horrible things that have happened to her, she ultimately gets over her fear and embraces love and believes in it again. She faces her fear and wins! May we all be this courageous.
The only qualm I had was that they made Michael Fassbender look like a nasty homeless man in the final scene. He's too hot to do that too! ;)
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book. Coming out of Fassbender's mouth, they made me weak at the knees!
"Because, he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, - you'd forget me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Rochester: [after Jane and Mr. Rochester have put out a fire that was set to his bed] Say nothing about this. You are no talking fool.
Jane Eyre: But...
Rochester: I'll account for the state of affairs. Say nothing.
Jane Eyre: Yes, sir.
Rochester: Is that how you would leave me? Jane, fire is a horrible death. You've saved my life. Don't walk past me as if we were strangers.
Jane Eyre: What am I to do, then?
[Rochester offers his hand, which she hesitates before taking. He covers her hand with his and draws closer]
Rochester: I have a pleasure in owing you my life.
Jane Eyre: There is no debt.
Rochester: I knew you would do me good in some way. I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you. Their expression did not strike my very inmost being so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies. You...
Jane Eyre: Good night then, sir.
Rochester: You will leave me, then.
Jane Eyre: I am cold.
Rochester: Go.
“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“Rochester: "Jane, be still; don't struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation."
Jane: "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, great and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Rochester: Pilot. Who's there? This hand. Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre.
Jane Eyre: Edward, I'm come back to you. Fairfax Rochester with nothing to say.
Rochester: You're altogether a human being Jane.
Jane Eyre: I conscientiously believe so.
Rochester: I dream.
Jane Eyre: Awaken then.
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