Classics Revisited: 'Jane Eyre' is the Best Version of a Frustrating Tale

As part of our new "Classics Revisited" series, we're taking a look back at some of our favorite series and movies from days gone by. First up: The 2006 BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre, a four-part series whose lush atmosphere and incredible cast may well make you forget how uncomfortable much of this story really is.

Charlotte Bronte's novel is groundbreaking for many reasons, not the least of which being that it actually gives readers a relatable, self-actualized heroine to root for and makes an ahead-of-its-time argument for female liberation and equality. Yet it also centers a love story that is deeply problematic and uncomfortably toxic, making a hero of a man who is, in many ways a monster. (Justice for Bertha Rochester, is what I'm saying.) I suspect that it is the tension in this dichotomy - between the seemingly modern heroine we want to believe a mid-nineteenth-century female author could have produced, and the restrictive romance the character ultimately submits to - that has kept us debating the merits of this novel for so many years.

As I said during our podcast conversation on this topic, I suspect readers tend to fall into one of two categories. You're either a Charlotte Bronte person, which means you probably love Jane Eyre for all the things it gets right about its heroine and the agency its story grants her. Or you're an Emily Bronte person, which means you prefer the overly dramatic world of Wuthering Heights, including Heathcliff and Cathy's aggressively epic (and, admittedly, also often toxic) romance.