Both 'The Eyre Affair' by Jasper Fforde and 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte have an independent and headstrong central character. How do the writers establish and use this trait in the novels?

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Sarah Jackson

Both ‘The Eyre Affair’ by Jasper Fforde and ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte have an independent and headstrong central character. How do the writers establish and use this trait in the novels?

        Although there are seemingly some strong links and similarities between ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte and ‘The Eyre Affair’ by Jasper Fforde, there is also an abundance of differences. Written in the 19th century, Bronte displays typical components of literature of this period in ‘Jane Eyre’, for example a chronological plot. It qualifies as a great work of literature under the Liberal Humanist approach to criticism, as ‘Jane Eyre’ carries a social message about women’s status and roles in the society of the 19th century, and seemingly portrays Bronte’s dissatisfaction on the subject. This thread running through the novel provides a didactic undertone and enables the text to relate to the world. There also appears to be a moral message about goodness being rewarded in the novel.

‘Jane Eyre’ has been written in an autobiographical form; therefore Bronte has used a first person narrator to give us an account of Jane’s life through her eyes. By doing so, Bronte enables the reader to share immediately and fully in Jane’s thoughts and feelings.

Bronte and Fforde have chosen for Jane and Thursday conceal their feelings in public and maintain a professional stance at all times, but confide in the reader. In Jane’s case, one of her purposes seems to be to show Bronte’s awareness of the roles of women in society. Questions about society are addressed indirectly, through the medium of feeling. This is also applicable to Thursday, with such an emphasis in the novel on her status as a woman.  It is important to consider that Jane’s portrayal of personal and sexual relationships was out of step with Victorian conventions. Perhaps this was intentional by Bronte to voice her dissatisfaction with the society at the time the novel was written, and thus is a deliberate formulation of Jane’s narrative and character. One critic* is sure that ‘Jane is clearly a projection or recreation of Charlotte’s own heart and mind.’

The link between reader, author and character seems looser in ‘The Eyre Affair.’ We are still presented with Thursday’s thoughts and feelings (as we are with Jane’s), but not in such an intense, constant way. Fforde delivers his story using a disarmingly chatty first-person narrative, similar in tone to that of the diaries of Adrian Mole and Bridget Jones. This harnesses empathy in the readers as the informality brings us instantaneously close to Thursday’s emotional epicentre and mind.

Both ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘The Eyre Affair’ are written in the first person, and are predominantly written in a mimetic narrative mode, which makes the reader feel as if they are there bearing witness to the unravelling events. In contrast though, there are frequent diagetic phases in the novels because they indulge in jumping forward in time, sometimes by quite a long period, and the author summarizes the happenings of the time missed.

Jane and Thursday are homodiagetic, overt narrators - fully developed and the main character in either novel. We shadow them through their everyday occurrences (some more eccentric than others) and through this, plus their thoughts, emotions and conversations, we learn all about different aspects of their characters.

Fforde uses several alternative narrators as well as Thursday in his novel. At the beginning of each chapter, a short extract of text, relevant to the events of the latter part of the previous chapter or the ones to unfold in the following chapter, is presented and accredited to a fictitious source (such as an autobiography of the character). Fforde does this in order to enhance the general narrative provided by Thursday, due to the internal focalisation of her private narrative, but also aids our understanding and accurate perceptions of the characters (whose thoughts are otherwise inaccessible). We only receive her depiction of the other characters through her external judgement of them. By introducing these snippets from the other characters, Fforde has found a way to broaden some of the characters who would otherwise be undeveloped - to an extent - in the main plotted narrative. These snippets of narration from the other characters also aid the creation of Fforde’s world by adding to the authenticity and encouraging a realistic dimension. Such sources and narrators include extracts from ‘A Short History of the Special Operations Network’ by Millon De Floss, ‘The Owl on Sunday’ (the national newspaper) and ‘Degeneracy for Pleasure and Profit’ (Acheron Hades’ autobiography).

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Whilst Jane is the sole narrator, Bronte has chosen for Jane to address the reader several times, ‘Reader, I married him,’ which acknowledges the fact that the text was written to be read by people and is a book. It is a form of alienation, in that it reminds us we’re reading a novel, but nonetheless, it doesn’t seemingly threaten the realistic feeling of the text.  

Fforde has chosen to write ‘The Eyre Affair’ in a typical Post-Modern style. His work indulges in the loss of the real, presenting us with imaginative aspects to his specially conjured world in ...

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