The Secret History of Jane Eyre

While not agreeing with everything this author theorizes, I enjoyed The Secret History of Jane Eyre. It was a quick read and the biographical snippets of Charlotte Bronte’s life were interesting, though I do feel like Pfordresher unfairly focused on the darker aspects of her character.

There are some intriguing analogies between Charlotte Bronte’s life and her most famous novel, but Pfordresher overreaches himself at times. While Bronte certainly did draw on the people around her to build her characters, Pfordresher underemphasizes that key player in every writer’s life: imagination.

There were times where Pfordresher needed to offer more evidence. For instance, he states that Charlotte’s damning portrayal of her school, Cowan Bridge, was justified according to sources and that it was much worse than she portrayed in Jane Eyre (assuming she used Cowan Bridge as the model for Lowood), but then he doesn’t cite any of those sources.

There was a lot of discussion of Charlotte’s juvenilia. It seems obvious that her later works grew out of her early writings; the time spent analyzing the connections mostly seemed irrelevant.

I don’t believe Jane Eyre was as completely autobiographical as Pfordresher claims, but I appreciated the connections he made between her life and her novel. I was surprised that he didn’t spend more time discussing Villette and relating it to Jane Eyre, as it is certainly the most autobiographical of Bronte’s works.

Overall, this was a worthwhile read, but it wasn’t as revelatory as the captivating title lead me to believe.