Woodcut

The trouble with Jane Eyre

isn’t what I thought when I slammed shut the book

on those pictures trying to fly out at me

because I misunderstood, being too young

to read. When you’re unable to read a book

you can’t understand the illustrations either.

Those were my mother’s books, a green bound set

of that one and the book by her sister, Emily.

When you can’t understand the artwork

the face at the window is a monster.

It is only Cathy, though, in the book by Brontë’s sister,

calling for her lover. And the awful figure bending

over Jane’s bed with the candle, that monstrous

creature—well, there are flaws in the mind of Jane, too,

and the awful figure bending over her

might be the tormented wife of Rochester.

There’s a flaw in Jane’s mind, too,

looking down on the young French child

born to another tormented mother

whom Rochester says has inherited sin.

The young French child likes presents too much,

likes to dance and sing—and so what? She is love-starved,

this child who has supposedly inherited sin,

who will never get the approval of Mr. Rochester.

We lose track of the pretty child who likes to sing.

Jane goes away for a while to prove her purity.

Then, when the other wife dies, Mr. Rochester

will approve. Reader, I married him, she says,

after she has gone away for a while. He is blind

from the fire the crazy wife set. And then, miraculously,

her love asks if she is wearing a blue dress.

I believe she is pregnant, then, carrying a child

who will be a good child, miraculously.

Charlotte Brontë knew only part of the happy ending.

Perhaps he gets better and sees the blue dress.

We have to believe things turn out well,

while Charlotte, herself, had nine months of pleasure

and died. And so the book, which ends as if resolved,

asks us to believe things turn out well, the French girl gone,

Rochester and Jane and the baby in the burned-out

mansion, because books then ended resolutely

and did not reflect how it is to have a calm life,

Rochester and Jane and the baby in the burned-out

mansion, illustrated by the art of the woodcut,

which does not suggest such a calm life,

but a knife and fire making art out of wood,

in a mansion that itself has been sculpted by

fire and breaking things, which is how we really live.