Answers to Jane Eyre Exam Questions 1 & 2

 

 

Question 1. Would you prefer to read a book whose first sentence was

“It was the morning of my 83^rd birthday, and I was in bed with Mr Rochester’s catamites when Grace Poole pranced into the room with her troupe of performing parrots, to announce that the Holy Father was waiting to see me.”

or one which started

“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”?

Do you think Jane Eyre would have been a better novel if it had begun with the former?          

Give your reasons.                                                                                                          

 

Answer:

Candidates may opt for either choice as a preferable start for a novel.

 

Reasons for preferring the first are :  it tells us much about the protagonist in only one sentence. Although the sex of this intriguing person is not disclosed we learn that he or she is elderly yet remains vigorous, is given to catamite-frenzies, possesses a colourful entourage, and has the ear of the Pope. This tantalising glimpse leaves us eager to know more –  How many catamites are there?  Will Rochester mind?  Might the parrots take fright?  What does the Holy Father want? – and so we read on keenly. A lively story seems likely to follow, full of interest and surprises.

The other sentence however, may augur a dull tale of timid people who dare not venture out of doors if a light rain threatens.

 

Reasons for preferring the latter are :  the 83^rd birthday sentence discloses more than the reader can want to know about this dissolute and uninhibited narrator. There are catamites - and the person they are cavorting with isn’t even their owner! There’s a woman with parrots! The Pope is involved, even! This warns us that many an unsavoury incident could lurk within the ensuing pages.  It sounds as though it is all going to be highly improbable as well, making it difficult to empathise with the characters.

The simple sentence about not going out, in contrast, reveals little yet involves the reader immediately in the world of the narrator and invites him to share the narrator’s concerns – What day? Who are these people? Why won’t they be walking? Where won’t they be walking? What might they do instead? All these questions remain to be answered in a much more comfortable read. Sure enough in the second sentence of the novel we discover that these enigmatic characters have spent the earlier part of the day wandering in a leafless shrubbery: what could be safer and more domestic than that? The text that begins like this is unlikely to challenge or distress the reader in any way.

 

On the question of whether Jane Eyre would have been a better novel if it had begun with the 83^rd birthday sentence, candidates should mention merely that it would have been a quite different novel, neither better nor worse necessarily. Jane Eyre as it exists is generally thought to be a very fine novel.

Our old friend the Shrubbery.    This one has got leaves, though.

 

 

Question 2. Explain the significance of Jane’s moustache in the novel.

 How would her fate have differed if

a) she had been able to grow a luxuriant full beard,

b) present-day laser treatments for facial hair removal had been available?                      

 

Answer:

This is a trick question because there is no mention of any moustache in the novel. Candidates must point this out, and see the moustache as a metaphor for Jane’s plainness.
Hence they should answer the question as if it read
Explain the significance of Jane’s plainness in the novel.

How would her fate have differed if

a) she had been really monstrously ugly,
b) present-day plastic surgery techniques had been available?

 

Part a) therefore is correctly answered, - if Jane had been monstrously ugly people would have shuddered to look at her; her early childhood would have been much the same as documented, but later, no-one would have employed her and her cousins would have run her out of town rather than welcoming her. It seems unlikely that Mr Rochester would have fallen for her in the first place, but had he done so it would have been to Jane's advantage when he became blind, and a great worry to her when his sight seemed to be returning.

Part b) is answered, - if she could have afforded it Jane would have been able to undergo various pieces of cosmetic surgery, and with luck rendered herself a bit more attractive. Given her docile and accepting nature it is reasonable to suppose that she would have eschewed any such opportunities and elected to remain plain, trusting to her saintliness as her principal weapon in the battle for Mr Rochester’s affections.

 

As for the significance of her plainness, the book tells the story of Jane’s rise from a position where she had no advantages – no money, no kind parents, no influential friends, no skills, and to cap it all she had been singularly ill-served in the looks department. She made her life better – won Mr Rochester with all that he entailed – purely by the exercise of her sweet disposition and goodness, unaided by any fair complexion, dear little retroussée nose, enormous blue eyes, Cupid’s-bow lips or mane of luscious auburn hair.

If she had been beautiful she could have used her loveliness to gain favours galore. It is a rare woman who, having the benefit of beauty, does not use it thus. And so it would have been impossible to retain the integrity of the story without keeping Jane Eyre plain.



Good Heavens. Jane. Calm down. Calm down at once.   And you, Gentlemen, you calm down too.