Challenges & Opportunities of Teaching Jane Eyre

One of the greater pieces of English literature may also be one of the more difficult, if only because it's one of the richer and more complex books out there (not to mention, you have to deal with all that 19th-century English). Jane Eyre has, to put it simply, layers. It's got a surprising, dramatic plot, though it's told through the consciousness of an unusually blunt and sometimes unsympathetic heroine. It also abounds with all those goodies English teachers love, like symbols, allusions, and metaphors. At the core, the story can make us strangely uncomfortable with its weird, "happy" ending.

Jane's Moral Universe