I walked out of the room because Sara was calling, so I missed it -- I have the Samantha Morton/Ciaran Hinds one on (and it doesn't even come close to the Ruth Wilson/Toby Stephens version, imo).

I can't believe I can't remember whether she did or not. I've read it about a million times.

I can't remember either. She definitely knew that bad shit was going on, but...I'm going to say that she didn't know, she was just warning Jane off of Rochester on his own.

Textually there is no evidence that she knew but you can make the inference based on how she warned Jane. I would think it would be impossible for her to NOT have known and still run the household.

I always assumed she knew.

I would think it would be impossible for her to NOT have known and still run the household.

That's what I was thinking as I watched, and I couldn't believe it had never struck me before.

The problem with reading threads in quick succession is that skimming through this, I thought for a moment Jane here was Jane in Mentalist and was v. confused.

I think she knew.

I just went to see the movie. Never read the book. Knew there was a wife in attic, but that was about it. And...I don't get it. Is it supposed to be romantic or hot or something? I just found him creepy and her boring.

I have only known Jane through the books and haven't seen the movies, meara, so I can speak to the appeal in that sense.

I think what makes Jane, as a character, super appealling is that she operates with a deep core of righteousness. She is remarkably unconcerned with what is popular or with what is acceptable. Instead, she does what she thinks is right, whether it is stand up to Mrs. Reed (and eventually forgive her as an adult) or leave the man she loves.

She has a sense of herself that is unusual for Victorian heroines. What she wants is to be able to live with her decisions and herself and not be bullied, though she so often is. She knows that she deserves to be treated with respect and care, though she rarely has been, and seems to demand it of others.

Most of all, she remains true to herself, to her sense of rightness in a world that was trying every day to make her somebody else.

I love the book.

I'm with Kat.

I think for me, too, the fact that she turns down St. John can be read too easily as her rejecting him because she still loves Rochester. But I firmly believe she wouldn't have accepted him at any time, because while so many other women of that era would have taken the chance to be a wife (and therefore ensured of food and shelter, etc.), she didn't love him.

That's the kind of righteousness I admire in her. She never looks for the easy way out.

Her still loving Rochester may have played into her rejection of St. John, but more from a "I have too much honor to marry him if I cannot marry him with a whole heart."