Classics Corner — Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre

Lecture Classics Corner Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre Tara Hayes , lecturer In this lecture, Tara Hayes explores Charlotte Brontë's decision to have Jane Eyre tell her own story directly to the reader and how Jane Eyre set a new standard for storytelling. Shared from a mature, emotionally and psychologically astute vantage, Jane's journey from unwanted orphan girl to Mr. Rochester's equal — some would say better — is not only a coming-of-age bildungsroman and proto-feminist novel but also a barrier-defying, class-shattering treatise on the power of one's voice and the value of the individual. This presentation is part of Tara Hayes' Classics Corner series. This year's season focuses on the journey. The quest. The odyssey. The path. Whether travel is undertaken individually or in a group, whether the obstacles to overcome are monsters of enormous size or personal fears and anxieties, whether or not the treasure or destination sought is actually found, all progress leads to the most significant of achievements: self-knowledge. The three foundational texts of the Western literary tradition with which Classics Corner returns in 2027 each take the reader on a particular journey and reveal that it is always the search itself that matters most.