I am Jane Eyre

I enjoyed writing the recent Harry Potter post so much that I decided I would make a similar list of parallels between my life and that of one of my other favorite literary characters, Jane Eyre. For anyone who is not into Victorian literature, Jane Eyre is a book by Charlotte Bronte about an orphan girl. I first read it in high school for and I fell in love with it instantly. The movie is on TV right now and I am listening to it as I type. I wonder if other foster kids have found similarities between their life and this book.

An obvious connection is that both of our names start with the letter J.

Both of us were without any siblings.

We both also fell in love with and married a man named Edward, whom others find a bit odd, but whom we find beautiful, charming, brilliant and amazing.

Both Edwards were with a woman who was out of her mind before we came along.

Jane had no relatives who were ready/willing/able to take care of her, so she ended up in the care of strangers. This is true for me also.

Both of us had an aunt on our mother's side of the family, who was a single parent, who had three children and tried to take care of us for a while.

It did not work out in either case.

Those women were the ones who sought alternate placements for each of us.

While she lived with that aunt, Jane had a male cousin who constantly picked on her with no intervention from his mother. This was something I also experienced while living with my aunt.

Both of these cousins also had J names.

Jane and I were both girls who drew more attention for our intellect and artistic gifts than for our beauty.

As a child, Jane's favorite past time was sitting somewhere quiet and looking at books. The same was true for me.

Note: My new job is going very well, but making it very hard to find time to blog right now, so please bare with me if my posts are a bit sporadic.