The secret life of Jane Eyre

Filed under: Books, Humor, Sex
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I cannot but read the following innocent passage from Jane Eyre with a certain inappropriate amusement.

It's a scene in which Jane (living at a girls' boarding school(!)) is distressed, and her friend Helen comes to comfort her; then their teacher Miss Temple arrives.

Resting my head on Helen's shoulder, I put my arms round her waist; she drew me to her[....] [Then] another person came in. [The moon] shone full both on us and on the approaching figure, which we at once recognized as Miss Temple.

"I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre," said she; "I want you in my room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too."

[They go to Miss Temple's room, and conversation ensues. And then:]

[Miss Temple] kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was well contented to stand, for I derived [...] pleasure from the contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her white forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns.

I wonder if anyone's done a porn-movie version of Jane Eyre. I imagine it would be called Jane Bare.

One Response to “The secret life of Jane Eyre”

  1. kairon-gnothi.livejournal.com

    This reminds me of some quotes from a passage about word drift which I just read in Fforde’s First Among Sequels:

    “He handed me another sheet of paper, this time from Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge.
    “‘…the Mayor beheld the unattractive exterior of Farfrae’s erection.’”
    “And,” he added decisively, “we’ve got a character named ‘Master Bates’ turning up all over Oliver Twist .”
    …
    “Bleak House,” I read from the sheet of paper I’d been handed, “and I quote: ‘Sir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates.’”
    …
    “Do you mean to tell me that when Lydia from Pride and Prejudice thinks of Brighton and ‘…the glories of the camp-its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay,’ that she might possibly mean something else?”

    Maybe it is not word drift. Here’s Miriam Burstein’s thoughts about “quite overt eroticism” in Jane Eyre, in reviewing someone else’s Eyre book on her blog:

    “…As Rochester notes with some surprise, Jane quite cheerfully listens to his stories of mistress-keeping without the remotest twinge of anxiety; later, she grumbles about being treated like “a second Danae with the golden shower falling around me,” and threatens to emancipate Rochester’s imaginary “harem”; and she knows perfectly well what going abroad with Rochester entails. One does wonder how Jane managed to get so worldly at a school like Lowood. Of course Jane desires Mr. Rochester; but, also of course, she desires him within a Christian framework, one which (here, at least) enthusiastically endorses sexual passions within marriage while firmly punishing those same passions outside of it.*”
    (http://littleprofessor.typepad.com/the_little_professor/2005/03/ijane_eyrei_in_.html)

    (For the Beavis and Butthead crowd: Jane did go to Lowood. Low Wood. Heh.)

    How about these porn-movie versions:
    Pride and Prejudice and Peignoirs?
    Peek House?
    I-Love-A Twist?
    The Layor of Casterbridge?

    reply

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