Page 22 - Julie Thorley Nine Lives book

The Reader
Our would-be heroine then embarks on a picaresque adventure that is built on an unlikely string of coincidence and happenstance that simply would not come to pass in the real world. Every time she is on the brink of ruin or disaster, Mr Bell manipulates providence and introduces a character to rescue her. It is inconceivable that such Samaritans exist: if they did, society’s ills would be greatly alleviated.
Most unlikely of all is that she should stumble across a household of charitable people who take her into their home and who then turn out to be her only living relatives in the whole world, and a conduit to a not inconsiderable fortune to boot. How convenient for her and for the teller of the tale.
But there were two points that I found particularly objectionable. Miss Eyre shows unseemly physical attraction to her employer, an amoral man by the name of Rochester. When circumstances arise that force them apart – and that should have been the end of matters – she is drawn back to him by some mystical mental connection. She shuns the alternative, namely to accept the salvation offered by one Mr St John Rivers, a
man of good standing and religious conviction. Worse still, it is the young woman – I cannot call her a lady – who herself who decides that the marriage between her and Rochester should take place, leading the poor man to believe that the match will restore his happiness.
It would be a sad day for England were all men to bend thus to the will of the women amongst us. There is nothing more to say on the matter.
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