In an interview on Books that Changed the World

Moving on to another Jane, you next choice is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Of course, Charlotte Bronte loathed Jane Austen and thought she was far too genteel. This book was revolutionary because it insisted that not only could a heroine be small and poor and plain, but she could actually be worthy of respect because she had a mind, an intelligence that had been trained – and, unlike Austen’s heroines, she could do a job. 

I remember finding that quite electrifying when I read it because even in my generation (people who are now in their early 50s or late 40s), it was still not automatic that a woman would have a job and a career. Jane’s boldness, her self-confidence and her resilience remain deeply inspirational.

Jane Eyre was also revolutionary in insisting that she be respected and that her moral values be accepted by someone of a higher social class. When he is exposed as a would-be bigamist, Mr Rochester offers her a life in Italy as his mistress. Although she is passionately in love with him, Jane rejects that because she feels it to be wrong and she wants to keep her flinty sense of what is right. Being the kind of fairy-tale it is, she finally wins. The very aunt who persecuted her for her stubbornness as a child leaves her a fortune.

The novel is all about learning to see things for what they truly are: again, this is one of the things great novels insist we do. You fall in love with Jane long before Mr Rochester does!

In an interview on Books for Teenagers

What about your next book?

My next one is Jane Eyre. She was orphaned and sent to a very rich aunt, who had her own very selfish children. Jane Eyre was not the perfect child and she was sent to live in a girls’ school. She made one friend, but unfortunately the little girl died, so she had to toughen up. She grew up there and learned everything she needed to know about teaching. She was a very good artist, she played a little piano, she learned French. When she got older she became the governess for a little French girl who was the ward of a man who lived in a manor. They fell in love, but it turned out that he had a wife, who was insane and lived in the attic. So Jane Eyre ran away and found out she had an uncle who had left her a great deal of money. But she couldn’t get the man out of her mind, so she went back. She found out that after she left, the man’s wife had set the place on fire. The wife had died in the fire, and it had blinded him. They were still very much in love and they married. And they lived happily ever after.

Jane Eyre came out of a very bad situation, but she was a very strong child because she had to be. They put her through a lot; they treated her very badly. She just kept looking forward. She had the idea that there must be something better.

My older brother passed away when he was 21. A bunch of them had been swimming in the James River. You’re not supposed to go swimming there, and one of the girls got caught in a whirlpool. My brother was a lifeguard so he jumped in and got her out. But he got caught and pulled under and drowned. I had just turned 13. He said to me once, “There is no such thing as ‘why’. You can ask why till the cows come home, and you’ll never get an answer. You just have to wait for the ‘because’…”

I danced as a career until the JRA got so bad it was the end. I remember thinking, “OK. Where is the ‘because’?” When I got very sick, I had a four-year-old. I had to move back near my mom so she could help out. One day I took my son to the park, and we were on a little choo-choo train. The train stopped because there was an animal sitting on the track that wouldn’t get off. I went to look, and it was a mother raccoon with her baby. You can figure out the rest … it’s called The Kissing Hand [Audrey’s first New York Times bestseller].

Raccoons really do that?

Yes, she took the little baby’s hand, and rubbed her nose in it, and he put his hand on his face. They do it so that he has his mother’s scent, so if she has to walk away, he can smell his mom and not be scared. If I had been dancing I wouldn’t have seen it. And millions of kids have been helped by it, so I guess I wasn’t supposed to dance. That was the “because”…

In an interview on Victorian Fiction

Your final two novels are a brace of Brontë sisters. Jane Eyre has recently experienced a revival in the shape of a glossy Hollywood film. Why should we read the book rather than soak it up in the cinema?

There has been a very interesting debate about Jane Eyre which comes through in the latest movie and also in the less-shown earlier movies. It is an idea which was hatched by post-1960s feminism, namely that the real heroine of Jane Eyre is not the plain little governess but the mad woman in the attic, Bertha Mason. No one ever calls her Bertha Rochester, even though she is married to the bad Edward Rochester. If you read the book that way, you can see the mad woman in the attic – who attacked Rochester and burns down his house, who is destructive and angry – to some extent as the other half of Jane Eyre, who is submissive, punishes herself and is obedient to the demands of her lords and masters. Bertha is the locked-up woman inside Miss Eyre. One of the reasons why I think this idea is so popular is because it ties in neatly with ideas about the id which are current at the moment. The new film makes Bertha Mason, who is described as a purple monster in the book, really very sexy and attractive.

When I read the book, she was this shadowy, menacing character. But I don’t remember much about her apart from the fact she was threatening.

No, but she is there. When her brother comes back to interrupt the wedding between Jane Eyre and Rochester, and says that Rochester is still married to Bertha, then she becomes instrumental in changing the course of the novel. Rochester asks Jane to stay and be his mistress, and she runs away. This is the least likely part of the novel. She runs away across the moors, across virtually all of England, only to end up fainting on the doorstep of someone who turns out to be her cousin. The Brontës were never frightened of coincidence in their novels.