If you’re wondering what compelled me to do a summary of Jane Eyre via memes, well, today is the Internet’s 50th Birthday*! And that deserves a celebration (whee!) since it will likely go down in history as the greatest technological development of our lifetimes.
All of that is to say, the book lover and technology lover in me are coming together to ring in the internet’s big five-oh properly. So, here’s Jane Eyre, as Told Through Internet Memes. Hope you enjoy!
*On April 7, 1969 the first Request for Comment on internet standards and methodologies was published. I realize there’s some ambiguity about what date should be considered the birthday. If you’d like to argue about what date the internet’s birthday actually is, please direct your comments here.
Jane Eyre is a kid whose parents are dead, and the family she lives with is a sack of dicks.
She gets sent to a school where pretty much everyone similarly sucks.
…But she makes a friend, Helen! Helen is the best! We love Helen! Helen teaches Jane to hope!
Helen dies.
(By the way, for any Oregon Trail fans, there’s actually a handheld version of it you can get now.)
Meanwhile, Jane’s like:
Jane becomes a teacher at the school.
But she wants more and finds a job at Thornhill as a governess for the ward of Mr. Rochester.
At Thornhill, Jane hears strange laughter around the house.
There’s a fire in Rochester’s room one night, and Jane saves him.
Later, a visitor to Thornhill gets attacked on the third floor, and Rochester blames a random servant. But Jane is skeptical.
After time, Jane catches feeling for Rochester. However, she chickens out when the beautiful Blanche Ingram comes onto the scene.
Blanche has, let’s say, “financial” interests in marrying Rochester.
But Rochester’s only got eyes for plain Jane and turns down Blanche.
Soon, Jane and Rochester plan a small wedding, but it gets interrupted by a lawyer. Rochester’s already married!
Rochester brings them upstairs to the third floor to meet Bertha, who is mentally unwell (she was the one attacking people and who started the fire, etc.).
Rochester wants Jane to stay, but she quietly leaves Thornhill instead.
At this point Jane’s life is a dumpster fire. It’s been a few days of Jane being penniless, homeless and near starving.
Facing disagreeable prospects…
Jane makes a pact with the wildlings to fight the white walkers. Nah, just kidding, she’s taken in by the family of St. John Rivers, a clergyman who offers her a teaching job.
One day, some guy pops out of the woodworks talking about some uncle she’s never met and how she’s got all these cousins, and they are the Rivers! OMG! The Rivers (i.e. the people who took her in) are awesome and now they are Jane’s family!
Also, he’s like, you’re super rich cause that uncle actually died and left you hella inheritance. Have you heard the song 7 Rings by Ariana Grande? It’s kinda like that.
Jane is so happy, and quickly decides to split the inheritance with her newfound family.
John proposes to Jane and wants her to go do missionary work in India with him. Jane is confused and distraught, because she cares for him like a brother but doesn’t want to marry him.
John is persistent…
…But Jane decides she hears the voice of Rochester calling to her telepathically, in a way that is definitely romantic and not at all creepy.
She runs to him! (figuratively)
She finds Thornhill in ruins, having been burnt down by Bertha, who then killed herself. What Jane should have done:
Meanwhile, Rochester’s sitting in the ruins, blind and missing a hand, being all like:
Jane loves him anyway though, so she promises to take care of him always. They marry, and eventually he regains vision in one eye. The end!
Thanks for reading! If you liked this, feel free to subscribe or follow me on Goodreads to find out when I post new reviews!
Also check out Jane Eyre in its original form here or watch the movie (the Mia Wasikowska / Michael Fassbender version or the Charlotte Gainsbourg / Anna Paquin version). Happy reading and meme-ing!
And to the late Charlotte Bronte, sorry about this, I really did like your book, ma’am.
So funny! I shared it on my FB page
awesome, thank you, joy!
Ha! Love it.
cheers, thanks! :)
Great ghosts! That’s a fresh, cinching review. I think Charlotte would be flattered.
Thank you! I hope so too, haha! :)
😂🤣 This is great
Grazi! Thanks for reading :)
This is hilarious. I love it.
Thank you so much!
hahahaha this is so wonderful!! Thanks for making this- it really brightened up my day!!
Awww glad you liked it and thanks for reading! :)
This is so much fun. Made my day. Off to share it now.
That’s awesome, thank you so much! Hope you had a great weekend!
Love it!
Grazi mille!
I think this is my new favorite thing. Amazing.
Haha thank you, and thanks for checking it out! :)
Thank you! I had such a good laugh over that. Wonderful! 😂
That’s great to hear, thank you!
This is so funny! I loved it! 😁
Glad you liked it! :)
Very cool! )
Thank you!! :)
The Pennywise/texting bit cracked me up. I like how well you were able to retell the story with memes. Do you think you might do the same for another classic?
thank you! I think I’ll see how the response to this one is and if I can find enough different memes to do another. But I appreciate the encouragement!
Do more of these! 😂
haha, I’m thinking about it! :)
I will likely never read Jane Eyre, but I absolutely loved your Meme-ology of the book! From the “Well this sucks” kitty to the Drake rant to Anchorman saying, “that escalated quickly…” you had me crying/giggling to myself the whole way to Grumpy Cat.
Also, I’m glad I stuck with it to the end, otherwise I would have missed your heartfelt (and totally unnecessary) apology to the late Charlotte Bronte. You called her, “ma’am!” Very classy and respectful. Thank you for doing this in honor of the internet’s birthday.
More memes every so often, please.
Baha! Awesome!
thank you!
That about sums it up… Lmao!
thanks! I wouldn’t recommend anyone use it as a study guide, but I did generally try to be accurate :)
:)
Hilarious and very creative! Kudos to you!!
Thank you! :)
😂
😎
Love this!
thank you! 📚😁
This was awesome! 😂
And yeah, Jane Eyre was a rather sad/disturbing book… good story, but still. The ending. It seems too abrupt and you don’t expect it.
Thank you! Haha, I actually really like Jane Eyre. I realize retelling it through memes removes a lot of the nuance from the story :)
HAHHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAH SOOOOO GOOD. 🤣🤣🤣 Reading this also made me question WHY this was my favorite classic… and now I need a reread. 🙈
Thank you!! Much appreciated — I love Jane Eyre, I assure you this was made with much fondness for the story :)
Oh I loved this so much!! That was awesome!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
Made me laugh! I love Jane Eyre and this pretty much summarises it.
that’s awesome to hear, thank you! :)
Oh my goodness this was so entertaining! It has been years since I read the classic so it was also a bit of refresher for me too. Thanks for making this :D
thanks for the kind comments! glad you liked it! :)
The memes are so on point, I loved this!!
Love this!
This made my day!!
Haha thank you for the encouragement! :)
so no one is gonna comment on the ‘thornhill’!?! like really?!
I KNOW, right!? GAH!
Unbelievable. And she’s updated the post since your comment and it’s still not fixed. Yeesh.
And Rochester isn’t sitting in the ruins of Thornfield Hall, he’s at Ferndean.
Funny :) but please edit Thornhill to the proper name: Thornfield Hall.
I second that.
And correct the part about Rochester being at Thornfield Hall instead of Ferndean.
That was awesome! And hilarious. And awesome.
I truly loved reading this, glad I found this gem online!