PLAIN HEROINES.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 152, 30 September 1926, Page 2

PLAIN HEROINES.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE’S “ JANE EYRE.” Charlotte Bronte once told Tier sifters that they were wrong, and even morally wrong, in making their, heroines beautiful as a matter of course, says a writer in T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly. They replied that it was impossible to moke a heroine’ interesting on any ether terms Her answer was: “I will show you a as plain and as small as myself, who shall he as interesting as any of yours.” Hence “Jane Eyre,” whom nobody but Mr Rochester thought so very handsome for she was a little small thing almost like a child. Lucy Snowe, the heroine of “Villette,” is a pale, diminutive woman of the same type. Lucy is to eke out her limited means by teaching at the Pensionnat in Villette. Jo March e the most striking figure in Louisa Alcott’s “Little Women,” is undeniably plain. “Jo was tall, thin, and brown, reminding one of a colt. She had a large mouth a comical nose, big hands and feet, round shoulders, and a fly-away look to her clothes.” Jo and her friend Laurie- are the instigators of all tlte family pranks. When Jo grows up she takes a post as goveirnness in order to escape Laurie’s repeated proposals. At this place she meets “her professor,” who later becomes her husband. The unromantic courtship and successful marriage of Maggie, the plain little heroine- of Sir Janies Barrio’s play, “What Every ? Woman Knows,” reveals the triumph of a plain woman over countless obstacles.