"In Our Time" -Holly Skorupa

Pros:

• The podcast teaches the listener more about Charlotte Bronte, who after all, is the creator behind the famous novel
• This in turn reveals more of the autobiographical aspect of Jane Eyre. The podcast gives good examples from Bronte's life that correspond with events in her book. 
• The first female narrator gives good descriptions of some details behind the book, like why Bronte wanted a plain heroine. 

Cons:

• The male narrator throughout the podcast is boring, talks slow, and uses lots of filler words like "um"
• The first female speaker speaks in a very monotone manner, and makes the listener tune out, lose interest, or start to fall asleep if you're like me and are doing this at 11:30 pm. 
• Okay, it's not that I don't love a luxurious British accent now and then, but I often found myself unsure of, or just not understanding, some words they're saying throughout the podcast. If someone reading this has a British accent, I'm sorry. Keep doing you. 

One aspect of Bronte's life that I had never thought about, until the podcast had brought it up, was her parents. It talked about her father, Patrick Bronte, who was born the son of a poor farmer, and worked to bring his family up. By the time he was sixteen, he had founded a school. I'm seventeen and can't even go to the doctor's office alone. I mean, the dude wasn't even originally named Bronte, before he legally changed it, it was Brunty! He had gone through many apprenticeships to try and find his passion, and eventually became a clergyman before he met his wife. He was tough too. His wife Maria died when Bronte was just 47, and he still moved forward, and outlived all six of his children too. 

Aside from my curiosity with the Bronte family, I was drawn in by something mentioned approximately sixteen minutes into the podcast. The narrator brought up the weather often written about in the novel, and how the reader often knows the weather in a scene. This reminded me of Thomas C. Foster's book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In his book, Foster talks about how weather is always symbolic, like rain is never just rain. Rain often symbolizes the cleansing of a character, or a brand new start for them. This is evident in Jane Eyre. During the period where Jane was homeless after leaving Thornfield, she had gotten rained on while sleeping in one of her nooks. This was the day before she met Mary, Hannah, Diana, and St. John, which is the day her life turned around. That rain was cleaning Jane anew, and ridding her of her past with the Reeds, Thornfield, and Rochester.

I am not going to lie, I do not read through Jane Eyre and recognize the symbolic weather or contemplate her family background, but since realizing these things I will be paying much closer attention.