Every year I set a goal for myself in January. Based on the amount of books I read the previous year, I set an amount (lower or higher) to achieve for the new year. This year I sadly didn't reach that goal due to my increasingly busy schedule. But the week before Christmas I reached a number I was happy with and decided to revisit my favorite classic: Jane Eyre.

Usually I'm not a fan of books published in this time period (Jane Eyre was published in 1847), but for some reason Charlotte Bronte really caught my attention with this one. It's a long novel (over 400 pages), but that's never daunted me with books. The story follows Jane's life from her time as an orphaned child in a household where she was unwanted to adulthood and becoming a governess for a man she ultimately fell in love with.

Since it is one of my favorites, I have read countless articles and reviews on the novel. Much to my dismay, people seem to only focus on the stormy love story at the end. Mr. Rochester and his love with Jane are no doubt the focus and point of the end of the novel, but everyone seems to skip over the beginning that shaped her into the human being she was when she met Mr. Rochester: an independent woman with an incredibly strong will.

One of my favorite characters is one I have yet to see anyone talk about- Helen Burns. She appears within the first fifty pages after Jane gets sent to Lowood, a charity school for orphans. Her attitude and temperament are the complete opposite of Jane's. Their only obvious similarity is their love of books (though they admire different types). Jane asks her a million questions trying to understand her resilient nature. Here are a few of my favorite quotes that exemplify why I love Helen's character so much:

"It is not violence that best overcomes hate -- nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury."

"Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs."

"It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you;"

"it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear."