Tuesday Tea: Who's a literary villain you love to hate?

Everyone needs a nemesis

Mr. Brocklehurst from Jane Eyre is the worst. Photo from Jane Eyre 2011.

I don’t know, I just kinda woke up with villains on my mind.

The first fictional character I thought of was Mr. Brocklehurst from Jane Eyre. He’s the wholly hypocritical and unnecessarily cruel headmaster of the Lowood School — the institution where poor Jane is sent, ostensibly for an education, but in reality, to be constantly cold and perpetually hungry.

From the unctuous Mr. Brocklehurst, it’s the tiniest step to the equally odious Mrs. Reed, Jane Eyre’s aunt and reluctant ‘benefactor.’

I mean, just look at these two:

The callous Mrs. Reed and Mr. Brocklehurst from the 2006 BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre, a.k.a. the best one.

After locking Jane in the (maybe haunted) Red Room as punishment for doing absolutely nothing wrong, Mrs. Reed takes tea with Mr. Brocklehurst so the two can hatch their plans to send Jane away to Lowood:

‘I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects,’ continued [Mrs. Reed]; ‘to be made useful, to be kept humble: as for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at Lowood.’

‘Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam,’ returned Mr. Brocklehurst. ‘Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that especial care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them. I have studied how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment of pride… plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations, hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and its inhabitants.’

Exhibit A:

Meanwhile, Brocklehurst’s daughters are ‘splendidly attired in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio had grey beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled…’

Mrs. Reed’s children John, Georgiana, and Eliza look like this:

Exhibit B:

One morning at Lowood, the breakfast porridge is burnt; it’s a ‘nauseous mess’ that’s ‘almost as bad as rotten potatoes.’ As Jane says, ‘Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted.’

The kind Miss Temple orders a lunch of bread and cheese for the girls later in the day. This is the loathsome Mr. Brocklehurst’s reaction:

‘Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children’s mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!’

I could go on. The first ten chapters of Jane Eyre could easily be documented in a list of Appalling Acts Committed by Mr. Brocklehurst and Mrs. Reed. Bottom line: They are the worst.

Spill the tea: Who's a literary villain you love to hate?