It's a novel called Jan Eyre, but with a good ending.
There is such an old, but not yet completely outdated article by Bette London, where she explores the concept of submission - and in the novel "Jan Air" (yes, I always say and write "Jan", because for fans of translation Stanevich is such a Slavic cabinet), and in the life of Bronte herself, which, of course, was much more interesting than her books - in terms of passions, throwing, hidden desires and attempts to connect themselves as a definitely creative and talented person with the desire to please the Victorian community. London, for example, quotes Bronte's correspondence with George Lewis, a publisher and critic, yes, and a fellow cohabitant of a certain Mary Anne Evans, in which Bronte, though scolding Jane Austen (these pieces, these peeled quotes know everything), but then, immediately, pulls himself apart, promising Lewis that he will try to write quieter and softer, that she would follow the "soft light that radiates Miss Austen's eyes," and her entire letter is imbued with a passionate desire to earn approval, praise, even if she had to promise an important publisher to screw her writer's ardor slightly to some warm moderation.
London writes that for Bronte, as well as for Jan Eyre, freedom is a new service, freedom is just a change of owners, and just as Charlotte Bronte's inner thought movement combined her very wild, very passionate talent with her contradictory and impossible in her case desire to be good, to be obedient and all nice, so the ending of the novel "Jan Eyre" is like her inner throwing.
Rich and independent Jan returns to his master's service. He has retained some inner Gothic sexuality, but a few rolled down from the position of an omnipotent deity, losing not only his eye but also the ability to throw lightning with both hands. Jan Eyre becomes a kind of Dalila for his master: he cuts off his hair and at the same time - freedom, where he now without it: neither to the contents nor to the woman in the attic is not hidden. The end of the novel is full of sinister contentment: first Mr. Rochester led Jen by the nose, now she leads him by the hand. On the other hand, this is, of course, a wonderful ending, and it is his ambiguity that makes the novel "Jan Air" so much stronger, much more noticeable, for example, - because it is this piece - in all its deliberate, gothic entourage of passions and icy paths - more like a real life, which, as you know, does not give in to a special logic and structurization. It is this piece that can be blackened and whitened to the point where it is impossible: Jan is a gentle lamb, Jen is a calculating sadist and dominatrix, Jen is the love herself, Jen just wanted to get married and almost the entire Mr. Rochester, a humble and blinded man, much better than a religious fanatics with sex instead of a face, etc.
So, not to slip into the detailed analysis of the novel "Jan Air", from here I will return to Jojo Moyes and her novel "Me before you", which is actually all - rewritten and corrected novel "Jan Air". Lou Clarke gets his hands on a handicapped man with a crappy character. She has her own St. John's in store - the beautiful Patrick, the adept of running and marathons, with which you can live and not die of boredom, only if you - fitness application for iPhone. Of course, Moyes brings together Jen and Rochester, Lou and Will - these are time-tested, lapped characters, but from here begins to rewrite the story that has settled down in the background. Jen never saw life, did not leave with Rochester in Italy, she left the house for a hundred conditional miles, inherited and at the first opportunity returned to the usual and understandable circle, which threw away the heat of the Victorian hearth. She became free, having found a new, obedient master, who finally cleaned up in his attic. Lou lives all her life in a tiny town where she doesn't think she wants to leave. And now she meets, it would seem, the ideal man for her - with whom you can not go far. And they carefully fall in love with each other, but the man, who is forced to be a little kinder than Mr. Rochester, does everything so that Lou did not sit in front of him, and yet, having inherited the inheritance, would go to Paris, would learn to dive with scuba diving and would become a designer. It's a pretty straightforward, pretty frontal modern morality: become someone, move, see the world, but Moyes keeps it well supported in the form of almost absolute necessity. Left without Mr. Rochester, Jan for some time by inertia will definitely obey the master, so she goes to Paris and discovers the world in the green mist behind the fields of Tornfield.
This is an old hero.
A modern love affair has one small technical problem. Heroes are getting harder and harder somehow so plausible not to sleep with each other and tolerate three hundred pages until the end of the novel. But, it turns out, if the hero is well immobilized, he turns not only into a tamed Mr. Rochester but also into a hybrid of Mr. Darcy with the farmer Baldwood, in a magical, that is, an assistant, who will save his sister and father will find a job and in the end even become the author of the same shot, the death, which will bring deliverance. I am sure, for example, that the children's novel "Twilight" has become quite popular also because its main character - a freezer closet with the soul of a poet - was completely dragged out of the Victorian era, when kissing on the second page was not yet necessary, and time could be spent to speculate about what we are not all like. Also here, in order to equalize the hero with previous male samples, he had to be completely immobilized, deprived of everything bodily (to change the bag of shit Will has a male nurse, let's not forget, and Lou, if she has to change the bags, she always does it behind the scenes), so that from him, as from the Cheshire cat and the Georgian cavalry, remained one head and the ability to have a meaningful conversation. With Will, we all feel safe - as with a thick Victorian novel - he won't break his erection, he won't break his shirt on his courageous chest and he won't jump up and go anywhere - until he helps the heroine. Of course, there is another functional need in Will's image, it is necessary for the necessary conversation about euthanasia and choice and / or refusal of life, but still guesses here and some vague, but not the very pleasant answer to the question of whether there are ideal men. There are, but they don't live.