In most books or stories, today, the reader or the audience is not oft addressed as was the case in years past. Recently, I listened to Jane Eyre on tape. I've read the book several times, yet I didn't seem to remember that Bronte addresses her reader directly, sometimes as “dear reader.”

I wonder. Did she ever envision, as she wrote those words, that I would be her reader in the next century while listening to her story on an audio-tape? Of course she would not have known about audio-tapes, and she most likely never dreamed about them, but did she dream about how long her story would last, how many it would touch?

How did she think about her audience? Did she write for one particular audience and find herself championed by others? Did she work at her literacy craft hoping someday it would become the subject in courses of higher learning? Or did she just think of another woman who might lose herself in the loves and losses of someone like Jane?

What did she really think of Jane? Did she understand her? Respect her? Wish she were stronger?

Despite being a published author, was Bronte writing for her audience or was she really just writing for herself? Was she just working, making an earning by wordsmithing, or did she find herself compelled to play with words, arranging and rearranging them to create the images and stories she envisioned, to make meaning for one person and another, always the same, always different?

Dear Reader, what do you think?