Jane Eyre is described as plain rather than beautiful. Would the plot of the novel still make sense if Jane were beautiful? How would the story be different if Jane were not poor? Why does it matter?…
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre tells the story of Jane’s growth and development as she searches for a meaningful existence in society. Author Faith McKay said, “No matter what your family happens to be like…it affects who you are. It matters.” Jane is an orphan, forced to battle a cruel guardian, a patriarchal society, and a rigid social order. (Anderson, “Identity and Independence in Jane Eyre”) Jane has concrete beliefs in what women deserve, as well as obtainable goals for how she imagines her place in society as a woman (Lewkowicz, “The Experience of Womanhood in Jane Eyre”) and with self-growth, Jane Eyre was able to define herself as well as equip herself with wisdom and…
Jane is a character repeatedly subjected to violence and hatred from her adoptive family, The Reeds. Her experiences are scary and abuse her body and her mind and eventually shape her into who she will become later in her life. She is also often undermined and taken advantage of and therefore made to feel small and worthless.…
Victorian mores are the unspoken rules known and observed by society. In the eighteen-hundreds several mores were very important including justice, Christianity, high standards of honesty and morality, and women’s roles. All good people are part of a family, a Christian family and women are to serve men as they stand unequal to them. Marriage is simply a tool to gain more money and connections, and only people of the same social class are worthy of each other. Whichever social class someone is born into they remain in unless of course they are rich or beautiful, the poor and plain are simply there to be the butlers, maids and governesses of those who are high up. Several of these mores are demonstrated and contradicted in Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 masterpiece Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is the life story of a young heroin that faces incredible odds and terrible situations and still manages to follow her heart and morals through an exciting life that leads her to a blissful ending. Charlotte Bronte uses her narrative to display several of the Victorian mores and demonstrate why they’re important, and alternately disprove the significance of others.…
In the novel Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Brontë, Jane gradually matures until she is an independent woman. To achieve this state of autonomy, she must first make some life-changing decisions which mark major turning points in the story. Her first step to establishing herself as a self-sufficient woman occurs when she decides to leave Lowood, as she states, “I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer…” (page 72). Jane indicates in this plea that she undoubtedly desires freedom, since she had been living at the Lowood School for eight years. She therefore decides to find a job, which would liberate her from the school, satisfying her yearning for freedom. Jane’s actions of applying for a job by herself illustrate…
Though Blanche, from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, thinks that opposites attract and thus that she will marry Rochester, Brontë has different ideas about foils. Near the end of the novel Jane marries Rochester effectively quieting Blanche’s ideas. However, Brontë does use foils in the novel for a different reason. She uses characters will opposite personalities to reveal more about them, and to keep the reader from overlooking many of the major characters’ traits. For instance, without Blanche, who is a foil of Jane, one may have thought Jane a simple and plain governess and nothing more. Similarly, without St. John the reader could have missed Rochester’s passionate side, or with no Mrs. Reed how supportive Miss Temple really is. Using foils, Brontë reveals more about the personalities of the major characters, and keeps the reader from overlooking many traits. One can see that Jane and Blanche are opposites from before they even meet. While Jane is rather plain and unattractive on the outside, Blanche is described as beautiful with, “the noble bust, the sloping shoulders, the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets” (183) Even Jane cannot deny that Blanche is beautiful. In addition, Blanche grows up in a rich noble family while Jane is an orphan who was sent to a lowly boarding school. The opposites do not stop at their looks and backgrounds, for even Jane and Blanche’s personalities are completely different. Jane is an independent, passionate, and respectful young woman, although she often seems very practical and rational. Blanche flaunts herself, gossips, talks about marriage, and can be very rude as shown when she says “she (Jane) looks too stupid for any game of the sort” (194). While Jane was in the room, Blanche speaks loudly and rudely of her without a second thought. In addition, Blanche only wants Rochester as her husband for his money, and for the title of a wife. She likes the fact that he is not handsome because as a…
Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre was produced in the Victorian era, when social elitism was in its prime and there was great segregation between the upper and lower estates. The former was composed of the clergy and nobility and was defined by wealth, privileges and lavish lifestyles. The middle class, conversely, were the most frustrated by the exclusiveness of the upper estate. Possessing skill, intelligence and assertiveness, they believed that rank and power should derive from talent and merit, rather than from noble birth. Through the demonisation and infliction of a tragic downfall upon “Master Reed”, Brontë condemns the life of pleasure and honour, the lifelong inactivity so heavily indulged by those born into the aristocracy. By characterising Mr Brocklehurst as excessively and hypocritically pious, Brontë highlights the upper clergyman’s propensity to masquerade as a great nobleman, rather than to exercise the competence and benevolence integral to his role. Finally, Brontë implements a love of “servitude” and disdain for a “still … doom”, as well as the ambiguous social position of a governess in her protagonist, Jane Eyre, rendering her an agent for the middle class’ philosophy on worthiness of privilege. Ultimately, Brontë’s Jane Eyre calls for the reformation of the Victorian social structure as the extremities involved in social elitism ignore the inherent needs of man.…
Gothic novels were around from 1764 until about 1820 the gothic novels were said to have started with the castle of otranto by Horace warpole in 1764. Some features that can define a gothic novel are things such as terror, mystery, the supernatural, doom, death, decay, haunted buildings, ghost's, madness, hereditary problems and so on. Jane Eyre is not a gothic novel but it seems to have elements which are like that of a gothic novel.…
Jane Eyre is an orphan adopted by her aunt. Jane is treated very cruel by her aunt her three children. Her aunt, Mrs. Reed, never listened to Jane. Her cousins always tormented her because they knew she would be punished. Her aunt branded her as a liar.…
The novel Jane Eyre is a story about a stoic woman who fights her entire life through many trials and tribulations until she finds true love and achieves an almost nirvana-like state of being. The manner, in which Charlotte Bronte writes, her tone and diction especially, lends its self to the many purposes of the novel. The diction of Bronte usually had characteristics of gothic culture and showed the usually negative and angry inner thoughts of Jane. The tone of the novel was there sympathetic towards Jane and displayed her as an intelligent and kind person who has been given a terrible lot in life. This allows the audience to feel connected with Jane because most people have gone through times in their life where they have felt similar emotions to that of Jane. This common thread between Jane and the audience allowed Bronte to better explain the internal struggles of Jane Eyre.…
In each place that Jane resides throughout her life, Bronte created an environment in which Jane felt misplaced in the social hierarchy. At Gateshead, Mrs. Reed and her children continually bully Jane into believing that she is not worthy of notice. Facing a similar situation at Lowood, Jane is made out to be an outsider as Mr.Brocklehurst attempts to turn Jane’s pupils against her. Lastly, at Thornfield, Jane faces a different sense of isolation in which she has more class than the servants, but less class than the Ingram party. Bronte’s use of this motif sheds light on the life of women living in the nineteenth century and their struggle to find a place in…
Jane’s confrontation to her Aunt Reed is the first time the readers witness her possess a sense of confidence. Throughout her life in Gateshead, Jane is treated with cruelty and abuse, and during the event of Mr. Brocklehurst’s visit, she is treated no differently. Mrs.…
Jane Eyre consists of several themes which all play a part in the novel, with religion being a major theme. The Christianity religion, more specifically, is one of the main themes. In this research paper I would like to examine the relationship between Jane Eyre and the Christianity religion. I also want to look at how Christianity plays its role in the novel. There are a few different types of Christianity represented by four characters in the novel; Mr. Brocklehurst, Helen, St. John, and the Jane herself. I want to look at how Jane’s religious beliefs evolved from the beginning of the novel until the end. I also want explore more into the religion of Christianity, and compare it with the other three characters already stated. One can view the different types of Christianity through these characters, and what it may sometimes look like. I would like to end the paper with answering the question, is Jane Eyre a Christian or just a spiritual person, and what research led me to this conclusion.…
Ten-year-old Jane, orphaned by the death of her parents and uncle, led a discontented life under the care of her aunt, Mrs. Reed. Due to the harsh treatment she was subject to by both her aunt and cousins, Jane had severe outbursts of retaliation, which resulted in her departure from Gateshead and enrollment at Lowood School.…
Jane also receives constant reminders that she is deprived and dependant as a child “You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poor-house." This precise quotation delivered by Bessie is significant because Jane is once again reminded that she is pitiable and alone and that even her aunt and cousins consider her lower-class than they are because she won’t inherit any money. Thinking of herself as beneath others, even those in the same household with her, is a habit that she learns from the very beginning.…