Gateshead, Lowood, and Thornfield are all essential locations utilized to help Jane gain a sense of identity within
Gateshead, Lowood, and Thornfield are all essential locations utilized to help Jane gain a sense of identity within
This excerpt from Jane Eyre reveals Jane’s character in contrast to her cousins Georgiana and John Reed. While her cousins were spoiled and went unpunished, Jane was considered a pain no matter what she did. After John throws a book at her, Jane has a violent outbreak, which Mrs. Reed determines to be her sole responsibility and sends her to the red room to be punished. Brontë establishes these characters early on in the novel with parallelism and imagery; this preliminary characterization is seen later in the character’s actions and their growth.…
After living at Lowood for eight years, Jane Eyre became content with her life with the help of Miss Temple her “mother, governess, and…companion” (Charlotte Bronte 100). Her lack of affection as a child made Jane seek praise,…
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…
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.…
Jane’s antipathy for the fourteen-year-old John Reed is manifested in her description of his “disgusting and ugly [outer] appearance”, namely his “heavy limbs”, “large extremities”, “thick lineaments” and “dingy[,] … unwholesome skin”. Although this description is an embodiment of Jane’s totally engrossing hatred of “Master Reed”, such physical repugnance foreshadows an inward “ugl[iness]”. This is demonstrated as he reprimands Jane for being “a dependent” and prescribes her “to beg” and “not to live” amongst…
TS The theme of abandonment portrayed through Jane’s experiences at Gateshead in the middle of chapter two establishes a significant part of her personality as she embarks on her personal growth.…
Gateshead, Lowood, and Thornfield have a significant role in Jane Eyre's life, they all impact her as a person importantly, each in a different way. Gateshead hosts an unloving family that do nothing but hurt Jane, Lowood is a school that practices rigid and harsh rules but allows Jane to experience love for the first time, and Thornfield has the biggest impact on Jane, giving her to have a happy ending. Jane Eyre, an abused, neglected, unloved orphan sent to three very different places over the course of her predominantly unhappy life; each place affects her greatly, and each for an extremely different…
Jane grows up and moves on to a new place. She’s given a tutoring job by Mrs.Fairfax. She tutors a young girl, Adele. Mr. Rochester, Adele’s caregiver, has experienced some betrayal too. He was tricked into marrying a mental ill woman. Adele’s mother was very promiscuous and he knows he may not be her father. Jane and Rochester fall in love and get engaged. On the wedding day, she’s informed Rochester is married. This betrayal comes in the form of heartbreak. In throws her in the depth of her despair. Jane was always honest with him but he wasn’t with her. There was an act of betrayal between Rochester and his crazy wife, Bertha. The two were still married, yet he was trying to marry another woman while Bertha is living in the basement. That only contributed to her mental illness.…
She impedes Jane’s happiness and her union with Rochester, but she also catalyses the growth of Jane’s self-understanding (Jane’s double, her alter ego).…
Published in 1847, under the pseudonym Currer Bell, Jane Eyre, is “ one of the most widely read of English novels.” Written by Charlotte Bronte, this novel made a major impact on the Victorian reading public, as well as today’s viewing public. With about thirteen television and film adaptations, it is not surprising that Jane Eyre is one of the most filmed novels. Unlike most books of its time, Jane Eyre took its readers on a journey into the restricted life of women living in the nineteenth century. For certain, these nineteenth century women were dominated by the overbearing men of their time. Thought to be submissive and unreasoning, women were expected to allow the men in their lives to make all decisions. In this novel, Jane Eyre, an orphan, applies the education and tools she gained throughout her life of struggle to become a strong, independent woman. Along the way, Jane repeatedly faces alienation from society, yet works to find happiness for herself. Through this, it is evident that Bronte conveys an alienation theme by exhibiting Jane’s isolation from society, and Jane’s struggle to find a place in the social hierarchy.…
Many of Jane Eyre’s watersheds were contributing factors of how she went from an unloved and dependent girl to a loved and independent woman. During her times at Gateshead, Lowood, and Thornfield, Jane matured and found out more about herself. However, perhaps the most important thing that led Jane to where she was at during the end of the story was her desire for a better life.…
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.…
She sees the world as a place that not just for living, but as a place to create, and engage in life. She believes the world is more than just a fireplace, but a forge, where the fire of people is molded into their lives, lives that are wasted when not taking or creating action. Her view is that life is a place that should be lived in the moment, to capture the fire that is being alive. Jane sees her “tranquility” at lowood a prison for her previously mentioned fire, yet recognizes others are “condemned to a stiller doom” than her. Jane feels that a life that is still, a life not having or creating action, is truly a doomed fate. Jane fears this fate, and resists it all she can. She imagines “Life, fire, [and] feeling” constantly while at thornfield, all of which she lacks. Her lacking of these vital human needs in her “actual existence” cause her to become unhappy with her lifestyle, and she pines for a change, which later arrives in Rochester. Jane’s restlessness at Thornfield is explained by her inner monologue on people needing action in their…
Today, Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece Jane Eyre continues to sell even 150 years after its release and has been mimicked ever since. What makes Jane Eyre so captivating to a modern audience is the plainness of the eponymous main character, a trait that is not found in many classic novels. It seems as though readers always turn to Jane Eyre when they feel the way she does throughout the majority of the novel; depressed and useless. Charlotte Brontë’s excellent use of character development amazingly turns a rather bleak story into an optimistic one of triumph and love. Charlotte Brontë uses her abilities as a writer to manipulate Jane’s voice throughout the novel by creating parallels between herself and Jane as a narrator by simulating the development of her character through her own description of events in Jane’s life, and as Jane recalls specific events from her childhood leading up to her marriage to Mr. Rochester she includes with beautiful detail the emotions she felt at every important moment, encapsulating the development of her character from her lonesome days at Gateshead to her wicked but motivating years at Lowood Institution and ending with the memories of her life in Thornfield…
Jane Eyre, neglected and unjustly treated, for the first ten years of her life, yearns for love and affection. It is the one trait that defines her throughout her life. This want for acceptance and love is what drives Jane to do everything that she does. She yearns to leave Gateshead, even with all its physical comforts and luxuries simply because she does not get any love from its inhabitants. Lowood on the other hand, with all its physical hardships and rigorous routine, seems to her a far better place than Gateshead. As she says,…