Coming Of Age In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

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Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is a coming of age novel that discusses Jane’s challenges as she grows up and continues into adulthood. Jane was deemed as a ‘poor orphan’ by her aunt and her cousins; unfortunately her uncle passed away and made her aunt promise to care for Jane as she would her other children. Mrs. Reed, Jane’s aunt, did not keep her promise to her late husband, instead she treated Jane poorly and allowed her son to do so also. Jane spoke back to her cousin, Master John, when he threw a book at her and injured her. As she was taken to the red-room, for her punishment, she fought back and seemed unrelenting. This seems to be the first time she finds herself, if you will. This new attribute isn’t lost, it actually tends to grow …show more content…

Rochester when she found out about his wife, she would not have found herself. She learned to experience life and to live for herself instead of obeying authority. She no longer felt like an outcast either, due to her ties with her family, even if they didn’t last she knew that she belonged somewhere. This change in Jane benefitted her in ways that nothing else could. She stopped allowing things to happen to her and stood up for herself and decided what she wanted for herself. In the moment, during the wedding, she decided that that life just wasn’t for her and she changed how she perceived life. It didn’t matter that she had to start over, alone and hungry on the streets. She finally felt the attachment to family when she met the Rivers’ but that was quickly over due to the fact that he asked her to marry him. She still had made the decision to stick up for herself and what she believed in, so she said no. It seems to some that she went backwards when she went back to Thornfield to find Mr. Rochester, but that just shows that she went back for the right reasons. She was able to make the decision without a superior authority, which showed that she made the decisions that made her the happiest form of Jane that she could

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