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Themes in jane eyre
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At Gateshead Jane Eyre grew up with her malicious cousins and Aunt. This fictitious location is placed in a part of England north to London. The name Gateshead has significant meaning in the book. This location was the “gateway” to the rest of the world. Also, this is where Jane grew up, so evidentially it was the “head” or beginning of all her tribulations in life. Throughout the rest of the book, all that Jane has to deal with is linked back to her childhood there at Gateshead. Abused verbally and physically by her Aunt and cousins, Jane felt an outsider among her kinsmen. She was ostracized by Aunt Reed from the rest of the family. At one point when her Aunt became extremely oppressive, she locked adolescent Jane into the dreaded “red room”, where Mr. Reed had died. She was frightened that his spirit haunted the room. Jane clearly describes how she feels when saying, “…I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room: at that moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture I the blind? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred: while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my heard… I thought the swift-darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head grew hot…I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down-I uttered a wild, involuntary cry-I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort.” (Bronte 17-18) Once Bessie came to rescue Jane’s, Aunt Reed to decided maliciously punish her for crying out and even went to say, “Let her go…loose Bessie’s hand child: you cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured. I abhor artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to s...
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...ment and realization that he has lost Jane to another man in the following dialogue between them, “’I know where your heart turns, and to what it clings. The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. Rochester?’ It was true. I confessed it by silence. ‘Are you going t seek Mr. Rochester?’ ‘I must find out what is become of him.’ ‘It remains for me, then,’ he said, ‘to remember you in my prayers; and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognized in you one of the chose. But God sees not as man sees: His will be done.’” (Bronte 436) Though Jane Eyre’s stay at Moor House and Morton were crucial for her recovery to stability of her life, she yearned to be at Thornfield and wedded to Mr. Rochester.
There are many stages throughout the book in which the reader can feel sympathy for Jane Eyre; these include when she is locked in the Red Room, when Helen Burns dies at Lowood, and when she and Mr. Rochester are married the first time.
St. John Rivers makes some very intriguing choices in Jane Eyre. He is constantly faced with difficult decisions to make. Whether it be refusing his true love or moving to India to give his life serving others, there is always an interesting twist where St. John is concerned. His importance in the novel may be evident to readers, but they may not always understand his decisions and his actions. The choices he makes are exemplary of a man who has given his life to serve God and His people.
From an early age Jane is aware she is at a disadvantage, yet she learns how to break free from her entrapment by following her heart. Jane appears as not only the main character in the text, but also a female narrator. Being a female narrator suggests a strong independent woman, but Jane does not seem quite that.
The three events that mark Jane as an evolving dynamic character are when she is locked in the red room, self reflecting on her time at Gateshead, her friendship with Helen Burns at LoWood, her relationship with Mr. Rochester, and her last moments with a sick Mrs. Reed. Brought up as an orphan by her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, Jane is accustomed to her aunts vindictive comments and selfish tendencies. Left out of family gatherings, shoved and hit by her cousin, John Reed, and teased by her other cousins, Georgina and Eliza Reed, the reader almost cringes at the unfairness of it all. But even at the young age of ten, Jane knows the consequences of her actions if she were to speak out against any of them. At one point she wonders why she endures in silence for the pleasure of others. Why she is oppressed. "Always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned" (Bronte, 12). Jane’s life at Gateshead is not far from miserable. Not only is she bullied by her cousins and nagged by her aunt, but help from even Bessie, her nurse and sort of friend, seems out of her reach. In the red room scene Jane is drug by Ms. Ab...
When General Rochambeau met General Washington in 1781 to determine their next move against the British, Washington wanted to attack New York City. Rochambeau convinced him that the wiser move was to move South. Word had come from General Lafayette in Virginia that Cornwallis had taken up a defensive position at Yorktown. Cornwallis was situated next to the York River. If they could surround the city by land and cut off Cornwallis' escape route on the river, Washington and Rochambeau would strike an enormous blow to the British forces. Planning for the elaborate campaign began immediately.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre chronicles the growth of her titular character from girlhood to maturity, focusing on her journey from dependence on negative authority figures to both monetary and psychological independence, from confusion to a clear understanding of self, and from inequality to equality with those to whom she was formerly subject. Originally dependent on her Aunt Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester, she gains independence through her inheritance and teaching positions. Over the course of the novel, she awakens towards self-understanding, resulting in contentment and eventual happiness. She also achieves equality with the important masculine figures in her life, such as St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester, gaining self-fulfillment as an independent, fully developed equal.
Jane abhors her life in Gateshead where she lives with her malicious aunt who falsely declares her deceitful. When Jane falls ill, she tells the doctor that she would like to attend school, and Mrs. Reed was happy to be rid of her. Jane, finally feeling free of the cruel authority of Mrs. Reed, renounces their relation when she tells her that “I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live… and if anyone asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty” (Bronte 34). This is the
In the novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte uses Jane Eyre as her base to find out how a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with her responsibilities. . Mistreated abused and deprived of a normal childhood, Jane Eyre creates an enemy early in her childhood with her Aunt Mrs. Reed. Just as Mrs. Reeds life is coming to an end, she writes to Jane asking her for forgiveness, and one last visit from her.
In conclusion, Jane Eyre’s painstaking journey to find a sense of acceptance, affection, and family was finally completed, attaining the things she yearned. She eventually discovered everything she was searching for through Mr. Rochester, forgetting her agonizing past and looking to what was ahead. As Jane looked for many different alternatives to make her feel as if she was complete, she found that Mr. Rochester was the only one who could make her feel
I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals. Terrible moment: full of struggle blackness, burning! No human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better then I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and idol. (311; ch. 27)
...t on earth. I hold myself supremely blest - blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine" (Bronte 519). Every hardship and trouble Jane endured, from Gateshead to Morton, amplifies the perfect balance between passion and reason Jane receives at the end of the novel. Jane achieves this balance by being with the one she loves the most without any complications of reasoning. Her internal conflicts between Mr. Rochester and St. John Rivers contained many complications including Mr. Rochester's mad wife Bertha, not being in love with St. John, and her own sense of self-respect. Bronte successfully reveals this balance at the end of the novel by Jane receiving a large amount of money, allowing Jane to be with Mr. Rochester without Bertha, Jane discovering she has family, and Jane starting her own family with Mr. Rochester.
Gateshead is were Jane begins the novel as an unloved orphan who is almost obsessed with finding love as a way to establish her own identity and achieve happiness. Although she does not receive any parental love from Mrs. Reed. Her hearts desire was to rebel and go against what her aunt Mrs. Reed wants her to do. Jane always speaks her mind and does what she feels is right when injustice occurs. For example, when Mrs. Reed scorns her for fights with John that she did not start, Jane would stick up for herself and fight back.
In case the reader failed to recognize the opportunity the Rochester marriage gives her to see Bronte's views, she puts in the book the could-be St. John marriage. St. John decides not to marry Rosamund Oliver based on his passion for her. He completely shuns his passion, the opposite extreme of Rochester. In doing this and basing his marriage decision on his duty to God, he looses a genuine chance to gain true happiness. Through this example in Jane Eyre, Bronte is trying to show the reader that the opposite end of the spectrum is also wrong in making a marriage decision.
At the beginning of the book, Jane was living with her aunt Mrs. Reed and her children. Although Jane is treated cruelly and is abused constantly, she still displays passion and spirit by fighting back at John and finally standing up to Mrs Reed. Even Bessie ‘knew it was always in her’. Mrs. Reed accuses Jane of lying and being a troublesome person when Mr. Brocklehurst of Lowood School visited Gateshead. Jane is hurt, as she knows she was not deceitful so she defends herself as she defended herself to John Reed when he abused her, as she said “Wicked and cruel boy! You are like a murderer – you are like a slave driver – you are like the Roman emperors!” to John Reed instead of staying silent and taking in the abuse, which would damage her self-confidence and self-worth. With the anger she had gotten from being treated cruelly, she was able to gain ...
Women, in all classes, were still living in a world which was misogynistic and male-dominated. Their purpose in life was to produce male heirs and maintain the home by hiring and overseeing servants. It was also taboo for one to marry significantly below one’s social class. This is one reason that Jane is not a conventional heroine for the society of her time. Although, as a governess, she is not considered to be as low as a housemaid, she is still part of the hired help in the house. This is why it is unconventional for her and Mr Rochester to be in a relationship. Yet this is not as peculiar as how Jane Eyre ends their relationship due to her sense of betrayal. It would have been considered extremely foolish for a working-woman’s sense of betrayal to end and turn down a man of great wealth.