The Presentation of Mr. Brocklehurst in Bronte's Jane Eyre

The Presentation of Mr. Brocklehurst in Bronte's Jane Eyre

Chapter seven sees Jane slightly more experienced to the ways of Lowood School. She has come to accept the poor conditions laid down by Mr. Brocklehurst, however has not yet learnt to ignore them and Bronte describes Jane suffering a lot in this chapter. This lack of food and appalling living conditions are down to the head of the school, Mr. Brocklehurst. This man uses his apparent strong beliefs in Christianity as an excuse to provide the children of Lowood with the absolute bare minimum. Brocklehurst claims his “mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh”, presenting the idea that perhaps Brocklehurst is simply a man that has a immensely firm grasp of his beliefs and has made it his “mission” in life to enlighten others into the ways of christianity.

This idea is however proved corrupt with the entrance of his three daughters. They are described as “splendidly attired in velvet, silk and furs”, which brings an immense sense of hypocrisy down onto the impression the reader gets of Mr. Brocklehurst, and suddenly his doctrine of privation is for the first time exposed as a possible method of stealing from the school to support his seemingly luxurious lifestyle.

Brocklehurst enters chapter seven with an aura of fear about him, and Jane states that she “recognized almost instinctively that gaunt outline”, presenting him as a predator. The use of the word “instinctively” gives the situation an animalistic feel, and the whole school fear this predator. He is described as taking “a long stride [which] measured the school room”, suggesting that he is observing the room quietly, and when he is described as a “black column” the atmosphere becomes increasingly ominous and forboding.

Bronte introduces an interesting theme here. Jane describes Brocklehurst as “looking longer, narrower and more rigid than ever” and it is later revealed that Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss Temple are the talking about the need for needles to repair the girl's clothes. This could be comparing Brocklehurst to a needle, with the intention of fixing the girls souls; however a needle is hardly a pleasant image, so what could be the gentle image of a caring man doing his best to ensure all these little girls go to heaven is transformed into a quite sadistic image. Needles are assosciated wit...

... middle of paper ...

...ssfully.

Brocklehurst continues to degrade Jane as well as promote Mrs. Reed, and we learn nothing new from his continuation of these actions. Throughout chapter seven we see Brocklehurst behaving in a variety of ways, he is initially portayed as religious zealot whose soul wish is to "save" as many little girls as he possibly can, however he quickly develops into a patronising, although intelligent, hypocrit, with the hair scene. As much as this is a harsh punishment, there is no evidence that he is doing it for satisfaction. However use of language when the spotlight is turned to Jane suggests he is also a cruel and spiteful on top of these other characteristics. All in all Bronte portrays Brocklehurst as an all out bad guy by the end of the extract, interested solely in supporting his exuberant, luxurious lifestyle with profits made by giving the girls the bare minimum to live and using his adopted christian values as an excuse for this he gets away with it. Brocklehurst is later replaced, so something was obviously wrong and the authorities clearly saw this. Bronte succeeds in presenting Brocklehurst as the bad guy he is supposed to be.