Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Mrs. Reed, Jane Eyre’s harsh, affluent aunt, is raising her as a young orphan. Jane receives some of the few kindnesses she receives from a servant named Bessie, who tells her stories and sings her songs. Jane’s aunt imprisons Jane in the red chamber, the room where Jane’s Uncle Reed died, one day as punishment for arguing with her bullying cousin John Reed.
Jane cries and faints while being held captive, believing she sees her uncle’s spirit. As she awakens, she is in the care of Bessie and Mr. Lloyd, a loving apothecary who advises to Mrs. Reed that Jane be sent away to school. Mrs. Reed agrees, much to Jane’s delight.
Jane discovers that her life at the Lowood School is far from perfect. Mr. Brocklehurst, the school’s headmaster, is a harsh, hypocritical, and aggressive man. Brocklehurst preaches a religion of poverty and deprivation to his students while living an affluent and sumptuous lifestyle with his own family using school monies.
Jane encounters a young girl named Helen Burns at Lowood, whose strong, martyrlike attitude toward the school’s ills is both beneficial and irritating to Jane. Helen dies of consumption as a result of a huge typhus outbreak that spreads through Lowood. The pandemic also causes Mr. Brocklehurst to leave by drawing attention to the unsanitary conditions at Lowood.
Jane’s situation improves drastically after Brocklehurst is replaced by a bunch of more compassionate guys. She stays at Lowood for another eight years, six as a student and two as a teacher.
Jane is looking for new adventures after teaching for two years. She takes a governess post at Thornfield Manor, where she teaches a bright French child named Adèle. Mrs. Fairfax, a distinguished housekeeper, presides over the estate. Jane’s boss at Thornfield is a dark, passionate man named Rochester, with whom Jane secretly falls in love.
One night, she saves Rochester from a fire that he claims was started by a drunken servant named Grace Poole. But because Grace Poole continues to work at Thornfield, Jane concludes that she has not been told the entire story.
As Rochester brings home a gorgeous but violent woman named Blanche Ingram, Jane descends into despair. Jane anticipates Rochester proposing to Blanche. Instead, Rochester proposes to Jane, who accepts almost incredulously.
The wedding day arrives, and as Jane and Mr. Rochester prepare to exchange vows, Mr. Mason’s voice declares that Rochester already has a wife. Mason introduces himself as the brother of the wife, Bertha.
Mr. Mason testifies that Rochester’s wife, Bertha, whom he married when he was a young man in Jamaica, is still alive. Rochester does not refute Mason’s assertions but says that Bertha has gone insane.
He drives the wedding party back to Thornfield, where they see Bertha Mason, who is insane, crawling around on all fours and snarling like an animal. Rochester hides Bertha on Thornfield’s third floor and pays Grace Poole to keep her under control.
Bertha was the true source of the weird fire mentioned earlier in the novel. Jane flees Thornfield, knowing it is impossible for her to stay with Rochester.
Jane, who is penniless and hungry, is forced to sleep outside and beg for food. Finally, three siblings who dwell in a manor named Marsh End or Moor House take her in. Mary, Diana, and St. John (pronounced “Sinjin”) Rivers are their names, and Jane instantly becomes friends with them.
St. John is a clergyman who gets Jane to work at a charity school in Morton. He catches her off guard one day when he announces that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her a hefty inheritance of 20,000 pounds.
When Jane asks how he found out about this, he surprises her even more by revealing that her uncle is also his uncle: Jane and the Riverses are cousins. Jane quickly resolves to divide her inheritance equally among her three newly discovered relatives.
St. John plans to go to India as a missionary, and he strongly encourages Jane to accompany him—as his wife. Jane decides to travel to India but refuses to marry her cousin since she dislikes him. St. John persuades her to reconsider, and she almost succumbs.
When she hears Rochester’s voice screaming her name over the moors one night, she understands she cannot abandon the guy she genuinely loves forever.
Jane rushes back to Thornfield, only to discover that it has been burned to the ground by Bertha Mason, who died in the fire. Rochester saved the servants but lost his sight and one of his hands in the process. Jane continues her journey to Rochester’s new home, Ferndean, where he resides with two maids named John and Mary.
Rochester and Jane renew their friendship at Ferndean and eventually marry. Jane writes at the end of her story that she and Rochester have been married for ten wonderful years and that they enjoy complete equality in their lives together. She claims that after two years of blindness, Rochester regained sight in one eye and witnessed the birth of their first child.
Characters in Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre: The novel’s narrator and protagonist, she finally marries Edward Rochester’s second wife. Jane, who was orphaned as a baby, struggles through her practically loveless childhood and eventually becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall. Jane is small and faceless, but she is passionate and principled, and she values freedom and independence.
She has a strong conscience and is a devout Christian. She is 10 at the start of the novel and nineteen or twenty by the end of the major story. According to the novel’s final chapter, she has been married to Edward Rochester for ten years, thus she is around thirty when it is finished.
Mrs. Sarah Reed (née Gibson): Jane’s maternal aunt through marriage who reluctantly adopted Jane to fulfill the wishes of her late husband. Mrs. Reed claims he pitied Jane and often cared for her more than his own children. Mrs. Reed’s resentment drives her to abuse and neglect her daughter.
She lies to Mr. Brocklehurst about Jane’s inclination to lie in order to prepare him to be harsh with her when she comes to Brocklehurst’s Lowood School.
John Reed: Jane’s fourteen-year-old first cousin who constantly and physically insults her, often in front of his mother. He was addicted to food and sweets, which caused him to be unwell and have a terrible complexion. As an adult, John damages himself via drinking and gambling, and he is rumored to have committed suicide.
Jane’s thirteen-year-old first cousin, Eliza Reed. She self-righteously devotes herself to religion, envious of her more gorgeous younger sister and a prisoner to a tight schedule. After her mother’s death, she goes for a nunnery near Lisle (France), determined to distance herself from her sister.
Georgiana Reed, Jane’s first cousin, is eleven years old. Despite her beauty and indulgence, she is arrogant and malicious. As Georgiana and the rich Lord Edwin Vere are preparing to elope, her elder sister Eliza intervenes. Georgiana marries a “rich worn-out man of fashion” in the end.
Bessie Lee: Gateshead Hall’s nursemaid. She is often kind to Jane, telling her stories and singing her songs, but she has a short fuse. She later marries Robert Leaven and has three children with him.
Mrs. Reed’s maid at Gateshead Hall is Miss Martha Abbot. She is cruel to Jane and tells her she has no right to be in Gateshead because she is a servant.
Mr. Lloyd: A caring apothecary who suggests that Jane be sent to school. Later, he writes Miss Temple a letter supporting Jane’s narrative of her childhood, clearing Jane of Mrs. Reed’s charge of lying.
Mr. Brocklehurst: The Lowood School’s priest, director, and treasurer, whose cruelty to the students is eventually revealed. As a religious traditionalist, he supports for his charges the most rigorous, straightforward, and disciplined lifestyle imaginable, but not for himself and his family.
Augusta, his second daughter, cried, “Oh, dad, how peaceful and plain all the girls at Lowood appear… They glanced at my and Mama’s dresses as though they’d never seen a silk gown before.”
Miss Maria Temple: Lowood School’s caring superintendent, who treats the students with respect and compassion. She assists Jane in clearing herself of Mr. Brocklehurst’s bogus accusation of deception and looks after Helen in her final days. She eventually marries Reverend Naysmith.
Miss Scatcherd is a harsh and severe Lowood teacher. She regularly blames Helen Burns for her untidiness but fails to see Helen’s significant positive qualities.
Jane’s best friend at Lowood School is Helen Burns. She refuses to hate people who abuse her, believes in God, and prays for peace in paradise one day. She educates Jane to believe in Christianity before dying of consumption in Jane’s arms.
In her account of the Bront sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell wrote that Helen Burns was “an exact transcript” of Maria Bront, who died of consumption at the age of 11.
Mrs. Alice Fairfax: Thornfield Hall’s old, compassionate widow and housekeeper; distantly related to the Rochesters.
Adèle Varens: A boisterous French child for whom Jane works as a governess at Thornfield Hall. Céline, Adèle’s mother, was a dancer. She was Mr. Rochester’s mistress and claimed that Adèle was his daughter, but he refused to accept her because of Céline’s infidelity and Adèle’s obvious lack of likeness to him.
Adèle appears to believe that her mother is no longer alive (she tells Jane in chapter 11, “I lived long ago with mamma, but she is gone to the Holy Virgin”).
Mr. Rochester later informs Jane that Céline left Adèle and “went away to Italy with a musician or singer” (ch. 15). Although Mr. Rochester placed Adèle in a tough school when Jane left Thornfield Hall, Jane visits Adèle after her return and finds a better, less severe school for her.
Jane praises Adèle as “a charming and agreeable companion—docile, good-tempered, and well-principled” when she is old enough to leave school and considers her kindness to Adèle fully repaid.
“…a woman of thirty to forty; a set, square-made body, red-haired, and with a stern, plain face…” Mr. Rochester pays her a lot of money to keep his insane wife, Bertha, concealed and quiet.
Grace is frequently invoked as an explanation for bizarre occurrences at the mansion, such as the eerie laughing heard shortly after Jane arrived. Bertha is periodically able to escape due to her weakness in drinking.
Thornfield Hall’s master is Edward Fairfax Rochester. He is a Byronic hero with a “dark, robust, and stern” visage. Years before the tale begins, he married Bertha Mason.
Leah: Thornfield Hall’s housemaid.
Blanche Ingram: Blanche Ingram is a young socialite whom Mr. Rochester intends to marry. Despite her immense beauty and talent, she treats social inferiors, particularly Jane, with open scorn. As Mr. Rochester spreads the rumor that he is significantly less affluent than they believe, he exposes her and her mother’s mercenary objectives.
Mr. Rochester is disturbed by the presence of Richard Mason, an Englishman from the West Indies, at Thornfield Hall. He is the brother of Rochester’s first wife, the woman in the attic, and he still worries about her. During Jane and Mr. Rochester’s wedding ceremony, he reveals the marriage’s bigamous nature.
Robert Leaven: The coachman at Gateshead Hall who brings Jane the news of the dissolute John Reed’s death, which has precipitated Mrs. Reed’s stroke. He tells her that Mrs. Reed wants to see Jane before she dies.
Bertha Antoinetta Mason was Edward Rochester’s first wife. Her mental health began to deteriorate after their wedding, and she is now angry and in a condition of extreme insanity, appearing unable to communicate or enter society.
Mr. Rochester, who claims he was duped into marrying Bertha by a family who knew she would have this disease, has kept Bertha locked up in Thornfield Hall’s attic for years.
Grace Poole supervises and cares for her, and her drinking occasionally allows Bertha to escape. Following Richard Mason’s interruption of Jane and Mr. Rochester’s wedding, Rochester eventually introduces Jane to Bertha: “A figure dashed backward and forwards in the deep shade at the far end of the room.
At first glance, it was impossible to tell if it was a beast or a human being… It snatched and growled like some odd wild animal, but it was clothed, and a thick mane of dark, grizzled hair obscured its head and face.”
Bertha eventually sets fire to Thornfield Hall and jumps to her death from the roof. Bertha is regarded as Jane’s “twin,” with Jane being holy and just and Bertha being vicious and animalistic.
Though her race is never stated, it is often assumed that she was of mixed race. Rochester implies that Bertha’s parents wanted her to marry him because he was of “excellent race,” hinting that she was not pure white like him.
Her “dark” hair and “discolored” and “black” face are also mentioned. Some Victorian writers argued that madness could be caused by a racially “impure” ancestry, exacerbated by growing up in a tropical West Indian climate.
Diana and Mary Rivers: Sisters in a distant moors house who take Jane in when she is hungry and alone after leaving Thornfield Hall without making any plans.
The sisters, who are destitute but academically interested, are completely immersed in reading until Jane appears at their door one evening. They are eventually discovered to be Jane’s cousins. They want Jane to marry their strict preacher brother in order for him to stay in England rather than travel to India as a missionary. Diana marries naval Captain Fitzjames, and Mary marries Mr. Wharton, a priest. The sisters stay close to Jane and pay annual visits to her and Rochester.
Hannah: The Rivers’ compassionate housekeeper; “…similar to the Bronts’ well-loved domestic, Tabitha Aykroyd.”
St John Eyre Rivers: A attractive, albeit strict and serious, clergyman who befriends Jane and discovers she is her cousin. St John is very realistic, suppressing all of his human passions and emotions, especially his love for the lovely and cheery heiress Rosamond Oliver, in favor of good works.
He wants Jane to marry him and accompany him on his missionary tour to India. As Jane declines his proposal, St John travels to India single.
Rosamond Oliver: A beautiful, kindly, affluent, but very simple young woman who is the sponsor of Jane’s village school. Rosamond is in love with St John, but he refuses to confess his feelings for her because she is unsuitable for a missionary’s wife. She eventually marries the respected and wealthy Mr. Granby.
Mr. Oliver: Rosamond Oliver’s affluent father, who owns a foundry and needle mill in the neighborhood. “…a towering, massive-featured, middle-aged, and grey-headed man, at his side his lovely daughter looked like a bright flower near a hoary turret.” He is a gentle and kind man who admires St. John.
Themes of Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel “Jane Eyre” explores a variety of subjects. Here are some of the novel’s primary themes:
Love is a major theme in “Jane Eyre.” The work delves into several types of love, such as romantic love, familial love, and self-love. Jane’s interactions with Mr. Rochester, St. John Rivers, and her family members all show distinct dimensions of love.
Independence is another significant concept in the narrative. Jane is a fiercely independent character trying to forge her own path in life. Her attempts to express her individuality and find her place in society is central to the plot.
Social class: A major theme in “Jane Eyre” is social class. Jane is in a unique social position as a governess, and she is highly aware of the class inequalities between herself and those around her. The novel also looks at how social class affects love and relationships.
Gender roles and expectations: The novel questions established gender norms and expectations. Jane is a strong, independent lady who defies social standards. The work also delves into the constraints and obstacles that women confront in Victorian society.
Morality is an important theme in “Jane Eyre.” The work delves into the moral complexities of love, marriage, and socioeconomic status. Throughout the narrative, Jane must traverse these challenges and make difficult moral decisions.
Religion: Religion, particularly Christianity, is a major issue in the work. The novel investigates the role of religion in the formation of personal morality and societal deals.
Identity: The novel also addresses themes of identity. Jane must negotiate her own identity as an orphan and woman in Victorian society, as well as the identities of those around her. The novel tackles issues concerning the nature of identity and how it is produced.