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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (07_jane_eyre.doc)

Title                                                                                                                                     Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Published                                                                                                                Michigan: Ann Arbor Media Group, 2006

About the author                                                                                                                    Charlotte Brontë (*1816 †1855) was an English novelist, daughter of a clergyman of Irish descent and and the eldest    of the three Brontë sisters whose novels have become enduring classics of English literature.                                        After various efforts as schoolmistresses and governesses, the sisters took to literature and published a vol. of poems under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, which, however, fell flat. Charlotte then wrote her first novel, The Professor, which did not appear until after her death, and began Jane Eyre, published 1847, which took the public by storm. It was followed by Shirley in 1849, and Villette in 1852. In 1854 she was married to her father’s curate but after a short though happy married life she died in 1855. The novels of Charlotte especially created a strong impression from the first, and the published of Jane Eyre gave rise to much curiosity and speculation as to its authorship. Their strength and originality have retained for them a high place in English fiction which is likely to prove permanent. There is a biography of Charlotte wrote by Mrs. Gaskell and published posthumous.

About the book                                                                                                                      Jane Eyre is a classic romance novel by Charlotte Brontë which was first published in October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, London, and is one of the most famous British novels.

        When first published, Jane Eyre attracted much attention, and the novel became an almost instant commercial success. So high was demand for the book that the publisher issued a second edition within three months, followed by a third edition in April, 1848. Ther novel was an instant success, earning the praise of many reviewers. The influential novelist William Makepeace Thackeray was one of Jane Eyre's earliest admirers. Brontë subsequently dedicated the second edition of the book to Thackeray. Charlotte Brontë first published the book as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography under the pseudonym Currer Bell. There was much speculation about whether the writer was a man or a woman and whether the Bells were really three persons, two persons, or just one person. When it became known that a woman had written such a passionate novel and seemed so knowing sexually, the reviews became more negative.

        Jane Eyre is a hybrid of three genres: the Gothic novel (utilizes the mysterious, the supernatural, the horrific, the romantic); the romance novel (emphasizes love and passion, represents the notion of lovers destined for each other); and the Bildungsroman (narrates the story of a character’s internal development as he or she undergoes a succession of encounters with the external world). Despite the Gothic elements, Jane’s personality is friendly and the tone is also affectionate and confessional. Her unflagging spirit and opinionated nature further infuse the book with high energy and add a philosophical        and political flavor.

        The novel has also a typically - for a Victorian story - happy ending. All of the characters who were good to Jane are rewarded. Although it may seem a little strange that Brontë chose to end her romantic novel in this way, religion and moral purpose are strong recurring themes throughout the novel.

        As a partly biographical work, the early of Jane Eyre´s sequences, in which the orphaned Jane is sent to Lowood,         a harsh boarding school, are based on the author's own experiences. Mr. Brocklehurst is based on the Revd William Carus Wilson, the founder of the school, and Helen Burns is a representation of Charlotte's sister Maria. These facts were revealed        to the public in The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857) by Charlotte's friend the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell and caused considerable controversy at the time. The Gothic Thornfield was probably inspired by North Lees Hall, near Hathersage in the Peak District. This was visited by Charlotte Bronte and her friend Ellen Nussey in the summer of 1845 and described by Ellen Nussey in            a letter dated 22 July 1845. It was the residence of the Eyre family and its first owner Agnes Ashurst was reputedly confined       as a lunatic in a padded second floor room.

Main topic

        Orphaned into the household of the cruel Reeds at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. How she takes up the post of a governess at Thornfield Hall, meets and fels in love with Mr. Rochester and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage, are elements in this story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a wider and richer life than that traditionally accorded to her sex in Victorian society.

        Brontë´s book has serious things to say about a number of important subjects: the relations between men and women, women's equality, the treatment of children and of women, religious faith and religious hypocrisy, the realization of selfhood, and the nature of true love. It is a work of fiction with memorable characters and vivid scenes, written in a compelling prose style. In appealing to both the head and the heart, Jane Eyre triumphs over its flaws and remains a classic of nineteenth-century English literature and one of the most popular of all English novels.

Plot summary

        The narrator and main character of the novel, Jane Eyre is a young girl, orphaned as a baby.  She is being raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel, wealthy aunt, who only takes her in as the result of a promise to her husband on his deathbed. Mrs. Reed does not treat Jane so very well, and her son often beats and verbally abuses her: “... John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near...."      (pg. 6)

        Mrs. Reed dislikes her and likewise her children are unkind to Jane, and frequently harp on Jane’s inferior social status. Jane's plainness, her perceptive and passionate nature, and her occasional "visions", or vivid dreams, do not help to secure her relatives' affections: "Besides," said Miss Abbot, "God will punish her: He might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away... I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very painful and crushing...“ (pg. 11)

        Jane grows up for many years very unhappy-an overly mature, sad, sallow and un-childlike child. A servant named Bessie provides Jane with some of the few kindnesses she receives, telling her stories and singing songs to her. One day,          as punishment for fighting with her bullying cousin John Reed, Jane’s aunt imprisons Jane in the red-room, the room in which Jane’s Uncle Reed died. While locked in, Jane, believing that she sees her uncle’s ghost, screams and faints. She wakes to find herself in the care of Bessie and the kindly apothecary Mr. Lloyd, who suggests to Mrs. Reed that Jane be sent away to school. To Jane’s delight, Mrs. Reed concurs. “You think I have no feelings and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back - roughly and violently thrust me back - into the red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, 'Have mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!' And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me - knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. You are deceitful!“ (pg.34)

        Once at the Lowood School, a charitable, cheap and strictly kept school for clergyman's daughters, Jane finds that her life is far from idyllic. The school’s headmaster is Mr. Brocklehurst, an inhuman, cruel, hypocritical, and abusive man. Brocklehurst preaches a doctrine of poverty and privation to his students while using the school’s funds to provide a wealthy    and opulent lifestyle for his own family.  „...Madam," he pursued, "I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world: “…my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of..." (pg. 62)

        At Lowood, Jane befriends a young girl named Helen Burns, whose strong, martyrlike attitude toward the school’s miseries is both helpful and displeasing to Jane and also Ms. Temple. These two individuals greatly affect Jane's personality and character, especially related to personal philosophy, religion, and treatment of others. It is against Jane's nature to be submissive, although she learns while at Lowood to hide her temper and character, the injustices of the world burn in her soul.

        A massive typhus epidemic sweeps Lowood, and Helen dies of consumption. The epidemic also results in the departure of Mr. Brocklehurst by attracting attention to the insalubrious conditions at Lowood. After a group of more sympathetic gentlemen takes Brocklehurst’s place, Jane’s life improves dramatically. She spends eight more years at Lowood,                           six as a student and two as a teacher.

        After teaching for two years, Jane yearns for new experiences. She accepts a governess position at a manor called Thornfield, where she teaches a lively French girl named Adèle. The distinguished housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax presides over the estate. Jane’s employer at Thornfield is a dark, impassioned man named Rochester, with whom Jane finds herself falling secretly in love. She saves Rochester from a fire one night, which 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. Jane sinks into despondency when Rochester brings home a beautiful but vicious woman named Blanche Ingram. Jane     expects Rochester to propose to Blanche. But Rochester instead proposes to Jane, who accepts almost disbelievingly.

        The wedding day arrives and, as Jane and Mr. Rochester prepare to exchange their vows, the voice of Mr. Mason cries out that Rochester already has a wife. Mason introduces himself as the brother of that wife - a woman named Bertha.                    Mr. Mason testifies that Bertha, whom Rochester married when he was a young man in Jamaica, is still alive. Rochester does not deny Mason’s claims, but he explains that Bertha has gone mad. He takes the wedding party back to Thornfield, where they witness the insane Bertha Mason scurrying around on all fours and growling like an animal. Rochester keeps Bertha hidden       on the third storey of Thornfield and pays Grace Poole to keep his wife under control. Bertha was the real cause of the mysterious fire earlier in the story.

        Knowing that it is impossible for her to be with Rochester, Jane wants to flee from Thornfield. After Jane and Rochester’s wedding is cancelled, Jane finds comfort in the moon. She sees the moon as a white human form shining in the   sky, inclining a glorious brow earthward. She tells us: “It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so near,                  it whispered in my heart - my daughter, flee temptation! … Mother, I will” (pg. 333). Waking from the dream, Jane leaves Thornfield.

        Penniless and hungry, Jane is forced to sleep outdoors and beg for food. She is destitute and near death almost for three days, until she comes upon a house at Whitcross, whose members take her in. There the three siblings who live                 in a manor alternatively called Marsh End and Moor House take care of her.  She stays there for many days. She wakes and tells them most of her story.

        Jane quickly becomes friends with Mary, Diana, and St.John Rivers.  St.John is a clergyman, and he finds Jane a job teaching at a charity school for girls. He surprises her one day by declaring that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her            a large fortune of 20,000 pounds. When Jane asks how he received this news, he shocks her further by declaring that her uncle was also his uncle: Jane and the Riverses are cousins. After a great exclamation of joy upon finding living relatives with whom she already feels such kinship, Jane resolves to divide the twenty thousand pounds evenly among her three cousins and herself, so that they should all be taken care of well. She says: "I had found a brother: one I could be proud of,--one I could love;            and two sisters whose qualities were such that, when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine affection and admiration. The two girls on whom, kneeling down on the wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House kitchen, I had gazed...were my near kinswomen, and the young and stately gentleman who had found me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation. Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed! - wealth to the heart! - a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing...not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight." (pg. 403)

        St.John decides to travel to India as a missionary, and he urges Jane to accompany him - as his wife. Jane agrees         to go to India but refuses to marry her cousin because she does not love him. „...I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came, and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample down: but as his wife - at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked - forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital - would be unendurable...“ (pg. 427, 428) St.John pressures her to reconsider, and she nearly gives in. However, she realizes that she cannot abandon forever the man she truly loves when one night she hears Rochester’s voice calling her name over the moors.

        Jane immediately hurries back to Thornfield and finds that it has been burned to the ground by Bertha Mason, who lost her life in the fire. Rochester saved the servants but lost his eyesight and one of his hands. Jane travels on to Rochester’s new residence, Ferndean, where he lives with two servants named John and Mary. When Jane comes the first time to Rochester and he perceives that the voice is Jane's, he grabs for her fingers, her waist, her form to verify this spectre of a voice. He embraces her gratefully, still in disbelief that it is his Jane. In fact, he still believes the form and voice are in his mind, as they have come and gone before during dreams. He says: "My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus - and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me...Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before you go--embrace me, Jane.“ (pg. 455)

        At Ferndean, Rochester and Jane rebuild their relationship and soon marry with a quiet ceremony. Immediately, Jane writes to the Rivers, explaining what she has done. Diana and Mary both approve of her marriage, but Jane receives no response from St. John. Not having forgotten Adèle, Jane visits her at school. The girl is pale, thin, and unhappy, so Jane moves her to a more indulgent school. Adèle grows into a docile, good-natured young woman.

        At the end of her story, Jane writes that she has been married for ten blissful years and that she and Rochester enjoy perfect equality in their life together. She is happier than she could ever be, because they love each other so much, they are each other's better half and never tire of each other. They are perfectly suited for each other, and Jane is happy spending her life loving and helping Rochester. She says: "I know no weariness of my Edward's society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me;         we are precisely suited in character - perfect concord is the result." (pg. 472)

        She says that after two years of blindness, Rochester regained sight in one eye and was able to behold their first son       at his birth. In the last paragraphs of the novel, she reads a letter from St. John Rivers, now apparently dying in India, but welcoming his impending union with his Saviour

Characters

Jane Eyre - The protagonist and narrator of the novel, Jane is an intelligent, honest, plain-featured young girl forced to contend with oppression, inequality, and hardship. Although she meets with a series of individuals who threaten her autonomy, Jane repeatedly succeeds at asserting herself and maintains her principles of justice, human dignity, and morality. She also values intellectual and emotional fulfillment. Her strong belief in gender and social equality challenges the Victorian prejudices against women and the poor.

Edward Fairfax Rochester - Jane’s employer and the master of Thornfield, Rochester is a wealthy, passionate man with a dark secret that provides much of the novel’s suspense. Rochester is unconventional, ready to set aside polite manners, propriety, and consideration of social class in order to interact with Jane frankly and directly. He is rash and impetuous and has spent much of his adult life roaming about Europe in an attempt to avoid the consequences of his youthful indiscretions. His problems are partly the result of his own recklessness, but he is a sympathetic figure because he has suffered for so long as a result           of his early marriage to Bertha.

St. John Rivers - Along with his sisters, Mary and Diana, St. John serves as Jane’s benefactor after she runs away from Thornfield, giving her food and shelter. The minister at Morton, St. John is cold, reserved, and often controlling in his interactions with others. Because he is entirely alienated from his feelings and devoted solely to an austere ambition,                     St. John serves as a foil to Edward Rochester.

Mrs. Reed  - Mrs. Reed is Jane’s cruel aunt, who raises her at Gateshead Hall until Jane is sent away to school at age ten. Later in her life, Jane attempts reconciliation with her aunt, but the old woman continues to resent her because her husband     had always loved Jane more than his own children.

Bessie Lee - The maid at Gateshead, Bessie is the only figure in Jane’s childhood who regularly treats her kindly, telling her stories and singing her songs. Bessie later marries Robert Leaven, the Reeds’ coachman.

Mr. Lloyd - Mr. Lloyd is the Reeds’ apothecary, who suggests that Jane be sent away to school. Always kind to Jane, Mr. Lloyd writes a letter to Miss Temple confirming Jane’s story about her childhood and clearing Jane of Mrs. Reed’s charge that she is    a liar.

Georgiana Reed - Georgiana Reed is Jane’s cousin and one of Mrs. Reed’s two daughters. The beautiful Georgiana treats Jane cruelly when they are children, but later in their lives she befriends her cousin and confides in her. Georgiana attempts to elope with a man named Lord Edwin Vere, but her sister, Eliza, alerts Mrs. Reed of the arrangement and sabotages the plan.           After Mrs. Reed dies, Georgiana marries a wealthy man.

Eliza Reed - Eliza Reed is Jane’s cousin and one of Mrs. Reed’s two daughters. Not as beautiful as her sister, Eliza devotes herself somewhat self-righteously to the church and eventually goes to a convent in France where she becomes the Mother Superior.

John Reed - John Reed is Jane’s cousin, Mrs. Reed’s son, and brother to Eliza and Georgiana. John treats Jane with appalling cruelty during their childhood and later falls into a life of drinking and gambling. John commits suicide midway through the novel when his mother ceases to pay his debts for him.

Helen Burns - Helen Burns is Jane’s close friend at the Lowood School. She endures her miserable life there with a passive dignity that Jane cannot understand. Helen dies of consumption in Jane’s arms.

Mr. Brocklehurst - The cruel, hypocritical master of the Lowood School, Mr. Brocklehurst preaches a doctrine of privation,       while stealing from the school to support his luxurious lifestyle. After a typhus epidemic sweeps Lowood, Brocklehurst’s shifty and dishonest practices are brought to light and he is publicly discredited.

Maria Temple - Maria Temple is a kind teacher at Lowood, who treats Jane and Helen with respect and compassion. Along       with Bessie Lee, she serves as one of Jane’s first positive female role models. Miss Temple helps clear Jane of Mrs. Reed’s accusations against her.

Alice Fairfax - Alice Fairfax is the housekeeper at Thornfield Hall. She is the first to tell Jane that the mysterious laughter often heard echoing through the halls is, in fact, the laughter of Grace Poole—a lie that Rochester himself often repeats.

Bertha Mason - Rochester’s clandestine wife, Bertha Mason is a formerly beautiful and wealthy Creole woman who has become insane, violent, and bestial. She lives locked in a secret room on the third story of Thornfield and is guarded by Grace Poole, whose occasional bouts of inebriation sometimes enable Bertha to escape. Bertha eventually burns down Thornfield, plunging to her death in the flames.

Grace Poole - Grace Poole is Bertha Mason’s keeper at Thornfield, whose drunken carelessness frequently allows Bertha to escape. When Jane first arrives at Thornfield, Mrs. Fairfax attributes to Grace all evidence of Bertha’s misdeeds.

Adèle Varens - Jane’s pupil at Thornfield, Adèle Varens is a lively though somewhat spoiled child from France. Rochester brought her to Thornfield after her mother, Celine, abandoned her. Although Celine was once Rochester’s mistress, he does    not believe himself to be Adèle’s father.

Richard Mason - Richard Mason is Bertha’s brother. During a visit to Thornfield, he is injured by his mad sister. After learning     of Rochester’s intent to marry Jane, Mason arrives with the solicitor Briggs in order to thwart the wedding and reveal the truth      of Rochester’s prior marriage.

Mr. Briggs - John Eyre’s attorney, Mr. Briggs helps Richard Mason prevent Jane’s wedding to Rochester when he learns of the existence of Bertha Mason, Rochester’s wife. After John Eyre’s death, Briggs searches for Jane in order to give her her inheritance.

Blanche Ingram - Blanche Ingram is a beautiful socialite who des-pises Jane and hopes to marry Rochester for his money.

Diana Rivers - Diana Rivers is Jane’s cousin, and the sister of St. John and Mary. Diana is a kind and intelligent person, and she urges Jane not to go to India with St. John. She serves as a model for Jane of an intellectually gifted and independent woman.

Mary Rivers - Mary Rivers is Jane’s cousin, the sister of St. John and Diana. Mary is a kind and intelligent young woman who       is forced to work as a governess after her father loses his fortune. Like her sister, she serves as a model for Jane of an independent woman who is also able to maintain close relationships with others and a sense of meaning in her life.

Narrator

        Jane Eyre is written in the first person, and told from the viewpoint of its main character, Jane. Sometimes she narrates the events as she experienced them at the time, while at other times she focuses on her retrospective understanding of the events. “I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.“ (pg.3)

        As part of her first-person narrative, Brontë uses one of the oldest conventions in English fiction - the novel is allegedly a memoir written by a real woman named Jane Eyre and edited by Currer Bell. As part of this convention, the narrator occasionally addresses the reader directly with the word "reader."

        When the novel was initially published, the subtitle was An Autobiography, and Currer Bell was identified as the editor rather than as the author. The subtitle was dropped in subsequent editions of the novel.

Language

        Charlotte Brontë has a very clear, easyly to read style. The action is flowing and moving, the reader can see the development of Jane, the changings of her feeling and thoughts. Most readers accept Jane's interpretation and explanations       of herself, the other characters, and events. Jane's emotional intensity and openness cause the reader to identify with her, so that her experiences and feelings temporarily become those of most readers. Despite the fact that Jane Eyre reles upon the moral growth and maturation of both Jane and Rochester, the point of view remains that of Jane alone, and evertything is told solely from her point of view wo the readers see all the action and characters through her eyes. Even when she is the apparently passive recipient of information from other characters, the reader never forgets what Jane is feeling

Chapters, books

        The whole book is divided into 37 chapters and contains also a short epilogue, which describes the happy-end of the whole novel.

Bibliography

Barker, Juliet: The Brontës. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.

Brontë, Charlotte: Jane Eyre. Michigan: Ann Arbor Media Group, 2006

Thornley, G.C.; Roberts, Gwyneth: An Outline of English Literature.

Essex: Longman Group, 2001.

Internet:

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/brontetl.html

http://www.bookrags.com/biography/charlotte-bronte/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre

http://incompetech.com/authors/cbronte/

http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/BS-Charlotte.html

http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780195177794

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/bronte.html