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PLOT …

Jane is an orphan, grown up by her aunt, Mrs Reed.
Jane is sent to Lowood School, a very strict school, where girls are not given enough food or clothing. She becomes friend with Helen Burn who dies.
She decides to accept a job as a governess at Thornfield Hall . Mr Rochester needs her to teach his ward , Adele. Jane soon falls in love with him.
Her stay at Thornfield is disturbed by strange noises and frightening events.

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Mr Rochester proposes her to marry him.
She accepts , but two night before the wedding she wakes up and sees a figure standing by her bed and her wedding veil torn into two pieces.
The wedding is interrupted by Richard Mason who declares that Rochester is already married to his mad sister, Bertha Mason, who lives on the upper floor of the house.
Rochester asks Jane to stay with him,but she leaves Thornfield.

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She spends all her money for the journey and she is helped by a clergyman, St John Rivers and his sisters.
He discovers her true identity : she turns out to be his cousin and asks her to marry him and to go to India with him; she initially accepts but then refuses.
After a dream she decides to return to Thornfield but when she arrives she discovers that Mr Rochester’s wife set the house on fire and committed suicide.
In his rescue attempts, Mr Rochester lost his hand and eyesight.
Finally Jane marries Mr Rochester and they have two children.

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CHARLOTTE BRONTE

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CHARLOTTE BRONTE

Charlotte Bronte was born in Yorkshire in 1816. She was the third daughter of Patrick Bronte, a clergyman, and of Maria Branwell.
Her mother died in 1821
She loved reading and she created a magical world based on the stories she read.
She and her sisters attended Cowan Bridge which Charlotte used as a model for Lowood School in Jane Eyre. For the severe conditions two of her sisters died.

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She worked as a teacher and for a short time as a governess to two families. Then opened her own school at Haworth with her sister.
Her first novel, The Professor, was not accepted by the publisher, but she then wrote Jane Eyre, which was highly successful.
She published her works under male pseudonyms because people didn’t respect women writers at that time.
She died in 1855.

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THE VICTORIAN AGE�

VICTORIAN SCHOOL

Used to be different from modern schools.
Only in Britain public schools were private schools.
There were grammar schools that were for specially chosen children.
After a law passed in 1880 all children had to go to school .

VICTORIAN FAMILY

Every rich family had at least one maid (a female servant).
The sons of the family had to work hard at school and young women had to learn social skills.
Some poor girls with a better education sometimes worked as governesses or companions to older women.

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CHARACTERS

JANE EYRE

MR ROCHESTER

He is a passionate and unconventional man with a dark secret. His problems are the result of his recklessness and the wrong marriage with Bertha.
He is dependent on Jane Eyre for her semplicity and her intelligence.
He is rash, dark and impetuous.

She is an intelligent , honest, plain-featured young girl forced to contend with oppression and inequality.
Never the less she maintains her principles of justice, human dignity and morality.
Her strong belief in social equality challenges the Victorian prejudices against woman and the poor.

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BERTHA MASON

She becomes mad after the marriage with Mr Rochester because they get married to consolidate the wealth of the two families

(in this way Charlotte criticizes Victorian marriages)

Mrs REED

She’s a cold and hostile aunt.
She hates Jane because Mr Reed loves Jane more than any of his biological children.

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THEMES

SOCIAL CRITICISM

Social position: She criticizes Victorian class differences.
Charlotte as Jane considers people equal because every person is a self-made man independently from his social condition. So she realises herself not just as a woman, but first of all as a person and a human being.

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RELIGION

Jane looks at God in her own way, particularly after she learns of Mr Rochester’s previous marriage.
There are three religious figures:Mr Brocklehurst (Rhetoric of Evangelicalism), Helen Burns (Passive mode of Christianity) and St John Rivers (Christianity of ambition and glory).
For Jane religion helps curb passions and it spurs one on to achievements, that include full knowledge and faith in God.

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SENSE OF FAMILY

Jane doesn’t have a family so during the story she searches for one to obtain happiness in her life.
Jane is alone in the world. She finds two additional mother-figures in the characters of Diana and Mary Rivers.

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SOCIAL CLASS

Jane Eyre is critical of Victorian England’s strict social hierarchy.
Bronte as Jane criticizes the marriage of convenience.
Jane has great sense of duty and morality: infact when she discovers that Mr Rochester is already married, she doesn't want to go away but she must.

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Links & Connections

GOTHIC ELEMENTS:

Childhood terrors in the school
Mysterious setting (Thornfield)
Sense of supernatural
Gloomy atmosphere of the place (mysterious signs,noises,sounds)
Bertha’s madness and death
Jane’s unrequited love

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“It is in vain to say human ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they most have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.”

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