During the era were Jane lived it was thought to be a selfish for women to show desire, it was a bad emotion that women were expected to control and keep quite. To perform one's duty to society was thought to be respectful and should be put before anything else. Desire is a term to want something or someone very strongly no matter what the outcome is. Duty in contrast, is a moral obligation to something that somebody is obliged to do for moral, legal, or religious reasons , which is thought to be selfless. The decisions made regarding these emotions are significant throughout Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte shows us Jane’s integrity helps her find the balance between duty to herself, and desire to stay.
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 Gateshead Jane must learn to respect her aunt Mrs. Reed, and not to question her authority. Jane resents her harsh treatment by her aunt and cousins John so much but she knows that she has to control her temper. Jane knows she must control her temper in order to not get send to the Red Room again. She must also learn to control her imagination, which may take the form of superstition, as when she is locked in the Red Room. "All of John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference, all his...
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...ed to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him, because he is so talented.”(389) this quote shows that Jane does not love St. John and if she stays with him she wont be happy to be with him.
In the novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte shows us that all people have a feeling inside of them to recognizing what their personal desires and what their duty to others is. In Jane Eyre, the endless theme of unforgettable war between a passion and responsibility always appears, with a strong set of principles Jane is able to decide what is right. Throw out the book Charlotte Bronte show us that Jane’s integrity to her self is more important than what anybody else thinks of her. Duty and desire plays a huge role in which Jane has to learn to control her desire of her anger outburst and her duty to herself.
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
Jane seems to learn quickly that she is the only one who can help her break free from her entrapment. The first place Jane must learn how to leave is Gateshead. She is not happy at Gateshead because is constantly put down by her cousins and even the servants. Helen tries to teach Jane to forgive her enemies in order for Jane to be able move on and gain confidence in herself:
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 the novel, Jane Eyre starts as a young girl of ten years old; she lives with her aunt Mrs. Reed and her cousins John, Georgiana, and Eliza. At Gateshead, Jane has undergone betrayal in the acts that the Reed family does not treat her as a part of their family. Mrs. Reed treats Jane unkindly and as if she was a victim to put it, in other words, Mrs. Reed says “ take her away to the red-room and lock her in there” (Brontë, Ch. 1). Mrs. Reed
Jane makes her journey from Gateshead to Lowood at the age of ten, finally freeing her from her restrictive life with her aunt, who hates her. Jane resented her harsh treatment by her aunt. Mrs. Reed’s attitude towards Jane highlights on of the main themes of the novel, the social class. Jane’s aunt sees Jane as inferior, who is less than a servant. Jane is glad to be leaving her cruel aunt and of having the chance of going to school.
Jane spends her first 10 years of her life at Gateshead Hall, a lavish mansion. She lived with her Aunt, Mrs Reed, and three cousins, Eliza, Georgina and John. During her time in the mansion she wouldn't dare argue with the mistress, and fulfilled every duty. Jane is deprived of love, joy and acceptance. She is very much unwanted and isolated.
Jane Eyre’s continuous search for love, a sense of belonging, and family are all thoroughly displayed by Charlotte Brontë. Jane starts off as a despised orphan who is captivated by the thought of love, believing that it will help her achieve happiness. Throughout the novel, Jane attempts to find different substitutes to fill the void in her life.
The reader first learns of Jane when she is an inhabitant of Gateshead. At Gateshead, Jane was excluded from the rest of the family. She was merely an outsider looking in on a nuclear family, excluding the father, who had died. We know that Jane’s Uncle Reed, the father and dominant figure of Gateshead, when alive, was a kind man. He was the guardian for Jane and when dying made his wife promise to always care for Jane. After his death, his wife resented the little girl and did not want to care for her. Knowing what we know of family life in the nineteenth century, we know that Jane’s life would have been much different if her uncle Reed had not died. Being the master of the home one can assume that he would have made sure that everyone in the household would have treated Jane well and with love and respect. A father’s authority was unquestioned. Once Mr. Reed had died, the masculine dominance was somewhat given to his son who did not care for Jane and made her life miserable by all of his cruelty and abuse. Although he did not rule the home, due to his young age, his authority as seen by Jane was unquestioned.
Throughout Jane Eyre, Jane searches for a way to express herself as an independent person who needs help from no one, yet she also wishes to have the love and companionship of others. Often times, Jane finds that she can have independence but no one to share her life with, or she can have the love of another at the loss of her independence. Jane's entire journey is based on the goal of achieving a seamless blend between independence and love, a mixture that rarely seems to go hand in hand.
At the beginning of the novel while Jane is living under her aunt, Mrs. Reed, she is treated disrespectfully and cruelly. She accuses Jane of being deceitful and a troublesome girl in front of Mr. Brocklehurst, the master of Lowood School. Jane is so hurt by this accusation that she cannot stop herself from defending her well being, and she stands up to her aunt. She knows she is being treated disrespectful and has much more self-worth than ...
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...
The story begins as Jane lives with the Reed family in their home at Gateshead Hall. Here, the theme of education vs. containment develops immediately, as Jane is kept confined indoors on a cold winter day. The other children (Eliza, John, and Giorgiana) are "clustered round their mamma in the drawing-room" (Bronte: 39) being educated, as Jane had been excluded from the group. Jane tries to educate herself by reading from Berwick's History of British Birds, but once again, she is held back from her attempt at enlightenment by the abuse of John Reed, who castigates her and throws the heavy book at her. In anger, Jane cries out, "You are like a murderer - you are like a slave-driver - you are like the Roman emperors" (Bronte: 43). In this passage, Jane compares John Reed to a slave-driver because, like a slave-driver, he deprives Jane of her attempt at education and keeps her suppressed. Afterwards, Jane is blamed for the entire incident and...
The novel, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, has a plot that is filled with an extraordinary amount of problems. Or so it seems as you are reading it. However, it comes to your attention after you have finished it, that there is a common thread running throughout the book. There are many little difficulties that the main character, the indomitable Jane Eyre, must deal with, but once you reach the end of the book you begin to realize that all of Jane's problems are based around one thing. Jane searches throughout the book for love and acceptance, and is forced to endure many hardships before finding them. First, she must cope with the betrayal of the people who are supposed to be her family - her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her children, Eliza, Georgiana, and John. Then there is the issue of Jane's time at Lowood School, and how Jane goes out on her own after her best friend leaves. She takes a position at Thornfield Hall as a tutor, and makes some new friendships and even a romance. Yet her newfound happiness is taken away from her and she once again must start over. Then finally, after enduring so much, during the course of the book, Jane finally finds a true family and love, in rather unexpected places.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre represents the role of women in the Victorian era by giving the reader an insight into the lives of women from all social classes. Jane Eyre therefore represents figures of the Victorian time yet the character of Jane Eyre, herself, can be seen as very unconventional for the Victorian society.
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 ...