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Ruby Gutierrez
AP English Literature & Composition
Mr. Magoon
March 14, 2016
The Evolution of Jane Eyre Jane Eyre can be described as a historical fiction story. The novel, published in 1847, carefully follows Jane’s story from childhood to adulthood. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre often straddles the line between the feminist and the sentimental. On the one hand, the novel is the story of Jane, her struggles, her growth, and her development. She is a strong character who rises from a harsh background and childhood to achieve peace with her decisions and her life. On the other hand, Jane’s relationship with Mr. Rochester is central to the book. She calls him “master” on many occasions and, although she is not completely submissive,
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Reed, before being sent to Lowood Institution for hitting her cousin. At Lowood, Jane does receive a good education, though the school setting can be “distressing” and full of “hardships” such as a lack of food and humiliation at the hands of Mr. Brocklehurst. However, she does find friends in Helen and Miss Temple. After spending eight years at Lowood, both as a teacher and as a student, Jane then journeys to Thornfield hall to become governess to Adele, the ward of Mr. Edward Rochester. And while at Thornfield Jane, of course, falls in love with Mr. Rochester. However, at their wedding, it is revealed that Mr. Rochester is already married, but that his wife Bertha has gone
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mad. Consequently, Jane runs away, eventually finding sanctuary with the Rivers, who are discovered to be her cousins and a position teaching at a country school. Soon though, St. John Rivers proposes to her, asking her to accompany him as a missionary’s wife, and she declines. She hears Mr. Rochester in the distance, and returns to him. Because of a fire caused by Bertha, he is blind and disabled, but Jane still “married him” and their romance comes full circle. Throughout this classic novel, Jane comes into being, both as a character and as
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Also, always strive to be happy, because at the end, that’s all that matters. Likewise to Jane, she had a happily ending, even though it took much strength and courage to end up sharing her love life with Mr Rochester, the blind, no arm, man. Jane’s struggles and personal growth developed her character in the novel. At the end she succeeds in overcoming all her inner and social problems.
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Works Cited
Jong, Erica. Introduction. Jane Eyre. By Charlotte Bronte. New York: Signet, 1997. V-IX.
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Brontë, Charlotte, and D. K. Swan. Jane Eyre. Harlow: Longman, 1997. Print.
"SAMPLE CRITICAL ANALYSIS." SAMPLE CRITICAL ANALYSIS. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.
"Jane Eyre: Awards." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Jane Eyre. Dir. Cary Fukunaga. Perf. Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender.
Universal Pictures, 2011. DVD.
Jane Eyre. Dir. Robert Stevenson. Perf. Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine. Twentieth
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"Judi Dench." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2014. .
"Lucy Hutchinson." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014. .
Moglen, Helene. "The Creation of the Feminist Myth." Charlotte Brontë's 'Jane Eyre':
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Text and Background Criticisms. Ed. Richard Dunn. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and, 1987. 484-91.
In Charlotte Bronte’s, Jane Eyre, Jane goes through numerous self-discoveries, herself-realization and discipline leads her to a life she chooses to make her happy. Jane Eyre has a rough life from the start. Forced to stay with people who despise her, Jane can only help herself. Jane must overcome the odds against her, which add to many. Jane is a woman with no voice, until she changes her destiny. The novel Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte consists of continuous journeys through Jane’s life towards her final happiness and freedom.
Jane Eyre is about a girl named Jane who struggles to find who she really is and with it what she really wants. “As a model for women readers in the Victorian period and throughout the twentieth century to follow, Jane Eyre encouraged them to make their own choices in living their lives, to develop respect for themselves, and to become individuals” (Markley). One of the reasons why this book gained merit was because of its striking presence within its time period. During the “Victorian Age” woman did not have much say in society, so this novel broke boundaries to societal norms that restricted woman from things they have today. “Brontë is able to enact this tension through her characters and thus show dramatically the journey of a woman striving for balance within her nature.
The novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is an early 19th-century English literature; a literary work that is evocative and riveting. It depicts acts of betrayal between family members, loved ones and self-inflicted betrayal. The acts of betrayals are done by Mrs. Reed, Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre herself.
Jane Eyre is the perfect novel about maturing: a child who is treated cruelly holds herself together and learns to steer her life forward with a driving conscience that keeps her life within personally felt moral bounds. I found Jane as a child to be quite adult-like: she battles it out conversationally with Mrs. Reed on an adult level right from the beginning of the book. The hardship in her childhood makes her extreme need for moral correctness believable. For instance, knowing her righteous stubborness as a child, we can believe that she would later leave Rochester altogether rather than living a life of love and luxury simply by overlooking a legal technicality concerning his previous marriage to a mad woman. Her childhood and her adult life are harmonious which gives the reader the sense of a complete and believable character.
Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, was published in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, in London. This year is exactly ten years into Queen Victoria’s sixty-four year reign of the British Empire. The Victorian Era was renowned for its patriarchal Society and definition by class. These two things provide vital background to the novel, as Jane suffers from both. Jane Eyre relates in some ways to Brontë’s own life, as its original title suggest, “Jane Eyre: An Autobiography”. Charlotte Brontë would have suffered from too, as a relatively poor woman. She would have been treated lowly within the community. In fact, the book itself was published under a pseudonym of Currer Bell, the initials taken from Brontë’s own name, due to the fact that a book published by a woman was seen as inferior, as they were deemed intellectually substandard to men. Emily Brontë, Charlotte’s sister, was also forced to publish her most famous novel, Wuthering Heights, under the nom de plume of Ellis Bell, again taking the initials of her name to form her own alias. The novel is a political touchstone to illustrate the period in which it was written, and also acts as a critique of the Victorian patriarchal society.
Jane Eyre, written in 1847 by Charlotte Bronte, relates a tale of tragedy, mystery, and gothic romance. Covering the multiple issues of England in that time, Bronte writes of orphan treatment, social class, and Britain’s controversial law of prohibiting divorce in all circumstances. Orphaned at a young age and unwanted by her guardian Mrs. Reed, Jane searches for higher prospects in education at Lowood, eventually earning a position as a governess at Thornfield. Complications disrupt her life, when she becomes engaged to her employer, Mr. Rochester, and soon after discovers that he is already married to a lunatic. Leaving Thornfield, Jane finds a home with St. John and his two sisters. Eventually, she returns to her former employer, discovering Thornfield in ashes, Mrs. Rochester dead, and Mr. Rochester blind and free from wedlock. Flooded with motifs, Jane’s continual struggles between her passions and responsibility prevail as the main theme of Bronte’s entrancing narrative.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre chronicles the growth of her titular character from girlhood to maturity, focusing on her journey from dependence on negative authority figures to both monetary and psychological independence, from confusion to a clear understanding of self, and from inequality to equality with those to whom she was formerly subject. Originally dependent on her Aunt Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester, she gains independence through her inheritance and teaching positions. Over the course of the novel, she awakens towards self-understanding, resulting in contentment and eventual happiness. She also achieves equality with the important masculine figures in her life, such as St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester, gaining self-fulfillment as an independent, fully developed equal.
Jane started out with no family, causing her to yearn for someone to accept her as their family, treating her with love and respect. At a young age, Jane lost her parents, leaving her with her aunt and cousins. They treated her poorly, acting as if she was incompetent and considering her more of a servant than a family member. Then, they sent her off to school, forgetting about her entirely. Eventually, Jane acquired the family she had always dreamt of. She never felt quite right with other people accepting her, that is, until Mr. Rochester came into her life. She did not feel as though she had found her true family until she had met him. "All these relics gave...Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine to memory.” (92). When they get married, her dreams are achieved, as she finally got the family she had always wanted.
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Richard J Dunn 3rd ed. 1847. New York: W. W.
This feeling intensifies when Mr. Brocklehurst arrives to take Jane away to Lowood School. Her aunt is pleased to see her go, but manages to influence Jane's life even after Jane is settled in at the charity school, by informing Mr.
Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre embraces many feminist views in opposition to the Victorian feminine ideal. Charlotte Bronte herself was among the first feminist writers of her time, and wrote this book in order to send the message of feminism to a Victorian-Age Society in which women were looked upon as inferior and repressed by the society in which they lived. This novel embodies the ideology of equality between a man and woman in marriage, as well as in society at large. As a feminist writer, Charlotte Bronte created this novel to support and spread the idea of an independent woman who works for herself, thinks for herself, and acts of her own accord.
Jane Eyre is a novel written by Charlotte Bronte in 1847, it is written in the first-person narrative. The plot follows Jane Eyre through her life from a young age and through the novel the reader sees Jane maturing from a young girl into adulthood, Jane also goes through many emotions and experiences and the book touches on many themes for example love, social class and religion.
Similar to many of the great feministic novels of its time, Jane Eyre purely emerges as a story focused on the quest for love. The novel’s protagonist, Jane, searches not only for the romantic side of love, but ultimately for a sense of self-worth and independence. Set in the overlapping times of the Victorian and Gothic periods, the novel touches upon both women’s supposed rights, and their inner struggle for liberty. Orphaned at an early age, Jane was born into a modest lifestyle, without any major parent roles to guide her through life’s obstacles. Instead, she spent much of her adolescent years locked in imaginary chains, serving those around her but never enjoying the many decadences life has to offer. It is not until Jane becomes a governess that many minute privileges become available to her and offer Jane a glance at what life could have been. It is on her quest for redemption and discovery that she truly is liberated. Throughout Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel Jane Eyre, the story’s protagonist Jane, struggles to achieve the balance of both autonomy and love, without sacrificing herself in the process.
The development of Charlotte Bronte's character, Jane Eyre, becomes vital to her novel Jane Eyre, and the other characters in which she is involved. She is an intelligent, plain featured, honest young girl whose reaction to her situations brings more depth to her personality. She is forced to deal with oppression, discrimination, and at times poverty, which disrupt her strong will, dignity, and desire for freedom. At the beginning, Jane possesses a passion for pride and the idea of freedom and these characteristics, along with her integrity, are tested continuously throughout the novel by the many personalities with whom she encounters. Living in a male dominant world Jane is expected to remain obedient and docile and her passion sometimes keeps her from being able to do this. She is a rarity among obeying female characters and we see this throughout the book.
Ultimately, concepts such as happiness cannot be guaranteed to skeptics like Jane Eyre and “hideous” men like Rochester -- only the divine union of passion can be guaranteed. Yet, for Bronte’s characters, this is sufficient reward and an appropriate closure for a love story about such atypical characters. Below, I will use characterizations of the Romantic literary school, as well as criticism of Jane Eyre, to explain how the ending of the novel fits perfectly with the rest of the landmark novel.