The Impact of the Beginning of Jane Eyre on the Audience

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The Impact of the Beginning of Jane Eyre on the Audience

'Jane Eyre' is a book that is written in a way that draws the reader

into Jane's life and emotions. At the beginning of the book, we see

nineteenth century life through a child's eyes. Jane is not treated

kindly or with love and because of this we see how awfully some

children were treated in the nineteenth century, so very different to

our world today where that would be unacceptable to treat a child

badly, this impacts the reader dramatically.

The author, Charlotte Bronte was similar to the character she

invented, subsequently she found it easy to express Jane's emotions

and thoughts. Charlotte herself endured many deaths, her mother died

in 1821 and her two older sisters Maria and Elizabeth died of

tuberculosis, similar to Helen burns the character in Jane Eyre who

also died of tuberculosis. Consequently death has been a theme

predominant in Jane Eyre; because of this experience when she writes

from the point of Jane it seem so true and realistic. Charlotte's

father was a vicar and she was brought up with Christian values,

therefore religion is a theme that pervades Jane Eyre.

Charlotte went to a school called Cowan Bridge, which is very similar

to Lowood; hence we hear much of the Sunday walk of two miles to

church and the badly cooked food. so she was writing from memories,

rather than what she had learned from others. The chief advantages of

first person narration are that we can share immediately and fully the

thoughts and feelings on the narrator. The chief disadvantages lie in

the difficulty of presenting an objective portrait. this affects the

reader as it is written in first person the reader has a lot more

empathy and this limits the point of view to Jane's point of view

unlike an omniscient author. This is very different to many books,

which are written now but set in the past where the author has to

research many of the issues and language of that day and age.

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