Charlotte Bronte wrote the well-renowned novel Jane Eyre under an alias, Currer Bell. Bronte felt the pseudonym gave her courage to write the truth, “If I relinquished it, strength and courage would leave me and I should ever after shrink from writing the plain truth”(crash course). So she wrote as a man because in 1847 no one would take a book written by a woman seriously. Many of Charlotte Bronte’s life experiences are illustrated in her novel. Thus, much like Jane, she was not raised in a nurturing family environment. In Jane Eyre, the author Charlotte Bronte illustrates how a loving, kind, and nurturing home is essential to a sense of worth and belonging through the contrasting settings Gates Head and Mores End.
Gates Head is the first setting that Jane inhabits in the novel; it is a large, austere house, finely furnished; however to Jane, it is nothing more than a prison. There is a dark, miserable tone reflected on all of the characters living in Gates Head. Never, had Jane been neglected and unloved then as a young girl living at Gates Head, by her relatives,
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Evident when, Jane saw Mrs. Rivers as a wicked woman who kept a helpless bird caged. Furthermore, the Rivers siblings are perceived as welcoming and sweet; they invite Jane, a stranger into their home and nurture her back to health. In the classic Jane Eyre, the author Charlotte Bronte used contrasting settings to demonstrate to the reader the effect of a loving and cruel family impacts a person’s happiness. The two settings are strikingly different; the first is Gates Head, a disparaging, large place that Jane describes as prison-like, and where Jane was mistreated and miserable. Second, Mores End where Jane finds family in a charming little cottage and for once in her life found the joy of family. Each setting Jane is surrounded by family, but the difference is how she is
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
The beginning of the novel starts out with a picture of a peaceful home that is very similar to the Moor House Jane lives in while visiting her cousins. It even states in line 2 that Bronte feels like the place is familiar. There is “marshland stretched for miles” ( ln 1) outside the home like the land of England in Jane Eyre. This common setting is also connecting how much Charlotte Bronte is like her character Jane. Dunn describes Bronte as “passionate [and] assertive” (ln 12) which is much like Jane Eyre’s character. Bronte is also said to not “come back to complain or haunt” (ln 20), and she lives in a “mod...
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.
Location, location, location--physical setting functions symbolically in Jane Eyre. The author and filmmakers work with place to add depth to thematic concerns. Each location in Jane Eyre represents a different stage in Jane Eyre’s life, her childhood happens at Gateshead. She then moves on to her education at Lowood Institute until she wants to get out into the world and seek her fortune. Next at Thornfield comes young love, where she finds mystery and temptation. Afterward Jane endures a temporary banishment at Moor House and in the little town of Morton, where she discovers friends and relatives.at the novels end Jane experiences mature love at Ferndean when she returns to Rochester.
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.
Jane Eyre's literary success of the time has been cheaply commercialized. In other words, Bronte's novel never got the appreciation it deserved, in the areas it deserved. Many 19th century critics merely assigned literary themes to their reviews to "get it over with". Critics commended Jane Eyre for everything from its themes to its form. However, their surface examinations amount to nothing without careful consideration of the deeper underlying background in Jane's life where their hasty principles originate. The widely discussed free will of Jane's, her strong individuality, and independence are segments of a greater scheme, her life. For example: Jane's childhood serves as the most important precedent for all of the self-realism although this purpose is widely disregarded. Even though "many have celebrated Bronte's carefully wrought description of her protagonist's first eighteen years for its vivid pathos, no one has as yet accorded this childhood its deserved weight in the novels ultimate resolution." (Ashe 1) Jane Eyre's genius develops in a series of internal reactions to external circumstances rather than shallow judgments about those internal happenings.
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, the female protagonist of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, begins the novel as a ten-year old orphan living with her aunt in Victorian England. As an orphan, Jane gains very few happy experiences with her cousins—John, Georgina, and Eliza Reed—and her aunt—Mrs. Reed, and she has even fewer privileges in the Gateshead estate where she is viewed as “less than a servant [because] she does nothing for her keep” (14). However, Jane, for a youth of barely ten years, clearly communicates an intrinsic dream to find a community in which she not only feels loved and respected, but also finds that she can act independently of this community. Unfortunately, these desires work against the conventions of society that would rather see Jane be “kept humble” (36) and utilized “properly” according to her class. Nevertheless, Jane Eyre’s precise articulation, effective assimilation will help her conquer society’s conventions and gain a sense of individualism.
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.
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.
Bronte wrote Jane Eyre to emphasize her beliefs behind the purpose of women, and how society lacked to understand them as who they were created to be. The issue of lack of opportunity for women to engage in intellectual preparation and continuation is prevalent within the character of Jane. Expectation of women’s role was a social norm, with a lack of diversity or individuality. Bronte challenges this issue through the character of Jane, whom experiences a tug-of-war sensation between being herself, who she wants to be and should be, and what society wants her to be, and pushes her to be. Bronte was trying to explain that women have the same capability as men to be productive individuals of society, but they are held back from establishing their potential. The most unique understanding of Bronte’s challenge to society is the understanding that the characteristics and personality of Jane as a female is shamed and criticized, however these features are identical to those of a successful and representable man in
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.