Jane Eyre - Jane, the main character, is an 18 year old orphan who finds herself a job at Thornfield Hall as a governess. She is not anything in the way of beauty, but her personality is what makes her extraordinary. She is someone who is witty, capable, and independent. She has goals for herself and attains them; she is capable of patience and careful persistence; and she has a quick mind about matters. Because Jane has no ranking and works as a governess, she dresses in simple dresses and frocks all mainly in the color of black and gray. Jane really only converses with the master of the house, the housekeeper, and her pupil for a good portion of the book. Jane ends up falling in love with her much older employer as the story progresses and …show more content…
Reed – She is the dreadful aunt to Jane. After Jane's uncle died, he made his wife promise him that she would take care of his niece, raise her like her own. Ms. Reed however, only barely kept this promise. With resentment towards Jane, she treated her poorly, let her children abuse Jane, and reminded Jane time and time again of how little she was really apart of the family. She regarded Jane as a pesky fly on a hot summer's day. She is said to treat her children as angels, she even turns a blind eye and deaf ear to her son's treachery and harassement of Jane. In addition to this, she even exaggerates the faults of Jane to Mr. Brocklehurst just so he can keep an eye on her while at school to make things far more difficult for her. Mrs. Reed is said to be a “stout” woman with “cold, composed gray …show more content…
Fairfax, Jane, and her nurse. She is petite with a “small-featured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist”(112). She knows little english as she was barely just brought from Paris, and all her conversations are in french. She is not particularily brilliant or extraordinarily talented in anything but she does improve under Jane's supervision. She in someways might resemble Jane if Jane had had a proper enviorment to grow up in. They both are orphans(Basically, seeing as her father doesn't really wish to be her father) and they both were not anything to be praised. However, Adele very much likes having the attention on her, receiving lavish gifts, and admiring
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
After the death of Jane’s parents, her uncle Mr. Reed has taken her in with his family to a mansion called Gateshead Hall. Nine years after Jane uncle has past she has been trapped in Gateshead Hall while suffering the bitter treatment of her aunt Mrs. Reed. Mrs. Reed was resentful of her husband’s favoritism toward Jane and takes every opportunity to neglect and punish her. When Jane is punished by Mrs. Reed she would be sent to the red room by two of Mrs. Reed servants, Bessie and Miss Abbot. The red-room was “a spare chamber, it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion” and in this every same chamber is where Jane uncle past (8). Not only did Mrs. Reed treat disrespectfully but her own son, Jane’s older cousin John Reed. John Reed would abuse and punish Jane several times a day, in the words of Jane; “every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh on my bones shranked when he came near”(4). Everyone would ignore Jane’s plea for help especially Mrs. Reed who would act be blind and deaf on the subject. No one except for Mr. Reed show any love and care for Jane during her childhood in Gateshead Hall. Jane said “I was a discord in Gateshead Hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage” (10). Jane continued by saying that they did not love her not if as little she loved them. Although the family mistreats her, Jane still wished for the atte...
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 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.
Mrs Reed keeps Jane only because of a promise she made to her husband on his deathbed. This abuse and neglect from her relatives forces Jane to be resentful and full of hatred. Later on Jane begins to stand up for herself. Once Jane begins to rebel to the abuse done by John and Mrs Reed, it is as if an uncontrollable beast had been unleashed inside of her.
In the beginning of Jane Eyre, Mrs. Reed tells the owner of Lowood Institution, Mr. Brocklehurst, that Jane has, "'a bad character, a deceitful disposition; and to let everybody at Lowood know what [she] is, and what [she] has done'" (34). Jane already despises Mrs. Reed for treating her so poorly, but now she is infuriated. If Mr. Brocklehurst describes Jane as Mrs. Reed instructs him to do, Jane will never make friends at Lowood because all of the children will fear her. Jane battles back by saying to her aunt, "'I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one 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'" (33). Jane...
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.
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 ...
Jane Eyre has been acclaimed as one of the best gothic novels in the Victorian Era. With Bronte’s ability to make the pages come alive with mystery, tension, excitement, and a variety of other emotions. Readers are left with rich insight into the life of a strong female lead, Jane, who is obedient, impatient, and passionate as a child, but because of the emotional and physical abuse she endures, becomes brave, patient, and forgiving as an adult. She is a complex character overall but it is only because of the emotional and physical abuse she went through as a child that allowed her to become a dynamic character.
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...
At the start of Jane Eyre, Jane is living with her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her family after being orphaned. Jane is bitterly unhappy there because she is constantly tormented by her cousins, John, Eliza, and Georgiana. After reading the entire book you realize that Jane was perfectly capable of dealing with that issue on her own, but what made it unbearable was that Mrs. Reed always sided with her children, and never admitted to herself that her offspring could ever do such things as they did to Jane. Therefore, Jane was always punished for what the other three children did, and was branded a liar by Mrs. Reed. This point in the book marks the beginning of Jane's primary conflict in the novel. She feels unloved and unaccepted by the world, as her own family betrays her.
The Reeds make it clear that Jane is an outcast among the family, and that she is not welcome in their home. When living with the Reeds, Jane was barely able to read books from the living room without being reprimanded. She was constantly teased from her cousins, who tried to get her in trouble with their mother. They
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 ...