Theme Of Control In Jane Eyre

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The eponymous heroine of Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre, is surrounded by a Victorian world and grows from an unruly child into a Victorian woman. At the beginning of the novel, Jane is passionate and flies into rages when injustices are committed against her. Her passion and unruliness are first shown in Chapter 1 when she vehemently fights back against her cousin John’s unprovoked attacks, hitting him and calling him a “wicked and cruel boy!” (30). Through her actions, Jane demonstrates her inability to control her anger and her desire to make others pay for the sins that they have committed against her. Jane’s lack of self-control is shown again before she leaves for the Lowood School, as she yells at her Aunt Reed for one final time, telling her, “I am glad you are no relation of mine…I will say the very thought of …show more content…

After witnessing Helen easily endure a punishment, Jane asks her how it is possible to bear a punishment without fighting back (56-58). In response, Helen gives Jane her first lesson in religion, explaining that “it is not violence that best overcomes hate- nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury”, love is the way to peace (58). Helen’s words have a profound impact on Jane, causing her to begin to see the world as a place for forgiveness, not ardent hatred, and she begins to grow from an unruly child into a Victorian woman. When, in chapter 10, Jane is finally ready to leave the Lowood School as a governess, the transformation that Helen was a catalyst to is complete, and Jane is no longer the passionate child she once was (88). Jane’s decision to become a governess reveals her Victorian fate, and she leaves Lowood a proper, Victorian woman, a complete foil of the unruly child she was when she entered Lowood. Thus, with the help of Helen Burns, the title character in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre grows from an unruly child into a true Victorian woman and enters the real world, ready to face the everyday trials of a

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