Jane Eyre — Charlotte Brontë

Key

• Personal Journey, Independence & Freedom

• Gender & Social Class

• Love, Religion, Passion vs. Reason & Moral Integrity

• Context — AO3

Analysis

• The novel is written retrospectively — first person narrative

• The voice of Jane doesn’t really change — she relives these events and as tells them

• She finds her voice:

  • “I never thought thus to have declared aloud” — Chapter 1

  • “I resisted all the way: a new thing for me” — Chapter 2

  • “Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely, and must turn: but how? — Chapter 4

    • repetition of imperative “must” highlights her independent and passionate spirit

• Jane Eyre is about Jane finding herself and being independent:

  • “I will be myself.” — Chapter 24

    • use of pronoun “I” shows that she has the choice to make her own decisions

  • “I want to enjoy my own faculties” — Chapter 35

• Jane is affected by her environment, distressing situations, and the people around her but through self knowledge and self determination she becomes independent and self sustained.

  • “I dared to put off the mendicant — to resume my natural manner and character. I began once more to know myself. — Chapter 28

    • performing a role

  • “In the interval I had undergone a transforming process … my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple — or rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been breathing in her vicinity — and that now I was left in my natural element.” — Chapter 10

    • she returns to her true self

  • conventionality and unconventionality

    • natural self is different to conventions of society — Jane’s natural self in unconventional

    • “something conventionally vague and polite … dispense with … conventional forms and phrases” — Chapter 14

    • “the medium of custom and conventionalities” — Chapter 23

    • “Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped conventionalities” — Chapter 27

  • Brontë uses archaic language, inverted grammar, double-barrel adjectives, invents words — unconventional

  • Brontë uses phrenological language to talk about character.

    • “a considerable organ of veneration, for yet I retain the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her steps” — Chapter 5

    • “my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line.” — Chapter 8

      • organ of veneration — religion

    • “a solid mass of intellectual organs … an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen.” — Chapter 14

  • Jane Eyre’s first impressions on people are often her last impressions

  • Brontë can use phrenological language to present a character without entering their mind — useful as this is a first person narrative

  • Brontë externalises Jane’s feelings onto other characters — Rochester does this too

    • “Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yer her hour for complete victory” — Chapter 2

    • “Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape” — Chapter 2

Religion in Jane Eyre

• Helen Burns, Mr Brocklehurst, St. John, and Rochester help Jane discover ideas about religion

• Miss Temple — temple has connotations with holiness

• “God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide.” — Chapter 35

  • Jane has an unconventional way of handling love

Context

contextual points: women = feelings + domestic duties

• “Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel”

  • women were “ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings”

  • women were condemned or laughed at if they wanted to do more than “custom has pronounced necessary for their sex”

contextual points: victorian femininity was binary — submissive + selfless vs. unrestrained passion + ambition

• "Far better to endure patiently ... the Bible bids us return good for evil."

  • religion was used to justify physical abuse against children

  • submission and stoic acceptance was preferred over challenging unjust actions

• "Beast or human being... it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours."

  • use of dehumanising, animalistic language symbolises a lack of restraint and overflowing passion → victorian society aimed to contain this