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Individual Vs Society in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre

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Sorry, but Jane Eyre Isn’t the Romance You Want It to Be

Charlotte Brontë, a woman whose life was steeped in stifled near-romance, refused to write love as ruly, predictable, or safe.

George Smith did not know it, but he was about to meet the world’s most famous author. It was 1848. Currer Bell, author of Jane Eyre , was the most sought-after—and most mysterious—writer in the world. Even Smith, who edited and published the book, had never met the enigmatic author, a first-time novelist who had nonetheless turned down his suggestions for revision, thanking him for the advice, then announcing the intention to ignore it.

Bell had been right, of course, and Smith wrong. The book, and Bell’s identity, was the talk of London. And now, a very small woman stood before Smith, clutching one of Bell’s letters in her hand. She was Currer Bell, she told him. She was the author of Jane Eyre .

If life were like literature, Smith would have fallen in love with her then and there. Passionate, deeply intelligent, outspoken, and charmingly unaffected—Charlotte Brontë was an arresting, complex woman. If he did not love her already, he could learn: They would soon strike up a lively and close correspondence that lasted years. And Charlotte was charmed by his good looks and his bright, open personality. But Jane Eyre ’s diminutive author was no romantic heroine, and real life is not a romance.

Jane Eyre is, though. Right? The answer to that question is up for debate.

It might seem like sacrilege to question the (small r) romanticism of Jane Eyre , a story that centers on the obsessive love of a teenage governess and her decades-older boss. Over the last 172 years, the book has become a touchstone for passionate love, that once-in-a-lifetime spark we are taught to long for. Even today, the book is the subject of swoony listsicles (“11 Romantic Quotes from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre ”) and essays that uphold it as “a romance novel for the modern, intelligent woman.”

But when it was published, the bestselling book incensed readers even as it seduced them. It was condemned as immoral, unfit for women’s eyes, all but fomenting revolution. And for modern scholars, its undercurrents of rage, motherlessness , colonialism , slavery , circus freakery , and even incest (!) are more compelling than its caresses.

“The early reviews of Jane Eyre strike us today as naive and misinformed,” writes Lisa Sternlieb. She lists off common critiques of the book as anti-Christian and deeply hypocritical, including one that said that “never was there a greater hater than Charlotte Brontë.” “Yet I would argue that these reviewers hit on an element of truth in the novel,” Sternlieb muses.

Hatred. Insurrection. Patriarchy. Not exactly romantic themes. Readers have always picked up on the tension between the book’s revolutionary subtexts and its uneasy relationship with love. To twenty-first-century eyes, it shows a woman who fights for, yet abdicates to, love. To nineteenth-century eyes, it showed a woman who should abdicate to, yet fights for, love. In either century, readers demand that Jane Eyre should do cultural labor that it steadfastly resists. Its author resists our attempts at that labor, too. For Charlotte Brontë, a woman whose life was steeped in stifled near-romance, refused to write love as ruly, predictable, or safe.

Charlotte’s life was not that of her heroine, and Jane Eyre is no autobiography. But by the time her most famous book was published, Charlotte was 31 years old, and an expert in the strangling, diminishing kind of romance she bequeathed her heroine.

It wasn’t always that way. As a child, she seemed marked for love. It was part and parcel of the fantasy world that enveloped her everyday life: a fictitious kingdom called Angria, which she wrote into being with her younger brother, Branwell . In what amounted to a competitive literary apprenticeship, they wove their fantasy land into a place of lewd thrills. Angria seethed with war, rape, rebellion, kidnapping, and revenge. It was a hotbed of the kind of love that could build a kingdom, then tear it to shreds.

That vision of love was so intense that it permeated into real life. When she was 23, Charlotte turned down a proposal from her best friend’s brother. “I had not, and never could have that intense attachment which would make me willing to die for him,” she wrote , “and if I ever marry it must be in that light of adoration that I will regard my husband.” Besides, she wrote, her suitor would think her a “wild, romantic enthusiast indeed” if he ever really got to know her.

Jane Eyre may have a wild, romantic streak, but its heroine’s love counters everything readers have been taught to desire. Neglected in childhood and traumatized at a school where she is humiliated and starved, Jane arrives at Thornfield ready to love. At first, it seems she’ll get her chance: There are romantic promises, forbidden glances, anguished prayers. But though her story delivers sexual tension and an agony of will-they-or-won’t-they that lasts into its final pages, nothing about Jane’s love is what you’d expect. Brontë drapes her book in the trappings of romance, then snatches them away, subverting our fantasies at every turn.

“Like so many other (yes) romance writers,” writes the literary critic Sandra M. Gilbert, “Charlotte Brontë created a heroine who wants to learn what love is and how to find it, just as she herself did. Unlike most of her predecessors, though, Brontë was unusually explicit in placing that protagonist amid dysfunctional families, perverse partnerships, and abusive caretakers.”

Chief among Brontë’s baits-and-switches is her hero, a brooding man readers—and Jane—are all too ready to adore. Edward Fairfax Rochester is boorish and brutal. He engages his 18-year-old employee in work talk that is the 19th-century version of #METOO employment investigation fodder. He’d fit right in with the modern “seduction community,” conducting a master class in negging as he reminds Jane of her inferiority, then compliments her wit. In one particularly repulsive episode, he messes with her mind by disguising himself as a Roma fortune teller.

Affection-starved Jane only realizes her “master” loves her after he pushes her toward an appalling apex of emotional cruelty. He intends to marry her rival, he implies. Then he changes his mind. Finally, after all but forcing her to accept his abrupt proposal, he takes her in his arms.

But Rochester’s momentary tenderness is just that—momentary. While he’s been playing dress-up and making out with a teenager beneath a tree in his Gothic garden, he’s been guilty of unforgivable cruelty, holding his first wife captive for her “intemperance” and, Brontë implies, her race. The wedding is called off, so Rochester makes one last bid for Jane’s love, begging her to stay and live with him as his bigamous mistress. It is too much to bear.

The same year she turned down her first marriage proposal, Charlotte turned away from the illicit fantasies of Angria. Both she and Branwell were in their twenties now, and they had lingered together in their imaginary world for too long.

“I have now written a great many books,” she wrote . “I long to quit for a while that burning clime where we have sojourned too long… The mind would cease from excitement & turn now to a cooler region, where the dawn breaks gray and sober & the coming day for a time at least is subdued in clouds.”

Something else threw cold water on her passions: A letter she received from Britain’s poet laureate, Robert Southey, in 1837. Charlotte had sent the poet a poem of her own, asking whether it was worth pursuing her literary ambitions. But Southey didn’t encourage her. Instead, he warned her against what he called “a distempered state of mind” that would render the mundane life of a woman intolerable. “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life,” he wrote, “and it ought not to be.” Charlotte wrote back, assuring him she’d try to write as little as possible.

A few years later, burned out on governessing and with no hopes of marriage, she continued her search for cooler climes. This time, she went to Belgium. As an adult student at a girls’ school in Brussels, Charlotte planned to acquire the “finish,” and the fluency in French, that would qualify her to run her own school in England. What she really wanted, though, was a change of scenery, an antidote to her restlessness.

She learned more than one language there. Constantin Héger, the married headmaster of the school, befriended her. He encouraged her to write, to speak her mind. For a woman who had been told there was no place for women in writing—by Britain’s most respected poet, no less—his argumentative, constructive criticisms in the margins of her essays must have had the effect of a powerful aphrodisiac. Soon she came home again, this time fleeing her obsession with Héger.

In 1913, Héger’s children published four letters from Charlotte to Héger that they had discovered among their mother’s things. Three of the four had been torn into pieces and discarded, then retrieved and carefully stitched together with paper and thread by his wife, Zoë Héger. She likely saved the letters as potential evidence; they might prove useful if Charlotte made trouble for the school. Instead, they are testimony of Charlotte’s agony.

“Day and night, I find neither rest nor peace,” she wrote . “Monsieur, the poor do not need a great deal to live on. They ask only the crumbs of bread which fall from the rich men’s table.” Charlotte was ready to take whatever crumbs he had left to give.

The author may have been hungry for crumbs, but Jane Eyre is not. When she finds out her soon-to-be-husband isn’t free to marry, she faces down his betrayal with shocked strength. When Rochester steamily suggests she move with him to France, where no one knows or cares that he’s already married, she refuses. Not that it’s not tempting. But the offer is a “silken snare,” a luxurious trap.

“While he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him,” says Jane:

They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. “Oh, comply!” it said. “Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?” Still indomitable was the reply—“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

Maybe Charlotte’s refusal to let her heroine sin with Rochester was a rebuke to herself. Or it may have been a reminder to move forward. Jane presses on, running away from sin and toward herself. If she cannot be on equal footing with her partner, she will not have him at all.

In this sense, Jane’s flight is as much from inequality as it is from sin. Even before he copped to his attic-bound madwoman of a wife, Rochester made it clear that he wanted to own Jane. As his wife, she would have been his concubine: a petted plaything, but not an equal. Jane’s furious opposition to that—her insistence on meeting him on equal footing—riled Jane Eyre ’s critics and appalled readers.

For the literary critic Nancy Pell, Jane’s refusal of Rochester is part of a deep-rooted critique of social and economic institutions that echoes throughout the novel. By the time she falls in love, Jane knows she can fend for herself. “Knowing that she can earn thirty pounds a year as a governess,” Pell writes , “Jane rejects being hired as a mistress or bought as a slave. Once again she resolves to keep in good health and not die.”

She does more than refuse to die; she thrives. Jane escapes Thornfield and befriends the Rivers sisters and their intolerable brother, St. John, a Calvinist minister who gives her a job as a teacher in an obscure village. Coincidence then teaches her that not only are the Rivers siblings her cousins, she is an heiress. She shares the wealth, enjoying the money that has raised her out of obscurity.

Jane has one more obstacle to overcome: St. John’s insistence that she marry him and become a missionary in India. St. John is arguably even more sadistic than Rochester. He expects Jane to follow him to the ends of the earth, and to do so with a cold substitute for love.

“God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife,” he tells her. “It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love. A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine: I claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.”

His words could be construed as a kind of reassurance: Marital rape, he suggests, won’t be part of his bargain. But his words crack like a whip. They are the words of a man who has judged a woman’s body and found it lacking. St. John would never make out with Jane beneath a tree. If she left him, he wouldn’t beg for her to stay. He wouldn’t take her as his mistress or take her to France. The principled minister finds no pleasure in his future wife.

Certainly, Charlotte had stopped thinking of herself as a wife by the time she wrote Jane Eyre . She was too busy watching other people’s children, tending her half-blind father, and sewing shirts for her drug-addicted brother. When they were not governessing or teaching, all of the Brontë women labored alongside their servants, peeling potatoes and baking bread, tending to the endless toil of daughters, sisters. But not wives.

“I’m certainly doomed to be an old maid,” she wrote . “I can’t expect another chance—never mind I made up my mind to that fate ever since I was twelve years old.”

Spinsterdom did have its uses: It allowed Charlotte to write. Without a husband to attend to, Charlotte could spend the hours between her father’s bedtime and her own with her pen. It could be a lonely bargain, but it was one that allowed her to create Jane Eyre .

St. John’s tempting bargain—Jane Eyre’s second proposal of marriage—is the last thing that stands between her and happiness. Equipped with new knowledge and a new dismissal of the skim-milk version of love he offers, she decides that sin on her own terms is preferable to virtue on St. John’s. Turning down her cousin and returning to a man who, for all she knows, is still married, is helped along when she hears Rochester calling her name. “But indeed, Jane doesn’t merely ‘think’ of Mr. Rochester,” notes Gilbert. “Rather, in a moment of mystically orgasmic passion she virtually brings him into being.”

Jane, bolstered by her own financial security and her refusal to be diminished by a man who sees her only as a source of labor, is in a different position than she was when she left Rochester for the first time. She is ready for his call. She is ready to go to him on her own terms.

That return has vexed readers for 172 years. Jane’s seeming surrender—her willingness to re-enter a dysfunctional, if not abusive, relationship—infuriates scholars, too, especially those immersed in feminist theory.

The book is a “patriarchal love fantasy,” writes the literary scholar Jean Wyatt in an essay tellingly named “A Patriarch of One’s Own.” For Wyatt, Jane Eyre is an expression of “defiant autonomy” that nonetheless gives in to a damaging fusion with a damaging man. Jane’s eventual marriage to her “strong oak of a man” dupes readers, Wyatt suggests:

The apparently revolutionary nature of Jane’s egalitarian marriage allows an old fantasy to get by the ideological censors of her readers, so that we all, feminists and Harlequin romance readers alike, can enjoy the unending story of having one’s patriarch all to oneself forever.

It makes for an “excruciating ending,” writes the sociologist Bonnie Zare. The completion of Jane and Rochester’s love trajectory, she writes, is painful:

For after being taken advantage of by Rochester’s abusive tricks, Jane is supposed to attain ultimate fulfillment in a subservient relationship with a husband whose devotion seems to spring mostly from his new state of physical vulnerability.

In his new wife, Zare implies, Rochester has gained an all-too-willing caretaker.

But is Jane really doomed to a life of subservience? Not exactly, says Pell. “‘An independent woman now,’ Jane reappears at Thornfield,” she writes. “She has refused to be Rochester’s mistress or St. John’s mistress of Indian schools; now she is her own mistress and her proposal to Rochester is striking… Even their marriage can hardly be considered typically Victorian. Jane possesses a great deal of money in her own right, and although Rochester is far from the helpless wreck he is sometimes taken to be, he is dependent upon Jane ‘to be helped—to be led’ until he regains his sight.”

Gilbert, too, rejects the premise that Jane Eyre demeans herself by returning to Rochester. “In a proud denial of St. John’s insulting insistence that she is ‘formed for labor, not for love,’ she chooses—and wins—a destiny of love’s labors,” she writes. “There can be no question… that what Jane calls the ‘pleasure in my services’ both she and Rochester experience in their utopian woodland is a pleasure in physical as well as spiritual intimacy, erotic as well as intellectual communion.”

In the 1840s, Jane’s love for herself was so subversive it bordered on revolution. In 2019, her love of Rochester is so shocking it borders on treason. In any era, its relationship to the love it explores is uneasy, volatile. Nearly two centuries after it was published, Jane Eyre confounds every expectation.

After they met in person, Charlotte and her editor began a correspondence that can only be described as stimulating. She already knew that Smith loved her writing—when she sent him the draft of Jane Eyre , it captivated him so much that he read it through in one sitting, neglecting visitors and appointments as he rushed through the story.

It almost seemed possible that their friendship was something deeper. When Charlotte visited London, Smith begged her to stay at his house. He treated her to every amusement the city could afford. They traveled together, through London and even to Scotland, often chaperoned by his mother or sister. They even went to a phrenologist together, delighting in her anonymity and the practitioner’s pronouncement that Charlotte’s head was “very remarkable.” She wrote him into one of her books as a handsome, good-natured love interest. When they were apart, they wrote long, chatty letters, dissecting the literary news of the day.

Though only Charlotte’s half of the correspondence survived, it is honest and remarkably open. At times it is sparkling and witty. It verges on flirty, and then it falls apart.

It’s not clear how Charlotte reacted in private when George Smith told her he was engaged to be married, but her choked response was not flirty or chatty or fun:

My dear Sir In great happiness, as in great grief—words of sympathy should be few. Accept my meed of congratulation—and believe me Sincerely yours C. Brontë

Twenty-eight words, each smarting with disappointment.

A few months earlier, something strange had happened to Charlotte Brontë: She had become an object of unrequited love. The admirer in question was Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father’s curate. It was surreal to be the one pined for, the one whose crumbs were gladly gathered. When he declared himself, she told her father, who exploded. “If I had loved Mr. N—and had heard such epithets applied to him as were used,” she told a friend, “it would have transported me past my patience.”

But she did not love him, yet. It took years of moping and quiet persuasion—and perhaps Smith’s marriage—for her to decide to marry Nicholls, a man she had previously scorned as stupid and unromantic. Finally, she agreed, though she had deep reservations. During a pre-nuptial conversation with two of her friends, the kind of conversation in which virgin women asked more experienced friends about their marital obligations, Charlotte confided that she worried about what marriage might cost her. “I cannot conceal from myself that he is not intellectual,” she said .

Marriage did exact a price. Though Charlotte Nicholls loved her husband, he constricted her. He was horrified by the personal issues she discussed in her longstanding correspondence with Ellen Nussey, a friend since childhood.

“Arthur complains that you do not distinctly promise to burn my letters as you receive them,” she wrote in 1854, four months after her wedding. “He says you must give a plain pledge to that effect—or he will read every line I write and elect himself censor of our correspondence.”

Nussey agreed, grudgingly. Then she disobeyed him. We owe her much of what we know of Charlotte Brontë.

“Faultless he is not,” Charlotte wrote wryly, “but as you well know—I did not expect perfection.” She loved her husband, loved the settled life they led together. But later, she admitted that she had stopped writing: “My own life is more occupied than it used to be: I have not so much time for thinking.”

Did Charlotte kill herself by handing over her intellectual and physical well-being? Perhaps. She died soon after, likely from dehydration following severe morning sickness. But her nine months of marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls were among the happiest of her life.

“There was but little feminine charm about her, and of this fact she herself was uneasily and perpetually conscious,” George Smith wrote decades later. “I believe that she would have given all her genius and fame to have been beautiful. Perhaps few women ever existed more anxious to be pretty than she, or more angrily conscious of the circumstance that she was not pretty.”

Those lines jump out from an otherwise respectful, even loving, memoir of his time with Charlotte Brontë. Smith certainly wasn’t the first person to notice that Charlotte’s nose and mouth were large, that she was missing teeth and so nearsighted she crouched over books and papers. But his assessment—his assumption that Brontë’s unease in public was due to discomfort with her physical appearance instead of, say, being unused to city life or worried about being recognized by readers or fearful of meeting her critics in person—is disappointing.

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In the end, even George Smith, who had had direct access to so many of Charlotte’s thoughts and feelings, and whom she admired so much, felt the need to snipe about her appearance instead of assessing her legacy or engaging with her body of work. Even those who cared most about Charlotte Brontë underestimated her, even after they knew she had made a deliberate choice to write a disquieting story about a plain woman in love.

“I will prove to you that you are wrong,” she reportedly told her sisters during a debate on how to write heroines. “I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.”

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Essays About Jane Eyre: Top 5 Examples and Prompts

Writing essays about Jane Eyre? Take a look at our essay examples about Jane Eyre and be inspired by our additional prompts.

Jane Eyre is widely considered a classic novel that poignantly exposed the struggles of Victorian women through a story of love and emancipation. Jane Eyre is a Victorian novel written by Charlotte Brontë and published in 1847. Many aspects of the novel are said to derive from the personal story and experiences of the author herself. 

Brontë published this masterpiece with the gender-neutral pen-name Currer Bell to evade criticisms as the rebelliousness of Jane Eyre was defiant of the accepted social mores of its period. While it stirred controversy in its time, the heroine of the novel, with her grit to conquer adversities, break the rules and achieve her desires, offers many lessons that inspire many to this day. 

Read on and see our top essay examples and writing prompts to help with your essays about Jane Eyre.

1. Jane Eyre And The Right To Pester by Olivia Ward Jackson

2. jane eyre: content warnings are as old as the novel itself by jo waugh, 3. the tension between reason and passion in jane eyre by nicholas johnson, 4. reading jane eyre: can we truly understand charlotte brontë or her heroine today by sam jordison, 5. christianity as a form of empowerment in charlotte bronte’s jane eyre by noam barsheshat , 1. summary and personal reflection, 2. pervasive imageries, 3. jane eyre in the perspective of feminism, 4. best jane eyre film adaptations, 5. how is jane eyre’s life story similar to brontë’s, 6. what are the primary themes in jane eyre, 7. describe the characters, 8. how did jane eyre find her “true home” , 9. jane eyre as a bildungsroman, 10. jane eyre and economic independence, top 5 essay examples.

“Indeed, parallels can be drawn between Jane Eyre and those trapped in a professional hierarchy today. In rejecting an unwanted pass from a superior employee, far worse than damaging a fragile male ego, a woman could offset a chain of consequences which could threaten her entire career.”

The essay pays attention to the similarities between the class conflicts during Jane’s time and the hierarchies in the modern workplace. Finally, as feminists today argue over what practices and behavior would qualify as sexual misconduct, the essay turns the spotlight to Jane, with her determination to stand up against those who pester her, as a possible model.

“Why was the novel considered inappropriate for young girls, in particular? Many Victorians considered it “coarse and immoral”…The novel’s addictiveness might also have been an issue.”

The essay takes off from a university’s warnings against reading Jane Eyre and fellow Victorian novel Great Expectations, citing the “distressing” passages in the novels. The essay collates and presents the commentaries of people in shock with the warning. However, the piece also shows that such cautionary measures were not exactly new and, in fact, the first reaction when the book came to light.

“​​At the end of many trials Charlotte permits Jane to return at last to her lover…. They feel no passion or intrigue..  Instead of fire and ice, Charlotte gives us warm slush. Perhaps she never resolved the tension between reason and passion for herself, and so was unable to write convincingly about it.”

Johnson dives deep into how Brontë juxtaposed reason and passion in her novel’s imageries, metaphors, and even characters. In his conclusion, Johnson finds the resolution to the tension between passion and reason unsatisfactory, surmising that this weak ending conveys how Brontë never resolved this conflict in her own life.

“It’s easy to think we are more sophisticated because we now know more about – say – the early history of Christianity. Or because Brontë is, of course, ignorant of modern feminist theory, or poststructuralism. We can bring readings to her work that she couldn’t begin to imagine. But she could easily turn the tables on us…”

The essays reflect on how one from modern society could fully comprehend Brontë through the protagonist of her masterpiece. Jordison emphasizes the seeming impossibility of this pursuit given Brontë’s complex genius and world. Yet, we may still bask in the joy of finding an intimate connection with the author 200 years after Jane Eyre’s publication. 

“Through her conflicts with various men―specifically, Mr. Brocklehurst, Mr. Rochester and St. John Rivers―Jane’s spiritual identity empowers her and supports her independence.”

This critical essay points out how Jane Eyre reconciled feminism and Christianity, highlighting the latter as a vehicle that empowered Jane’s transformation. Despite Jane’s determined spirit to find true love, she reflects her spiritual view of Christianity to prevent falling into an illegitimate love affair, preserving her well-being and self-empowerment. 

10 Best Prompts on Essays About Jane Eyre

Check out our list of the best prompts that could get you started in your essay about Jane Eyre:

Provide a concise summary of the life of the young, orphaned Jane Eyre. First, cite the significant challenges that have enabled Jane’s transformation into a strong and independent woman. Next, provide a personal reflection on the story and how you identify with Jane Eyre. Then, explain which of her struggles and experiences you relate with or find most inspiring. 

From the chestnut and the red room to the ice and fire contrasts, investigate what these imageries signify. Then, elaborate on how these imageries impact Brontë’s storytelling and contribute to the desired effect for her writing style. 

Jane Eyre is highly regarded as one of the first feminist novels. It is a critical work that broadened Victorian women’s horizons by introducing the possibilities of emancipation. Write about how Brontë portrayed Jane Eyre as a feminist if you do not find that the novel advances feminist ideologies, write an argumentative essay and present the two sides of the coin. 

It is estimated that over 16 film adaptations have been made of the book Jane Eyre. Watch at least one of these movie versions and write an analysis on how much it has preserved the book’s key elements and scenes. Then, also offer insights on how the movie adaptation could have improved production, cinematography, cast, and adherence to the book plot, among other factors. 

Draw out the many parallels between the lives of Jane Eyre and her maker Charlotte Brontë. Suppose you’re interested in knowing more about Brontë to identify better and analyze their shared experiences and traits. In that case, The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell is highly recommended. 

Some of the themes very apparent in the novel are gender discrimination and class conflict. First, point out how Brontë emphasizes these themes. Then, dive deep into other possible themes and cite scenes where you find them echoing the most. 

Describe the characters in the novel, from their roles to their traits and physical appearances. Cite their significant roles and contributions to Jane’s transformation. You may also add a personal touch by focusing on characters with whom you relate or identify with the most,

While Jane grew up in Gateshead with the Reed family to whom she is related by blood, the despicable treatment she received in the place only motivated her to take on a journey to find her true home. First, map out Jane’s search for love and family. Then, explain how finding her “true home” empowered her. 

A bildungsroman roman is a literary genre that focuses on a protagonist’s mental, spiritual, and moral maturation. Discuss the criteria of a bildungsroman novel and identify which parts of Jane Eyre fulfill these criteria.

You may also compare Jane Eyre against heroes of other bildungsroman novels like Pip in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. Lay down their similarities and key differences.

In the latter part of the novel, Jane gains greater economic independence thanks to the substantial wealth she inherited. But before this discovery of inheritance, Jane had struggled with economic stability. So, first, tackle how finances affected Jane’s life decisions and how they empowered her to see herself as an equal to Rochester. Then, write about how women today perceive economic security as a source of self-empowerment. 

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers . 

If you’re still stuck, check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

By Charlotte Brontë

‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Brontë is a pure masterwork of an English classic that still lives its relevance in today’s society despite having been around for more than a century and a half.

Article written by Victor Onuorah

Degree in Journalism from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

‘ Jane Eyre ’ proved a blockbuster following its 1847 publication as it became a book that gave voice to the voiceless, resilience to the weak, and spirit of honest activism to the seemingly lesser gender. Through Charlotte Brontë’s bestseller , there was an awakening in the urgency to tackle gender-related issues by society.

A Descriptive Tale on a Search for True Purpose

‘ Jane Eyre ’ by Charlotte Brontë is one of the most remarkably written classics I’ve read. The book is enriched with a touching story of a plain English country girl who is forced to endure a harsh childhood being an orphan and taken in under the guidance of her maltreating aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her bullish children. 

From the get-go, Jane seems to be the only character in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘ Jane Eyre ’ who seeks something much more than the mere routines of life, and she shows such desire from the first pages of the book – around when she’s young and about ten years old. Given Jane starts out being headstrong and a little sassy, I wouldn’t blame her too much because she’s just a smart and active little girl trying to protect herself over at Gateshead, a place where she’s surrounded by people who are supposed to be her family but are not.

Jane’s childhood rebellion, however, is never out of place. By rough estimation, those youthful angsts indicate her disagreement with her current life treated with biases and lies, and later, we see the extent of this mentality to society and the state of affairs therein. Jane is, by description, a self-reformer interested in finding that one true purpose in life. 

She learns tremendously through life – and in all necessary disciplines enough to refine herself into the person she wants to be. Morals and values through religion. People relations and handling skills through experiences with terrible and as well good and kind people she’s met. In the end, Jane will pick bits and pieces of the core things that form her true purpose and piece them together. She’s happy at last because, against society’s pretentious family, she discovers her voice and finds her personality. 

Providence Always Remembers the Upright

It’s nearly a miracle how Jane survives throughout every stage of the book. Frankly, ‘ Jane Eyre ’ is a chancy book that creates such a scary reality for a fairly helpless little girl. Still, the daring and fearless narrative is also a reason author Charlotte Brontë scores points on ‘ Jane Eyre ’ because there are at least a few million young girls and boys who go through this same struggle, or worse, in their respective reality. 

However, thank gracious how providence always seems to turn up for Jane in dangerous and difficult situations (and I hope, for God’s sake, it turns up for the million youthful others worldwide who can relate to this story). First off, the readers will notice how, in aunt Reed’s home at Gateshead, providence uses a servant, Bessie, to feed, care for, and serve as a mother figure to maltreatment, starving Jane. She probably wouldn’t have survived long enough to experience Lowood School, not to mention Thornfield, Moor House, or Ferndean. 

Another worthy mention of a good meddling of the saving hands of providence is the part right after Jane disappointedly leaves Thornfield and Mr. Rochester after finding out that he (Mr. Rochester) had been lying to her about not having a wife. Sad and depressed and without a home or a destination, Jane wanders the dangerous streets, sleeps in them, begs, and collects scraps for food. No bad thing happens to her, from the poor food, street hooligans, etc. This is sheer providence. 

A Rollercoaster Ride of Love and Heartbreaks

There are at least two heartbreaks, Jane, the protagonist, faces in the book, and I would think one of the two hurt her the most. Let’s start with the one that didn’t hurt so much, Jane’s experience with her cousin St. John Rivers. A homeless Jane is taken in by St. John Rivers and his sisters, cleaned, fed, and cared for. She bounces back to her gracious self, and it doesn’t take long for St. John to fall for her. 

When this happens, the next thing that follows is heartbreak. For even though Jane cares so much about John, she doesn’t love him enough to want to spend the rest of her life with him. However, after the saga, she is buried in thought, despondent over it, and decides to leave Moor House and the presence of St. John. 

The other instance, and the one that hurts so much for Jane, is the event over at Thornfield involving Mr. Rochester. Jane is particularly broken by this because she genuinely loves him and is going to walk down the aisle with him until she finds out he has a crazy legal wife locked up in the attic. 

How does Jane survive three days straight in the streets without money, shelter, or food?

Jane is lucky enough to go unscathed, having spent days out in the streets after a fallout with Mr. Rochester, although she now has to survive the hard way by begging for food and sleeping anywhere a proper shelter. 

What are the pros of Charlotte Brontë’s ‘ Jane Eyre ’?

The story of ‘ Jane Eyre ’ is loved for its ability to tackle difficult topics in female gender rights, social decadence, and poverty, among other things. 

Are there any cons in ‘ Jane Eyre ’ by Charlotte Brontë?

There are a few cons in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘ Jane Eyre ,’ and mentioning some would include the book’s display of immorality and anti-social tendencies. 

Jane Eyre Review

Book Title: Jane Eyre

Book Description: 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Brontë is a powerful narrative of resilience and integrity, where young Jane confronts a male-dominated society, challenging norms and advocating for gender equality and dignity.

Book Author: Charlotte Brontë

Book Edition: First Edition

Book Format: Hardcover

Publisher - Organization: Smith, Elder & Co.

Date published: October 16, 1847

ISBN: 978-0140437286

Number Of Pages: 479

Jane Eyre Review: You Can Impact Society and Make a Change Irrespective of Your Background, Gender or Age

Charlotte Brontë’s eponymous book, ‘Jane Eyre,’ shows us how integrity and good ideas can help bring a meaningful change in society – regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or skin color. 10-year-old Jane overcomes maltreatment in a foster home to face a ruthless and brutal society controlled by men. With women like her already bowing to the pressures, Jane finds herself up against an uphill battle to reclaim the relevance of her gender and the pride of the humble and oppressed.

• Rich storyline
• Well-defined characters
• Gender equality activization
• Gender stereotype
• Immorality issues
• Overly French for an English read

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About Victor Onuorah

Victor is as much a prolific writer as he is an avid reader. With a degree in Journalism, he goes around scouring literary storehouses and archives; picking up, dusting the dirt off, and leaving clean even the most crooked pieces of literature all with the skill of analysis.

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How to Analyse Jane Eyre: Book Summary, Characters, Context & Themes

Jane Eyre follows the journey of an orphaned governess as she faces challenges of love, identity, and class while striving for self-fulfilment in Victorian England.  We’ve made a handy guide with a book summary, key characters, and themes to boost your essay analysis of Jane Eyre!

You’ll also be able to download a copy of analysed textual examples and a sample paragraph at the end!

So what are you waiting for? Let’s get started!

Jane Eyre Book Summary Key Characters in Jane Eyre Context Themes Explored in Jane Eyre Analysis of Jane Eyre

What is Jane Eyre about? 

Jane Eyre is the story of a young orphaned girl, who , in the first phases of the book is mistreated and abused, starved and malnourished, at the orphan house of Lowood.

An epidemic of typhus sweeps through the place , taking away her few friends, including Helen Burns, the best Jane had. She thus decides to leave Lowood at eighteen, and fend for herself with a new job as a governess at Thornfield Hall. 

The job she has accepted to carry out involves teaching a young girl, Adèle Varens, daughter of the owner of Thornfield Hall, Mr. Rochester. Jane meets Mr Rochester by chance one night, as he falls off his horse on the way to the Hall. The two are immediately interested in each other. 

Image sourced from Liz Lux

Rochester realises he is able to count on Jane for almost anything, as one night the curtains of his room mysteriously catch fire. Jane puts out the fire and saves Rochester, and the pair fall for each other.

Even when he invites rich dames to flirt at his house, he only has eyes for Jane. In the meantime, Jane hears strange noises in the attic, and notices Grace Poole, a servant, behaving oddly. 

Richard Mason arrives during this time, a man Rochester seems to know and be afraid of. In the middle of the night, Mason gets stabbed and bitten. Jane tends to his wounds and Rochester sneaks him out of the house.

Rochester and Jane attempt to get married in the chapel, but two men interrupt the ceremony, claiming Rochester is already married .

Rochester reluctantly leads the wedding party to the attic, which holds Bertha Mason, Rochester’s insane, previous wife. She is the one responsible for attempting to burn Rochester in his bed, and for attempting to kill her brother Richard. 

Access the Jane Eyre Downloadable Sample Paragraph and Examples of Analysis here!

Jane, in shock, leaves Thornfield and travels to Morton, a town in which her uncle Mr. Eyre lives. This plan doesn’t go well, however, as she must beg for food and sleep by the side of the road in the beginning.

There she meets her cousins, Diana, Mary and the clergyman St. John. The latter wants to be more than just “cousins” with Jane, so they have a small fling that does not last. As uncle Eyre dies, Jane inherits a bit of his fortune.

She travels back to Thornhill, to find out what’s up with Rochester. After attempting to find her, he has shut himself in the house alone. Bertha then burns down Thornhill and commits suicide, but the fire loses Rochester an eye, and blinds him in the other.

When Jane finds him, he begs her to come to France with him and pretend to be married, but she refuses, in the hopes that he will marry her for real. 

He does! They live happily ever after, and Rochester gains his sight back. Meanwhile, St. John works himself to death as a missionary in India. 

Need help getting through Jane Eyre? The book can get a little intense. Why not get matched with an English tutor who can help?

Key Characters in Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre If it was up to Jane, she wouldn’t say she had a character to speak of. She is a resilient, strong, yet quiet woman, who wouldn’t really admit her potential. She is careful both in speech and in thought; this is why the reader often finds out her feelings and opinions before she does. For example, it’s as clear as day that she likes Rochester, even before she explicitly tells us and realises it herself.

Rochester An intense, moody, stubborn, fascinating, and incredibly intelligent counterpart to Jane. We can call Mr. Rochester ‘careful’ also, but when it comes to his actions, he knows exactly what to do and when to do it. Except when he falls in love. The whole flirtation with the dames was a clumsy move, and the entertainment of the possibility that he might marry one was reckless, and done only to get under Jane’s skin. Of course, this doesn’t bring Jane closer to him, but rather pushes her away. Nevertheless, he is the only one that is able to see and appreciate Jane’s true potential.

Bertha Mason More than a character, she is a symbol of Rochester’s turbulent past, from which he wants to run away. Hence, her prison sentence in the attic. Nevertheless, she represents an important turning point in Rochester’s character arc, as he is forced to confront her, eventually defeating his past and strengthening his resolve for Jane.

St. John The right competition, at the right time. Similar to Bertha Mason, St. John emulates some characteristics of Mr Rochester, which get Jane somewhat interested. St. John serves the purpose of making Jane realise that Rochester is the only one for her. She hears his voice in her sleep when St. John asks for her hand in marriage. If that isn’t proof I don’t know what is. 

Helen Burns She is Jane’s watchful angel. Of course, a character this pure could not make it far in the story. Helen teaches Jane all the best Christianity has to offer, especially to “Love Thy Enemy”. Helen’s intelligence also motivates and fascinates Jane, setting her as Jane’s role model throughout the book. Helen’s death is one of the most touching.

The brilliant writer behind Jane Eyre is Charlotte Brontë. You may know her sister Emily from ‘Wuthering Heights’ , another masterpiece.

Image sourced from BBC

Both lived in 19th century England at this time, the sisters were forging their path through a career in writing with struggle. They had to publish their stories with pseudonyms to avoid deterring away readers — imagine that!

The Jane Eyre book reflects many of the concerns and tensions of the Victorian era, including issues of class inequality, gender roles, the role of education, treatment of orphans and marginalised individuals, the constraints of marriage, and the treatment of women in society.

Religion played a significant role in Victorian society, with the Church of England exerting considerable influence over moral and social norms. Jane’s moral dilemmas reflect the broader religious debates of the time, including questions of morality, redemption, and the nature of divine providence.

It is easy to mistake the Jane Eyre book for a typical ‘girl power novel’, but to do this would be a disservice. Most of the time, Jane isn’t fighting men; she’s fighting women that try and destroy her life of happiness: Bertha Mason, the teachers at Lowood, and her despicable aunt at Gateshead .

The men actually seem pretty powerless before Jane, a quiet force of nature. For instance, Rochester goes into a complete existential crisis when Jane leaves, and St. John flees the country altogether when Jane refuses him. 

The Jane Eyre book, most likely, is a testimony to a person’s defiance of circumstances, of strength, and the nobility one finds when fighting to achieve better and better.

Jane wants to move out of poverty, and she fights for this tooth and nail. She wants love, and she fights for it tooth and nail. The novel embodies the spirit of Charlotte Brontë, hence its autobiographical qualities.

Themes in Jane Eyre

1. morality and redemption.

Possibly the most consistent theme. Characters in the Jane Eyre book are extremely moral, often sacrificing their own happiness for the sake of doing the right thing.

Just look at Jane: she decides to leave Thornfield and her one true love because a deranged, insane and unfit old hag might possibly still be love with him (even though Bertha has tried to kill Rochester on many occasions).

Sometimes, the characters are too moral, almost to outright stupidity . Rochester flirts with a rich dame and pretends to want to marry her in order to show the world that he intends to marry someone of his social class. This would be legitimate, if it weren’t for the fact that nobody cares about Rochester and what he does with his life!

The only people he knows (and the only people who turn up to his and Jane’s wedding) are his servants at Thornhill. No need to impress, mate, just marry Jane already.

Jane’s unwavering moral compass and her ability to forgive even those who have wronged her illustrate the novel’s exploration of redemption and the transformative power of love. As she says in Chapter 23,

“I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal—as we are!”

2. Social Class and Identity 

Unlike today, where social classes don’t really matter or define you, and where you can live a relatively comfortable life without being a millionaire, Jane suffers profusely because of her social status. She is an orphan with no money, and has to work for every crumb she gets to eat.

Despite being a woman in Victorian England, she manages to run circles around Rochester, putting him in an existential crisis by just leaving. Jane’s later success at a happy life is simply the writer telling us that self-pity, complaints of one’s social class or social standing, and resenting those above you are a useless waste of time .

Jane fights tooth and nail for what she has, and because she does, she is worthy of her ultimate happiness (and a generous donation from the inheritance of her uncle’s perfectly-timed death — you know, every little bit helps).

Jane’s experiences as an orphaned girl from a lower social class navigating the world of the wealthy elite highlight the disparities and prejudices prevalent in Victorian society. Her struggles to assert her own worth and dignity in the face of societal expectations are evident throughout the novel. As Jane reflects,

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will” (Chapter 23).

3. Education

Given Jane’s social standing, education is everything for her. To Jane, it represents the only way she can make herself useful .

Of course, by ‘education’ we mean basic humanist, art and music skills, a foreign language at most. Not a forensic science degree.

Education offers a safe haven for the characters, free to ponder on their own miseries and joys.

4. Gender Roles

The novel also delves into the limitations placed on women in Victorian society and the quest for independence and autonomy.

Jane’s refusal to conform to traditional gender roles and her determination to carve out her own path exemplify this theme. Despite societal pressures, Jane asserts her agency and asserts,

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself” (Chapter 34).

5. Love and Autonomy

Jane’s relationships with Mr. Rochester, St. John Rivers, and others reflect different facets of love, ranging from passion to duty.

However, Jane is always asserting her autonomy (queen) and refuses to compromise her principles for the sake of romantic attachment. Her ultimate decision to marry Rochester only after achieving financial independence underscores her commitment to self-respect.

Exploring the complexities of love and autonomy in Jane Eyre reveals the novel’s progressive portrayal of female empowerment and its critique of conventional gender roles.

6. Nature and the Sublime 

The natural world has a bit of split personality in the book, Jane Eyre. On one hand, characters find solace and spiritual renewal in the tranquility of the moors or the majestic landscapes of the countryside.

On the other hand, nature can also be a site of peril and uncertainty. The storm that rages during Rochester and Jane’s proposal scene is one instance of this.

The sublime aspects of nature tend to evoke a sense of awe and transcendence, highlighting characters’ emotional and psychological struggles.

Analysing the role of nature and the sublime in Jane Eyre illuminates the novel’s exploration of the human condition, the quest for meaning, and the interplay between inner and outer landscapes.

How to Analyse Jane Eyre in 3 Steps

Step 1: choose your example.

The best way to choose an example is to choose a technique. Remember you must include stylistic devices (how images and words are arranged in a text in order to produce meaning), and aesthetic features (elements that prompt a critical response from the reader) in your essays to gain the most marks. 

The following quote conveys both tone and imagery, which are aesthetic and stylistic features respectively: 

“You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my heart,—delicate and aërial.”

Step 2: Identify your technique(s)

In this case, the “delicate and aërial” parts refer to a specific image that Rochester has of Jane, this being that Jane is almost fairy-like.

The second is more tricky to get: remember that because the book is told through Jane’s perspective, other characters’ opinions of Jane are synonymous with how Jane is regarded by the author herself.

This all falls under tone, that is admiring Jane in this instance, almost praising her character. 

Step 3: Write the analysis

If you want practice questions for Jane Eyre for the English External we have a whole list!

Always be ready to ask yourself what the author intended you to feel/respond emotionally by reading the example quote. This will make sure that you tackle an important part of the analysis, which is the effect on the reader. 

The writer utilises tone to express and induce in audiences admiration for the character of Jane Eyre. The writer’s opinion of Jane is transparent in Mr Rochester’s words “You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my heart,—delicate and aërial.” Given that Jane Eyre is told through Jane’s perspective, one could regard the rest of the characters as modes through which Charlotte Brontë can express her positive opinions about Jane. Further, the image of “aërial” further drives home the sympathy and admiration that the writer conveys through Rochester’s remarks. The audience is thus brought to feel the selfsame admiration of the writer towards the novel’s main character.

Need some help analysing other texts?

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Read also: how to ace Unit 4 of QCAA English !  Or if you’re studying VCE English, check out our guide to the Framework of Ideas !

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A Summary and Analysis of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Here’s a seemingly uncontroversial statement: in 1847, a novel called Jane Eyre was published; the author was Charlotte Brontë. One of the most famous things about Jane Eyre is that the male love interest, Mr Rochester, has locked his first wife, Bertha Mason, in the attic of his house.

Whilst this statement is fine as far as it goes, there are several things we might question about it. But we’ll come to those in our textual analysis of the novel. First, let’s briefly summarise the plot of Jane Eyre , which is now regarded as one of the great Victorian novels: not bad for an author whose school report had once said that she ‘writes indifferently’ and ‘knows nothing of grammar, geography, history, or accomplishments’.

Jane Eyre : plot summary

Jane Eyre is perhaps the original ‘plain Jane’: ordinary-looking rather than beautiful, and a penniless orphan, she lacks the two things, beauty and wealth, which would greatly improve her marriage prospects in adulthood. Her uncle, Mr Reed, had taken her in when her parents died, but upon his death she fell under the care of Mrs Reed, who disliked Jane and treated her differently from her own children.

After Jane strikes out at her step-brother, John Reed, when he bullies her, she is locked in the ‘red room’ of the house, in which her uncle died. She is then sent away to Lowood, an orphan asylum run by a strict Calvinist clergyman named Mr Brocklehurst. There, Jane makes friends with Helen Burns, but Helen dies of typhus soon after. Conditions at the school subsequently improve and Jane stays on as one of the teachers, but when the teacher who had shown her kindness, Miss Temple, leaves the school, Jane decides to apply to become a governess.

Jane is offered the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, owned by Mr Edward Rochester, who is away on business. Mrs Fairfax, the housekeeper, introduces Jane to the young girl she will be teaching and looking after, who is a ward in Mr Rochester’s care. Mr Rochester returns and Jane is attracted to this brooding, haunted, Byronic figure. One night, she sees smoke coming out of his bedroom and rescues him from being burnt to death. He tells her that Grace Poole, a sewing-woman who lives in the house, was probably responsible for the fire.

When Mr Rochester brings home the beautiful Blanche Ingram, Jane realises she has been deluding herself with thoughts that he might love her, plain governess that she is. A man named Mr Mason from the West Indies arrives at Thornfield Hall and is attacked while in the upper portions of the house; once again, Jane assumes that Grace Poole was responsible. Mr Rochester announces to Jane that he plans to marry Blanche Ingram.

Jane is summoned by Mrs Reed, who is dying. Mrs Reed confesses to Jane that another of her uncles, Mr Eyre, had written to her because he wanted to make Jane his heiress. Mrs Reed had lied to him, writing back that his niece was dead. And then, when Jane returns to Thornfield, she discovers that Mr Rochester isn’t going to marry Blanche but wants her to be his wife instead. Jane accepts, but she also writes to her uncle to tell him that she is alive, in the hope that she will receive her inheritance and, with it, some financial independence.

Before the wedding, a mysterious woman enters Jane’s bedroom and tears her bridal veil in two. Then, on the day of their wedding, the ceremony is interrupted by Mr Mason, who declares that Rochester is already married, and his wife is concealed within Thornfield Hall.

Jane discovers that Rochester had married this woman, Bertha Mason, while out in Jamaica, under pressure from her family to do so. There’s a history of insanity in the family, and it was Bertha who set fire to Rochester’s bed and tore Jane’s bridal veil. Grace Poole is the one who keeps watch over Bertha, not the one responsible for these crimes.

Jane doesn’t want to be Rochester’s mistress, so she leaves Thornfield Hall and falls into poverty, almost starving to death until she is taken in by a clergyman named St John Rivers and befriended by his sisters, who live on the brink of poverty.

Although Jane conceals her true identity, St John discovers the truth after reading in the papers that her wealthy uncle has died, leaving her his fortune. By (rather far-fetched) coincidence, it turns out that St John Rivers’ sisters are Jane’s cousins, and Jane promises to share her inheritance with them.

St John wishes to travel to India as a Christian missionary, but before he leaves he proposes marriage to Jane, not out of love for her but because he wants to enlist her to his cause. In a romantic plot line that mirrors Rochester’s wooing of her, St John gradually wears her down until she is on the verge of accepting his offer. But then, from outside, she hears a voice calling her name: it’s Mr Rochester.

Jane returns to Thornfield Hall to discover that Rochester has been living as a recluse since the revelations came out on their wedding day. Bertha set fire to the house, destroying it, and fatally falling from the roof in the process. Rochester went to live at another house, having become blind in the fire.

Jane marries Rochester and nurses him back to health. He partially recovers his sight and Jane gives birth to their first child. Jane hears from St John Rivers in India, where he is pursuing his Christian mission with zeal.

Jane Eyre : analysis

Jane Eyre is, like Wuthering Heights , a novel which bears the influence of Gothic fiction: the haunted castle has become a country house, the ghost has become the (still very much alive) madwoman, Rochester’s first wife; and, in true Gothic fashion, there is a secret that threatens to destroy the house and its inhabitants if (or when) it comes to light. Brontë fuses these Gothic elements with the genres of romance and melodrama, with Jane’s two suitors representing erotic love and Christian fervour respectively.

As Gilbert Phelps observes in his analysis of Jane Eyre in Introduction to Fifty British Novels, 1600-1900 (Reader’s Guides) , the fire at Thornfield is symbolic, mirroring Jane’s own act of purgation as she rejects relationships founded on both the body and the soul at the expense of the other, until she and Rochester are ready to be together.

Curiously, the namesake of Edward Rochester, the Earl of Rochester, was one of the most erotic poets in English literature (we have gathered some of his most famous poems together here ). Lord Rochester was a kind of Byronic hero before Byron himself even existed, with his work dominated by the physical and sensuous side of love and relationships. St John Rivers, by contrast, has a name derived (in rather heavy-handed fashion, it must be said) from the Christian Evangelist, so we can never forget what he represents.

Jane’s journey of self-knowledge and experience leads her to understand that she must reject both extremes: to be Rochester’s mistress is to privilege the physical at the expense of the spiritual (because their union is unlawful in the eyes of God), but to marry St John when he does not love her nor she him would be a betrayal of the physical and romantic love that Jane realises is equally important.

But in terms of its central romantic plot between the plain, poor orphan girl and the rich, noble male protagonist, Jane Eyre owes something to the fairy tales of Cinderella , Snow White , Beauty and the Beast , and, in a more sinister turn, Bluebeard , with his castle concealing his (dead) wives. Brontë weaves together these various influences into a largely successful whole, even if the plot hinges (as noted above) on some pretty wild coincidences.

In his study of plot, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories , Christopher Booker goes so far as to categorise Jane Eyre as a ‘rags to riches’ story, comparing it with the tale of Aladdin . Both are poor children who attain a romantic partner above their social station, only for the presence of some other (Bertha Rochester; the sorcerer in the Aladdin story) to bring their plans crashing down. They must then rebuild everything until they can legitimately attain the life they want.

To conclude this analysis, let’s return to where we started, with those opening statements about Jane Eyre . Of course we know the author of the novel now as Charlotte Brontë, but that wasn’t the name that appeared on the title-page of the first edition in 1847.

There, the book was credited to Currer Bell, the androgynous pseudonym chosen by Brontë, much as her sisters Anne and Emily published as Acton and Ellis Bell respectively.

The novel soon won her the respect of a number of high-profile literary figures, including her hero William Makepeace Thackeray, who was reportedly so moved by Jane Eyre that he broke down in tears in front of his butler. Brontë would dedicate the second edition of the book to the Vanity Fair author and later met Thackeray (in 1849).

To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield, and saw her safely lodged in that third-storey room, of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast’s den – a goblin’s cell.

‘That third-storey room’, not ‘that attic’. And Jane makes it clear that the attic of the house is above the third storey of the house: ‘Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by dint of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey ’ (emphases added).

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2 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre”

I love this book, despite the totally bonkers plot!

So glad it’s cleared up Rochester did not lock his wife in the attic. It should be mentioned how horrible insane asylums were at that time, so Rochester should get credit for saving Bertha from that fate. However, the bigamy stunt is definitely inexcusable.

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Jane Eyre - Book Review

” There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning, but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question. ” This is the opening paragraph to the fascinating novel ‘Jane Eyre’ written in 1847 by the woman writer Charlotte Bronte, and yet Jane Eyre still remains a classic of 19th century literature.

Jane Eyre is romantic without being sappy or trite. The pace is nearly perfect and kept me turning pages to find out what happened. The story avoids becoming tedious, as some English novels are which proves that it’s easy to see why the book is such a classic. The main characters are multi-dimensional and very intriguing, Jane Eyre has almost too many characters but some are memorable simply because they seem so real.

The two characters that I found most interesting and memorable were of course Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester.

This novel is one of a kind; Jane Eyre is a young orphan with harsh relatives who ship her off to a school for underprivileged children. It is not the most pleasant place imaginable. She grows up there, and then goes to work as a governess under a mysterious man, Mr. Rochester. Despite all his harsh ways, she falls in love with him. But a dark secret threatens to destroy their love.

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It’s obvious that Rochester is attracted to Jane when he meets her. Although he’s 20 years her senior, and she are merely eighteen, there’s an instant attraction on both sides.

In my opinion I think she’s worried to commit to a man, because no one, properly, apart from her Uncle has ever loved Jane. And the first person she became close to – Helen Burns, a friend she made in Lowood School – died young. I can’t help thinking that Jane is so worried about starting a relationship because of her losses in her life. Her Mother, Father, Uncle and Helen. The only people who ever loved her were taken away from her. Does she think the same will happen to Rochester?

I’ve always thought Jane wasn’t not interested, but more scared, than anything else. The novel is filled with plot twists and mystery. Who is the mysterious tenant in the attic who once nearly burned the house down? Will the beautiful, but haughty, Blanche Ingram come between Jane and Mr. Rochester? These are just a couple of the questions, which need to be answered. The suggestive use of language and the magical quality of her writing, which distinguishes Charlotte Bronte qually from her predecessor Jane Austen and her successor George Elliot, is one of the characteristic aspects of her work… Charlotte Bronte , no less than her sister Emily, was a splendidly original artist. Charlotte Bronte has made Jane a very different figure from the standard nineteenth century heroine. She is strong-willed, defiant, confident, yet humble, and in short, a woman of purpose. By creating a character like Jane, Bronte sent a resounding beacon to women from all walks of life. Her message is simple, sometimes overlooked, but always present.

I believe that message to be that women are just as capable as men, that they possess hearts and minds as well, and that a woman is capable of a great deal more than just marrying. At the conclusion of ‘Jane Eyre’ we do not feel so much that we have read a book, as that we have parted from a most singular and eloquent woman, met by chance upon a Yorkshire hill, who has gone with us for a time and told us the whole of her life history. In my opinion being a fan of the Bronte sisters I knew that I’d really enjoy Jane Eyre.

Not only are their writing techniques really similar, but also they’re producing of characters are very alike too. Although Emily is that bit darker, and more gothic, and Jane is a bit more optimistic towards life, their characters all have bad times. Emily has more than one main character throughout her book, whereas Charlotte has chose Jane to be the main character, and remain that throughout the book. Although Emily writes in first person, the story is put from a few people’s point of view, whereas Charlotte is much tidier, and sticks to Jane telling the story throughout.

I think this reflects their personalities a lot. They were extremely different – Emily not one to stick to the rules but run off to a world of her own. Whereas, Charlotte on the other hand was much more grounded and stuck to the rules. You could say the same about Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights in the respect of literature. Jane Eyre incorporates all genres, from romance to suspense, mystery to drama. I laughed, cried and just about tore my hair out. It seemed all things possible had arisen to keep the lovers from being together.

Did it ever happen; was there a happy ending? I guess you’ll just have to read to find out. This book is long, and uses old-fashioned language so it is not for everyone, but those in need of a really good romance, this is THE book! Jane Eyre is a good influence to anyone who’s gone through bad times, to show that you can get through them just as easily as her. Jane Eyre is a book you can never bore of, and you really can read it several times, and enjoy, and appreciate it more and more each time.

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Charlotte Brontë

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Jane Eyre: Introduction

Jane eyre: plot summary, jane eyre: detailed summary & analysis, jane eyre: themes, jane eyre: quotes, jane eyre: characters, jane eyre: symbols, jane eyre: literary devices, jane eyre: quizzes, jane eyre: theme wheel, brief biography of charlotte brontë.

Historical Context of Jane Eyre

Other books related to jane eyre.

• Full Title: Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
• When Written: 1847
• Literary Period: Victorian
• Genre: Victorian novel. Jane Eyre combines Gothic mystery, a romantic marriage plot, and a coming-of-age story.
• Setting: Northern England in the early 1800s.
• Climax: Jane telepathically hears Rochester's voice calling out to her.
• Point of View: First person. Jane recounts her story ten years after its ending.

Extra Credit for Jane Eyre

Bells and Brontës: The Brontës became a literary powerhouse when Charlotte, Emily, and Anne all wrote successful first novels. Each sister published under a masculine-sounding pseudonym based on their initials. Charlotte Brontë became "Currer Bell"; Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights (1845-46) as "Ellis Bell", and Anne Brontë published Agnes Gray (1847) as "Acton Bell." Women could enter the marketplace as writers and novelists, but many writers, including the Brontës and Mary Anne Evans ("George Eliot"), used male pseudonyms to keep from being dismissed as unimportant.

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Jane Eyre , novel by Charlotte Brontë , first published in 1847 as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography , with Currer Bell (Brontë’s pseudonym) listed as the editor. Widely considered a classic, it gave new truthfulness to the Victorian novel with its realistic portrayal of the inner life of a woman, noting her struggles with her natural desires and social condition.

When the novel begins, the title character is a 10-year-old orphan who lives with her uncle’s family; her parents had died of typhus . Other than the nursemaid, the family ostracizes Jane. She is later sent to the austere Lowood Institution, a charity school , where she and the other girls are mistreated; “Lowood,” as the name suggests, is the “low” point in Jane’s young life. In the face of such adversity, however, she gathers strength and confidence.

In early adulthood, after several years as a student and then teacher at Lowood, Jane musters the courage to leave. She finds work as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets her dashing and Byronic employer, the wealthy and impetuous Edward Rochester . At Thornfield Jane looks after young Adèle, the daughter of a French dancer who was one of Rochester’s mistresses, and is befriended by the kindly housekeeper Mrs. Alice Fairfax . Jane falls in love with Rochester, though he is expected to marry the snobbish and socially prominent Blanche Ingram. Rochester eventually reciprocates Jane’s feelings and proposes marriage. However, on their wedding day, Jane discovers that Rochester cannot legally marry her, because he already has a wife, Bertha Mason , who has gone mad and is locked away on the third floor because of her violent behaviour; her presence explains the strange noises Jane has heard in the mansion. Believing that he was tricked into that marriage, Rochester feels justified in pursuing his relationship with Jane. He pleads with her to join him in France, where they can live as husband and wife despite the legal prohibitions, but Jane refuses on principle and flees Thornfield.

Jane is taken in by people she later discovers are her cousins. One of them is St. John , a principled clergyman. He gives her a job and soon proposes marriage, suggesting that she join him as a missionary in India. Jane initially agrees to leave with him but not as his wife. However, St. John pressures her to reconsider his proposal, and a wavering Jane finally appeals to Heaven to show her what to do. Just then, she hears a mesmeric call from Rochester. Jane returns to Thornfield to find the estate burned, set on fire by Rochester’s wife, who then jumped to her death. Rochester, in an attempt to save her, was blinded. Reunited, Jane and Rochester marry. Rochester later regains some of his sight, and the couple have a son.

The book was originally published in three volumes as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography , with Currer Bell listed as the editor. (The Lowood section of the novel was widely believed to be inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s own life.) Though some complained that it was anti- Catholic , the work was an immediate success. Jane Eyre ’s appeal was partly due to the fact that it was written in the first person and often addressed the reader, creating great immediacy. In addition, Jane is an unconventional heroine, an independent and self-reliant woman who overcomes both adversity and societal norms. The novel also notably blended diverse genres . Jane’s choice between sexual need and ethical duty belongs very firmly to the mode of moral realism. However, her close escape from a bigamous marriage and the fiery death of Bertha are part of the Gothic tradition.

Jane Eyre inspired various film, TV, and stage adaptations , including a 1943 movie that starred Orson Welles as Rochester and Joan Fontaine as Jane. Jean Rhys ’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) offers an account of Rochester’s first marriage.

81 Jane Eyre Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best jane eyre topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 most interesting jane eyre topics to write about, 👍 good research topics about jane eyre, ❓ jane eyre essay questions.

• Narcissism: Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester This paper will explore the notion of narcissism and use examples from Bronte’s s novel to prove that Mr. Rochester consistently behaves in a way that forces the reader to question the moral integrity of […]
• Significance of Jane’s and Antoinette’s Dreams in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea The dream is a premonition of danger that is ahead; although she dreams after fighting with her friend Tia, it also represents her conscience because her friend despises her during the ordeal. However, the dream […]
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre appears to have great self esteem even though she is an orphan and has a lot of negative energy and criticism around her in the shape of her aunt and cousins.
• A Hint of Things to Come: Summary and Analysis of Chapter 25 of Jane Eyre With the help of such walk, the author underlines that something mysterious and unknown to Jane is waiting for her and she has to find more powers to discover the truth.
• Social Inequality in “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte At the same time Jane Eyre symbolizes the struggle of the social classes in 19th century England. The story traced the development of the ten year old child as a hapless prey in an oppressive […]
• Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” and Rhys’ “Wide Sargasso Sea” Her immediate kin regarded her more as a burden and made her do all the hard work and she lived in a constant environment of scorn and hatred.
• Jane Eyre and Daisy Miller: Two Women Ahead of Their Time and Their Men Jane tells her story as explicitly as she can and yet much of the substance of that story is given in the descriptive passages where she uses natural symbolism to convey the mysteries of her […]
• Home Theme in the “Jane Eyre” Film by Fukunaga While Jane is looking for a building full of people who support her to call it her home, her real home is a person she loves.
• Compare the Relationship of Mothers and Daughters in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea The two works by the authors are related in that one work is the rewrite of another or almost the duplicate of another and therefore almost all the themes are the same in both books […]
• Jane Eyre: Novel vs. Film Bronte’s original story narrates Jane’s story as an orphan who finds joy at the end of the story but Stevenson’s film tells the story of Jane as a person who went through a lot of […]
• Charlotte Bronte’s Portrayal of Childhood in “Jane Eyre”
• The Maturation of a Girl Into a Woman in “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte
• Passion vs. Reason in “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte
• The Theme of Gender and Marriage in “Jane Eyre”
• Critique of the Behaviour and Values of the 18th Century in “Jane Eyre”
• The Significance of Class Relations in “Jane Eyre”
• The Portrayal of Females in “Jane Eyre” and “The Handmaid’s Tale”
• An Analysis on the Portrayal of Males in “Jane Eyre”
• Crucial Ideas in the Novel “Wide Sargasso Sea” and “Jane Eyre”
• Identity and Independence of Jane Eyre in Charlotte Bronte’s Novel
• The Representation of Social Class and Feminism in “Jane Eyre”
• The Lack of Laughter in Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”
• Psychological, Emotional and Physical Horror in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Jane Eyre”
• Female Mental Illness in “Jane Eyre” and Great Expectations
• A Religious Approach of Evangelical Christianity in “Jane Eyre”
• The Evolution of the Main Character in “Jane Eyre”
• Comparing and Contrasting Jane Eyre’s Mental State From Text to Adaptation
• Challenges Faced and Solved in “Jane Eyre”
• Jane Eyre’s Passion, Sexuality, and Desire in Charlotte Bronte’s Novel
• The Presentation of Women in Society in “Jane Eyre” and “Rebecca”
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• Jane Eyre and Religions Teachings of Forgiveness
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• Resolving the Issue of Equality Through Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory in “Jane Eyre”
• Importance of Setting in “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte
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• Analysis of Jane and Rochester’s Relationship in Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”
• The Significance of the Character of Jane Eyre
• Individual vs Society in Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”
• A Critique of the Social Hierarchies of Victorian England in “Jane Eyre”
• Jane Eyre as an Independent Woman in 19th Century
• Imperialism and Colonialism in the Novel “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte
• Escaping the Society of Patriarchy in Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”
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• Emotions Over Rationality in Final Chapter of “Jane Eyre”
• Progression of Female Characters From Jane Eyre to Hermione Granger
• Moral Identity of an Orphan in “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte
• How Does Charlotte Bronte Convey Childhood and School Experience in “Jane Eyre”?
• How Are Women Presented in “Jane Eyre”?
• What Makes Jane Eyre an Unusual Woman for Her Time?
• How Does Charlotte Bronte Use the Different Houses in “Jane Eyre”?
• How Does Bronte Convey Jane Eyre’s State?
• How Does Charlotte Bronte Develop the Gothic Features of “Jane Eyre”?
• How Much Sympathy Does the Reader Feel for Jane Eyre at Different Stages in the Story?
• What Are the Main Moral Messages of “Jane Eyre”?
• To What Extent Is Charlotte Bronte Reflecting Victorian Morality in “Jane Eyre”?
• How Does Bronte Create Tension and Suspense in “Jane Eyre”?
• How Does Bronte Show the Reader Jane’s Resilience in “Jane Eyre”?
• How Does Charlotte Bronte Use Setting and Weather in “Jane Eyre”?
• How Effectively Does Charlotte Bronte Convey the Child’s Viewpoint in “Jane Eyre”?
• How Does Post-colonialism Help Interpret and Evaluate “Jane Eyre”?
• How Does Bronte’s Characterisation of Jane Eyre?
• How Narrative Techniques Are Employed Within “Jane Eyre”?
• How Many Chapters Are in “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte?
• What Is Jane Eyre’s Occupation?
• How Is Lowood Different From What Jane Had Anticipated in “Jane Eyre”?
• In Jane Eyre, What Does Jane Tell St. John and His Sisters of Her Past in “Jane Eyre”?
• What Is the Basic Storyline of “Jane Eyre”?
• In What Ways Might “Jane Eyre” Be Considered a Feminist Novel?
• How Does Charlotte Bronte Present Jane Eyre’s Oppression and Her Ability to Overcome It?
• How Does Thornfield Project That Good Things Will Happen to Jane Eyre?
• How Does Charlotte Bronte Use Language Detail and Setting in “Jane Eyre”?
• How Do “Jane Eyre” Subvert Gender Stereotypes?
• How Does Charlotte Bronte Develop the Adult Jane Eyre Through the Child’s Presentation?
• How Does Charlotte Bronte Portray John Reed, Mrs. Reed, and Mr. Brocklehurst in “Jane Eyre”?
• How Did Jane Eyre and Shirley Valentine Achieve Independence?
• How Does Religion Affect the Novel “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte?
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Critical Insights: Jane Eyre

Tags: 1 Volume 300 Pages Complete List of Author's Works Essays Offering Analysis by Top Literary Scholars Introductory Essay by the Editor Chronology of Author's Life Detailed Bio of the Editor Publication Dates of Works General Bibliography General Subject Index

Critical Insights: Jane Eyre presents a variety of new essays on Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, considered by many to have revolutionized the art of fiction. Many agree that Bronte was ahead of her time as she explored the individualistic character of Jane, and topics such as classism, sexuality, religion and issues of gender.

Edited by Katie R. Peel, Professor of Victorian Literature and Women's Studies at The University of North Carolina, this volume includes a variety of fresh approaches, including essays using feminist, reader-response, postcolonial, and performance theories. The essays’ topics have also been chosen in order to enhance understanding of the novel and existing scholarship, and include the role of Adele, humor, religion, games and gamesmanship, conversation, and women’s space in   Jane Eyre , as well as a comparison to Elizabeth Gaskell’s   North and South.

Critical Insights: Jane Eyre   is divided into four sections:

Introductory Section The Introduction considers why we still turn to Jane Eyre . It takes a new historical approach that connects a passage in the novel to an image that would be familiar to contemporary readers. Joanne Cordón’s biography of Charlotte Brontë traces both her life and literary experiences, offering some personal context for the work that we are familiar with.

Critical Contexts The “Critical Contexts” section takes four distinct approaches to the novel:

Elaine Freedgood connects objects in the home with the industry of empire and its violent history. She reads the objects as well as the act of decorating in ways that intersect with feminist, postcolonial, psychoanalytical, and ecocritical readings of Jane Eyre .

John O’Hara traces the reception of the novel from its early reviews to present day scholarship, across time and schools of thought.

Thomas Recchio uses Lucasta Miller’s comparison of the passive Ruth (from Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ruth ) with passionate Lucy Snowe (from Brontë’s Villette ) as the premise for his comparison of North and South ’s Margaret Hale with Jane Eyre.

Ashly Bennett examines the narrative function of shame as a mediator between anger and sympathy, and “an alternative for shaping individuated, intimate social relations.”

Critical Readings The “Critical Readings” section consists of nine new essays that take a range of approaches to various topics in Jane Eyre .

Katherine Montwieler takes a psychoanalytic approach in reading the inherited traumas of the house in her essay “Women’s Place: Home, Sanctuary, and the Big House in Jane Eyre .” We move from the sins of the patriarchy to the perceived sins of the mother in Mara Reisman’s “Sins of the Mother: Adèle’s Genetic and National Burden in Jane Eyre .” Jennie-Rebecca Falcetta reads Jane Eyre as offering multiple kinds of Christianities. Jonathan Kotchian, a scholar of Renaissance literature, applies Abdiel, a character in Milton’s Paradise Lost , (“the only angel in Satan’s rank to reject sin and remain faithful to God”) as a model to use in reading both the tension between Jane’s obedience and her resistance, and St. John’s narrative function.

This conflict between obedience and resistance, submission and dominance, surfaces in conversation in Jane Eyre , and Cala Zubair examines the verbal sparring between Jane and Rochester. Amanda T. Smith also looks at Jane’s conversation and responses to situations in her own development of humor as a coping mechanism.  Mary Isbell looks at John Brougham’s 1849 stage adaptation of Jane Eyre and compares audience response to such adaptations with spectator involvement in the game of charades.

While all of these essays result from multiple readings, the final two are explicitly about rereading the novel across time and experience. The last two pieces offer examples of reader-response criticism, as two contributors, Meghan Sweeney and Barbara Waxman, consider rereadings of Jane Eyre.

• Chronology of Charlotte Brontë's Life
• Works by Charlotte  Bront ë
• Bibliography
• About the Editor
• Contributors

One might think that all has been said with respect to   Jane Eyre , but the essays in   Critical Insights: Jane Eyre   indicate that the conversation continues in important ways. The hope is that this collection of essays not only provides useful resources, but also inspires the reader’s own engagement in the novel.

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September 2012

Critical Insights: Good & Evil

This volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the perennial theme.

January 2010

Critical Survey of Long Fiction

Offers 678 profiles of major writers of long fiction throughout history and the world, including analyses of their significant novels and novellas. Discusses the novel in overview essays by time period, country, ethnicity, and genre, and provides valuable resource material.

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• Jane Eyre Essay

A GUIDE TO WRITING A JANE EYRE ESSAY

Table of contents, short synopsis of jane eyre, jane eyre themes, jane eyre essay topics, writing a jane eyre essay.

• Sample Jane Eyre Essays

Author Charlotte Bronte wrote this fictional piece in the mid-19th century Victorian Age in England. Jayne enjoyed a nice life until her parents died and she had to go live with her nasty aunt who hated her. Once Jayne spoke out, she was sent to a horrible boarding school, where she was again mistreated.

At age 18, Jayne became a governess and landed at Thornfield Manor, owned by wealthy Edward Rochester. Rochester proposed marriage, but Jane discovered that he kept his insane wife in the attic and promptly left. She then went to live with the Rivers family and took a job running a school nearby. St. John Rivers also proposed marriage and a move to India for missionary work, but Jane, beginning to come into her own, abruptly declined.

She then returned to Thornfield Manor, but it was in ruins. Rochester was now living at another manor, having lost an arm and gone blind. It was here that Jane finally found love and marriage on equal footing .

Sample Jane Eyre Essay

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There are several themes in this novel:

• Societal Class Structures: Jayne was accepted as a servant at Thornberry and was expected to act as a member of that class. Over time, however, she came to see her own value and worth and ultimately came to enjoy equal footing.
• Control: Throughout her life, Jayne was under the control of others , and she was submissive for the most part. In time, however, she realized that she had the right to control her own life and, by asserting that self-control, found happiness
• Morality and Ethics: Jayne experienced a lack of morality and ethics when she lived with her aunt and at the boarding school. She also experienced a type of morality and ethics in the character of St. John. Her own sense of ethics caused her to refuse marriage to Rochester (the first time around) and to St. John , whom she knew she could never really love. 
• Feminism: Jayne was a bit ahead of her times , growing from a submissive Victorian young lady to an assertive adult female who knew what she wanted and got it.
• Minor themes include the concept of marriage, spiritualism, and the need for some people to maintain appearances .

You may be given some Jayne Eyre essay questions from which to choose or perhaps some Jayne Eyre essay prompts from your instructor. They will probably cover most of the topics listed below. However, if you have your own choice for your book review/essay topic, then here are some great options:

Best Jayne Eyre Essay Topics

• Compare and contrast the characters/personalities of St. John and Edward Rochester
• Analyze Jayne in terms of modern-day feminism
• How is this novel considered “gothic?”
• Compare any other two female characters in the novel
• Analyze Jayne’s moral and psychological development during the novel.
• How is Jayne Eyre autobiographical?
• How do experience and failure impact Jayne’s growth?

Even though you are writing a type of book review, your piece is still an essay. It must have an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion . 

The other obvious component of your essay is a thesis statement . If you select one of the topics above, then turn the topic into a question (if it is already not in the form of a question). Your answer to that question can form your thesis statement.

Once you have your thesis statement, it will have to be supported by at least three (if not more) points , each taking up a paragraph. And the supporting details must come directly from the novel and other research you may have done. 

You will want to develop a rough outline of your points so that you stay on topic. And if you have done some research, do not forget to cite those sources.

External links

• Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre (Analysis) [YouTube Video]. (2015). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVBrXSCGCLI
• ‌Jane Eyre Essay Writing: GOOD BANTER [YouTube Video]. (2015). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BqEGp1NaAg

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Academics College of Sciences and Humanities School of Interdisciplinary Studies School of Interdisciplinary Studies Programs Digital Writing & Narrative Design (B.A.) Student Publications Magnificat 2022 “Contradiction in Jane Eyre: Conversations of 19th Century Feminism” by Audrey Clement

“Contradiction in Jane Eyre: Conversations of 19th Century Feminism” by Audrey Clement

Magnificat , april 2022, introduction.

As a staple in classic feminist literature, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre plunges readers into the 19 th century feminine sphere. Brontë’s narrator, Jane, is a delightfully complex heroine who exemplifies the successes and limitations of 19th century feminist philosophy. At times, Jane is a stellar example of the independent Victorian woman struggling against a hostile patriarchal society. Other times, she is an active participant in patriarchal society, directing hostility towards other women and prioritizing male comfort and desires. For some, especially those who know and love Jane Eyre as feminist literature, the polarity inherent in Jane’s character may be difficult to interpret. As readers and scholars, I posit we can approach the issue in two ways. First and foremost, we can praise Brontë for her success in creating a character who so eloquently personifies the feminine psyche, which has been trained to always hate or criticize femininity over masculinity (which often escapes critique entirely). We can use these very contradictions to explore the progress of feminist philosophy since the novel was published.

Contradictions often peacefully coexist in our world, but that does not necessarily make them easier to understand. Deconstructionist theory attempts to do so; thus, it is helpful to our understanding of Jane to adopt a deconstructionist approach. Throughout the novel, readers become aware of a duality in Jane’s subconscious—she never addresses it herself, but her contradictory actions confirm its existence. Readers may initially process these contradictions as symptoms of a flawed character, but I believe it is more rewarding to consider these contradictions as naturally occurring psychic duality, created by a feminine mind at war with the mandates of her culture. Lois Tyson, author of Critical Theory Today , calls this phenomenon the multiple and fragmented self. She states that “we [consist] of any number of conflicting beliefs, desires, fears, anxieties, and intentions” (Tyson 257). Tyson claims that human identity is shaped by “an unstable, ambiguous force-field of competing ideologies” inherent to human existence, meaning that people will naturally contradict themselves (Tyson 249, 257). Jane is no exception, as her innate, human inclination towards intellectual and physical freedom competes with patriarchal norms for space in her psyche. Opposing perspectives are represented within a single character. The theory of a multiplicity of selves offers a solution to the confusion readers may feel—Jane’s contradictory actions do not have to be a problem. Contradictions in the fictional often reflect contradictions in the real world. Jane’s fractured character provides us an opportunity to explore a patriarchal feminist psyche that is continually at odds with itself. This fracture reveals itself most often in the ways Jane interacts with other characters in the novel.

Jane, the Halfway Feminist: How does Jane interact with other women?

A patriarchal feminist psyche is characterized by the desire for one’s personal advancement as a woman accompanied by the refusal to advocate for the advancement of all women, either consciously or unconsciously. In other words, the patriarchal feminist is unfamiliar with solidarity; she sees other women as competition rather than allies. In her book on the marginalization of feminism, bell hooks says that perceiving other women as threats is a direct result of patriarchal indoctrination: “We are taught that our relationships with one another diminish rather than enrich our experience. We are taught that women are “natural enemies,” that solidarity will never exist between us because we cannot, should not, and do not bond with one another” (hooks 43). Indeed, for feminine identifying feminists, analyzing how we perceive and interact with women may reveal our patriarchal biases more effectively than our interactions with men precisely because society indoctrinates women to oppose one another. Such is the case with Jane.

As the novel progresses and Jane transitions into womanhood, she increasingly interacts with women who are unlike herself in status and appearance. It is towards these women that Jane directs her ire. These emotions range from outright disparagement to quiet condescension. Her criticism often seems motivated by patriarchal expectations, where no matter how women present themselves, they are subjected to disapproval. hooks states that “[S]exism is perpetuated by the victims themselves who are socialized to behave in ways that make them act in complicity with the status quo” (43). Jane, as a member of patriarchal society, may subconsciously criticize other women by measuring them against an unrealistic patriarchal standard. For example, Jane’s scathing internal monologue criticizes Miss Ingram for her defects:

She was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own. (Brontë 199).

While Jane’s assessment of Miss Ingram’s character may not be inaccurate, the manner in which she criticizes her is fueled by the patriarchy. Jane begins to dislike Miss Ingram because of her insults aimed towards governesses and lower classes of women, but rather than criticizing Miss Ingram on the quality of her arguments (or lack thereof), Jane attacks her personality and her intelligence; thus, the criticism falls flat. Additionally, Jane’s internal outburst seems motivated by jealousy, not simply moral principle— she is intently aware that Miss Ingram is chasing the attention of Mr. Rochester, whose attention she wishes for herself. Jane remarks that “Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too inferior to excite the feeling” (Brontë 199), yet spends pages denouncing her character. She also admits to being “irresistibly attracted” to Rochester and Miss Ingram’s interactions, and watching them carefully:

I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards him, till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek; I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances… I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scored to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed (Brontë 199).

One wonders if Jane truly escapes the jealousy she claims Miss Ingram is incapable of inspiring. Indeed, it seems more likely that Jane views Miss Ingram as a threat to Jane’s access to Rochester, which causes Jane to internally reject her.

Jane has a similar reaction to Miss Oliver later in the novel, although their interactions are not characterized by the bitterness Jane feels for Miss Ingram. The similarity in Jane’s reactions to these women lies primarily in her propensity to unfairly evaluate and criticize them. For example, even though Jane does not outright dislike Miss Oliver, she clearly looks down on her for her giddy and flirtatious nature. Jane describes Miss Oliver as “coquettish… not worthlessly selfish…indulged since birth… hasty… vain… unthinking… not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive” (Brontë 400). Jane, self admittedly a “cool observer of her own sex,” counteracts every positive quality of Miss Oliver’s with something inherently negative or “wrong” with her character. Her interactions with these women are characterized by a sense of personal superiority. This ingrained patriarchal perspective affects how she thinks about other women, to such an extent that she cannot form lasting bonds with women different from herself. Jane does experience lasting relationships with women in the novel, which is why prominent scholars like Adrienne Rich praise the novel for its depiction of female solidarity. We see Jane extend financial support to Mary and Diana, potentially allowing them to move more freely in society, as well as form lasting friendships with both. In her early life, she bonds with Helen Burns and Miss Temple, who support one another through numerous difficulties. These achievements are not diminished if we recognize that Jane Eyre does not depict solidarity between all women.

I am not claiming that the responsibility for developing solidarity that crosses social boundaries lands solely on Jane’s shoulders. In fact, as members of the upper echelon, it is logical to assume that socialites like Miss Ingram and Miss Oliver could more easily make the first move on that front (as Miss Oliver does!). I do believe that Jane’s hostile interactions with women of other social classes reveal the limitations of Jane Eyre as a feminist manifesto, and reveal Jane’s inability to escape patriarchal thinking. hooks says that “[w]omen are divided by sexist attitudes, racism, class privilege, and a host of other prejudices… unless… barriers separating women can be eliminated… we cannot hope to change and transform society as a whole” (44). Through Jane, Brontë strengthens established societal boundaries by eliminating the possibility for women of different social classes to bond, revealing the limitation of her feminist thought. Jane is only open to sisterhood with specific types of women—granted, it is unlikely that Ms. Ingram would be open to sisterhood with Jane, but the author’s choice to draw that socio-economic boundary with such rigidity says something about the quality of woman Brontë believes is deserving of total liberation. Indeed, the women Jane does bond with are all eerily like her, both in their socio-economic standing and philosophy (Diana, Mary, Helen, Miss Temple, etc.). Although there are plenty of criticisms to be had about how socially privileged white women (like Blanche Ingram) do little to nothing to dismantle patriarchal ideals, praising one kind of woman while disparaging another does little to change hierarchical structures; it is not productive. By pitting readers against certain women to support Jane, Brontë undermines the effective feminist advocacy of Jane Eyre from a modern perspective.

 The Patriarchal Feminist: Seeking Male Approval and Denying Male Accountability

The contradictions within Jane’s patriarchal feminist psyche manifest in her interactions with men as well. Although Jane is always the focal point of these interactions, it is fascinating how Jane continually seeks the approval of men. A patriarchal society tells women that they have no value outside of their relationships to men. In the words of bell hooks, “Male supremacist ideology encourages women to believe we are valueless and obtain value only by relating to or bonding with men” (hooks 44). A patriarchal society pushes Jane towards the approval of men rather than bonds with women, as evidenced by her relationship with St. John. Although Jane is not interested in St. John romantically, she still seeks to please him, even when it is unpleasant for her. She learns “Hindo-stanee” instead of German at his behest, while Mary and Diana “agreed that St. John should never have persuaded them to such a step” (Brontë 433). As time progresses, Jane states that: “I… wished more to please him: but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature… it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted” (Brontë 434). Jane sacrifices her personal comfort as well as quality time with Mary and Diana (with whom she was learning German) in favor of St. John’s approval of her. She prioritizes male attention over herself and other women, perhaps subconsciously, indicating society’s indoctrination which tells her to be submissive and agreeable to men’s desires.

Although Jane does seek St. John’s approval frequently, their relationship also provides her ample opportunity to assert her independence and personal agency, creating contradiction. There are limits to Jane’s prioritization of St. John’s wants; at a point, she insists on prioritizing herself and her wants. Jane’s reaction to St. John’s proposal even demonstrates progressive feminist ideas for the time period—she attempts to bond with St. John platonically, stating: “I regard you as a brother—you, me as a sister.” The society in which Jane operates only allows women and men to bond intimately through marriage and romantic relationships (an exception could be made for siblings). St. John’s reaction makes this clear, as he immediately refuses the potential connection, implying impropriety: “We cannot—we cannot… it would not do” (Brontë 442). Contrary to her earlier acquiescence to St. John’s wishes, Jane firmly establishes herself her own personal agent; she makes decisions for herself, regardless of outside approval or disapproval. She also aligns herself with femininity here, as her main reasoning for refusing St. John is quite romantic; they “did not love each other as man and wife should” (Brontë 442). It is clear in her interactions with St. John that Jane is often torn between patriarchal societal norms and her feminist values—they are symptomatic of her fractured self.

Jane’s relationship with Rochester carries the same confusing contradictions. Many scholars have criticized Jane and Rochester’s relationship on the basis of romantic love; they argue that Jane’s choice to enter into a romantic relationship is a betrayal of herself. In her essay “Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman,” Adrienne Rich characterizes their initial relationship as a patriarchal “temptation” (Rich 474). Rich argues that Jane must refuse traditional Gothic understandings of romance, which she does by leaving Rochester a first time. Rich also believes that Rochester and Jane’s marriage is inherently practical and unromantic (Rich 482). I agree with Rich that there are problems in Jane and Rochester’s relationship; however, I do not believe the problem is the fact they love one another. Jane’s romantic feelings are not the cause of the inequality in this relationship. Rochester’s problematic actions are. Additionally, Jane’s inability (or refusal) to hold Rochester accountable for his condescending, misogynist, or abusive actions shows how she has been trained by a patriarchal society to sympathize with Mr. Rochester over the women he is hurting. There are many examples of Mr. Rochester hurting women verbally, psychologically, and physically, and Jane dismissing (and therefore accepting) his behavior. Even Adèle, a small child, does not escape maltreatment; Mr. Rochester often speaks negatively of her and insults her to her face, like when he claims “She is not bright, she has no talents” (Brontë 130). Jane never addresses this with Rochester, yet she rightfully criticizes Ms. Ingram for the same behavior, showing how she aligns with Mr. Rochester over other women (Brontë 200). Mr. Rochester also psychologically manipulates Jane, which is played off as a poor attempt at romance (when he masquerades as a fortune teller to get information). Of course, the most serious of Mr. Rochester’s infractions is his abuse of Bertha.

Scholars in the past have argued that Bertha’s character is not meant to be viewed realistically, that her primary function is metaphorical. In their book, “The Madwoman in the Attic,” Gilbert and Gubar state: “Most important, her [Jane’s] confrontation, not with Rochester but with Rochester’s mad wife Bertha, is the book’s central confrontation, an encounter … not with her own sexuality but with her own imprisoned ‘hunger, rebellion, and rage’” (339). Early feminist scholars like Gilbert and Gubar popularized the interpretation of Bertha as a mere representation of Jane’s imprisoned psyche, that Bertha is all the anger Jane is unable to express. While I find the concept intriguing, assuming Bertha is only a function of the novel erases her humanity and dismisses the abuse she has experienced. More specifically, it dismisses the abuse she has experienced at the hands of Rochester . Indeed, at no point does Brontë address the issue of Rochester’s character. When Jane learns about Bertha, she does not mention a problem with his behavior, other than the fact that he “[speaks] of her [Bertha] with hate—with vindictive antipathy,” and that “the attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea” (Brontë 326, 321). She is upset that he lied, and that he speaks of Bertha derogatorily, but she does not blame him for his actual actions, which should be inexcusable. Jane even states that she “would not ascribe vice to him” (Brontë 321). Jane’s silence and her refusal to acknowledge his faults are indicative of the patriarchal side of her psyche as she grants him leniency when he should be challenged.

The way Jane aligns with Rochester even in his worst moments are contradicted by her ability to assert her personal agency in spite of him, similarly to the way she opposes St. John. She exerts her autonomy when she chooses to leave Rochester, saying that it would be wicked “to obey” him, that she will care for herself (Brontë 343, 344). She insists on plain clothes despite Rochester’s wish for extravagant outfits. Earlier in the novel, before their romantic relationship is established, she debates with him about her rate of pay and insists her salary be on her terms, not his (Brontë 243). These instances create duality, where we simultaneously see Jane as a feminist and a product of the patriarchy. It seems Jane is a feminist for herself, but struggles when it comes to advocating for others or defining herself outside of male approval (although these struggles are not all-encompassing). However positive and inspiring Jane’s moments of clarity may be, her dismissal of the suffering of other women significantly limits the novel’s ability to serve as a feminist work.

Analyzing the failures of dated works may seem pessimistic to some; however, I do not believe the intent of this kind of analysis is to disqualify or discount works that have been important to so many readers. The purpose of deconstructive analysis is to highlight where a text is revolutionary, and to point out areas where texts no longer serve or represent us. It is a celebration of its successes and our progress.

The issues of feminine independence and women’s rights portrayed in Jane Eyre still resonate with modern-day readers, as equality is still a work in progress. Women are still confined through a lack of opportunity, unequal pay, and countless other areas, and these women are searching for solutions just like Jane. Analyzing the failures of Jane’s feminism teaches us that the solution will never be harming other women or perceiving them as threats, even if we are acting through silent complicity. Perhaps, like Jane, we are not aware of how our own patriarchal indoctrination blinds us to the everyday harm we do. I hope this analysis can serve as a reminder to others (as it did to me) that we are all peddlers of patriarchal oppression when we lack self-awareness. We are all capable of self-reflection and growth; this is the true heart of feminism.

Works Cited

Gilbert, Sandra M., et al. “A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane’s Progress.” The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination , Yale University Press, 2020, pp. 336–71, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvxkn74x.14.

hooks, bell. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center . South End Press. Boston, 1984. Print.

Tyson, Lois. “Deconstructive Criticism.” Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, 2nd ed.,. Taylor & Francis Group. New York, 2006, pp. 249-261.

Rich, Adrienne. “Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman.” Jane Eyre: An Authoritative Text, Context, Criticism , edited by Richard J. Dunn, W.W. Norton & Co., 2001, pp. 469-483.

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