JANE EYRE
By Charlotte Brontë
CHARACTERS
GOTHIC ELEMENTS
THEMES:
LOVE VS AUTONOMY
SOCIAL CLASS
GENDER RELATIONS
JANE EYRE
JANE EYRE
EDWARD ROCHESTER
SYMBOL 
THE RED ROOM
PLOT
GENERAL
CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE NOVEL:
genre-antagonist
& point of view.
BERTHA MASON &
the theme of the double
THE IDEAL
VICTORIAN
WOMAN
THE IDEAL VICTORIAN
WOMAN
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In Victorian times, the woman was considered the so-called
“Angel of the house” because her place was the home and only
in the house she could realise her lofe, as a wife, a mother and
a daughter.
Victorian women, in fact, didn’t have the same rights as men .
They couldn’t vote or hold a political office
Men could divorce their wives for adultery while for women
divorse was permitted only if adultery was accompanied by
bigamy, cruelty or incest.
In addition working outside the house was not considered
respectable for women who could only limit their public
activities to unpaid charitable work.
Some of the best female writers of the time, in fact, published
their novels under pseudonyms
The only occupation suitable for women who wanted to earn
their living outside marriage was that of governess .
This job, however, signified low wages and an ambiguous state:
neither a servant nor a proper lady
Unmarried women who worked in factories were often led to
prostitution ( fallen women) because of poor working
conditions and unemployment.
THE PLOT 1
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Jane Eyre is a young orphan who was brought up by
Mrs. Reed, her cruel, wealthy aunt.
One day, as punishment for fighting with her bullying
cousin John Reed, Jane’s aunt imprisons Jane in the
red-room, the room in which Jane’s Uncle Reed died.
While locked in, Jane, believing that she sees her
uncle’s ghost, screams and faints.
Jane is sent to Lowood School where she suffers
because of a very strict discipline . The school’s
headmaster is Mr. Brocklehurst, a cruel, hypocritical,
and abusive man. Brocklehurst preaches a doctrine of
poverty and privation to his students while using the
school’s funds to provide a wealthy and opulent
lifestyle for his own family.
When Mr. Brocklehurst leaves the school , Jane’s life
improves considerably .
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After teaching for two years at Lowood, Jane
wishes to have new experiences. She accepts a
governess position at a manor called Thornfield,
where she teaches a lively French girl named
Adèle.
Jane’s employer at Thornfield is a dark,
indifferent man named Rochester, with whom
Jane falls secretly in love and who she accepts
to marry.
The wedding day arrives, and as Jane and Mr.
Rochester prepare to exchange their vows, Mr
Mason declares that Rochester already has a
wife.
Mason introduces himself as the brother of that
wife—a woman named Bertha.
Mr. Mason testifies that Rochester married
Bertha when he was a young man in Jamaica and
she is still alive.
Rochester does not deny it , but he explains that
Bertha has gone mad. He takes the wedding
party back to Thornfield, where they witness the
insane Bertha Mason crawling on the floor on all
fours and growling like an animal. Rochester
keeps Bertha hidden on the third storey of
Thornfield .
Jane leaves the house .
THE
PLOT 2
THE
PLOT 3
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Penniless and hungry, Jane is forced to sleep outdoors
and beg for food. At last, Jane finds a job teaching at
a charity school in Morton. Here she comes to know
that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her a large
fortune: 20,000 pounds.
She is on the point of accepting to marry anther man ,
but she realizes that she cannot abandon forever the
man she truly loves when one night she hears
Rochester’s voice calling her name over the moors.
Jane immediately hurries back to Thornfield and finds
that it has been burned to the ground by Bertha Mason,
who lost her life in the fire. Rochester saved the
servants but lost his eyesight and one of his hands.
Rochester and Jane rebuild their relationship and soon
marry.
At the end of her story, Jane writes that she has been
married for ten blissful years and that she and
Rochester enjoy perfect equality in their life together.
She says that after two years of blindness, Rochester
regained sight in one eye and was able to behold their
first son at his birth.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
OF
THE NOVEL
genre ·
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A hybrid of three genres: the Gothic novel (utilizes the mysterious,
the supernatural, the horrific, the romantic);
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the romance novel (emphasizes love and passion, represents the
notion of lovers destined for each other);
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the Bildungsroman (narrates the story of a character’s internal
development as he or she undergoes a succession of encounters with
the external world)
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date of first publication :1847
antagonist
 ·Jane meets with a series of forces that threaten her liberty, integrity,
and happiness. Characters embodying these forces are: Aunt Reed, Mr.
Brocklehurst, Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester (in that he urges Jane to
ignore her conscience and surrender to passion), and St. John Rivers (in
his urging of the opposite extreme).
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The three men also represent the notion of male supremacy
point of view ·
 All of the events are told from Jane’s point of view. Sometimes she
narrates the events as she experienced them at the time, while at other
times she focuses on her retrospective understanding of the events.
point of view ·
MAIN CHARACTERS :
JANE EYRE
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The development of Jane Eyre’s character is central to the
novel.
She can be considered an anti-heroine because she is not
beautiful but she has a fervent intelligence.
An orphan since early childhood, Jane feels exiled and
ostracized at the beginning of the novel, and the cruel
treatment she receives from her Aunt Reed and her cousins
only emphasises her feeling of alienation.
Afraid that she will never find a true sense of home , Jane
feels the need to belong somewhere, to find “kindred
spirits.” This desire is accompanied by her intense need for
autonomy and freedom. She believes in her ideals without
compromise.
Jane sees the bond of marriage not as an imprisonment
but as an union of two equal persons.
Charlotte Brontë may have created the character of Jane
Eyre as a means of coming to terms with elements of her
own life. Much evidence suggests that Brontë, too,
struggled to find a balance between love and freedom and
to find others who understood her.
MAIN CHARACTERS :
JANE EYRE
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An orphan since early childhood, Jane suffers from a sense of
alienation because of the cruel treatment she receives from her
Aunt Reed and her cousins .
She looks for a home and she feels the need to find “kindred spirits.”
This desire is accompanied by her intense need for autonomy and
freedom. She believes in her ideals without compromise.
Jane sees the bond of marriage not as an imprisonment but as an
union of two equal persons.
Autobiographical references are evident in the novel : Charlotte
Brontë created the character of Jane Eyre keeping in mind the
events of her own life : namely her aunt’s mistreatment of her, her
terrible experience at the cheap boarding house where she had been
sent with her sister .
MAIN CHARACTERS :
EDWARD ROCHESTER
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Edward Rochester typical BYRONIC HERO :
mysterious because of his past life, charismatic
despite his stern manners and of not particularly
handsome appearance.
Although Rochester is Jane’s social and economic
superior, and although men were widely considered to
be naturally superior to women in the Victorian period,
Jane is Rochester’s intellectual equal.
Rochester was a former libertine who married a
woman just to gain more wealth but he regrets this
period of his life.
Edward Rochester wins Jane’s heart, because she feels
they are kindred spirits .
Jane sees the bond of marriage not as an
imprisonment but as an union of two equal persons.
MINOR CHARACTERS:
BERTHA MASON
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Bertha Mason is a complex presence in Jane Eyre.
She impedes Jane’s happiness, but she also provokes the growth of Jane’s
self-understanding.
The mystery surrounding Bertha establishes suspense and terror to the
plot and the atmosphere.
Further, Bertha serves as a reminder of Rochester’s youthful libertinism.
She can represent a symbolic representation of the “trapped” Victorian
wife, who is expected never to travel or work outside the house and
becomes ever more frenzied as she finds no outlet for her frustration and
anxiety.
One could also see Bertha as a manifestation of Jane’s subconscious
feelings—specifically, of her rage against oppressive social and gender
norms. Jane never manifests this fear or anger, but Bertha does. Bertha
expresses the feelings that Jane must keep in check.
THEME of the DOUBLE FIGURE
Bertha, who is a sort of double figure. Bertha , “ the mad woman in the
attic” is seen as the repressed animal side of Jane.So Bertha an Jane
can be considered complementary, two sides of the same coin, two
aspects which help to create a deeper portrait of female identity.
THEMES
SOCIAL CLASS
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Jane Eyre is critical of Victorian England’s strict social
hierarchy.
C. Brontë explores the complicated social position of
governesses.
Like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Jane is a figure of
ambiguous class standing and, consequently, a source of
extreme tension for the characters around her. Jane’s
manners and education are those of an aristocrat, because
Victorian governesses were expected to possess the
“culture” of the aristocracy.
Yet, as paid employees, they were more or less treated as
servants; thus, Jane remains penniless and powerless while
at Thornfield. Jane perfectly understands this double
standard when she becomes aware of her feelings for
Rochester; she is his intellectual, but not his social, equal.
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Jane herself speaks out against class prejudice ,when she
tells Rochester that even though she is poor and plain this
doesn’t mean she is soulless or heartless .
THEMES
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GENDER RELATIONS
Jane struggles continually to achieve equality and to overcome
oppression.
In addition to class hierarchy, she must fight against male domination.
In Victorian England women were considered to be inferior to men .
The headmaster of the school and Edward Rochester, for example, are
male figures who threaten her desire for equality and dignity.
Each tries to keep Jane in a submissive position.
In her quest for independence and self-knowledge, Jane must come to
Rochester only after she is sure that they may marry as equals.
She will not depend solely on Rochester for love and she can be
financially independent. Jane states a radically feminist philosophy
when she affirms that women feel just like men and therefore it is
narrow-minded to consider them as destined to insignificant activities
such as making puddings or knitting stockings.
“Women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field
for their efforts as much as their brothers do […….]it is narrow-minded in their
more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to
making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and
embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they
seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their
sex.”
THEMES
LOVE VS. AUTONOMY
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Jane Eyre is very much the story of a quest for love through
self realisation as a woman .
For her , marriage can have a meaning as an union of two
equal human beings.
She refuses Mr Rochester’s proposal of living together
because of her sense of dignity and integrity as a woman
In fact for her “marrying” Rochester while he remains legally
married to Bertha would mean sacrificing her autonomy and
her self respect for the sake of her passions
On the other hand, when she escapes from Thornfield Hall
and manages to achieve an economic independence
teaching the poor, she cannot satisfy her feelings as a
woman.
Her experience away from Thornfield Hall is necessary to
test Jane’s autonomy.
SYMBOLS
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The Red-Room
The red-room can be viewed as a symbol of what Jane
must overcome in her struggles to find freedom and
happiness .
The red-room symbolises Jane’s position of imprisonment
in the house but also , on a larger level, in the Victorian
society. Although Jane is eventually freed from the room,
she continues to be excluded from love and socially
ostracised; but she has a strong sense of independence .
Thus she recalls the room when she is humiliated at
Lowood.
She also thinks of the room on the night that she decides
to leave Thornfield after Rochester has tried to convince
her to become his mistress.
Only after Jane has gained financial independence she
can wed Rochester and find freedom in and through
marriage.
GOTHIC
ELEMENTS
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GOTHIC ELEMENTS
Childhood terrors in the school
Mysterious setting (Thornfield)
Sense of supernatural
Gloomy atmosphere of the place
(mysterious signs,noises,sounds)
Bertha’s madness and death