AP English Lit.
2009-2010
Name:___________________
Miss Plunkett
Literary Criticism and Jane Eyre
There are a host of different types of criticism; a single work can be “read” through they eyes
of more than one critic. Below are two passages, each the beginning of an essay examining Jane
Eyre through different types of criticism. The beginning of each passage provides a brief
outline of that type of criticism, and then moves to discuss the specifics of the opening
chapters of Jane Eyre through that particular critical lens.
Your job, with your partner or in a small group, is to choose ONE of these two types of
criticism. Add on to the essay that employs that particular detail, working the specifics of the
novel as you have read it thus far into that framework. Your group’s response should consist of
several paragraphs and must include specific details (paraphrase) and/or quotations from the
text.
1. Jungian Criticism of Jane Eyre
The famous psychologist Carl Jung was interested in the collective unconscious, or the
primordial images and ideas that reside in every human being's psyche. Often appearing in the
form of dreams, visions, and fantasies, these images provoke strong emotions that are beyond
the explanation of reason. In Jane Eyre, the bounds of reality continually expand, so that
dreams and visions have as much validity as reason, providing access to the inner recesses of
Jane's…psyche.
Throughout the novel, Jane is described as a "fairy." Sitting in the red-room, she labels
herself a "tiny phantom, half fairy, half imp" from one of Bessie's bedtime stories, a spiritcreature that comes out of "lone, ferny dells in moors." As fairy, Jane identifies herself as a
special, magical creature, and reminds the reader of the importance that imagination plays in
her life. Jane's dreams have a prophetic character, suggesting their almost supernatural ability
to predict the future.
Not only is Jane a mythical creature, but the narrative she creates also has a mythic
element, mixing realism and fantasy. We see the first instance of this as Jane sits nervously in
the red-room and imagines a gleam of light shining on the wall; for her, this indicates a vision
"from another world. Generally, supernatural occurrences such as these serve as transition
points in the novel, signaling drastic changes in Jane's life.
2. Marxist Criticism of Jane Eyre
Based on the ideas of Karl Marx, this theoretical approach asks us to consider how a
literary work reflects the socioeconomic conditions of the time in which it was written. What
does the text tell us about contemporary social classes and how does it reflect classism? Jane
Eyre depicts the strict, hierarchical class system in England that required everyone to maintain
carefully circumscribed class positions. Primarily through the character of Jane, it also accents
the cracks in this system, the places where class differences were melding in Victorian England.
Jane's ambiguous class status becomes evident from the novel's opening chapter. A poor
orphan living with relatives, Jane feels alienated from the rest of the Reed family. John Reed
tells Jane she has "no business to take our books; you are a dependent . . . you ought to beg, and
not to live here with gentleman's children like us." In this quote, John claims the rights of the
gentleman, implying that Jane's family was from a lower class, and, therefore, she has no right
to associate on equal footing with her wealthy cousins. Jane's lack of money leaves her
dependent upon the Reeds for sustenance. She appears to exist in a no-man's land between the
upper- and servant classes. By calling her cousin John a "murderer," "slave-driver," and "Roman
emperor," Jane emphasizes her recognition of the corruption inherent in the ruling classes. As
she's dragged away to the red-room following her fight with John Reed, Jane resists her
captors like a "rebel slave," emphasizing the oppression she suffers because of her class status.
When Miss Abbot admonishes Jane for striking John Reed, Jane's "young master," Jane
immediately questions her terminology. Is John really her "master"; is she his servant?
Emphasizing the corruption, even despotism of the upper classes, Jane's narrative makes her
audience aware that the middle classes were becoming the repositories of both moral and
intellectual superiority.