Pape, 1
Alyssa Pape
Professor: Abigail Heiniger
GSW2500-001
October 21, 2013
Project Two: Primary Text Analysis
Men and women were created as equals, but realistically they are different and the same it just
depends on the life they have lived. A major impact that differentiates men and women is how they are
raised and how they think of the world as a whole. As time has gone on women and men have become
more socially equal but back in the 1800's women were raised to be proper, obedient, quiet, loyal and
not show any emotion towards men no matter if they were rich or poor. It was not socially acceptable
for men and women to marry outside of their social class. In this paper I am going to examine the
differences between gender and how their social class either whether they lived in poverty or were
wealthy showed how they were treated and how it effected them psychologically and emotionally. In
the novel Jane Eyre, who was born a poor orphan who was raised by her very wealthy aunt and uncle
was extremely psychologically damaged and was told her entire life that she was never going to be
worthy of anything and never going to be loved. Jane is a young, independent, honest and intelligent
girl whose hopeful that one day she will finally find love and a real family. Jane is confused about life
and says “Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You
think wrong... If god had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it hard for
you to leave me... we stood gods feet, equal as we are”(Bronte, 216).
Jane Eyre grew up in the Victorian Era in England in the 1800's which was valued by
hierarchies of social class, gender relations and injustice. Jane was orphaned at a very young age, both
of her parents died of typhus which is a bacterial disease. Her wealthy uncle who was her mother's
brother took her in and treated her as if she was his own. Jane's mother was a member of the very
Pape, 2
wealthy Reed family and they strongly disapproved of Jane's father, so when her parents married Jane's
mother was cut out of their will because her father was a clergyman and was poor.(Bronte, pg. 15) Jane
grew up in the Gateshead home of the Reed family, her mothers brother cared for her and protected her
from his evil wife until he passed away. She was stuck living in this household with his wife Mrs. Reed
and her three children who she was forbidden to play with. When Mr. Reed died, he made his wife
promise to care for Jane as if she was one of her own, but she lied and was very cruel. Mrs. Reed
resented Jane because she always thought that her late husband loved Jane more than his three children.
John Reed the only son was extremely cruel to Jane and would harass her constantly. In the first
chapter he says “ you have no money: your father left you none: you ought to beg, and not to live here
with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's
expense .”(Bronte, pg. 9) Jane was constantly looked down upon by everyone of money because her
father was poor, she was orphaned and was living with a wealthy family. John Reed would always
antagonize Jane and push her buttons till they would fight and then that would give Mrs. Reed a reason
to punish Jane. Jane was sent to the “red room” for punishment which was the scary room that her
uncle Reed died and she swears she can his ghost. The Gateshead homes two maids Miss Bessie and
Miss Abbot tell she needs to listen to Mrs. Reed or there could be bad consequences after she is let out
of the “red room” as punishment. Bessie tells her “ You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under
obligations to Mrs. Reed, she keeps you: If she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poor
house” Miss Abbot also tells her “And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with them Mrs.
Reed and Master Reed, because Mrs. kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They have a great
deal of money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself
agreeable to them.” (Bronte,pg. 11) Jane is in a difficult situation because she knows that she is
different than them but then again she doesn't because she was raised as such a small child by them,
was treated normal until her Uncle Reed died and now doesn't know how she is suppose to act. She is
Pape, 3
an orphan child raised by a wealthy, proper family. She was raised in an upper class lifestyle with an
education, but she has no money so Mrs. Reed and many others look at her as a charity case.
Mrs. Reed doesn't know what to do anymore, a man named Mr. Lloyd came to the house and
suggests that Mrs. Reed send Jane to a boarding school where she might be better off and find some
happiness. Mrs. Reed finally agrees to send Jane to school after making her suffer through even more
cruel and unusual punishment than before. Jane is sent to an all girls school called Lowood, before Jane
left for school her aunt had spoke with Mr. Brocklehurst the man who runs the school and tells him that
Jane has a problem with lying and that she wants him to publicize that she is a liar to all of her teachers.
Jane was heartbroken by Mrs. Reed's cruel words and decides to tell her her true feelings. She says “ I
am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live, I will never come
see you when I am grown up; and if anyone asks me how I liked you and how you treated me, I will
say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty.(Bronte,
pg.38) Jane likes being away from the Gateshead house and the horrible treatment from Mrs. Reed
and her cousins but she soon realizes that life at Lowood was not as fun and easy as she expected it to
be. The students were forced to sit through lots of religious sermons, they were over worked and
underfed. Jane learned that Lowood was a school for orphan girls or girls who had lost their mothers
and it was funded by others so Mrs. Reed wasn't really paying for her schooling. One good thing
about Lowood was that Jane had finally made a friend, her name was Helen Burns who was also an
orphan who had an optimistic outlook on life, was very smart and could just brush off the cruelest
treatment. Not long after Jane had finally found a friend and life seemed like it might be turning
around for her, Helen passes away from consumption and Jane feels like everyone in her life always
leaves her.(Bronte, pg. 61) Mr. Brocklehurst had been very negligent of the students and of the school
in general, he was making the girls get by with the bare minimum and taking the schools money to
have a wealthy lifestyle for him and his family.(Bronte, pg. 58) Someone finally took over for him and
Pape, 4
the conditions of the school improved. Jane spent seven years as a student at Lowood and then spent
two years teaching students there. She finally decides to leave because she is ready for change and to
move on with her life.
Jane accepted a position at a manor called Thornfield, she learns that she will be tutoring an
eight year old french girl named Adele. She also learns that she will be a mistress for a man named
Edward Rochester who is Thornfields owner. Jane's new life at Thornfield was comfortable and much
more pleasant than the Gateshead house or Lowood School. Jane becomes extremely intrigued by Mr.
Rochester and wants to know more about him. She learns that his father and older brother died nine
years ago and thats when he inherited Thornfield and that he was an outcast to much of his family
similar to Jane but he wasn't adopted. Jane realizes that she is starting to have romantic feelings for Mr.
Rochester, but she knows that she is not equal to him, she may be intellectually equal to him but he is
wealthy and she is a poor orphaned woman with no family. She is his mistress and she believes that he
will never see her as an option as a lover and that she will never find happiness.
Jane learns that John Reed, the Reed's only son had committed suicide, he was a very hostile
alcoholic who never showed much love and was very bitter to the rest of his family. After John
committed suicide, Mrs. Reed too was very close to death because she had suffered a stroke. Jane left
Thornfield to take a visit to Gatesland to try to reconcile her relationship with Mrs. Reed before she
passes away.(Bronte, pg. 161) It had been many years since Jane had spoke to Mrs. Reed or anyone
from their family, but Mrs. Reed still had a lot of built up anger and hostility towards Jane because
according to her Mr. Reed, Jane was his favorite and he loved her more than his family. After Jane's
attempt to be at peace with Mrs. Reed, she passed away that night. Before Mrs. Reed passed away she
gave Jane a letter from Jane's fathers brother John Eyre, the letter was from many years ago but it said
that he was going to leave her his inheritance when he dies.(Bronte, pg. 161) Jane stayed at the
Gatesland house for few more weeks after John and Mrs. Reed died to help out the other family
Pape, 5
members. Jane was a strong woman and even though she was treated unfairly by the Reed's she still
stuck around to comfort the rest of the family because she was a good hearted person. This shows that
money cant buy you happiness and sometimes no matter how much money you have or how good of
life you have some people such as Mrs. Reed and John Reed were still bitter, cruel people that didn't
take their lives for granite and would never be happy in life. It seems like the more money you have
the less you respect and care about others and will never fully be happy in life because they hated
themselves. Jane being as poor as she was had a more optimistic outlook on life and seemed to cherish
the little things in life and was grateful for what she had unlike the Reed family.
When Jane returns to Thornfield, Mr. Rochester confides in Jane about how well their
relationship is and how much he values it. Jane is happy to be back at Thornfield with Mr. Rochester
and she tells him “ Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for you great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back
again to you: and wherever you are is my home- my only home” (Bronte, pg.178). Jane confesses her
love towards him and Mr. Rochester surprisingly asks her to marry him and Jane accepts. This shows
that money doesn't matter when there is true love, Mr. Rochester shows that he deeply cares about Jane
and it doesn't matter that she works for him and that she is poor. He loves her and thats all that matters
to him. Jane loves him, finally found happiness and will finally have a family of her own. She is
worried that because she is poor that she wont be able to contribute to anything for the wedding and he
is paying for everything and showering her in gifts. She decides to write her uncle John Eyre about the
letter Mrs. Reed had gave her before she died to ask him about the inheritance because that would
make things more equal and make her feel more comfortable about the marriage. Jane and Mr.
Rochester's wedding doesn't go as planned, Jane finds out that Mr. Rochester is already married to a
women named Bertha for the last fifteen years, this crushes Jane because she thought that her life was
finally complete and now she was back to where she started, poor and alone. No one knew about
Bertha because Rochester kept her locked away on the third floor of Thornfield. Bertha was
Pape, 6
psychologically damaged, had a long family history of mental problems and had gone mad. Jane
decides to leave Thornfield because as long as Rochester was still married to Bertha she would still
always be his mistress. This makes Jane question if she would ever find a man that loved her the way
Rochester did and that maybe she was destined for loneliness because he was the only man that ever
loved her.
Jane leaves Thornfield and uses up the little money she has very quickly. She was living on the
streets, begging for food and in search of a job. From going for poverty, to being treated badly in the
Gatesland house, the harsh conditions of the Lowood school, to finally being happy at the Thornfield
manor, to back to poverty again Jane was psychologically and mentally damaged beyond her own help.
She was an independent, hard working woman that had struggled through more than the people she met
understood and she was finally at a complete loss of what to do with herself. Jane had finally got to the
point of starvation that she collapsed in the doorway of St. John River's home and St. John and his
siblings brought Jane into their home to give her food and shelter. Jane did not want anyone to know
who she was so she went by a fake name because she didn't want to cause more problems for herself
than she already has. St. John tells Jane that their Uncle John had recently passed away,left his large
fortune to an unknown family member, left them nothing and that they were struggling to survive as
well. Little did Jane or the Rivers know that their Uncle John was also Jane's Uncle John that was
suppose to pass down his inheritance to Jane. St. John soon figures out that Jane is the one John Eyre
left his fortune to and that he was her uncle as well. Jane decided to split the inheritance with them
because now she has finally found people who are her actual blood family(Bronte, pg.256). Jane had
really started to miss Mr. Rochester and now that she had some money she wouldn't feel so unequal
from him and decides to go back to Thornfield to reconnect with him. When she arrived at Thornfield,
all she saw was burnt remains of the manor that was set fire a few months before. She finally finds
Rochester and is told that Bertha burnt down the manor and died and that Rochester had lost a hand and
Pape, 7
his vision from the fire. Jane and Rochester reconnect and she promises to never leave him again, they
get married. Jane now sees them as equals even though they still aren't socially equal they are equal
because Jane is still somewhat poor even though she inherited 5,000lbs and she is still psychologically
damaged and Rochester is physically damaged but there love for each other was equal making them
have hope for a wonderful future together.
The Novel Jane Eyre really represents that true love conquers, that money cant buy happiness
and that the challenges one faces in life make you the person you are in the future whether you are
wealthy or poor. The differences in gender and social class have a major impact on how your life is
lived and that no matter your social class or financial status everyone is going to be emotionally and
psychologically damaged in one way or another. The wealthy characters in the book such as the Reed
family, Mr. Brocklehurst and Mr. Rochester all proved that no matter how much money you have it
cant buy you happiness and that no matter what everyone is going to have hardships in life such as Mrs.
Reed being a cruel bitter person, John being an alcoholic and committing suicide and Mr. Rochester
being injured in the fire.. In Jane and Helen's case they were born into poverty and everyone seemed to
look down on them especially Jane. Jane was told at a young age that she was always going to be poor
and no one was going to love her and it kept seeing like she was never going to find happiness in life.
In the end Jane found someone who loves her for who she is and she finally found happiness even if
she is still damaged from her past experiences.
Pape, 8
References
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre, New York: Wilder Publications, 2008