Jane Eyre

 Part C

• Write a note on Charlotte's treatment of childhood in ‘Jane Eyre’. [NU. 2004, 2003, 2013]

/Give a pen-picture of Charlotte's treatment of childhood in Jane Eyre. [NU. 2014]

/Comment on Charlotte Bronte's statement of childhood in Jane Eyre.

Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre gives a graphic description of childhood in which we find none of the children are well adjusted or happy. Jane Eyre is an orphan girl of ten years old. Her father died of typhus fever and her mother, having caught the infection from him, also died a month later. After the death of her parents, her maternal uncle, Mr. Reed takes her to the Reed family. He is sympathetic towards her. But after the death of Mr. Reed, she gets ill-treatment from Mrs. Reed and her children. She gave Jane scanty food and beat her badly. She had forbidden Jane to play with her cousins. John Reed, the fourteen-year-old son of Mrs. Reed used to hit her everyday. 

 

Jane is locked in the red-room for scratching and biting John Reed. When Jane is locked, she sees her ghastly figure in the mirror. She remembers her kind Uncle Reed bringing her to Gateshead after her parents' death. Suddenly, Jane thinks that her Uncle Reed's ghost is in the room. She cries out in terror. Bessie and Abbot come running and ask what's the matter. Bessie seems sympathetic towards Jane but Abbot thinks that Jane is just trying to be free from her imprisonment.

Mrs. Reed comes and pushes Jane back into the red-room, and as she leaves Jane faints. But Jane is rebellious in spirit. She protests against the ill-treatment, twice hits back at John Reed and tells her aunt that she will never forget her cruelty. Mrs. Reed tells Mr. Brocklehurst, the director of Lowood School, that Jane is deceitful and a liar. Jane protests against it which offends Mrs. Reed but Jane here senses/feels a victory over her.

Adele is the illegitimate child of a French opera dancer who was once a mistress of Mr. Rochester. Adele is not the child of Rochester. After the death of her mother, Mr. Rochester takes her to Thornfield Hall. She is Mr. Rochester's ward and has the benefits of wealth around her but is not in an ideal situation. Her mother has died and she is living as a ward and later on, she is shifted to boarding school. 

Another child in the novel is Helen Burns who is a true Christian. She receives unkind treatment from Miss Scatcherd. She thinks that her teacher disliked her for her faults. Helen also says that she does not hate Miss Scatcherd even when she receives harsh treatment from her. She is also an orphan and longs for home. She dies prematurely and hopes that she will find her home in heaven. 

Thus, it is obvious that Bronte thought childhood is a hard thing, something which must be endured. Charlotte in the novel portrays authentic and convincing pictures of childhood prevalent in the Victorian era.

• Discuss Jane Eyre as a novel dealing with the themes of passion and love. [NU. 2014]

/Discuss the theme of passion in Jane Eyre. [NU. 2008]

There are several themes in Jane Eyre. Love and passion form the major theme of the novel. The novel is a love story. The romantic love between Jane and Rochester is at its heart. However, there are other types of love in the novel. For example, the love between Helen Burns and Jane. Helen Burns is Jane's close friend at the Lowood School. When Jane is humiliated at the school by Mr. Brocklehurst, Helen comes to her and embraces her knees with her arms. 

Throughout the work, Brontë suggests that a life that is not lived passionately is not lived fully. Jane undoubtedly is the central passionate character and the protagonist of the novel. Early on, she lives with Mrs. Reed and her three children - John, Eliza and Georgiana. John Reed hates Jane. While she was reading a book behind curtains, John became angry with her as she was reading their books and said, “she is a dependent and has no money so she should not "live with gentlemen's children like [them]." Then he throws the book at her, knocking her down and cutting her head against the door. She then calls him "wicked and cruel" and "like a murderer" . He grabs her and they start fighting. She scratches and bites him. He screams. Just then Mrs. Reed rushes into the room. She blames Jane for the fight, and sends her to be locked in the red-room.

Jane’s passion for Rochester is all consuming. But her love for him is not governed by passion at all. Rochester leads a passionate life in the past. He had a long affair with an opera singer who had a secret affair with another man. He married Bertha who was insane. He fell in love with Jane and they decided to get married. But their marriage was prevented as Rochester's first wife was still alive.

Jane leaves Rochester because her moral reason tells her that it would be wrong to live with him as his mistress: "Laws and principles are not for the time when there is no temptation." She tells Rochester, “they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise against their rigor.”

Blanche Ingram feels no passion for Rochester. She is only attracted to the landowner because of his wealth and social position. Like her St. John has no passion for love. He asks Jane to marry him and go with him to India. His marriage proposal to Jane has no passion. He says that she has been created not for the sake of any sensual pleasure but for the sake of serving God. Jane is tempted by his proposal because it is an opportunity to perform good work. But she knows that they do not love each other. All he desires is a helper in his work. So Jane rejects his proposal as she is unwilling to sacrifice love for his missionary work.

Thus, we can say that the central theme of the novel is love and passion.

• In what sense is Jane Eyre an unconventional novel? Discuss. [NU. 2016, 2019]

/Examine Jane Eyre as an untraditional novel. [NU. 2016]

Jane Eyre was written by Charlotte Bronte and was first published in 1847 in the Victorian era. During this period, women were expected to remain at home and their duty was to take care of their children. Females were regarded as properties rather than as humans. They had no independence. Men were considered to be superior to women.

The novel is autobiographical and unconventional in nature. In the novel, there are many incidents that prove the novel as an unconventional or untraditional novel. During that period, Bronte portrays her character in a very unconventional way, following the trends of the Gothic genre. Both the hero and the heroine of the novel are unconventional. There is a great disparity of their age. While Jane is twenty years old, Mr. Rochester is almost forty.

During the Victorian era, it was unconventional for a woman to be passionate. Jane is a character who is sure of herself and her behaviour is described as "a picture of passion."  Her uniqueness is detectable from the start. Even as a child, she is different from her cousins at Gateshead. Instead of taking pleasure in playing, she prefers reading books such as "Goldsmith's History of Rome" and "Gulliver's Travels" etc. She has a strong wish to travel and see the lands that she reads about, showing that "women feel just as men feel." 

Bronte presents Jane as an independent woman who wants to maintain her individuality. Jane is a governess but she can make it clear that Mr Rochester doesn't have a right to command her and that she is equal to him in many ways. Bronte uses Jane to present the idea that women are capable of being intelligent and can form right judgements just as men do.

Thus, Jane Eyre is an unconventional or untraditional novel because of the unconventional treatment of the story. Both the hero and the heroine are unconventional. The hero is not conventionally romantic and the heroine is plain looking. Jane was adventurous and wanted to work. She was not the conventional, boring, over-emotional female as portrayed in the Victorian era. This novel is written from a woman's point of view, which would have been unconventional in itself.

• Sketch the character of Jane Eyre. [NU. 2019] /Ups and downs of Jane Eyre's life.

/Sketch the character of Jane Eyre. [NU. 2019]

/Consider Jane Eyre as a Bildungsroman?

/Write a note on the ups and downs of Jane Eyre's life. [NU. 2017]

A bildungsroman is a novel that focuses on a protagonist’s moral, intellectual, and spiritual growth. Jane Eyre is considered a bildungsroman because the novel begins with her childhood and follows her into adulthood.

In Jane Eyre, the growth of the main character, Jane Eyre, is distinctively divided into five phases/stages by places. They are:

i. Jane's childhood at Gateshead, 

ii. her education at the Lowood School, 

iii. her time at Thornfield as a governess to Adele, 

iv. her time with the Rivers family at Morton and

v. her reunion with Rochester at Ferndean. 

From these experiences, Jane becomes the mature woman that provides evidence of a Bildungsroman.

Jane is an orphan girl. After the death of her parents, her maternal uncle Mr. Reed takes her to the Reed family at Gateshead. After the death of Mr. Reed, she gets cruel treatment from Mrs. Reed and her children. John Reed, son of Mrs. Reed chided and used to hit her everyday. Jane protests against their ill-treatment. She tells her aunt that she will never forget her cruelty. At Gateshead she realizes the consequences of unchecked emotions and actions.

"a child cannot quarrel with his elders ... without experiencing afterward the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction."

At Lowood, there are eighty pupils who are subjected to cold rooms, poor meals, and thin clothing. Here Jane receives some kindness from Miss Temple and finds some comfort in the company of Helen Burns who is a devout and religious kind of girl. She often gets humiliation from Miss Scatcherd without any convincing reason. Jane believes that people should defend themselves to ensure that they are never mistreated again. She finds life at Thornfield pleasant and comfortable, but she experiences the need for liberty. She is a strong, independent, and intelligent woman who values her self-respect and dignity. 

During her stay with the Rivers family at Morton, Jane learns generosity and she shares her inheritance with her cousins. She says, "I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly ungrateful." Her cousin, St. John, wants to marry her and make her a missionary's wife. She refuses to marry him because they do not love each other. She realizes that loveless marriage is prostitution. As Mr. Rochester offers her real love, she goes to him at Ferndean and finds him blind. As he is blind, she takes the role of a partner and marries him. She achieves a social connection. She develops from a powerless and isolated young girl to an intellectually independent woman who defies social class and marries a wealthy upper-class gentleman.

Thus, Jane’s character development follows a Bildungsroman form. She rejects society’s restrictions, gender roles and wants equality just like men do in the nineteenth-century Victorian society.

• Bring out the autobiographical elements in Charlotte Bronte's “Jane Eyre”. [NU. 2010, 2014, 2016, 2020]

/Critically comment on the autobiographical elements in Jane Eyre.

/Would you consider Jane Eyre as an autobiographical novel?

Jane Eyre is subtitled "An Autobiography" and clearly draws on many of the author's own experiences, particularly in early life. There are some strong personal autobiographical elements in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane's physical appearance, tragic death of Helen Burns, Thornfield Hall, chestnut tree, Lowood School and her experience as a governess have been derived from Charlotte's personal life. Bronte has infused, in Jane, much of her personality and intimate sorrows.

Early Orphanhood: The protagonist, Jane Eyre, experiences the loss of her parents at an early age, just like Charlotte Bronte. Jane’s parents died when she was a baby, and she was left in the care of her cruel aunt, Mrs. Reed. Similarly, Charlotte Bronte’s mother passed away when she was five years old, and her father, a clergyman, died shortly after. Both Jane and Charlotte lived with and were raised by their aunts. Both of them endured grinding pain during their childhood days.

Lowood School: Jane Eyre, like Charlotte Brontë, is left motherless at an early age and sent away to a school she hates. The harsh discipline and religious hypocrisy of Lowood School in the novel are based on Cowan Bridge School for Clergy Daughters. Helen Burns met premature death at Lowood School. Her tragic death from tuberculosis recalls the deaths of two of Brontë's sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, who accepted the same disease during their time at Cowan Bridge. Conditions at the school were poor, and fever constantly broke out at the school. In the novel, Charlotte criticizes the Cowan Bridge using it as the basis for the fictional Lowood School.

Becoming a Governess: The Bronte sisters worked as governesses and teachers, which brought them in contact with various aspects of the then contemporary society. This experience is reflected in Jane’s occupation as a governess at Thornfield Hall, teaching Mr. Rochester’s ward, Adele. Thornfield. Hall, the house of Mr. Rochester in the novel, Jane Eyre, is similar to the country house of Charlotte Bronte. There is an orchard at Thornfield Hall. There also grew a huge chestnut tree which had been struck by lightning.

Moor House: At Moor House, we meet Jane, Diana Rivers and Mary Rivers. Their characters are similar to Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte and Anne Bronte.

Reunion with Family: Jane’s reunion with her estranged family mirrors Charlotte Bronte’s reconnection with her siblings after separation due to their schooling and work.

Happiness and Marriage: Jane and Bronte found love in unconventional places: Jane in Mr. Rochester, a man twice her age and Bronte in Constantin Heger, an elderly man with wife and children. The novel’s ending, where Jane finds love, happiness, and equality with Mr. Rochester, reflects Charlotte Bronte’s dreams of finding a loving partner despite societal limitations.

To conclude, we can say that all of Brontë's experiences have been transferred to Jane's life in Jane Eyre. But all the elements of the novel are not autobiographical. The lives of Charlotte and her Jane are remarkably similar in many ways. This similarity arises from the fact that the source material of the novel was predominantly Charlotte’s own experiences. The very title of the work suggests links between the protagonist and the author.