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A LEVEL ENGLISH LITERATUREJane Eyre
Brief Introduction:
Jane Eyre tells the story of the eponymous heroine (an eponymous hero or heroine is the
character in a play or book whose name is the title), in first person narration. We travel with
Jane through her misery at the neglect and mistreatment at the hands of her aunt and cousins;
away to school with its hardships, friendships, and lessons; off to work, first as a teacher in the
school, then as a governess for the brooding Mr Rochester; and through her growing intimacy
with Rochester, with its joy and despair, before a terrible revelation sends her running away
into the unknown.
Orphaned as an infant, Jane Eyre lives with at Gateshead with her aunt, Sarah Reed, as the
novel opens. Jane is ten years old, an outsider in the Reed family. Her female cousins,
Georgiana and Eliza, tolerate, but do not love her. Their brother, John, is more blatantly hostile
to Jane, reminding her that she is a poor dependent of his mother who should not even be
associating with the children of a gentleman. One day he is angered to find Jane reading one of
his books, so he takes the book away and throws it at her. Finding this treatment intolerable,
Jane fights back. She is blamed for the conflagration and sent to the red-room, the place where
her kind Uncle Reed died. In this frightening room, Jane thinks she sees her uncle's ghost and
begs to be set free. Her Aunt Reed refuses, insisting Jane remain in her prison until she learns
complete submissiveness. When the door to the red-room is locked once again, Jane passes
out. She wakes back in her own room, with the kind physician, Mr. Lloyd, standing over her
bed. He advises Aunt Reed to send Jane away to school, because she is obviously unhappy at
Gateshead.
Essay Questions
1. How does Jane Eyre challenge the class structure of British society? (How does the use of a
governess as a protagonist allow the novel to criticise these structures? Consider the factors of
education, background, wealth, and gender.)
2. Helen Burns, St. John, and Mr. Brocklehurst represent three possible approaches to religion.
(How does the novel represent each of these characters? What does Jane learn from each of
them? What is the relationship between gender and religion? What is the relationship between
class and religion? How do these three characters fit with the developing theme of personal
freedom? What obstacles do they represent?)
Quotations
, “You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama 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.” John Reed
"Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent." Mrs Reed
“Well might I dread- well might I dislike Mrs. Reed, for it was her nature to wound me
cruelly…Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart.” Jane Eyre
“You think I have no feelings, and that I can live without one bit of love or kindness; but I
cannot live so; and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back – roughly
and violently thrust me back into the red-room, and locked me up there” Jane Eyre
“I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with
Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little
did I love them.” Jane Eyre
“I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak
like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women
I saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the
village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of
caste.” Jane Eyre
"Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been observed in every
arrangement connected with the establishment of Lowood: plain fare, simple attire,
unsophisticated accommodations, hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in
the house and its inhabitants." Mr Brocklehurst
“It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a
hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides,
the Bible bids us return good for evil.” Helen
“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs” Helen
"I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on
the wind then faintly blowing." Jane Eyre
“To this crib I always took my doll. Human beings must love something, and , in the dearth
of worthier objects of affection I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded
graven image, shabby as a miniature scare-crow” Jane Eyre
"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have
action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom
than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many
rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people
earth." Jane Eyre
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