JANE
Early Jane:
- “I cry because I am miserable”
- “Picture of passion”
- “I should not like to belong to poor people”
- “My tongue spoke words without my will consenting to their utterance”
- “They are not fit to associate with me”
Treatment of Jane:
- “You are less than a servant”
- “You ought not think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed”
- "Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she's like a mad cat."
“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You
think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart!”
“I like rudeness a great deal better than flattery. I had rather be a thing than an angel.”
● At least things are real
● Doesn’t want to be a compliant wife who will just look beautiful
● Rochester tried to dress her up
“Women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their
efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a
stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and 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.”
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent
will, which I now exert to leave you”
● Rochester often called her pet names such as “lamb”, she is defying him and proving
her freedom
“Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive smile either”
“Mr Rochester, I will not be yours”
, ROACHYstair:
● “And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?”
“For whom, sir?”
“For the men in green”
● “I envy you, your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted
memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite
treasure—an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?”
● “You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly.”
● “Fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic lantern...mere shadows of
human forms, and not the actual substance”
● “I dare not show you where I am vulnerable”
● “Am I a liar in your eyes?' He asked, passionately. 'Little sceptic, you shall be
convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None, and that you know. What love
has she for me? None, as I have taken pains to prove”
● “I summon you as my wife”
● “Shall live with me there and only me”
● “For man’s opinion - I defy it”
● “I will attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair; and
I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil”
● “Bigamy is an ugly word!—I meant, however, to be a bigamist;
Mrs Reed
● “Unchanged and unchangeable”
● “Opaque to tenderness, insoluble to tears”
● “Her household and tenatry were thoroughly under her control”
● “I told you not to go near her; she is not worthy of notice;”
● “Miserable cruelty”
● “Robust frame, square-shouldered and strong limbed”
● “It was her nature to wound me cruelly”
Helen
● ‘It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself”
● “We must all die one day”
○ Accepts death