About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Jane Eyre

Encyclopedia : J : JA : JAN : Jane Eyre

This article is about Jane Eyre, the novel. For other versions, see Jane Eyre (musical) or Jane Eyre (opera)
230px
One of the most famous novels of all time, Jane Eyre, An Autobiography was written by Charlotte Brontë and published in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, London.

Charlotte Brontë first published Jane Eyre under the pseudonym Currer Bell, and it was an instant success, earning the praise of many reviewers, including William Makepeace Thackeray, to whom Charlotte Brontë dedicated her second edition.

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story is that of a governess, Jane Eyre. Despite her plainness, she captures the heart of her enigmatic employer, Edward Rochester, but soon discovers he has a secret that could jeopardize any hope of happiness between them.

Contents

Plot summary

The narrator and main character, Jane Eyre, is a poor orphan with a joyless life as a child in the opening chapters. Her wealthy aunt, the widowed Mrs. Reed, have agreed to take care of Jane after her parents' deaths. However, she and her children are unkind to Jane, never failing to emphasize how she is below them. Jane's plain, intelligent, and passionate nature, combined her occasional "visions" or vivid dreams, certainly does not help to secure her relatives' affections.

When tensions escalate, Jane is sent to Lowood, a boarding school run by the inhumane Mr. Brocklehurst. She is soon is branded a liar, which hurts her even more than malnutrition and cold, but Miss Temple, the teacher Jane admires, later clears her of these charges. She also finds her only friend in Helen Burns, who is very learned and intelligent, has a patient and philosophical mind, and believes firmly in God. She is also hated by Mr. Brocklehurst who claims she is a bad child because she is imcompetent and often late. She accepts these faults, and teaches Jane to do so in order to improve her fiery temper and character. While Jane responds to the injustices of the world with a barely contained burning temper, Helen accepts earthly sufferings, including her own premature death from consumption (TB), with calmness and a martyr-like attitude.

After a serious typhoid fever epidemic occurring simultaneously with Helen's death, the conditions in Lowood improve as Jane slowly finds her place in the institution, eventually becoming a teacher. When Miss Temple marries and moves away, Jane decides to change careers. She is desperate to see the world beyond Lowood and puts out an advertisement in the local paper, soon securing a position as governess in Thornfield Hall.

At first, life is very quiet with Jane teaching a young French girl, Adélè, and spending time with the old housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax. But everything changes when the owner of the manor—brooding, Byronic, fiery Edward Rochester—arrives. Though on rough footing at first, he and Jane slowly become acquainted with and respect each other. Mr. Rochester creates an elaborate set-up by seemingly courting a proud local beauty named Miss Blanche Ingram until Jane cannot bear it any longer. Mr. Rochester then admits that his courtship of Miss Ingram was a ruse to arouse Jane's jealousy and that it is she whom he truly loves. His feelings are returned, and they become engaged despite their differences in social status, age, and experience. Jane is young and innocent at nineteen years old, while Rochester is nearly forty—worldly, and thoroughly disillusioned with life and religion. Jane is determined to stay modest, plain, and virtuous, and Rochester is almost equally determined to offer her expensive presents and finery. The former has the moral high ground, though, and the weeks before the wedding are spent mostly as she wishes.

The wedding ceremony is interrupted by a lawyer, who declares that Mr. Rochester is already married. His mad wife Bertha Mason, a Creole from Jamaica whom he had to marry to secure an estate, resides in the attic of Thornfield Hall, and her presence explains all sorts of mysterious events that have taken place during Jane's stay in Thornfield. Mr. Rochester offers to take her abroad to live with him, but Jane is not willing to sacrifice her morals or self-respect for earthly pleasures, let alone accept the status of mistress, even though Rochester insists Jane will break his heart if she refuses him. Torn between her love for Rochester and her own integrity and religion, Jane flees Thornfield in the middle of the night, with very little money and nowhere to go.

She wanders for a few days and finally finds safe haven, under an alias, with a vicar, St. John Rivers, and his two sisters. They bond, and in due course Jane is given a position as village schoolteacher. Later, St. John learns Jane's true identity, and, in an incredulous coincidence, it transpires that he and his sisters are actually her cousins. Additionally, Jane conveniently inherits a large sum of money from an uncle who lived abroad. The cousins are left without inheritance because of an old family feud, but she promptly splits the money so that all four of them are now financially secure. This gives St. John the means to pursue his true calling, to go to India as a missionary, but not without proposing marriage to Jane in order for her to accompany him. Though this is her opportunity to choose a husband of high morals, she knows St. John does not truly love her. Counter to her protest, he insists they are to be married if they are to go to India. Jane nearly succumbs to his proposal, but at the last minute, in another supernatural fashion, she hears Rochester's voice calling her in the wind, and feels the need to respond to it.

Jane immediately travels to Thornfield Hall, only to find it abandoned and ruined by a devastating fire. She learns that Mr. Rochester lost a hand, an eye, and the sight of the other eye as a result of trying to unsuccessfully save Bertha from the flames, of which she was the cause. Upon acquiring the knowledge of his location, at a cabin called Ferndean, she sets off for it. She and Mr. Rochester reconcile and marry, for he has adopted love and religion. She writes in the perspective of ten years after their marriage, during which she gave birth to a son and Mr. Rochester gained part of his sight back. Jane's long quest to find love and a sense of belonging is finally fulfilled. The book ends with a look at the noble missionary death of St. John Rivers far away in India, most likely representing the righteousness of the path Jane did not take.

Spoilers end here.

Background

The early sequences, in which the orphaned Jane is sent to Lowood, a harsh boarding school, and witnesses the death of a close friend, Helen Burns, are based on the author's own experiences: two of her sisters died in childhood as a result of the conditions at their school, the Clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge. These chapters contain what is considered by many to be some of the most beautiful rhetoric in the English language.

Criticism

Some speculate that Rochester's wife, Bertha, the daughter of a Jamaican planter, is emphatically characterised as being in an advanced stage of syphilitic infection: e.g. "her vices sprang up fast and rank," "her excesses had prematurely developed the germs of insanity," etc. This would possibly entail that Rochester was also syphilitic, a train of logical consequences which Brontë fails to follow to the conclusion . However, Rochester tells Jane that he was tricked into marrying Bertha by her family, who wanted to get rid of her because she was insane. If Bertha was indeed syphilitic, she may have contracted the disease before she met Rochester.

However, others think that the "mad wife" is merely a plot contrivance, in place to force Jane to make a very difficult decision and to teach her a valuable lesson about herself ("I have no family or friends, who cares what happens to me? Who cares if I breach moral and ethics? — I care. I matter.") . Bertha Mason is more a powerful symbol than an actual medical case. Also, it is clearly stated that Bertha was not faithful in her marriage .

Wide Sargasso Sea

Perhaps the harshest critique of Jane Eyre comes from a proposed "prequel" Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), by Jean Rhys, which places Bertha Mason at the center of the story.

In this novel, Bertha, or Antoinette, is driven insane by Mr. Rochester's rejection of both her and her Creole heritage.

Wide Sargasso Sea was also adapted as a play by Melbourne theatre collective Whistling in the Theatre.

Related works

The relationship between Rochester and Bertha also inspired Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca as well as the famous film adaptation, Rebecca starring Lawrence Olivier.

Another, more recent, use of Jane Eyre has been in The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. In 2002, Sharon Shinn published a science fiction novel adapted from the plot of Jane Eyre, Jenna Starborn.

The novel's plot also served as the basis for the (1943) horror movie I Walked with a Zombie.

Film and television adaptations

Jane Eyre has engendered numerous film and television adaptations [link]:

Notable film versions

Notable television versions

Additional versions

  • Four adaptations appeared in Hollywood in 1910, 1914a & 1914b, and 1921.
  • The novel, Jane Eyre, was the basis for The Castle of Thornfield (1915) and Woman and Wife (1918).
  • It was also released in 1926 in Germany as Waise von Lowood, Die (Orphan of Lowood).

Quotes

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: