What does the ending of
Jane Eyre mean?
For many readers, “the blackened ruin” which
Jane finds when she returns to Thornfield, and the
blinded, scorched and charred Rochester she
seeks out at Ferndean, represent the vanquishing
of the novel’s sexual energies. “Mr Rochester’s sex
passion is not ‘respectable’,” said D.H. Lawrence,
“till Mr Rochester is burned, blinded, disfigured
and reduced to helpless dependence.
Why does Jane return to
Rochester?
The portion of the novel which recounts Jane’s
time as a parish schoolteacher at Morton, and her
connection with the Rivers family, is often
neglected, especially in film or television
adaptations, as being irrelevant or at best
secondary to the central love story. But this
episode does not simply fill in gaps in the plot or
delay Jane’s climactic return to Rochester.
Why does Jane leave
Rochester?
“All self-sacrifice is good,” wrote George Eliot, on
reading Jane Eyre, “but one could like it to be in a
somewhat nobler cause than that of a diabolical
law which chains a man body and soul to a
putrefying carcase.
Where is sex in Jane Eyre?
What is love?
To the first question the answer often seems
simply: “sex is in Bertha” – albeit imperfectly
contained – or “in Rochester”, the two obviously
sexual creatures of the book. If Bertha seems to
offer a cautionary illustration of the dangers of
excessive sexual appetite, Rochester’s example is
much more equivocal.
Why is Bertha so
important?
In the deep shade… a figure ran backwards and
forwards… Whether beast or human being… it
snatched and growled… gazed wildly at her
visitors… [At] Mr Rochester… the lunatic sprang
and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her
teeth to his cheek: they struggled.
What is the significance of
Jane’s role as governess?
The crimson curtain hung before the arch: slight
as the separation this drapery formed from the
party in the adjoining salon, they spoke in so low a
key that nothing of their conversation could be
distinguished…
“Why, I suppose you have a governess for
[Adèle]: I saw a person with her just now – is she
gone? Oh, no! there she still is behind the window-
curtain. You pay her of course.”
What makes Rochester
such a distinctive hero?
When Rochester arrives at Thornfield on a “tall
steed” whose “rude noise” breaks the evening calm,
accompanied by a “great dog” – “a lion-like creature
with long hair and a huge head” (12) – he thunders
into Jane’s life as if destined to fulfil his role as
powerful masculine incumbent of secluded,
brooding Thornfield, with its “chill and vault-like
air”, “dark and spacious staircase”, “long cold
gallery” and “wide hall” hung with likenesses of
“grim” personages and an oak-carved ebony clock.
The “narrow, low, dim passage” of the third storey
strikes Jane as resembling “a corridor in some
Bluebeard’s castle”; and here, while Jane’s
imagination prepares itself for a creature from fairy
tale – “As this horse approached… I remembered
certain of Bessie’s tales wherein figured a North-of-
England spirit” – the villain-hero himself seems
about to appear through the dusk.
What does Jane learn at
Lowood?
“Is she going by herself ? ... What a long way!”…
The coach drew up… I was taken from Bessie’s
neck, to which I clung with kisses.
What happens in the red
room?
Jane’s incarceration in the red room occupies only
several pages of the book, but, like the window
scene in which Catherine Earnshaw begs “Let me
in – let me in” in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering
Heights – also centred on an excluded child figure
– it is one of the most iconic moments in Victorian
fiction, supercharged with a significance which
haunts the remainder of the book.
What kind of heroine is
Jane Eyre?
Early in Chapter One, the son and heir of the
family in which Jane is growing up, John Reed,
bullies Jane into recognition of her subordinate
position in the household.
What kind of novel is
Jane Eyre?
The straightforward answer to this is a fictional
autobiography. The closest match in Jane Eyre’s
own experience to Charlotte Brontë’s is, famously,
her early schooling. In 1824, Charlotte, aged eight,
and Emily, aged six, joined their sisters Maria and
Elizabeth at Cowan Bridge boarding school.
What is Jane Eyre about?
In outline, Jane Eyre is a love story; a Cinderella
fable, depicting the transformation from forlorn,
neglected childhood to happy, prosperous
marriage; the ancient story of thwarted lovers who
overcome obstacles and are finally united.
A summary of the plot
The novel opens at Gateshead Hall where
orphaned 10-year-old Jane is the adopted child of
her Aunt Reed. Neglected and emotionally
rejected by her aunt, Jane is cruelly treated by her
cousins, Eliza, Georgiana, and John, especially
the latter. After one incident, where Jane
uncharacteristically retaliates, she is locked in the
red room in which her Uncle Reed had died and
suffers terrifying delusions.
The publication of Jane Eyre on 16th October
1847 was a milestone in the history of the English
novel. An instant popular success, it was reviewed
in countless magazines and journals, and
everywhere praised for its exceptional originality
and riveting power.
