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and June of 1848 when she and her two
surviving sisters, Emily and Anne, emerged quite suddenly as
successful novelists.


  At the time, literary society in England was a very small
world.  For a complete unknown to publish a successful novel was
relatively unusual.  For three unknowns to manage it in a single
year was unheard of.  Naturally, everyone was curious about
them, though normally the curiosity would have died down as soon
as a new subject for gossip came along.  But an aura of mystery
surrounding the identity of the Brontes kept them a subject of
interest for much longer than that.  In all innocence, the three
sisters had chosen to publish their books under male pen
names--as Currer (Charlotte), Acton (Anne), and Ellis (Emily)
Bell.  They did this partly to escape the prejudice against
women novelists and partly to avoid embarrassing friends and
acquaintances who might find themselves portrayed in the novels.
As it turned out, the pen names only helped to make the Brontes
more famous.  Everyone was wildly eager to figure out the true
identities of Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell.  Were they really
men?  Or if they were women, why were they pretending to be men?
There was even a rumor, encouraged by Emily and Anne's
publisher, that the three authors were one and the same
person.

  By the time the truth became widely known, Emily and Anne
were dead.  Charlotte was the only Bronte who became a literary
celebrity during her own lifetime, but all three sisters were
well on their way to becoming cult heroines.

  Unlike many writers who achieve instant fame, the Brontes'
books have stood the test of time.  Two of the three books
published during that ten-month period in 1847-48--Charlotte's
Jane Eyre and Emily's Wuthering Heights--are still widely read
and enjoyed today.  Anne's novel, Agnes Grey, has never been as
popular, but its admirers are often the most enthusiastic of
all.  One highly respected critic even called it "the most
perfect narrative in English prose."

  Precisely because the Brontes led such limited lives, many
readers have been quick to jump to the conclusion that their
novels are highly autobiographical.  Where would three young
women--who had done little traveling and knew only a few
people--get their material, if not out of their own lives?
Trying to reconstruct Charlotte Bronte's private life from
scenes in her books has become almost a game.

  It's true that Charlotte Bronte, like all writers' borrowed
from her own experiences.  But it's a mistake to think that
Charlotte Bronte was Jane Eyre.  There are almost as many
differences between Charlotte and her famous heroine as there
are likenessess.  For one thing, Jane Eyre finds her happiness
only through love and marriage.  The real Charlotte Bronte found
her fulfillment in her dedication to writing.

  There are other differences, too.  Jane Eyre is an unloved
orphan.  But Charlotte Bronte, although her mother died when she
was only five, had a father, a loving aunt, and older sisters to
care for her.  We don't know very much about Charlotte's
relationship with her father.  Some biographers think that he
was cold and eccentric.  Others say that he was a domineering
man who did his best to make sure his daughters wouldn't become
independent enough to marry and leave home.  But no one can be
sure if either of these theories is true.

  In 1824, eight-year-old Charlotte and her sister Emily joined
their two older sisters at Cowan Bridge, a school for the
daughters of clergymen.  Many readers of Jane Eyre have wondered
whether Cowan Bridge was really as terrible as Lowood, the
school described in the novel.  Charlotte Bronte apparently
thought it was, although some former pupils of Cowan Bridge
later came forward in its defense.  One thing we know for sure
is that the teachers at Cowan Bridge were in no hurry to contact
parents when their pupils fell ill.  Both of Charlotte's older
sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, came down with tuberculosis in
1825, and by the time the school notified Mr.  Bronte, the girls
were gravely ill.  Maria died a few days after her return home,
Elizabeth a few months later.

  After this double tragedy, the surviving Bronte children were
kept at home, where they were taught by their Aunt Branwell.  In
their free time, the three sisters and their brother, also
called Branwell (it was his middle name) invented complicated
fantasies and produced tiny, handwritten books.  Many children
still indulge in this form of make-believe, but writing down
one's own fantasies was far more common in the days when
children had fewer books and no television to entertain them.
What made the Brontes unusual was that for them the world of
make-believe became more important than anything else.  Emily
and Anne were mainly involved in writing stories about an
imaginary island in the Pacific, called Gondal.  Charlotte and
her brother concentrated on spinning tales about Angria, a
fantasy kingdom in West Africa populated by immigrants from
England and France.  Charlotte was in her mid-twenties before
she finally gave up creating new episodes in the lives of these
imaginary characters.

  In 1830, Mr.  Bronte fell ill.  Ironically, since he
recovered to live to an advanced age, the lives of his three
daughters were made miserable from that time on by the fear that
their father would die and they would be left to support
themselves.  (Even more ironically, Mr.  Bronte outlived all his
children.) The next year, Charlotte was sent to school again.
Roe Head, as the school was called, was a very pleasant place,
not at all like Cowan Bridge.  While Charlotte was an excellent
student and made two lifelong friends during her two years at
Roe Head, she was too shy to feel completely at ease in
unfamiliar surroundings.  After leaving school in 1832, at the
age of sixteen, she spent most of the next ten years at home.
The only exceptions were a two-and-a-half-year period when she
went back to Roe Head as a teacher while first Emily and then
Anne were pupils there, and two brief stints as a governess that
lasted only about ten months altogether.

  Unlike her sister Emily, who never tired of hiking the
windswept moors around the Bronte home in Yorkshire, Charlotte
longed for travel and a more active life.  Since her experiences
as a governess had been unhappy ones, she decided that perhaps
she and Emily should open a school of their own.  Her plan
called for them to prepare by going to Belgium to brush up on
their knowledge of foreign languages.  Charlotte was already
twenty-six when she and her sister entered the school of
Monsieur and Madame Heger in Brussels, and she was soon teaching
English lessons as well as studying.  Emily went home after a
year, but Charlotte stayed on until 1843, when for some reason
the relationship between herself and Mme Heger became tense.
Judging from some letters she wrote, it seems that Charlotte had
fallen in love with M.  Heger.  Had he returned her affection?
Probably not.  The theme of an impossible love affair--with a
married man, a teacher, in one case even a Belgian
teacher--keeps coming up in Charlotte Bronte's novels.  Many
readers can't help concluding from this that M.  Heger was the
great passion of Charlotte's life.  But we can't be sure.

  Less than two years after Charlotte's return home, her
brother Branwell was involved in a scandal.  As the only boy,
Branwell had been the focus of the whole family's hopes for
worldly success.  Charlotte, in particular, had always believed
that her brother was the true genius of the family.  The devoted
sister was the last to see what was obvious to everyone else:
Branwell was a total failure.  Not only had he never carried
through on his ambition to become a painter, he was an
alcoholic, a gambler, and eventually a drug addict.  Anne, the
only sister who had managed to persevere with her career as a
governess, had arranged a job for Branwell as a tutor with the
same family she worked for.  Branwell repaid the favor by
getting involved in a messy affair with the lady of the house,
Mrs.  Robinson.  In the end, both he and Anne were sent away in
disgrace.

  By 1845, it seemed that all of the Brontes' hopes and plans
had come to nothing.  Branwell was an idle drunk, whose periodic
rampages disrupted the peace of the house.  Charlotte and
Emily's school never got past the planning stage, and all three
sisters were at home again.  Only then, as a last resort, did
the Bronte women begin to think seriously about writing for
publication.  Jane Eyre was actually Charlotte's second novel
(her first, The Professor, wasn't published till years later),
but it came out before either of her sisters' books and paved
the way for their success.  Some critics have a hard time
understanding how Charlotte, many of whose childhood Angria
stories are quite awful, could have developed into the mature
writer who produced Jane Eyre.  However, in one way there is a
direct connection between those private childhood fantasies and
Jane Eyre:  Unlike most writers of her time, Charlotte didn't
claim to be presenting an objective view of society.  And she
could identify with people who were the outsiders in Victorian
society--children, poor relatives, powerless employees of rich
families, women in love with men who did not--or could not--love
them in return.  Today it's quite common for a novel to be
intensely personal.  In 1847, when Jane Eyre appeared, it was a
daring departure, perhaps more daring than even Charlotte
realized.

  Charlotte's naivete about literary society is shown by an
incident that occurred shortly after Jane Eyre was published.
William Thackeray, a successful and socially prominent novelist,
wrote Charlotte a letter praising her book, and in gratitude she
dedicated the second edition to him.  Charlotte may have been
the only literary person in England who didn't know that
Thackeray, like Mr.  Rochester in Jane Eyre, had a wife who was
insane.  To make matters worse, Thackeray had just published a
novel about a scheming governess who tries to seduce her
employer.  Gossips put two and two together and decided that the
author of Jane Eyre had been having an affair with Thackeray!

  As this incident shows, women novelists in the 19th century
were expected to be personalities--either romantic adventuresses
or eccentrics.  Charlotte confounded everyone by being neither.
She impressed the people who met her as being small,
ordinary-looking, and rather shy.  Nor, despite the passionate
pleas for women's independence in her books, was she much
interested in becoming a feminist crusader.  All she did, or
wanted to do, was to write good books.  Instead of giving up in
disappointment, some of her admirers became all the more curious
and continued to pick through Charlotte's novels in search of
clues to hidden mysteries in her past.

  In 1854, Charlotte did the one thing that could have
surprised her intimate friends and her public alike--she got
married!  Charlotte had received two marriage proposals when she
was in her twenties--one from a man she barely knew and another
from a clergyman who made no secret of the fact that he was
proposing on the rebound after being rejected by another young
woman--but she had always taken it for granted that she would
never marry.  How could she hope to find a husband who'd
understand her need to write or who'd measure up to the romantic
heroes of her imagination?  Oddly enough the man Charlotte
finally chose to wed was neither her literary equal nor a
brooding hero in the mold of Jane Eyre's Mr.  Rochester.  He was
Arthur Bell Nicholls, a sober curate (assistant minister) who
had been quietly in love with Charlotte for several years before
he even knew that she was the author of the celebrated novel,
Jane Eyre.  Though not an intellectual himself, Bell was
apparently quite proud to discover that the quiet middle-aged
woman he had fallen in love with was a literary genius.  And
Charlotte, to the dismay and skepticism of some of her admirers,
had decided that she could combine a career as the author of
unconventional novels with a very conventional married life.

  Charlotte seemed about to do just that.  She was already
pregnant when, after less than a year of marriage, she fell ill
and died of tuberculosis--the same disease that had killed her
sisters and brother.

  Charlotte's early death provided the drama that many of her
readers had looked for, and failed to find, in her life.  Some
biographers have portrayed Charlotte as a tragic heroine, who
walked around shrouded by an aura of gloom, constantly
preoccupied by the subject of death.  But when you consider the
number of early deaths in her family, it's surprising that
Charlotte worried as little about death as she did.  In spite of
her withdrawn, introspective childhood, Charlotte managed to
lead a productive and fulfilled life.  She completed four
novels, coped with the stress of sudden fame, and at the age of
thirty-eight decided to embark on a career as a wife and mother.
According to her biographer and friend, Mrs.  Gaskell (see the
Further Reading section of this guide), Charlotte Bronte refused
to believe, almost to the end of her last illness, that she was
going to suffer the same fate as her four sisters and her
brother.  When she heard her husband at her bedside praying to
God to spare her life, Charlotte's reaction was surprise.  "Oh,
I am not going to die, am I?" she asked.  "He will not separate
us; we have been so happy."

^^^^^^^^^^
JANE EYRE:  THE PLOT

  Jane Eyre is the story of a poor, orphaned girl's search for
love.  In the first part of the novel, Jane is ten years old and
living, none too happily, at Gateshead House with Mrs.  Reed,
her uncle's widow, and the three Reed children--Eliza,
Georgiana, and John.  John is a bully, and when Jane fights back
after he throws a book at her head, Mrs.  Reed blames her for
starting the fight and lying about it.  As punishment, Jane is
shut up in an empty bedroom--called the red-room, where she has
a terrifying experience that she interprets as a visitation from
the ghost of her dead Uncle Reed.  A few months later, Mrs.
Reed turns Jane over to a gloomy death-obsessed clergyman, Mr.
Brocklehurst, who runs a charity school for the daughters of
poor churchmen.  She tells him to watch Jane carefully, because
the girl is a liar.

  Lowood, the charity boarding school, is a dismal place.
There is never enough to eat, and the girls are forbidden even
the smallest pleasures in the name of teaching them Christian
humility.  Jane makes friends with a sweet-natured, pious girl
named Helen Burns, who tells her that they ought to bear their
sufferings at the school with patience.  Helen never shows
resentment, even when she becomes the favorite target of the
school's nastiest teacher, Miss Scatcherd.  But when Mr.
Brocklehurst humiliates Jane by repeating Mrs.  Reed's charge
against her in front of the whole school, she rebels.  She talks
the school superintendent into getting a letter from the Reed
family apothecary (who treated Jane after her ordeal in the
red-room), which clears her name.

  When spring comes, the school is swept by a typhus epidemic.
About half the girls fall ill, and some even die.  Helen, too,
is ill, but from consumption (tuberculosis).  When Jane sneaks
into Helen's room for a visit, she is shocked to find her friend
has only a few hours to live.  Helen dies in Jane's arms,
proclaiming her steadfast faith in God.

  As a result of the epidemic, Lowood comes under
investigation, and conditions at the school are improved.  Jane
stays on, as a pupil and later as a teacher, until she is
nineteen years old.  Jane has become a dear friend of Miss
Temple, the school superintendent, and when she leaves her job
to get married, Jane decides that the time has come for her to
leave as well.

  Jane is hired as a governess by a Mrs.  Fairfax, who lives in
a substantial but rather gloomy country manor-house, Thornfield
Hall.  Only after she has moved in does Jane realize that Mrs.
Fairfax is only the housekeeper.  Jane becomes quite fond of her
only pupil, a saucy little French girl named Adele Varens.  Yet
there is an aura of mystery about the house--the master, Mr.
Edward Rochester, is seldom at home, and from time to time Jane
hears eerie laughter coming from one of the locked rooms on the
third story of the house.  Mrs.  Fairfax tells her that this is
Grace Poole, an otherwise taciturn servant who spends much of
her time sewing in that part of the house.

  One wintry night, Mr.  Rochester returns unexpectedly to
Thornfield.  He is a dark, brooding man in his late thirties,
with an abrupt, imperious manner.  Jane first meets him on the
road, after he's been thrown from his horse, and offers him help
without realizing who he is.  Later, back at Thornfield, when
Rochester asks her if she thinks he's handsome, Jane is
outspoken enough to say, truthfully, "No, sir." Instead of being
offended, Rochester is intrigued and charmed by the boldness of
the new governess.  There is already a rapport developing
between the two of them when, one night, Jane awakens to the
sound of the eerie laugh just outside her bedroom door, smells
smoke, and discovers that someone has set fire to the hangings
around Mr.  Rochester's bed.  She douses the flames with a
pitcher of water.  The way Rochester holds Jane's hand after he
awakens suggests feelings that go beyond mere gratitude, but she
slips away and returns to her room.

  The next day, Rochester is gone.  He stays away two weeks,
and when he does return he brings with him a party of house
guests for an extended stay.  Among the guests is a Mrs.  Ingram
and her two daughters, Blanche and Mary.  Its obvious that the
handsome Blanche is doing her best to snare the affections of
Mr.  Rochester, but Jane can only suffer her jealousy in
silence.  One day during the house party, two strange things
happen:

  1.  Mr.  Rochester disguises himself as a gypsy woman, and
pretending to tell her fortune, tries to find out whether Jane
cares for him.  She is wary, however, and doesn't reveal her
true feelings.

  2.  Jane is awakened in the middle of the night by calls for
help coming from the third floor of the house.  The calls are
from Mr.  Richard Mason, an unexpected visitor who had arrived
from Jamaica earlier that day.  Mr.  Rochester asks Jane to stay
with Mr.  Mason while he rides to town for the doctor.  Jane
observes in horror that Mason is bleeding heavily from stab and
bite wounds.  Judging by his frantic cry--"She sucked my
blood!"--he's been attacked by Grace Poole.

  Before the house party ends, Jane is called back to Gateshead
to the bedside of the dying Mrs.  Reed.  Mrs.  Reed confesses
that three years ago the brother of Jane's dead mother had
written from Madeira saying that he wanted to adopt Jane and
make her his heir.  Out of spite, Mrs.  Reed wrote back to the
uncle, John Eyre, telling him that Jane died of typhus at Lowood
School.

  Jane returns to Thornfield, where it is expected that Mr.
Rochester will soon marry Blanche Ingram.  On Midsummer Eve,
however, when Rochester tells Jane that he will have to find her
another job after his marriage, she breaks down and reveals her
love for him.  Then he admits that it's she whom he's loved all
along and asks her to marry him.

  Two nights before the wedding, Jane awakes to find a strange
woman standing over her bed--not Grace Poole, but someone far
more frightening, with a swollen, blotchy face and wearing a
shapeless white shift.  The strange woman tears Jane's bridal
veil in two and stomps on it.  Rochester assures Jane that the
stranger must have been Grace Poole and that her hideous
appearance was only a nightmare.

  It's the day of the wedding.  The ceremony has already begun
when it is interrupted by two men--Richard Mason and a lawyer
from London, Mr.  Briggs.  Briggs announces that Rochester
already has a wife, Bertha Mason, who is already living at
Thornfield!  Rochester confesses that his wife, hopelessly and
violently insane, lives in the locked rooms on the third floor
of the house.  Mr.  Briggs then reveals that he works for Jane's
uncle, Mr.  John Eyre, who knew the Mason family and was
determined to keep his niece from making a bigamous marriage.
(Jane had written to tell him she was getting married.)

  Rochester tells Jane that he never loved Bertha and only
married her at the urging of his father, who wanted his son to
have a rich wife.  Because the symptoms of Bertha's insanity
were concealed from him before the wedding, he feels that the
marriage was never morally valid.  (Under the laws of England he
cannot obtain a divorce.) He asks Jane to run away to France
with him and live as his mistress.  She refuses.

  Early the next morning, Jane flees Thornfield, traveling as
far away as she can on the little money she has.  Hungry and
destitute, she is taken in by two sisters, Diana and Mary
Rivers.  Their brother, St.  John (sin'jun) Rivers, gets Jane
work teaching at a charity school in the parish where he is a
clergyman.

  Fearful of scandal, Jane has not told her new friends her
correct last name.  Some months later, when St.  John discovers
her true identity by accident, he realizes that she is his
missing cousin, Miss Eyre!  What's more, he tells Jane that her
uncle John Eyre has died and left her a fortune of twenty
thousand pounds.  Jane decides to share the money with St.
John, Diana, and Mary, who have been so kind to her and who are
the family she has always yearned for.

  St.  John is a pale, cold man who brags to Jane that he is
overcoming the tendencies of his earthly nature in order to
prepare himself for a life of missionary service in India.
Among the temptations he overcomes is his love for Rosamund
Oliver, a beautiful and wealthy girl who wants to marry him.
Because he thinks that Jane, plain and used to hardship as she
is, would make a better missionary's wife, St.  John proposes to
her.  Jane, after much inner struggle, rejects this offer of a
cold, loveless marriage and decides that the time has come for
her to find out what has become of Rochester.

  But when Jane returns to Thornfield, she discovers that the
house has been destroyed in a fire.  Mad Bertha, who started the
conflagration, leaped to her death from the burning roof of the
house and Rochester, who was trying to rescue her, lost his left
hand, one eye, and the sight in his remaining eye.

  Jane seeks out Rochester at Ferndean, the isolated hunting
lodge where he has been living a hermit's life.  Reunited, they
realize that they are still deeply in love and decide to marry.
In the concluding chapter of the story, we learn that Jane and
Rochester have been married for ten years and are idyllically
happy.



^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  JANE EYRE

In creating the character of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte did
something that was very daring at the time:  She presented her
readers with a heroine who was not beautiful!  In the first half
of the 19th century, readers took it for granted that the
heroines of novels were supposed to be beautiful, just as we
assume that a high fashion model will be slender and glamorous.
But Jane Eyre is described as small and plain, a rather
mousy-looking young woman who will never be transformed into a
femme fatale or a romantic beauty and has no interest in trying
to become one.

According to Charlotte Bronte's friend and biographer Mrs.
Gaskell, even Charlotte's own sister Emily had her doubts about
this decision.  Who'd want to read about the adventures of an
ordinary-looking heroine?  What could possibly happen to such a
character that would be interesting to anyone?

A few early readers of the novel did react in exactly the way
Emily predicted.  One famous critic obviously had Jane Eyre in
mind when he complained that the reader who purchased a novel
only to find that its heroine was "an ugly lady" was the
"victim" of a fraud.  For the most part, however, Charlotte
Bronte's gamble was successful.  She had guessed correctly that
her readers, whatever their own situation, would find it easy to
identify with a character who had doubts about her looks and her
attractiveness to others.  Today we aren't surprised by a novel
whose heroine is not only an outsider, but also a young woman
who can't count on beauty to make life easier for her.  In fact,
the "small, plain" heroine of Jane Eyre has been copied so often
that she has almost become a cliche.  We have to keep reminding
ourselves that Jane is the original of the character that we
meet so often in romance novels.

Jane Eyre's physical appearance wasn't the only feature that
made her an unusual heroine in her day.  Charlotte Bronte also
broke with custom in insisting that a female character could be
the emotional equal of a man.  Writing in an era when many
people seriously doubted that women were capable of strong
emotions, Charlotte Bronte created a heroine who was deeply
passionate and felt a need for adventure, excitement, and even a
desire for work that matters in the larger scale of human
accomplishment.  For this reason, even though Jane Eyre is a
love story told from a woman's point of view, it also appeals to
many male readers.

Jane's vivid imagination and strong emotions are the basis of
her strength as a character, but we're also told that Jane's
being "too passionate" is also a fault.  How can this be?
You'll find different answers to this question:  Jane finds it
hard to forgive people who treat her unjustly; she's carried
away by her love for Mr.  Rochester--even to the point of making
him her "idol"--before she knows very much about his past or his
true character; and even with St.  John, whom she doesn't love,
Jane is so susceptible to his influence that she almost makes a
decision she knows to be wrong for her.

There are always a few readers who feel disappointed when Jane,
the rebel, ends up as a conventional wife and mother, totally
devoted to her much older husband.  You will have to read the
story carefully in order to decide for yourself how much Jane's
character changes over time.  Is the mature woman, Jane Eyre,
still basically the same personality as the child we meet in
Chapter 1?  Does becoming a wife mean that Jane has given up her
emotional independence?  Or has she found a new and more
meaningful way of expressing herself in her relationship with
Mr.  Rochester?

Most readers agree that Jane Eyre is a strong, compelling
character.  There is much more disagreement about the other
characters in the novel.  How believable are they?  Can you
accept them as real people in their own right?  Or are they
two-dimensional figures, who have no life of their own outside
of Jane's perceptions of them?

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  MR.  EDWARD ROCHESTER

There are two main areas of controversy over the character of
Mr.  Rochester.

The first argument has to do with his morals.  Under English law
at the time, a man whose wife became insane could not get a
divorce.  Mr.  Rochester deals with this problem by hiding his
mad wife away in the attic and trying to trick Jane into a
bigamous marriage.  When he is found out, and the wedding
canceled at the last minute, he then asks Jane to run away to
France with him and live as his mistress.

Some readers are shocked by Rochester's actions.  How could Jane
ever love such a person?  they ask.  How could she ever forgive
him for deceiving her?

On the other hand, Rochester has his champions.  These readers
agree with Rochester when he argues that his first marriage was
not a "real" marriage at all; it's just a legal technicality
that he can't get a divorce.  From this point of view, Jane
should have agreed to go off to France with him.  If she had
done so, Rochester would never have been horribly wounded in the
fire at Thornfield--and, incidentally, there would have been no
story!

How you feel about Rochester's action will depend on your views
on personal responsibility.  Even though Rochester didn't know
his wife was insane, was he partly to blame for marrying a woman
he hardly knew, just because she had money and the match was
favored by his own father?  Was Rochester justified in believing
he had a right to happiness, even if it meant deceiving the
woman he loved?

Another controversy has nothing to do with Mr.  Rochester's
morals.  Good or bad, is he believable?  Some readers find
Rochester quite realistic.  They point out that many writers of
Charlotte Bronte's day, men as well as women, would have been
tempted to turn Mr.  Rochester into a cardboard villain.
Instead, Rochester is a man who has human weaknesses, but who is
still worthy of love and forgiveness.  However, there is another
group of readers which does not find this view convincing in the
least.  One critic, David Cecil, complained that Rochester is
"no flesh and blood man," but merely a fantasy lover as seen
through the eyes of a naive and inexperienced young girl.

Here's something that might help you in making up your own mind
about him:  Mr.  Rochester belongs to a definite fictional
type--the Byronic hero.  This type, based on the work and life
of the poet Lord Byron, is a proud, cynical rebel who refuses to
submit to the rules of society.  A true Byronic hero always
labors under some sort of a curse.  Often there is a taint of
sin or scandal in his past which becomes forgivable only when we
understand the true circumstances, which have been hidden from
the rest of the world.  Byronic heroes are usually handsome, but
like Lord Byron himself, who was lame, they may have a physical
handicap that only increases their sex appeal.  Also, though
outwardly he's a cynic, the Byronic hero is secretly an
idealist.  His sensitivity can only be revealed, however, when
he manages to find a superior woman who can understand his true
nature.

As you read the book, or when you're thinking back over it, try
to find some of the ways in which Mr.  Rochester fits this
description.  For instance, he tells Jane that his various
mistresses were only distractions from his ten-year search for
his "ideal of a woman" (Chapter 27).  On the other hand, also
look for ways in which Charlotte Bronte tried to go against the
type.  Mr.  Rochester is not at all handsome (or, at least, her
heroine doesn't think so).  And we often see him in very
un-Byronic, and even ludicrous situations--falling off his
horse, for example (and that's the first time we see him!), or
dressing up in a silly gypsy's costume in order to try to find
out whether Jane loves him.  In the beginning, Rochester is the
worldly older man who teases Jane Eyre about her elflike nature.
But soon enough, he admits that her influence over him is very
real.  "You master me," he tells Jane in Chapter 24.  And by the
end of the story, he has come around to accepting her view of
morality and her belief in God.

Charlotte Bronte certainly seems to have intended Mr.  Rochester
to be a realistic character.  In a letter to her publisher,
Bronte wrote:  "Mr.  Rochester has a thoughtful nature and a
very feeling heart; he is neither selfish nor self-indulgent...
[he] errs, when he does err, through rashness and
inexperience....  He is taught the severe lessons of experience
and has the sense to learn wisdom from them.  Years improve
him....  Such, at least, is the character I meant to portray."


You'll have to decide for yourself whether this description fits
the character you meet in the pages of Jane Eyre.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  MR.  BROCKLEHURST

When Jane Eyre was first published, the obvious resemblance of
the character of Mr.  Brocklehurst to the real Rev.  Carus
Wilson, whose school Charlotte and her sisters attended, created
a sensation.  Many of Mr.  Wilson's friends and former pupils
rushed to his defense, accusing Charlotte Bronte of exaggerating
the hardships at the school and unfairly accusing Mr.  Wilson of
hypocrisy (particularly since, unlike the character of
Brocklehurst, Mr.  Wilson did not have a wife and daughters who
lived in luxury).

Whether or not Charlotte Bronte was fair to Mr.  Wilson,--it
would be hard to argue that Mr.  Brocklehurst is a well-rounded
creation.  However, it is interesting to know that Bronte was
being entirely realistic in the scene where Mr.  Brocklehurst
threatens ten-year-old Jane with hellfire for her childish
misbehavior.  In real life, the Reverend Mr.  Wilson not only
forbade his pupils to read novels, he expected them to read
stories he wrote himself about the horrible things that happen
to little boys and girls who disobey.  In one typical story, a
little boy violates the Sabbath by going ice skating on Sunday.
What happens?  He promptly falls through a patch of thin ice,
drowns, and goes to hell.  And in a true account of an
eleven-year-old who died while a student at his school, Mr.
Wilson wrote that his reaction was one of rejoicing that God had
taken one of the best-behaved children in school--"the one for
whose salvation we have the best hope"--since her death may "be
the means of rousing many of her schoolfellows to seek the Lord
while he may still be found."

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  HELEN BURNS

Unlike Mr.  Brocklehurst, who is a "a harsh man; at once pompous
and meddling"--the very picture of a religious hypocrite--Helen
Burns is meant to be sympathetic.  Not everyone finds her so.
For every reader who admires Helen's saintliness and weeps at
her death, there will be another who decides that Helen is too
good to be true.

Before you jump to the conclusion that the episodes involving
Helen are sentimental and unconvincing, you should remember that
in those days the death of children was a fairly common fact of
life.  People in general were much more aware of the possibility
that they might die at any time.  Not everyone was as gloomy as
Mr.  Brocklehurst, by any means, but both adults and children
talked openly and often about death to a degree we might find
almost morbid.  We know that Charlotte Bronte had a real-life
model for Helen in her own sister Maria, who fell ill at Cowan
Bridge school and died a few days after being sent home.  And,
ironically, at the very time that Charlotte Bronte was writing
about Jane Eyre's failure to see the seriousness of Helen's
consumption, she was ignoring the early symptoms of the disease
in herself, her brother, and her two sisters.

Even knowing this, maybe you still find yourself wondering
whether any real child ever talked the way Helen Burns does in
the story.  The way Helen is described, she is by no means
without faults:  she has dirty fingernails, breaks the school
rules by reading novels in secret, and so on.  Yet you may feel,
as some readers do, that in the conversations between Jane and
Helen about religion, the author has lost touch with her
characters and is setting up an artificial debate between two
different philosophical view-points.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  BERTHA MASON ROCHESTER

Mr.  Rochester's first wife is hardly a full-fledged character
at all.  We see her only as a ghostly figure, who roams the
halls of Thornfield house in the middle of the night, setting
fire to her husband's bed and frightening Jane.  In this sense,
Bertha is nothing more than an unusually realistic and effective
horror story monster.  Jane actually sees Bertha only twice:
once when Bertha invades her bedroom in the middle of the night,
and once in Chapter 27 where Bertha is described as follows:
"What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at
first sight, tell:  it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it
snatched and growled like some strange wild animal..." In
support of the view that Bertha is nothing more than a device
for moving the plot along, notice that even Mr.  Rochester's
description of her earlier life is curiously vague and
unsympathetic.  Also, once the time comes for Jane and Rochester
to be reunited, Bertha conveniently commits suicide in the fire
she starts at Thornfield Hall.

In recent years, feminist critics have become more interested in
what the person Bertha Mason means in the story of Jane Eyre.
In their view, Helen Burns represents the spiritual side of Jane
Eyre's nature while Bertha Mason symbolizes her uncontrolled
passion.  Note that in Chapter I, when Jane resists John Reed's
bullying, he calls her a "bad animal." And in Chapter 2, Jane is
locked in the red-room bedroom because her behaviour has been so
"passionate."

Bertha Mason has also fascinated modern women novelists.  Jean
Rhys' The Wide Sargasso Sea is an entire novel written about the
youth and early marriage of Rochester's mad wife.  Another
contemporary novel, Doris Lessing's The Four-Gated City, while
not explicitly based on Jane Eyre, concerns a modern
housekeeper, romantically involved with her employer, who
discovers that his mentally ill wife lives in the basement of
the house.  You might find it interesting to compare
20th-century views of the mad wife in these novels with the
Bertha Mason we meet in Jane Eyre.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  ST.  JOHN RIVERS

Just as Edward Rochester is the foil and object of Jane Eyre's
passion, St.  John (sin'jun) is the character who reflects
Jane's sometimes contradictory ideas about duty and
spirituality.  St.  John is constantly described in terms of
images of coldness:  He is called cold-hearted and frigid.  "His
reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed
beneath it...  he continually made little chilling differences
between us..." Jane says (Chapter 34).  At times St.  John seems
to take a perverse pleasure in torturing himself.  He ignores
the inner voices that tell him he's made a wrong decision in
entering the ministry.  Although "wildly" in love with the
beautiful, rich Rosamond Oliver, he finds an excuse to reject
her.  He seems to relish the prospect of dying young in the
tropical heat of India.  On the other hand, Jane cannot help
admiring St.  John for his dedication.  While she is planning to
spend her new fortune in leisure at Moor House, St.  John is
preparing to renounce everything to go out into the world and do
good works.

Notice that St.  John is often described in a way that recalls
characters we've met earlier in the story.  St.  John reminds
Jane of a "cold, cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place." Mr.
Brocklehurst is described as "a black pillar" (Chapter 4).  Like
Brocklehurst, St.  John subscribes to a grim view of religion,
which he seeks to impose on others.  But is St.  John also a
hypocrite?  Some readers say no.  Unlike Brocklehurst, he is
prepared to follow the same harsh rules he would prescribe for
others.  Others disagree.  Who but a hypocrite, they say, would
try to convince a woman to marry him by telling her that it is
the will of God?  St.  John wants Jane's total devotion, but is
willing to give nothing in return.

St.  John is also frequently compared to Helen Burns.  "Burn" is
a Scottish word meaning "stream" or "brook"; St.  John's last
name is Rivers.  According to this interpretation, Helen, a
child, is able to submit to God's will directly and simply.  St.
John, an adult, cannot submit to God's call except through an
intense struggle, which destroys a part of himself.

Some readers even see certain likenesses between St.  John and
Mr.  Rochester.  Although opposites in temperament, both men do
try to trick Jane into marriage--Rochester by hiding the
existence of his wife and St.  John by convincing Jane that she
must marry him for the sake of duty.  Both are also described as
frequently moody and withdrawn.  Are these similarities
purposeful?  Probably so, although a few readers have suggested
that Charlotte Bronte simply did not have a wide repertoire when
it came to male characters on account of her own narrow
experience with men.  (Bronte was so sensitive to this
particular criticism that she began her next novel, Shirley,
with a scene in which all of the characters are male.)

There is no one correct judgment on St.  John.  If you are
religious, you'll probably admire his struggle to turn himself
into an instrument of God's will.  If you are interested in
psychology, you're probably more likely to conclude that he
hasn't really conquered his earthly desires, just rechanneled
them in another direction.  Jane Eyre's own judgment of St.
John swings dramatically from one scene to the next.  In
rejecting St.  John's proposal of marriage she tells him
angrily, "You almost hate me.  If I were to marry you, you would
kill me.  You are killing me now." Yet not long after, in a
calmer mood, she tells Diana Rivers, "He is a good and great
man:  but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of
little people, in pursuing his own large views."

The final paragraphs of the novel present yet a third view of
St.  John, comparing him favorably to Greatheart, the Christian
warrior in Pilgrim's Progress:  "Firm, faithful, and devoted;
full of energy and zeal, and truth, he labours for his race....
He may be stern; he may be exacting:  he may be ambitious yet;
but his is the sternness of Greatheart....  His is the exaction
of the apostle, who speaks for Christ when he says--'Whosoever
will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross
and follow Me.'"

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  MISS MARIA TEMPLE

The superintendent of Mr.  Brocklehurst's school.  Miss Temple
befriends Jane, yet you may ask yourself whether she does all
she can to stand up to Mr.  Brocklehurst's stern edicts, She is
a sympathetic character but perhaps not a strong one.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  THE REED FAMILY

John Reed, the bully who attacks Jane in Chapter 1, grows up to
lead an immoral life and commits suicide while still in his
twenties.  As for the unloving Mrs.  Reed and her two
unattractive daughters, Eliza and Georgiana, some readers have
noticed that they resemble the wicked stepmother and stepsisters
in Cinderella.  If so, then it's interesting to see that by
Chapter 21, when Jane returns to visit Gateshead, the Reeds have
already lost their power to make her miserable.  Why?  Has
falling in love transformed Jane into a Cinderella after the
ball?  Or is some other change in Jane's character
responsible?

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  MRS.  FAIRFAX

The housekeeper at Thornfield is a reassuring figure--neat,
sensible, and cheerful.  Some readers have also noted, however,
that Mrs.  Fairfax is also a weak link in the plot.  Although
she runs the mansion and supervises the servants, Mrs.  Fairfax
is supposedly unaware that Mr.  Rochester is keeping his insane
wife on the third floor of the house.  Do you find this
believable?  The novel is vague about how much Mrs.  Fairfax may
have suspected, and you will notice that, after the truth about
Bertha Mason is revealed, Mrs.  Fairfax drops out of sight.  It
would be interesting to hear how she might explain her ignorance
of the secret of the house, but we never get the chance.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  BLANCHE INGRAM

No characterization in Jane Eyre has been the target of as much
negative criticism as that of Blanche Ingram.  Blanche is an
elegant young lady from a titled family who flirts outrageously
with Mr.  Rochester and, for a time, hopes to marry him.  You
will notice that Blanche is described as being tall, with an
excellent figure and a complexion "as dark as a Spaniard." This
might sound to you like the description of a beautiful woman,
but you will find that Charlotte Bronte, who was as tiny and
pale as Jane Eyre herself, rarely has a good word to say about
women who are either large or dark-skinned, or both.  Blanche
sprinkles her conversation with affected French phrases; she
makes fun of another houseguest, Mrs.  Dent, who knows less than
she does about botany; and she pouts openly after Rochester,
dressed as a gypsy, leads her to believe that he's not rich
after all.

Some readers, including many who read Jane Eyre at the time of
its publication, have considered Blanche a fair representative
of the spoiled, aristocratic belles of her day.  Others can't
help suspecting that the portrait of Blanche has been distorted
by Jane's--and perhaps even the author's own--feelings of
jealousy.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  SETTING

In the 1840s, when Jane Eyre was written, there were very few
ways in which an educated woman could earn her own living.  Poor
girls might go to work as a house servant or in a factory, but
the conditions in these jobs were so bad, and their status so
low, that no young woman from a "good" family would consider
these alternatives except in extreme desperation.  That left
teaching, usually as a governess with a wealthy family, as just
about the only respectable occupation.

Governesses lived with the families they worked for, so they
lived in fairly comfortable surroundings.  However, their cash
wages were very low, so their work gave them no real financial
independence.  For the most part, they led lonely and
unsatisfying lives.  Their status was higher than that of the
other servants--and too much mixing with the help was frowned
on!--yet they weren't accepted as part of the family either.
Unless a governess happened to be unusually attractive, her
chances of finding a husband were slim.  Most marriages at the
time were based on family connections or financial
considerations, and an educated woman with no dowry had almost
no chance of getting married.  Since they didn't have much hope
of saving money out of their low salaries, all that most
governesses could look forward to was a lonely and uncertain old
age, dependent on the kindness of the families they had
served.

There had been governess-heroines before Jane Eyre, but they
were portrayed as plucky and beautiful--an outsider's fantasy of
the independent woman.  Jane Eyre was the first successful look
at the reality of the governess's life.  It's not really
necessary to know much about the 19th century in order to enjoy
the story of Jane Eyre, but you'll understand some of Jane's
actions a little better if you keep in mind that she's a
governess.  Jane Eyre is a plain-looking young woman who has
been in an all-girl school since she was ten years old.  She
hasn't had any chance to learn about the ways of gentlemen like
Mr.  Rochester or about the male sex in general.  By the
standards of the time, Jane is quite bold in talking to Mr.
Rochester as an equal.  But when she realizes that his interest
in her is romantic, she has to assume that it's not marriage he
has in mind.  This explains why she is very cautious about
revealing her feelings for him.  Also, although she works for
Mr.  Rochester for some months, Jane has very little cash of her
own.  When she goes to visit the Reeds, Rochester gives her
extra money for the trip.  And when she decides that she must
leave Thornfield rather than become his mistress, Jane has only
twenty shillings to her name--just enough money to pay her fare
for a two-day trip to a distant part of England.

Governesses were working women.  But their security and freedom
were very precarious.  This is why Jane Eyre is powerfully drawn
to the possibility of becoming dependent on a man--either
through becoming Mr.  Rochester's mistress or St.  John Rivers'
wife.  Yet at the same time, she is also afraid, because her
decision, once made, will be forever.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  THEMES

How can I find someone to love me?  And how can I tell whether
the person who loves me is worthy of being loved in return?  All
of us ask ourselves these questions.  For Jane Eyre, the heroine
of this story, the prospects of finding happiness in love don't
seem very good.  At the beginning of the novel, Jane is a poor
orphan.  Her only known relatives, the Reeds, do not want her.
She isn't a pretty girl, and perhaps more important, she doesn't
have the knack for pleasing people.  As a child, Jane is starved
for affection.  "If others don't love me, I would rather die
than live!" she tells Helen, her only true friend.  Yet part of
her problem in winning the love of others is that she is "too
passionate"--that is, angry, rebellious, and prone to retreat
into her own richly imaginative inner world for solace.

Even though circumstances are against Jane, she isn't ready to
settle for a man's love on any terms that are offered.  She's
deeply skeptical of organized religion, but she believes in God.
She also has a strong sense of pride and self-respect.  So she
can only be happy with a man if she can reconcile that love with
her love of God and her love for herself.  That's a tall order!
To fill it, Jane must be prepared to struggle, both against
external circumstances and with her own failings and
weaknesses.

All readers agree that Jane Eyre is a love story.  However, they
often disagree about just what kind of a love story it is.  Many
readers are impressed by Jane Eyre's insistence on emotional
equality with her lover and see a feminist message in the story.
They point to the strong feminist views expressed by Jane in
Chapter 12, where she says, "Women are supposed to be very calm
generally:  but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise
for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as
their brothers do..." Other readers feel that Jane's search for
a way to reconcile her need for love with her search for a way
of life acceptable to God is the most important idea in the
story.  And still others find it hard to take either the social
or religious aspects of the story very seriously.  For them, the
elements of mystery, horror, and thrilling emotional extremes
make the book a romantic fantasy.  A fourth point of view is
that Jane Eyre is a story about the problems of growing up as an
outsider without the support of family or a recognized place in
society--a story rather like Dickens' David Copperfield, except
that the main character happens to be female.

In reading Jane Eyre, you may find that just one of these views
matches your own reactions to the story.  Or you may find
yourself deciding that Jane Eyre fits more than one of these
categories.  Jane Eyre is a very personal book, and it affects
different readers in different ways.

One thing is certain:  Jane Eyre is a novel that's meant to be
enjoyed, not just picked apart to search for hidden meanings.
For well over a century, readers of both sexes, all ages, and
widely different educational backgrounds have been entertained
by the novel's gripping story.  An understanding of the themes
and literary artistry of the novel can deepen your pleasure.
However, you don't need any special kind of knowledge in order
to understand and identify with the story of Jane Eyre's search
for love.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  STYLE

Many readers think that Charlotte Bronte's writing style is her
greatest weakness.  The style of Jane Eyre is highly charged
with emotion, almost feverish in its intensity.  You'll find
sentence after sentence stuffed with lush adjectives and sensual
images.  Sometimes the words almost seem to have spilled out
onto the page in a headlong, uncontrolled rush of feeling.  From
time to time, you may even feel that the author has lost track
of what she means to say.  One sentence often mentioned as an
example of this occurs in Chapter 15, where we read of Mr.
Rochester:  "Pain, shame, ire--impatience, disgust,
detestation--seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in
the large pupil dilating under his ebony eyebrow." If all this
is going on in just one of Rochester's eyes, what can possibly
be happening to the other?

If you are the sort of person who prefers writers who are always
in control of their prose, and who can describe subtle shadings
of emotion, you may find that you become impatient with
Charlotte Bronte's style.  Bronte is often compared negatively
with Jane Austen, whose writing is more restrained, allowing for
sharp and witty observations of character and social mores.

On the other hand, most readers agree that the prose style of
the novel fits very well with the headstrong, emotional
character of the narrator, Jane Eyre.  Would you find it easy to
believe that Jane was a "passionate" person if she told her
story in cool, elegant language?  Wouldn't you be more skeptical
about some of her frightening experiences at Thornfield if they
were told that way?  It's possible to be critical of some
aspects of Charlotte Bronte's writing and still feel that, on
the whole, it's her style that draws readers into the conflicts
of the story.  Because the language is emotionally powerful,
we're able to identify with Jane Eyre, instead of simply
pronouncing judgments on her personality.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  POINT OF VIEW

Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative, related in the voice of
the protagonist, or heroine.  Jane Eyre is the "I" of the story,
the person whose voice we hear as we read, and everything that
happens is seen from her point of view.  Nowhere in the novel
does the author break the flow of the narrator's voice to give
us an objective view of her main character.  However, she does
remind us once in a while that the story is being told by Jane
as a mature woman, looking back on events that happened some
years earlier.  The mature Jane occasionally comments on the
younger Jane's reactions to those events, and sometimes she even
addresses you, the Reader, directly.  You'll also find occasions
where her narrative includes long stories told to Jane by other
characters (such as Rochester's accounts of his past),
conversations that Jane overhears between other characters, and
even accounts of Jane's dreams.  These not only add variety to
the style but give the reader a chance to check up on the
truthfulness of the narrator.

It's important to remember that in a first-person narrative like
Jane Eyre we know only what the main character tells us.  You
may well suspect as you read that Jane's opinions aren't always
entirely objective--another sort of person might see the events
of the story and the personalities of the various characters in
an entirely different light.  This isn't necessarily a weakness
in the novel; in fact, it may be one of its strengths.

But you'll truly enjoy Jane Eyre only if you feel a basic trust
in the narrator.  For the novel to be a success for you, you
must be able to imagine that, in Jane's shoes, you might well
have felt and acted as she did.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  FORM AND STRUCTURE

Jane Eyre is the story of one young woman, told in her own voice
and in chronological order, as it happened.  In this sense, the
structure of the novel is very simple.  One critic, Robert
Bernard Martin, has gone a step farther in analyzing the form of
Jane Eyre.  He compares the novel to a five-act play, divided
according to the five different places where Jane lives during
the course of her life--the Reeds' house, Gateshead; Lowood
school; Thornfield; Moor House; and Ferndean.  Each time Jane
Journeys to a new locale she's ready to begin another stage in
her emotional life, and her journeys are described in a way that
builds the reader's suspense.

On another level, however, the plot of Jane Eyre is very
complicated.  Suspense plays a large role in the story.  In
chapter after chapter, Jane finds an answer to one question that
has been bothering her only to be confronted with yet another
mystery or dilemma.  In the end, some of these questions are
resolved through melodramatic and highly improbable
coincidences.  Many of these coincidences are set in motion by
Jane's long-lost uncle, John Eyre--a character we're never told
about in the beginning of the story, and who never actually
appears in person.  Some readers feel that an author who
constructs a plot in this way is not quite playing fair with
them; they feel cheated.  Other readers don't mind at all.  And
a third group argues that since Jane Eyre is a novel that deals
with horror, the supernatural, and the secrets of the human
heart, we shouldn't hold the plot to the same standard of
probability we might demand in a more realistic story.  You'll
have to decide for yourself which view you agree with.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 1

As the novel opens, Mrs.  Reed, a well-to-do widow, is sitting
by the fireplace in her comfortable living room.  Around her are
her three children--Eliza, Georgiana, and fourteen-year-old
John.  A fat, spoiled bully, John is still his mother's
favorite.  She stuffs him with rich food and keeps him out of
school because she's convinced that he is too "delicate" to keep
up with his schoolwork.

Off to one side of the room is Jane Eyre, a ten-year-old orphan
who lives with the Reed family.  We can see right away what
Jane's life must be like--we learn that she's being punished for
the crime of not being cheerful enough.  Jane is an unloved,
unwanted child, an outsider in the only home she has ever known.
Jane wanders off to the next room and settles herself on a small
window seat.  Hidden from view behind the scarlet curtains that
decorate the window, Jane can read in peace.  Her book, Bewick's
History of British Birds, is filled with romantic illustrations
of the Far North--Norway, Siberia, the Arctic--and Jane's lively
imagination soon carries her away into her own fantasy world.


But she doesn't get to enjoy her book for long.  John Reed finds
Jane in her hiding place and demands that she give him the book.
At fourteen, he is already a tyrant.  He reminds Jane that he is
the young master of the house and that everything in it,
including the books, all belong to him--or will in a few years.
Jane, he says, is nothing but a penniless dependent who ought to
be out on the streets begging instead of living in comfort "with
gentleman's children like us." With that, he picks up the heavy
book and throws it.  She falls against the door and cuts her
head.

Jane has always been too afraid of John to stand up to him.
This time, however, she is furious.  "You are like the Roman
emperors!" she shouts, thinking of tyrants, such as Nero and
Caligula, whom she has read about.  Jane's willingness to defend
herself makes John lose all self-control.  He flies at her and
starts pulling her hair.  She feels a drop of blood trickling
down her neck, and it gives her the courage to fight back.  Just
as Jane starts hitting John, Mrs.  Reed rushes in, and of course
she jumps to the conclusion that Jane started the fight.  She
orders her to be locked up in an empty bedroom as punishment.
As Jane is being dragged out of the room by the nursemaid,
Bessie, and Mrs.  Reed's maid, Miss Abbot, she hears one of them
say disapprovingly, "Did you ever see such a picture of
passion!"

NOTE:  By this time--if you're like most readers--you're already
very much on Jane's side.  Weren't there times in your own
childhood when other children picked on you--and you ended up
taking the blame?  Is there anything more infuriating?  On the
other hand, you're a few years older--maybe you can see things
differently now.  If you have younger brothers or sisters, you
can see that children's fights are hardly ever completely
one-sided.

But as you read the first few chapters of Jane Eyre, notice how
quickly they pull us into a child's view of the world.  Thenarrator--Jane--is supposed to be looking back on something that
happened to her years ago, but she's just as angry as ever.  And
she makes us angry too.  She doesn't bother to wonder how the
incident must have looked from Mrs.  Reed's point of view, or to
ask whether John was really as bad as he seemed.  Some readers
feel that this is the best thing about Jane Eyre--it brings us
back to the strong emotions we felt as children.  But others say
that the job of the author is to give us a new perspective on
things, not just to reinforce a one-sided--and in this case,
childish--view of why people behave the way they do.

As you read on, remember that phrase "picture of passion" (it's
an old-fashioned way of describing a temper tantrum).  In future
chapters we're going to hear more, both good and bad, about
Jane's "passionate" nature.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 2

Kicking and screaming, Jane is hauled upstairs by Bessie and
Miss Abbot.  They're both shocked by her behavior, but their
reactions aren't quite the same.  Miss Abbot reminds Jane coldly
that she's "less than a servant," since she does nothing to earn
her keep in the house.  And she even threatens that if Jane
doesn't behave "something bad might come down the chimney and
fetch you away." Bessie is more sympathetic.  She urges Jane to
behave better in the future, but for her own good, so that Mrs.
Reed won't send Jane away to the poorhouse.

As punishment, Jane is locked up in the red-room--an unused
bedroom furnished with dark red drapes, a red carpet, and heavy
mahogany furniture.  The history of the room is even gloomier
than its furniture.  It was here, nine years earlier, that Mr.
Reed died and his body was laid out until the day of the
funeral.

NOTE:  Funeral homes weren't used in Victorian times.  The dead
were kept at home, sometimes for several days.

At first, thinking about Mr.  Reed makes Jane feel better.  Mr.
Reed was her uncle, her dead mother's brother, and Jane feels
sure that if he were still alive he'd treat her better than his
widow does.  She's heard that Mr.  Reed, on his deathbed, made
his wife promise to treat Jane as one of the family, and she
imagines how angry his spirit would be if it came back to earth
and saw that Mrs.  Reed is disobeying his dying wish.

By now it is twilight, the rain is beating on the window, the
wind is howling.  The room is dark and cold.  Little by little,
the thought of Mr.  Reed's ghost no longer seems so comforting.
What if it really did come back?

Suddenly, a beam of light shines through the room.  Jane's heart
beats faster.  She hears a strange sound, like the "rushing of
wings." She screams in terror.

Jane gets no sympathy from Mrs.  Reed.  She and Miss Abbot agree
that Jane is only pretending to be frightened so they'll let her
out of the room.  Her story about seeing a ghost is just another
lie--even worse than the lie she told about John Reed hitting
her first.  Mrs.  Reed locks Jane up inside the room again and
Jane immediately faints dead away.

NOTE:  Was Mr.  Reed's ghost really in the room?  In narrating
this episode, the adult Jane Eyre looks back on this frightening
moment in her own childhood and decides that there must have
been a rational explanation for everything.  For example, the
beam of light was probably caused by someone carrying a lantern
across the lawn outside the window.  But, like so many readers,
you may still feel that young Jane's fear was real--and a lot
more convincing than any attempt to explain it.

As you read on, you'll find that Jane Eyre often reads like a
horror story.  Weird and uncanny things are always happening to
Jane.  Charlotte Bronte doesn't ask us to believe literally in
ghosts.  But she does manage to keep us guessing.  How much of
what happens to Jane is real, and how much is the product of her
overactive imagination?

Haunted house stories, called Gothics, were very popular at the
time Jane Eyre was written.  The most famous of these, Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein, is still read today.  Like the authors
of these books, Charlotte Bronte uses the supernatural to
generate suspense and keep us turning the pages to find out what
will happen next.  But Jane Eyre goes a step beyond the horror
story.  By mixing real life and the supernatural, it keeps
asking questions:  Where do you find the line between the "real"
and the "unreal"?  Is there such a thing as a ghost?  What about
omens?  What about telepathy?  Or dreams that foretell the
future?  During the course of her story, Jane herself makes up
her mind about some of these things.  You don't necessarily have
to agree with her answers, but see if you think they make sense
for her.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 3

When Jane comes to, she is in the nursery with Bessie and Mr.
Lloyd, an apothecary.

NOTE:  In Victorian times, apothecaries, or pharmacists,
sometimes made house calls.  We're told that Mrs.  Reed calls a
medical doctor when she or her own children are sick, but lets
the apothecary treat Jane and the servants.  What does this say
about Mrs.  Reed?

Jane's fright in the red-room has left her so nervous that she
can't sleep or eat.  Bessie does her best to comfort Jane, but
you may wonder whether she might be doing more harm than good.
For example, Bessie has heard other stories about Mr.  Reed's
ghost and half believes that Jane really did see a spirit.  Even
though the story never says so, we can't help wondering whether
Bessie's ghost stories are partly responsible for putting these
ideas into Jane's head.  Bessie also tries to amuse Jane by
giving her a copy of Gulliver's Travels.  If you know anything
about this book--about a man who travels to lands populated by
giants and tiny people and other strange beings--you have to
wonder whether it is quite the thing to calm Jane down after her
frightening experience.

Mr.  Lloyd returns the next day.  He sees how unhappy Jane is
with the Reeds and wants to help her.  But when he suggests that
Jane might be better off going to live with some poor relatives,
she is horrified.  All Jane knows about poverty is what she's
learned from the Reeds--a stereotype of the poor as cruel and
degraded, hardly better than animals.  As bad as things are
where she is, she is not heroic enough to want to exchange her
situation for a life of poverty.

Mr.  Lloyd has another suggestion--that Jane might like to go
away to school.  Jane's notions of what boarding school would be
like are vague, but she imagines it's a place where young ladies
are taught to paint lovely landscapes and read books in French.
She tells Mr.  Lloyd that she would indeed like to be sent to
school.

Jane has never been told anything about her parents.  Now, late
one night, she overhears Bessie and Miss Abbot talking and
learns for the first time that her mother, the rich Miss Reed,
defied her family by marrying a poor minister, Mr.  Eyre.  Now
more than ever Jane feels a horror of poverty!  Her own mother
was never forgiven for the crime of marrying a poor man.  And
Jane is still paying the price of the Reeds' disapproval.

NOTE:  Many children fantasize sometimes that they're orphans.
If you're angry with your parents, it can be comforting to think
that they are not your real mother and father.  Maybe one of the
reasons for Jane Eyre's popularity over the years is that the
story brings such common fantasies vividly to life.  Think back
over the first three chapters and see if there other things that
not only remind you of experiences in your own childhood but
actually make you feel the emotions you felt at the time.
Remember, from Chapter 1, the blind rage Jane feels at being
blamed for her fight with John Reed, when it was he who threw a
book at her?  That's one example.  Can you find some others?


^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 4

One day, about three months after Mr.  Lloyd's visit, Mrs.  Reed
calls Jane into the breakfast room for an interview with a
stranger.  This turns out to be Mr.  Brocklehurst--a tall, thin
man dressed in black from head to toe.  Mr.  Brocklehurst
addresses Jane by bending over so that his face is just a few
inches away from hers and asking "Do you know where the wicked
go when they die?"

"What a face...!" thinks Jane, "what a great nose!  and what a
mouth!  and what large prominent teeth!"

NOTE:  Does this description remind you of someone?  What about
the wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood?" It is worth rereading this
scene just to see how the author suggests this comparison
without ever so much as mentioning the word wolf.  When Jane
first sets eyes on Mr.  Brocklehurst, he is so tall he looks to
her like a "black pillar." He is described as "sable-clad,"
which means dressed in black, although of course sable is also a
kind of fur, which is dark brown or black.  Later, Jane notices
other telling details, including Brocklehurst's bushy eyebrows
and his unusually large feet.

Even though she's taken aback by Mr.  Brocklehurst's morbid
questions, Jane doesn't let him get the best of her.  When he
asks her how she can avoid going to hell, Jane refuses to give
him the answer that she knows he wants.  Instead, she replies,
"I must keep in good health and not die."

NOTE:  We can't help silently cheering Jane on for having the
courage to talk back to the awful Mr.  Brocklehurst.  Even so
(and especially if you happen to be religious), you may not feel
quite satisfied with Jane's answer.  No matter how healthy we
may be, we still have to face death someday.  What then?  Jane
is soon going to learn that rebellions and a quick wit won't
help her to avoid some of life's grimmer tragedies.  Later on
she'll have to think beyond her hasty answer to Mr.
Brocklehurst's question.

Mrs.  Reed tells Brocklehurst that Jane is a deceitful child,
and he promises that his school, Lowood, will be just the place
to make Jane repent her bad habits.  Stung at hearing herself
called a liar, Jane waits until Mr.  Brocklehurst has gone and
then lashes out at Mrs.  Reed.  "I will never call you aunt
again as long as I live," she cries.  "I will never come to see
you when I am grown up....  People think you are a good woman,
but you are bad; hard-hearted.  You are deceitful!"

This outburst leaves Jane feeling a sense of triumph.  But not
for long.  Jane wants to be loved, but then she has to admit
that she is not very lovable.  She can't change the fact that
she's plain and awkward, but she does think often about changing
her behavior.  She's sure that her worst fault is that she is
"too passionate"--that is, she has strong emotions and isn't
good at disguising them to make herself more acceptable.  Only
Bessie disagrees with this view; the kind servantwoman loves
Jane enough to see the loneliness that underlies Jane's
rebellion.  She warns Jane not to be afraid to reach out and
show affection.  Jane responds by giving Bessie a warm good-bye
kiss.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 5

Jane's first day at Lowood School confirms her worst
expectations.  All of the girl students, who range in age from
nine to twenty years old, have to wear ugly brown dresses
covered by pinafores.  In the morning they wash in basins of ice
cold water.  All day long they're marched from place to place,
moving from meals to prayers to classes to the sound of clanging
bells and the voices of teachers commanding, "Silence!" The food
is terrible.  For supper on Jane's first night, the girls have
only a thin oat cake with water to drink.  At breakfast the next
morning, the porridge is so badly burned that Jane, although
terribly hungry, cannot bring herself to eat.

Miss Temple, who runs the school for Mr.  Brocklehurst, isn't a
bad person--in fact, she does what she can.  When noon comes,
for example, Miss Temple tries to make up for the awful
breakfast by ordering a special treat of bread and cheese for
the girls.  However, she doesn't have either the authority or
the courage to force Mr.  Brocklehurst to hire a better cook.
How you judge Miss Temple will depend on whether or not you
think it is right for a person to work within a bad system in
the hope of mitigating its evils.  Is Miss Temple helping the
girls at Lowood by making their lives a little easier than they
might otherwise be?  Or does Miss Temple only make matters worse
by staying at her job and keeping Mr.  Brocklehurst's system
running smoothly?

NOTE:  There's room for more than one verdict on Miss Temple's
character.  But what about the kind of "charity" practiced at
Lowood school?  Mr.  Brocklehurst doesn't believe in coddling
the poor.  In his opinion, the sooner the girls learn to put up
with hardship, the more self-reliant they will be in later life.
Today we still hear this point of view (maybe not quite as
extreme) every time the subject of poverty comes up:  Giving the
poor too much only makes them dependent on handouts.  There's no
doubt what Charlotte Bronte thought about this attitude.  She
stacks the deck against Mr.  Brocklehurst by making him as nasty
and hypocritical as possible.

We know what kind of charity the author is against.  But what
kind is she for?  Is she arguing in favor of social equality?
Or is she only condemning Mr.  Brocklehurst's self-righteous
attitude?

There are always a few readers who suspect the author herself of
being a bit hypocritical about poverty.  We're supposed to feel
very sorry for the "nice girls" at Lowood.  But what about poor
people who don't happen to come from "nice" middle-class
families?  Later in the book (Chapter 31) we'll see that Jane
herself is a little snobbish about her lower-class pupils.
You'll have to decide for yourself whether the attitude toward
charity in Jane Eyre is always consistent.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 6

Jane's first friend at Lowood is an older girl named Helen
Burns.  Helen loves reading, but the school's nastiest teacher,
Miss Scatcherd, constantly picks on her because she's dreamy and
a little clumsy.  Jane can't understand why Helen submits to
Miss Scatcherd's persecutions without complaining.  Helen quotes
the New Testament:  "Love your enemies; bless them that curse
you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you."


Jane argues that this attitude only encourages people like Miss
Scatcherd who enjoy picking on the weak.  "When we are struck at
without a reason," Jane argues, "we should strike back again
very hard; I am sure we should--so hard as to teach the person
who struck us never to do it again."

NOTE:  Submission or resistance?  Pacifism or self-defense?
Which is the best way to respond to evil?

Even Jane, the rebel, doesn't mean to say that she'd actually
hit a teacher.  She just means that she'd find some way to fight
back against unfair treatment.  Many readers feel that Jane is
right and that Helen is simply too good to be believable.  A few
even get angry at Helen; they argue that people who submit to
evil are cooperating with it.  Another view, probably closer to
Charlotte Bronte's own, is that Jane and Helen represent
opposite extremes, with neither being completely correct.  Jane
wants to fight every battle and is in danger of becoming a
bitter person.  Helen is moral, almost saintly, but perhaps not
very well prepared to survive in an imperfect world.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 7

After an absence of several months, Mr.  Brocklehurst pays a
visit to the school.  He begins by lecturing Miss Temple for
giving the girls extra meals of bread and cheese.  Then he
notices a girl who has naturally curly red hair, and he orders
that the barber come to cut it off the very next day.  Even
natural curls are forbidden at Lowood School!

Mr.  Brocklehurst's speech is interrupted by the arrival of his
wife and two daughters.  They're wearing silk and velvet, and
the girls have fancy beaver fur hats with ostrich plumes.  Their
hairdos are elaborately curled, and Mrs.  Brocklehurst is even
wearing a fashionably curly hairpiece!

Not at all bothered by this evidence of his hypocrisy,
Brocklehurst goes on to single out Jane Eyre, announcing to the
whole school Mrs.  Reed's charge that she is a liar.
Brocklehurst warns the other girls that Jane is such a bad
influence that they should not talk to her all day, and he
sentences her to stand for half an hour on the punishment stool
in the center of the room.  Jane is on the point of bursting
into tears, but Helen Burns finds an excuse to pass by where
Jane is standing and flashes her a smile of encouragement.
Helen may believe in obedience, but she is a loyal friend above
all.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 8

In spite of having Helen on her side, Jane can't get over her
humiliation at being singled out as a liar in front of the whole
school.  Helen tells her that no one will believe Mr.
Brocklehurst, and that Jane shouldn't worry too much about what
others think about her:  The important thing is that Jane's
conscience is clear.  Jane disagrees.  "If others don't love me,
I would rather die than live," she tells Helen.

Once again the two girls have a disagreement about values:
Which matters more--what other people think of you, or how you
feel about yourself?

Miss Temple comes looking for Jane and invites both girls to
come to her room.  As Helen predicted, Miss Temple finds it hard
to believe Mr.  Brocklehurst's charges.  More calmly than usual,
Jane tells her the true story of her life with the Reeds and
begs Miss Temple to write to Mr.  Lloyd, the apothecary, who can
confirm that Jane was never a bad girl, just miserable and
unwanted.  Miss Temple agrees.

Then she invites Jane and Helen to share her tea and buttered
toast.  The portions are tiny--even Miss Temple doesn't rate
high enough with the cook to get second helpings--but she brings
out a cake of her own.  Two hungry girls are in heaven.

NOTE:  In writing this scene, Charlotte Bronte must have been
thinking about her own days at Cowan Bridge school where the
pupils were served dry bread six days a week, with "a scraping
of butter" on Sundays.  In a place where neither the students
nor the teachers ever get quite enough to eat, Miss Temple's
invitation to tea is more than a casual gesture.  At last
someone in authority is giving Jane the approval she craves.


A week later Jane's triumph is complete when Miss Temple
announces to the entire school that Mr.  Lloyd has answered her
letter.  He takes Jane's side, and she's cleared of the charge
of lying.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 9

Jane has begun to settle down at Lowood and is working hard at
her studies.  But in late spring, the school routine is
interrupted by tragedy.  Forty-five of Lowood's 80 pupils fall
ill with typhus.  Ironically enough, the epidemic makes life
easier for the girls who are still healthy.  The teachers are so
busy tending the sick that there's plenty of free time, and
since so many girls aren't eating their regular meals, there's
enough food to go around.  Jane isn't even particularly worried
about the absence of her friend Helen.  She's been told that
Helen has consumption; Jane thinks this is a mild disease and
assumes that Helen is in no immediate danger.

NOTE:  Consumption is what's now called tuberculosis, and it was
very common in Charlotte Bronte's day.  It could be a long and
slow disease, but many of its victims were very young
people--remember, that's what all the Bronte children died of.
Today tuberculosis is fairly rare and can be treated, but there
was no cure for it then.

One day Jane sees the doctor leaving, and the nurse tells her
that Helen "will not be here long." Suddenly Jane understands.
The nurse doesn't mean that Helen is being sent home.  Helen is
dying!

Jane is told she can't see Helen, but she sneaks into her room
while the nurse is asleep.  Helen comforts her friend by telling
her that she doesn't mind the prospect of death.  "I have faith:
I am going to God," she says.

Jane is skeptical.  How can Helen be so sure of God's love when
he sends so much suffering her way?  "Where is God?" she cries.
"What is God?"

But Helen's faith can't be shaken.  The girls fall asleep in
each other's arms, and when Jane wakes up Helen is--dead.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 10

It's now eight years later.  As she looks back on this period of
her life, Jane recalls that the typhus epidemic led to many
changes for the better at Lowood.  The wealthy citizens of the
district decided to investigate conditions at the school and, as
a result, Mr.  Brocklehurst's power was reduced and many of his
harsh rules were eliminated or reformed.

Jane became one of the school's best pupils, and she's remained
on the staff as a teacher for the two years since her
graduation.  The unexpected marriage of Miss Temple, who has
been Jane's good friend and mentor, starts Jane thinking that
perhaps the time has come for her to leave Lowood and see
something more of the world.  She advertises in the newspaper
for a job as a governess and receives one offer of work--from a
Mrs.  Fairfax at Thornfield.  She decides to accept.

Just before Jane leaves to take up her new job, she receives a
surprise visit from Bessie.  The Reeds' servant, now happily
married, is very impressed by the way Jane has turned out.  "You
are quite a lady!" she exclaims when she learns that Jane can
read French and paint watercolors.  Bessie tells Jane that seven
years earlier a Mr.  Eyre, the brother of Jane's father, came
looking for her at Gateshead.  He didn't come to see Jane at
Lowood because he was sailing for the island of Madeira in two
days and didn't have time to make the trip to the school.  But
don't forget him; we'll hear more from this mysterious relative
later in the story.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 11

By the time Jane arrives at Thornfield, the house where she is
to work as governess, she is trembling with nervousness.  What
if Mrs.  Fairfax turns out to be another Mrs.  Reed?

Much to her relief, however, she finds that Mrs.  Fairfax is an
elderly lady, plainly but neatly dressed.  She welcomes Jane
kindly by ordering a plate of sandwiches from the kitchen.  Jane
is very surprised, and she's so naive about the ways of the
wealthy that she doesn't realize until the next day that Mrs.
Fairfax is not the lady of the house at all; she's the
housekeeper.

Jane's first impression of Thornfield is reassuring.  But there
are a few hints of mystery:  Mr.  Rochester, Thornfield's owner
and Jane's employer, isn't there, and Mrs.  Fairfax explains
vaguely that he's a "rather peculiar" man who spends much of his
time traveling.

Jane's only pupil is a little French girl, Adele Varens.  She's
outgoing and friendly and entertains her new governess by
singing an operatic song about a woman who has been abandoned by
her lover--a subject the prim Jane thinks is "in bad taste" for
a performance by a child of ten.  Adele is Mr.  Rochester's
ward, but Mrs.  Fairfax has no idea who the girl's parents are
or how she came into Mr.  Rochester's care--another mystery!


Finally, Mrs.  Fairfax takes Jane on a tour of Thornfield Hall.
She even takes her up to the roof to show off the view from the
battlements (ornamental balconies).  On their way down, Jane
notices that certain rooms on the third floor are shut off from
the rest of the house.  From behind one of the closed doors she
hears a loud, low-pitched laugh--one that sounds more tragic
than humorous.  Mrs.  Fairfax tells her it's most likely one of
the servants, a woman named Grace Poole, who often uses those
rooms for sewing.

NOTE:  Jane goes out of her way to tell us she didn't think the
laughter was ghostly or supernatural.  Does she convince you?
Maybe Bronte assures us that Jane is a sensible person, not
easily frightened, in order to make us wonder whether there is
something supernatural about the laughter?  This episode may
remind you of a scene in a horror movie where the hero or
heroine is unknowingly walking into a dangerous situation, but
we know that there's a monster lurking around the corner,
waiting to pounce.  In this novel, however, the author has more
than one extra twist up her sleeve.  For instance, Jane thought
she saw a ghost back in Chapter 2, so maybe she's not quite as
reasonable as she claims to be.  And of course the laughter
hasn't come from a ghost.  Everything in this story turns out to
be more complicated than we at first expect.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 12

Several months go by.  Jane is satisfied with her work, but she
finds the quiet life at Thornfield rather boring.  In her spare
time, she often goes up to the roof to walk along the
battlements and daydream.  Her everyday life may be dull, but
her imagination is constantly churning with dreams of adventure
in faraway places.  "It is vain to say that human beings ought
to be satisfied with tranquility," Jane tells us, "they must
have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it."

Sometimes she paces the corridor on the third floor, where she
often hears the eerie laughter that frightened her the first
time she came to this part of the house.  She finds it hard to
believe these sounds come from Grace Poole, who's an untalkative
but quite respectable-looking woman whenever Jane sees her in
the halls.

One wintry afternoon, Jane is on her way to the post office when
she stops on the hill above Thornfield to watch the sunset.
This peaceful scene is soon interrupted by the sound of
hoofbeats.  However, the first creature to appear out of the
woods is not a horse but a huge black-and-white dog with a head
like a lion's.  It crosses Jane's mind that perhaps she is
seeing a Gytrash--a supernatural being that attacks travelers
after dark.

This scare lasts only a few seconds.  Then a man on horseback
comes into view.  The horse slips on the icy road, the rider is
thrown to the ground, and Jane rushes to help him.  The stranger
isn't badly hurt, and he refuses Jane's offer to go for help.
He asks who Thornfield belongs to and seems quite puzzled when
Jane admits that although she is the governess there she has
never seen the owner, Mr.  Rochester.  The stranger then asks
Jane to fetch his horse, which is grazing nearby; but Jane,
unused to horses, is afraid to get near the spirited-looking
animal.  Instead, she helps the rider to limp to the horse's
side and get mounted again, and she goes on to mail her
letter.

It's not until later that evening, when Jane sees the same
black-and-white dog sitting happily in front of the fire at
Thornfield, that she finds out the stranger was none other than
Mr.  Rochester himself!

This first encounter with Mr.  Rochester seems to justify Mrs.
Fairfax's description of him as peculiar.  Why doesn't he
introduce himself to Jane right away?  Is he just being playful?
Is he feeling embarrassed at meeting one of his own employees
under such awkward circumstances?  Or is it a little bit cruel
of him to tease a shy, unsophisticated governess in this way?
Most readers, like Jane herself, find the brooding,
unconventional Mr.  Rochester very attractive.  For a few,
however, he remains unconvincing, a two-dimensional character,
and even unpleasant.

NOTE:  In this very personal story, even the weather echoes
Jane's moods.  The icy cold, moonlit night creates an aura of
suspense surrounding Jane's first impression of Mr.  Rochester.
Also, just before dark, Jane was watching a brilliant crimson
sunset--many readers have noticed that the color crimson, or
red, seems to be associated with strong, passionate feelings
throughout the novel.  Can you remember other examples in the
chapters you've already read?  For instance, look back at the
very beginning of the book.  And as you read on, keep
looking-you'll find lots of places where Bronte uses the weather
or nature to create mood.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 13

Jane does not see Mr.  Rochester again until the next evening,
after dinner.  At this time, Rochester tells her then when he
first saw her sitting near the road the previous evening he
thought of "fairy tales" and wondered if she had bewitched his
horse.  Jane doesn't mention that she was having similar
thoughts about him, but Rochester's confession makes her feel
that there's some special bond between the two of them.
Normally, Jane is shy with strangers, but soon she and her
employer are engaged in a light-hearted conversation about the
"men in green" (fairies), much to the confusion of Mrs.
Fairfax.

Rochester asks to see Jane's watercolors.  He agrees with her
judgment that she isn't yet a very skillful painter, but he says
there is thought in them and insists the thoughts are "elfish."
"And who taught you to paint wind?" he asks, amazed.  Then, for
no reason that Jane can see, his mood abruptly turns gloomy and
Jane and Mrs.  Fairfax are dismissed from the room.

After a cheerful beginning the chapter ends on a note of
mystery.  Mrs.  Fairfax explains to Jane that Edward Rochester,
their employer, didn't get along with his father and elder
brother, which is why he has spent so much of his life traveling
in Europe.  Furthermore, Mr.  Rochester never expected to be the
owner of Thornfield; he inherited the house just nine years ago
after his brother died without a will.  Mrs.  Fairfax hints that
unpleasant memories of his brother keep Mr.  Rochester from
spending more time at home.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 14

For the next few days Mr.  Rochester is occupied with business
and his gentlemen friends from the neighborhood, and Jane and
Adele hardly see him.  Finally, one evening after dinner he
sends for them in the drawing room and gives Adele a beautifully
wrapped box containing a rose-colored silk dress--the present
from France she has been eagerly hoping for.

Noticing Jane looking at him, Mr.  Rochester suddenly asks her
whether she thinks he's handsome.  Jane, all too honestly,
blurts out, "No, sir." She doesn't believe in flattery.

He keeps questioning her, and she begins to suspect that he's
amusing himself at her expense.  She refuses to be drawn into
the game.  But he's not offended; he admires her proud,
outspoken manner.  When Jane says that no one "free-born" would
stand for being insulted, even by an employer, Mr.  Rochester
answers cynically, "Most things free-born will submit to
anything for a salary." But Jane is the exception.  "I find it
impossible to be conventional with you," Rochester confesses.


Adele comes into the room to show off her new dress, and falls
to one knee in front of Mr.  Rochester, saying in French that
she is thanking him "as her mother would have done." Rochester
winces at this and tells Jane that, even though he doesn't love
Adele, he's bringing her up in order to pay for numerous sins.
Once again, just when Jane is beginning to feel comfortable in
Mr.  Rochester's company, she gets a hint that there's some
dark, and perhaps guilty, secret connected with his past.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 15

Rochester keeps his promise not to "be conventional" with Jane.
One day, as they walk together on the grounds of the mansion, he
confesses that Celine Varens, Adele's mother, was his mistress.
The love affair ended on a sour note when Rochester went to
visit Celine unexpectedly one night and overheard her making fun
of him in a conversation with a French officer.  Celine, who had
been a dancer with the French opera, later ran off to Italy with
still another lover, abandoning Adele.  He tells Jane he doesn't
believe that Adele is his child but has decided to take
responsibility for seeing that she grows up away from the "slime
and mud" of Paris in a wholesome English atmosphere.

NOTE:  For many young Englishmen, a trip to Paris meant their
first chance to live away from the watchful eyes of their
families--hence, the English view of Paris as a very immoral
place.

Even while Mr.  Rochester is making this frank confession, there
are hints that he's not telling Jane everything.  At one point
he interrupts his story to glare darkly in the direction of
Thornfield's battlements.  He tells Jane that he has seen a
vision of his destiny taunting him:  "You like Thornfield?  Like
it if you can!  Like it if you dare!"

Not long after, Jane is wakened in the middle of the night by a
"demoniac laugh"--this time coming from right outside her
bedroom.  When she opens her door, she smells something burning.
Someone has set fire to the heavy curtains around Mr.
Rochester's bed.  Jane tries to wake him, but the smoke has made
him groggy.  She douses the flames with a pitcher of water,
which rouses him.  When she tells him about hearing Grace
Poole's laugh in the hall, he agrees--not very
convincingly--that it must have been Grace who set the fire.
Rochester makes Jane promise not to mention the incident to
anyone.

When Jane starts to go back to her room, Rochester hints in a
roundabout way that she might like to stay and comfort him.  She
ignores the suggestion, but secretly she is thrilled by this
evidence of Rochester's interest in her.  She is already well on
her way to falling in love.

NOTE:  Manners and morals have changed so much since the 19th
century that it's possible you won't realize how daring this
last scene actually is.  For a governess to be in her employer's
bedroom in the middle of the night was rather risque, no matter
how good a reason there might be for it.  Even more than most
women, governesses had to be very careful of their reputations.
A hint of scandal, even if there was no basis for it, could make
it impossible to find work.  What wife would hire a governess
who might be tempted to carry on with her husband or a grown
son?  This is one reason why Jane is very careful not to let
anyone, even Rochester himself, know how she really feels about
him.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 16

The next morning, Jane is on her way downstairs when she notices
the servant girl, Leah, is busy cleaning up the mess in Mr.
Rochester's room.  Grace Poole is with her.  Jane tries to
question Grace about the fire, but soon has the uncomfortable
feeling that Grace is also trying to find out how much Jane
knows.  Among other things, Grace asks Jane whether she keeps
her bedroom door bolted at night.  Jane has never done this, but
she decides that from now on she will.

Why is Grace Poole at Thornfield?  Grace is hardly ever seen
downstairs in the house and spends almost all her time alone in
the locked room on the third floor.  Jane guesses that Grace is
about the same age as Mr.  Rochester (in her late thirties) and
wonders whether there was some past connection between her and
the master, perhaps a love affair.  It seems to Jane that Grace
has some sort of power over Mr.  Rochester.  On the other hand,
she finds it hard to imagine a romance between this stolid,
unsmiling woman and Rochester, even one that might have happened
many years ago.

Downstairs, Jane learns from Mrs.  Fairfax that Mr.  Rochester
has gone away to attend a house party at one of the other great
houses in the district.  Mrs.  Fairfax mentions that among the
guests will be Miss Blanche Ingram, a raven-haired beauty of
twenty-five, who was the "belle of the evening" at a party given
at Thornfield six years ago.  She and Mr.  Rochester sang a duet
together.  This casual conversation throws Jane into a turmoil
of jealousy.  Mrs.  Fairfax denies that Mr.  Rochester has any
plans to marry Blanche, but Jane decides she had better prepare
herself for the worst.  Back in her room, Jane sketches a
picture of herself as Mr.  Rochester must see her:  a plain,
poor governess.  Then she forces herself to paint a delicate
portrait of the lovely Miss Ingram, based on Mrs.  Fairfax's
description.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 17

Ten days later, Mr.  Rochester sends word that he'll soon be
returning home and bringing the house party guests with him.
Suddenly, gloomy Thornfield comes alive with activity.

On the second night after the guests arrive, Mr.  Rochester
orders Adele and Jane to join his company in the drawing room
after dinner.  Little Adele is delighted at the prospect of
being part of a grown-up party.  However, the invitation only
makes Jane more miserable.  She has nothing to wear except a
pearl gray silk dress which she purchased for Miss Temple's
wedding.  Jane isn't much interested in clothes, but she is
human enough to hate the thought of how frumpy she will look in
comparison to the other elegantly gowned ladies.

The evening turns out to be just as bad as Jane had feared.  The
other women are dressed in the height of fashion, reminding Jane
of "a flock of white plumy birds." Blanche Ingram flirts
outrageously with Mr.  Rochester.  And worst of all, Blanche and
her mother--ignoring Jane's presence--get involved in a lengthy
conversation about how "ridiculous" governesses are, making fun
of the faults of various ones who have worked for their family.
As if this weren't enough, Blanche launches into a speech on the
relative importance of beauty in men and women, concluding
confidently that "an ugly woman is a blot on the face of
creation."

NOTE:  Some readers feel that the house party episode is the
weakest part of the novel.  They complain that Charlotte Bronte
didn't know how upper class people really behaved and that her
dialogue for their conversations--which are loaded with the
affected use of foreign phrases and cloying endearments such as
"lily-flower"--is crude and inaccurate.  Other readers find that
the author has done a good job of showing the contrast between
Jane and the rich people, reminding us exactly what it feels
like to be the butt of rude and condescending remarks.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 18

Jane's spirits reach their low point when one evening, during a
game of charades, Mr.  Rochester and Blanche Ingram appear
dressed up as a bride and groom.  Jane reflects that she doesn't
believe Mr.  Rochester truly loves Blanche.  She can see that
Blanche, despite her fine figure and outgoing personality, is
cold-hearted and not very bright.  Surely Mr.  Rochester sees
this, too.  If he marries Blanche, it will only be for her money
and position in society!

NOTE:  Does Jane's reasoning sound convincing to you?  It's nice
to think that we fall in love because we are attracted by our
beloved's inner goodness.  But truthfully, aren't most of us
influenced by appearances?  The story goes on to suggest that
Jane is right in thinking that Rochester could never love a
woman like Blanche.  Still, some readers suspect that Jane is
rather naive--uncharacteristically so--on the subject of
Blanche.

As you read on, you might find it interesting to look for
evidence for and against Jane's opinion on this topic.  What
does Mr.  Rochester himself have to say about Blanche?  What do
other people, such as Mrs.  Fairfax, think of her?  How is
Blanche's flirting with Rochester different from Jane's own
"unconventional" conversations with him.  Jane obviously thinks
there is a big difference.

One afternoon a few days later, the guests are waiting for Mr.
Rochester to return from an errand when a tall, well-dressed
stranger appears at the door.  He's Mr.  Richard Mason, who says
he's an old friend of Rochester's from Jamaica, in the West
Indies.

While Mr.  Mason is waiting in the drawing room, a servant
announces another unexpected visitor.  An old gypsy woman has
come to the house, demanding to tell the ladies' fortunes.
Blanche thinks this sounds like fun.  One by one, the ladies
take turns going into the library where the gypsy woman is
waiting.  All of them emerge giggling--except for Blanche
Ingram, who has obviously heard something that upset her very
much.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 19

Now it's Jane's turn to have her fortune told.  Jane finds the
gypsy wearing a red cloak, a wide-brimmed hat that hides her
face, and smoking a pipe.  Not very impressed, she compares the
woman unfavorably to a Sybil--a prophetess from classical
mythology.  The gypsy tells Jane that she is going to read her
fortune by studying the shape of her head.

NOTE:  The belief that a person's character was revealed by the
shape of his or her skull--called phrenology--was prevalent in
the mid-19th century.  In an earlier scene (Chapter 14) Jane has
already analyzed Mr.  Rochester from the shape of his
forehead.

The gypsy questions Jane at length about her feelings for Mr.
Rochester and the rumors of his engagement to Miss Ingram.
Since the gypsy mentions in passing that she's a friend of Grace
Poole, Jane becomes wary and avoids saying how she really feels
about Rochester.  In a long and rather flowery speech, the gypsy
then tells Jane that her eyes are "full of feeling" and her
mouth meant to know laughter, but the shape of her forehead
shows self-respect--it seems to say, "I can live alone...  I
need not sell my soul to buy bliss."

By the end of this speech, Jane realizes that the gypsy is
speaking in the voice of--Mr.  Rochester!

Very pleased with himself, Mr.  Rochester removes his disguise
and asks Jane whether he didn't do a wonderful job of imitating
a gypsy.  Jane is not charmed, however.  She tells him that it
was very unfair of him to try to trick her.  Silently, however,
she is congratulating herself for having managed to get through
the interview without saying anything embarrassing.

Suddenly Jane remembers to tell Rochester about the arrival of
Mr.  Mason.  Rochester is staggered by the news.  He tells Jane
that he wishes he could be far away with her on some island,
away from danger.  And he asks her, mysteriously, whether she
would still be his friend even if it meant defying society.

She answers cautiously that she would remain true to any friend
who deserved her loyalty.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 20

Once again Jane is awakened during the night--this time not by
laughter, but by an agonized scream.

The scream wakes everyone in the house, but only Jane has heard
the cries for help coming from the room directly above her own.
Mr.  Rochester says a servant had a nightmare, and he sends the
rest of the household back to their rooms.  Jane, however, gets
dressed, guessing that he is going to need her help.  Sure
enough, he returns in a few minutes and leads her to one of the
locked rooms on the third floor.  There Jane finds Mr.  Mason,
his face white as a corpse's and one arm soaked in blood.

Rochester asks Jane to nurse Mr.  Mason while he goes for a
doctor.  Before leaving, however, he warns Mason and Jane that
they are not to speak to each other, no matter what happens.


Jane hears the unearthly laughter of Grace Poole in the next
room, and she hardly knows what she's more afraid of--that Grace
will manage to break through the door and attack again or that
Mr.  Mason will die before Mr.  Rochester returns.  When the
doctor comes, he discovers that, besides the stab wounds, there
are teeth marks on Mr.  Mason's shoulder.  "She bit me," Mr.
Mason mutters.  "She sucked the blood; she said she'd drain my
heart."

This frightening revelation convinces Jane that Grace Poole is a
monster.  But she's still puzzled.  Why does Mr.  Rochester keep
a woman like Grace in the house?  And why does he seem to be
afraid of Mr.  Mason?

As soon as Mason can be moved, he is hustled out a side door of
the house.  He'll be cared for by Carter, the doctor, until he
is well enough to leave England.

Rochester calls Jane to come out into the garden, and they
wander down a quiet walk to an ivy-covered alcove.  Jane tries
to question him about the night's events.  His answers aren't
very satisfactory.  He repeats that he won't feel safe until Mr.
Mason is out of England and then talks vaguely about how a man
can be haunted all his life by an error of his youth.  What if
such a man found a "gentle, gracious stranger" who could bring
him peace of mind?  Rochester asks.  Would he be justified in
joining his life to hers, even if it meant going against
custom?

Just what is Mr.  Rochester talking about?  Is he suggesting
that he might marry Blanche--a woman some might consider too
young for him.  Or is he hinting at something even more
daring--such as marriage to a mere governess?  Notice that Jane
never tells us in so many words exactly what she thinks Mr.
Rochester has in mind.  In any case, her answer avoids the
issue.  She tells Rochester that no man should depend on another
human being for his entire happiness.  He should look to God
instead.

At this, Mr.  Rochester turns sarcastic.  He suggests that he
may be marrying Miss Ingram after all and even asks Jane whether
she would be willing to sit up with him on the night before his
wedding.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 21

Jane tells us as this chapter begins, that she believes in
"presentiments," "sympathies," and "signs"--that is,
premonitions, mental telepathy, and omens.  It isn't too
surprising when, after Jane dreams of a baby--an omen of family
trouble--Bessie Leaven's husband shows up at Thornfield with the
news that John Reed has committed suicide.  Mrs.  Reed has
suffered a stroke and is demanding to see Jane.  In spite of her
vow never to visit Mrs.  Reed again, Jane asks for a week's
leave in order to answer the dying woman's request.

Jane receives a chilly welcome from Mrs.  Reed's two daughters.
Eliza is pale and thin, and wears a "nun-like" crucifix around
her neck.  Georgiana is plump and overdressed, and she inspects
Jane's dull brown traveling dress with a disapproving sneer.
Jane has heard earlier from Bessie that Georgiana was about to
elope with an army officer when Eliza spoiled the plan by
warning Mrs.  Reed.  It soon becomes clear to her that the girls
not only hate each other, they hate their mother too, and are
waiting impatiently for the old woman to die.

It would be natural to suppose that Mrs.  Reed has sent for Jane
because she is sorry for the way she treated her in the past and
wants to ask for forgiveness.  Nothing of the kind!  Even when
she's delirious, the very name "Jane Eyre" sets Mrs.  Reed
raving about how much she hates the girl.  The only reason she
has asked for Jane, Mrs.  Reed finally reveals is that she's
afraid to die without confessing another wrong she did Jane just
three years ago; Mr.  John Eyre, Jane's uncle, sent Mrs.  Reed a
letter saying he wanted to adopt Jane, bring her to Madeira, and
make her his heir.  The thought of the niece she hated having
such good luck was too much for Mrs.  Reed, so she told him that
Jane died during the typhus epidemic at Lowood School.  In the
end, of course Jane does forgive the dying Mrs.  Reed.

NOTE:  Reading this scene you may find yourself thinking back to
Jane's days at Lowood, when Helen Burns kept advising her to
learn to forgive her enemies.  Helen's philosophy seemed
impossibly idealistic to Jane, at the time.  Now that she is
older, however, she finds it easier to understand Mrs.  Reed's
faults.  She no longer has power over Jane's life; she is a
troubled old woman, and Jane cannot bring herself to hold a
grudge.

Jane stays on at Gateshead for a whole month, helping Georgiana
and Eliza to plan for their futures after their mother's death.
Georgiana and Eliza are almost caricatures; their useless lives
illustrate the fates of so many single women in Victorian
society.  Georgiana thinks of nothing but parties; lazy and
bored by day, she spends most of her time lolling on the sofa.
Eliza, who is about to convert to the Roman Catholic church, is
busy every minute with her religious observances, yet we can't
help feeling that Eliza's religion is just something she throws
herself into because it fills up an otherwise empty existence.


NOTE:  You will have to decide for yourself whether the portrait
of the Reed sisters is a fair one.  Notice that Jane Eyre,
through her interest in painting and drawing, is able to fill
usefully the empty hours that weigh so heavily on the two
sisters.  So perhaps Charlotte Bronte is trying to make a point
here about the need for women to have useful and creative work.
On the other hand, you'll find that this author rarely has a
good word to say about young women from the upper classes of
society.  Do you think this is of prejudice, or is it her
realistic outlook on such women's way of life?

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 22

The 100-mile coach trip from Gateshead back to Thornfield takes
Jane two days.

Jane didn't write ahead to tell Mrs.  Fairfax when she was
coming back, and she decides to leave her trunk at the station
in Millcote village and walk the last few miles to Thornfield.
On her way to the house, she surprises Mr.  Rochester, who is
seated in the meadow, writing.  Rochester exclaims that Jane's
unexpected arrival is another proof that she's an elf.  Hearing
that Mrs.  Reed has died, he says of Jane:  "She comes from the
other world--from the abode of people who are dead...." Jane,
for her part, can't help feeling delighted that Rochester has
obviously missed her.

But Jane's happiness at being back at Thornfield is clouded by
the prospect of Mr.  Rochester's forthcoming marriage.  He tells
Jane that he has just ordered a fine new carriage for the use of
the future Mrs.  Rochester, presumably Blanche Ingram.

NOTE:  Rochester comments that his bride will look like Queen
Boadicea in the new carriage--a double-edged compliment.
Boadicea was the warrior queen who fought against the Romans
during the first century B.C., and Mr.  Rochester seems to be
hinting that married life with Blanche Ingram promises to be
less than peaceful.

Jane knows that if Rochester does marry Blanche, Adele will be
sent away to school and she'll have to find a new job.  She
tries to prepare herself to leave Thornfield, but over the next
two weeks she can't see any evidence that the wedding is
actually being planned.  Mr.  Rochester isn't even bothering to
visit the Ingrams, who live less than 20 miles away.  Little by
little, Jane allows herself to hope that the marriage is not
going to take place after all.

By now, she can't deny to herself that she is very much in love
with Mr.  Rochester.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 23

It is Midsummer Eve.

NOTE:  This holiday, celebrated on June 23, is associated with
the supernatural.  Unlike Halloween, whose theme is ghosts and
the world of the dead, Midsummer Eve is a time when otherwise
sensible people fall foolishly in love.  There is also a
superstition that on this night young women can find out whether
or not their lovers have been true to them.

Shortly after sunset, Jane is walking in the orchard when she
smells the aroma of Mr.  Rochester's cigar.  Not trusting
herself to be alone with him, she tries to make her way back to
the house.  But Rochester catches up with her.  He tells Jane
that the time has come to give her notice; he has found a new
position for her with a family in Ireland, the O'Galls.  Jane
breaks down in sobs at the news, admitting that she loves
Thornfield and is filled with "terror and anguish" at the
prospect of parting from Mr.  Rochester forever.

At this, Rochester's mood changes completely.  He tells Jane
that he no longer thinks about marrying Blanche and only told
Jane he did in order to shock her into revealing her true
feelings for him.  "I have no bride!" he exclaims, and drawing
Jane close, kisses her passionately on the lips.

At first Jane thinks Rochester is proposing an affair.  And
then, when he begins to talk about marriage, she thinks that he
is making fun of her.

"Am I a liar in your eyes?" Rochester asks, offended.

You may recall that this is the same charge that was leveled at
Jane earlier in the story by Mrs.  Reed and Mr.  Brocklehurst.
Jane, faced with Rochester's insistent declarations of love,
begins to think that Rochester must be sincere.

Rochester goes on to tell Jane that he never really cared for
Blanche Ingram and that, in order to test her love for him, he
spread the rumor that he was not nearly as rich as he seemed to
be.  After that Blanche's interest in marriage had cooled
considerably.

Now completely reassured, Jane admits that she has been in love
with Rochester all along.  The two of them embrace again.  For
the first time she calls him by his first name--"Dear Edward!"
He calls her "my little wife." "Come to me--come to me entirely
now," he says.

But suddenly, just when everything seems to be resolved between
the lovers, Rochester becomes very troubled.  "God pardon me!"
he exclaims as he holds Jane close to him, "and man meddle not
with me...."

Jane is confused.  Who would want to interfere with their
love?

Suddenly a shadow blocks out the light of the moon and a roaring
wind races through the meadow.  A loud crack of thunder startles
Jane, and she burrows her face against Rochester's shoulder.
Then the rain starts to pour down, forcing the lovers to run
back to the house for shelter.  The storm rages fiercely for two
hours.

The next morning Jane learns that a bolt of lightning struck the
venerable old horse-chestnut tree in the orchard, splitting its
trunk in two.  Remember that Jane has told us she believes in
omens and premonitions.  The chestnut tree struck by lightning
must be an omen--but of what?  Is it a sign of the unleashing of
the lovers' passion?  Or does it warn that God is displeased
with their union?

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 24

The next morning, the sky is clear and all seems calm and
beautiful again.  "Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy,"
Jane tells herself.

Mr.  Rochester, meanwhile, is filled with plans for their
approaching marriage.  He tells Jane he wants to take her
traveling in Europe after the wedding, and he urges her to come
into town with him and let him buy her some expensive new
dresses, which she will need when she is elevated to the
position of a rich man's wife.

In this chapter, Rochester tries to tell Jane that, despite
their unequal social status, she has the upper hand emotionally.
"You please me, and you master me--you seem to submit....  [yet]
I am conquered," he tells Jane.

Jane is not quite so confident.  She is troubled by her total
financial dependence on the man she loves.  She won't take the
fancy dresses he wants to buy her and accepts only two modest
ones in their place.  She tells him that she doesn't want to be
in the position of a kept woman or mistress, and she insists on
continuing to behave as a governess until after the wedding.


NOTE:  How do you feel about Jane's decision?  Is she being
foolish to refuse to accept presents from her own fiance?  Or do
you think she has sound reasons for holding on to at least a
facade of independence?  Perhaps she thinks too little of
herself to be able to accept presents lavished on her?

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 25

A month has gone by and it's now the day before the wedding.


Mr.  Rochester has been away overnight on business, visiting
some farms he owns in a nearby district.  On his return, he
tells Jane that they will be leaving on their wedding trip one
hour after the ceremony.

Jane has something more troubling on her mind.  She tells
Rochester that on the previous night she suffered a terrible
nightmare.  Thornfield Hall was in ruins, and she was running
away from it carrying a baby in her arms.

NOTE:  Remember, from Chapter 21, that Jane believes this dream
foretells trouble in the family.

But the worst was yet to come that night.  Jane awakened to find
a strange woman in her room.  The woman was large and tall, with
dishevelled black hair and a horrible, discolored face--blotchy
skin, swollen lips, and bloodshot eyes.  As Jane watched in
fear, this strange woman placed Jane's wedding veil over her own
head, studied herself in the mirror, and then angrily ripped the
veil in two parts and trampled them underfoot.  Then she came to
Jane's bed and leaned over to stare at her.

Jane swears that she never saw this horrible-looking woman
before.  It wasn't Grace Poole.  The woman reminded her of
something unreal--of "that foul German spectre--the Vampyre."


Rochester tells Jane that she must be imagining things.  Of
course it was Grace Poole!  Who else could it be?  He promises
that after he and Jane have been married for a year and a day he
will explain why he continues to keep "such a woman" in his
house.  In the meantime, he urges Jane to spend her last night
at Thornfield on the couch in Adele's room.

NOTE:  Would you be satisfied with this explanation?  Probably
not.  Rochester sounds a little bit like one of those ladies'
men who is always urging naive young girls to "trust me." On the
other hand, his promise that he will answer Jane's questions
after "a year and a day" of marriage sounds like a fairy tale,
not real life.  If you're willing to see Jane Eyre as a
real-life fairy tale--at least in part,--then you may understand
why Jane doesn't insist on getting the answers about Grace Poole
before the wedding.  And yet, in real life, most people take an
awful lot on faith when they fall in love and decide to get
married.  This is especially true for a girl like Jane who has
no experience with sex and romantic love.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 26

Jane and Rochester have planned a private wedding, with no
guests or attendants.  But as they arrive at the small country
church, Jane is slightly curious about two strangers lingering
in the churchyard; she feels sure they'll come into the church.
Sure enough, they do.

The ceremony begins and when the minister asks, "Will you take
this woman..." one of the strangers speaks up.  "The marriage
cannot go on:  I declare the existence of an impediment."

This is a favorite dramatic scene in romantic novels, movies,
and TV soap operas.  But you'll seldom, if ever, see this moment
followed by a more dramatic revelation.

The stranger who spoke identifies himself as Mr.  Briggs, a
London solicitor (lawyer).  And now the other man emerges from
the shadows to reveal that he is--Mr.  Richard Mason.  Mr.
Briggs reads a document confirming that Mr.  Rochester was
married fifteen years earlier to a Miss Bertha Mason of Spanish
Town, Jamaica--Mr.  Mason's sister!  Not only is the first Mrs.
Rochester still alive, but she can be found at this very moment
at Thornfield Hall!

At first, the minister refuses to believe this story.  He's
never heard of a Mrs.  Rochester at Thornfield.  But Mr.
Rochester breaks down and admits that every word of Briggs's
accusation is true.  His wife Bertha, now totally insane, is the
hideous woman who sneaked into Jane's room two nights earlier.
She is also the woman who attacked Mr.  Mason.  Grace Poole is a
servant hired as a guardian for Bertha.

Rochester insists that the minister, the church clerk, Mr.
Briggs, and Mr.  Mason return to Thornfield with him and Jane to
see Bertha for themselves.  He takes them into the locked room
on the third floor.  At once, the madwoman leaps for Mr.
Rochester and tries to strangle him.  She is a big woman and
maniacally powerful, but Rochester manages to subdue her with
some gentleness.  "That is my wife," he tells his visitors
bitterly.

NOTE:  There's very little humor in Jane Eyre, but it makes a
rather unexpected appearance in this scene.  Asked how her
patient is doing, Grace Poole replies mildly that she is well
but feeling "rather snappish"--a laughable understatement.

Before leaving Thornfield, Mr.  Briggs informs Jane that he's
been acting as the agent of her long-lost uncle in Madeira, Mr.
John Eyre, who is now too ill to travel.  After Jane had written
to tell him about her marriage, Mr.  Eyre, who knew Richard
Mason, decided the wedding had to be stopped in order to save
his niece from the disgrace of a bigamous marriage.

After the visitors leave, Jane rushes to her own bedroom and
bolts herself in.  She is devastated--a "cold, solitary girl
again" who sees all her hopes for the future in ruins.  However,
even in despair, Jane can't bring herself to put the blame on
Rochester.  "I would not say that he betrayed me," she comments.
Her greatest fear, in fact, is that Rochester didn't really love
her after all, and that he only chose her because he dared not
try to make an illegal marriage with a woman who was his social
equal.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 27

That afternoon, Jane decides that she must leave Thornfield at
once.

Rochester pleads with her to stay.  He begs for forgiveness, and
he asks Jane to come with him to his villa in the south of
France.  No one there will know that they aren't legally
married.  He'll shut up Thornfield Hall and leave Grace Poole
there with "that fearful hag."

NOTE:  Divorce is never mentioned.  Under the law at that time,
a man couldn't divorce an insane wife.

Jane tells him he mustn't hate his wife just because she's mad.
That's not why he hates her, he says; does Jane think he would
hate her if she were mad?  "I do, indeed, sir," she replies.


He tells her she's wrong, and he explains why he feels the way
he does about his wife.  Whether or not you find his story
convincing, it's certainly a dramatic one.  He tells Jane that
he never loved Bertha Mason and hardly knew her at the time of
their marriage fifteen years ago.  He was rushed into the
wedding by his own father and by the Mason family, who managed
to conceal from him the early symptoms of Bertha's condition.
After the wedding Bertha turned out to be immoral,
unintelligent, and a heavy drinker.  Within four years she was
completely mad.  At this point, Rochester decided to commit
suicide.  He was standing with a pistol to his head when "true
Wisdom" suggested another plan--he would take his wife back to
Thornfield to be cared for while he traveled in Europe.

Jane seems satisfied with Rochester's answer, but you may not
be.  We feel sympathy for Rochester being tricked into marriage,
but he doesn't really say anything that could make Jane believe
he wouldn't also hate her if she went mad.  Jane's worry is one
that occurs to all of us at one time or another, What would
happen if illness, or some other calamity beyond our control,
made us unlovable?  Would the people who love us now still feel
the same way about us?  Would our families still feel a duty to
take care of us?  The story has a lot to say about this subject,
but it never does answer Jane's question in so many words.  You
will have to decide for yourself how you feel about Rochester's
attitude toward Bertha.

Next, Rochester apologizes for being too cowardly to tell Jane
the truth about Bertha.  He had been afraid that "instilled
prejudice" would prevent her from overlooking his legal
marriage.  "I should have appealed to your nobleness," he says.
Grabbing her around the waist and devouring her with "a flaming
glance," he once more begs her not to leave him.

Jane is tempted.  Why not run away with Rochester?  What could
be more important than making the man she loves happy?  "Who in
the world cares for you?" she asks herself--no one will be
injured by what she does.  And then she has her answer:  "I care
for myself," she declares.  "The more solitary, the more
friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect
myself.  I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man."


Jane cannot be swayed.  She will leave Thornfield and Mr.
Rochester forever.

NOTE:  No doubt some of you will be very disappointed by Jane's
choice.  Is it really the law of God that keeps her from running
away with Mr.  Rochester, or just the divorce laws of England?
And is the fear of sin Jane's only concern?  Perhaps she's also
afraid that Rochester will grow tired of her or lose his respect
for her.  Some readers find in Jane's answer a hint that if she
had money of her own, or a social position equal to Rochester's,
her decision might have been quite different.  Others believe
she is truly following her own idea of what's right.  What do
you think?

That night, Jane dreams that she is a child again and her mother
is urging her, "My daughter, flee temptation!" She wakes before
dawn and steals out of the house.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 28

When she left Thornfield, Jane had only 20 shillings.  She hails
a passing coach on the road and asks the driver to take her as
far as her money will carry her.

After two days, Jane's money runs out.  The driver leaves her at
a crossroads in the moor district.  Jane spends the night
sleeping outdoors under the stars, and in the morning she hikes
into the village where she asks without success for work as a
house servant or a seamstress.  By the end of the day she's so
hungry she begs for a piece of bread from a farmer, the next day
it's a meal of porridge from a child who is about to feed the
cold mess to a pig.

Jane returns to the moors, planning to spend a second night out
of doors, but the threat of rain sends her looking for a
sheltered spot.  At that moment she notices a light in the
distance.  She follows this beacon until she finds herself
standing outside a neat little house.  Peeking through a window,
she sees an elderly woman servant and two young ladies.  The
latter are translating a story in a strange language (it turns
out to be German).

NOTE:  At first, Jane thinks the distant light is an ignis
fatuus.  Also known as "elf-fire" or "Will o' the wisp," this is
a phosphorescent glow that sometimes occurs around marshes and
is caused by decaying plant matter.

Jane knocks at the door of the house.  The servant woman,
suspicious that Jane might be fronting for a band of house
robbers, refuses to let her in.  But she's saved by the arrival
of the young ladies' brother, St.  John (pronounced sin'jun).
He welcomes Jane into the house, where he and his sisters give
Jane supper and a room for the night.  Afraid that news of the
scandal at Thornfield might reach even this remote place, Jane
decides to give them a false name--Jane Elliott.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 29

Worn out by her wanderings on the moor, Jane is ill for three
days.  When she recovers, she learns from the old servant,
Hannah, that the lovely house where she is staying is known as
Marsh End or Moor House.  It is owned by the two young ladies,
Mary and Diana Rivers, whose father has recently died.  St.
John Rivers, their brother, is a minister with a parish in the
village, which Jane now learns is called Morton.

Left alone with St.  John in the parlor, Jane notices that he is
in his late 20s, with blue eyes, blond hair, and the handsome
features of a classical Greek statue.  In spite of his gentle
looks, Jane can't help sensing that there is something
"restless, or hard, or eager" in St.  John's nature.  Jane
admits that she is a governess who once attended Lowood School,
but she refuses to tell St.  John her real name or where she's
been living.  His sisters take her side, and he agrees to help
her find work.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 30

In the meantime, Jane stays on with Diana and Mary.  She quickly
becomes fond of the sisters, who are not only kind and cheerful
but have a lively interest in books and learning.  St.  John is
another story.  He strikes Jane as cold and withdrawn, always
lost in his own thoughts.  Only when she hears St.  John preach
a sermon in church does Jane catch a glimpse of a more fiery
side to his nature.

A month goes by.  Diana and Mary are getting ready to go back to
their jobs as governesses with two fashionable and wealthy
families.  Jane gathers her courage to ask St.  John whether he
has found any work for her.  In reply, St.  John tells Jane
about a charity school for poor children in Morton village.  The
school is supported by a Miss Oliver, the daughter of a wealthy
factory owner.  St.  John has been teaching a class of boys.
Would Jane be interested in teaching the girls?

The job St.  John offers Jane is a step down from being a
governess.  She'll have to live very simply, and she won't have
any chance to use her education in French and drawing.  Her
students will be just beginning to learn to read and write.
After only a moment's thought, Jane decides to accept.  At least
she will have her independence.

St.  John, however, predicts that Jane will not stay in Morton
very long.  You are "impassioned," he tells Jane.  "Human
affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you." He
confesses that even he, a Christian minister, has felt restless
and longed to escape the sleepy village of Morton.

Jane hardly knows what to think of this confession.  She is even
more confused when Diana and Mary hint that when they leave for
their jobs again they may be saying good-bye to St.  John for
the last time.  Sobbing, Mary tells Jane that she has tried and
failed to talk her brother out of his "severe decision."

Before Jane can find out what that decision is, St.  John comes
back into the room carrying a letter.  He reads out the news
that their "Uncle John" is dead.  Both he and the girls are
disappointed to learn that their uncle, who quarreled with their
father long ago, has left most of his money to another relative,
who is unknown to them.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 31

On her first day as a charity school teacher, Jane is forced to
keep reminding herself that her coarsely clad pupils are human
beings, as good as the children of any aristocrat.

NOTE:  As much as Jane hates the social snobbery of people like
Blanche Ingram, she has strong prejudices of her own.  To her
credit, she recognizes this fault and tries to overcome it.
Decide for yourself how well she succeeds.

St.  John visits Jane's modest cottage and encourages her to
stay with the job.  He tells her that it is possible to conquer
one's natural desires through will-power, and to "turn the bent
of [one's own] nature." By way of illustration, St.  John
confides that he has recently passed through a crisis of his
own.  Only a year earlier, he had come to the conclusion that he
had made a mistake by entering the ministry.  He was longing for
a career in literature, politics, the army--anything that would
offer more excitement than his religious duties.  But after much
soul searching, he has decided that his restlessness was a
message from God, calling him to the life of an overseas
missionary.  Now, adds St.  John, he has only "one last conflict
with human weakness" to overcome before he is ready to leave for
the orient.

At that moment, their conversation is interrupted by the arrival
of Miss Oliver, the young heiress whose money supports St.
John's school.  Jane is taken aback to discover that Rosamond
Oliver is not only breathtakingly lovely, but also very
obviously in love with St.  John.  It's not hard to guess the
nature of St.  John's conflict.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 32

Jane's nights are still filled with dreams of Mr.  Rochester.
But her days are satisfying.  She finds that some of the
"heavy-looking, gaping rustics" in her classroom are actually
turning out to be good students, and she feels that she's well
liked in the neighborhood.

In the meantime, she has been learning more about Rosamond
Oliver.  Jane decides that Rosamond, though somewhat shallow, is
a basically cheerful and good hearted person.  Perhaps more
important, Jane visits Rosamond's home, Vale Hall, and learns
that Mr.  Oliver would be very happy to see his daughter marry
St.  John.  A self-made man, whose fortune is from his needle
factory, Mr.  Oliver is attracted to the idea of his daughter
marrying into an old, upper-class family like the Rivers's.  He
doesn't care a bit that they are no longer wealthy.  It occurs
to Jane that by marrying Rosamond, St.  John could make himself
happy, and by putting Rosamond's money to good use, still
accomplish as much as he would in a lifetime of missionary
work.

To sound out St.  John's feelings, Jane shows him a portrait
she's drawn of Rosamond.  St.  John admits that he loves
Rosamond "wildly," but he is also convinced that he would soon
be sorry if he married her.  Rosamond would not make a good
missionary's wife.

Why not give up the idea of becoming a missionary, Jane
suggests.

St.  John won't listen.  He assures Jane that although he seems
distraught over giving up Rosamond, he will soon forget her.  He
is more cold-hearted than Jane thinks, he insists.

NOTE:  From the way St.  John talks about Rosamond, you might
well suspect that he's giving her up because he loves her.  Do
you think he's the kind of person who feels he must sacrifice
his happiness in order to serve God?  Or does St.  John enjoy
punishing himself?  Is he afraid of love and sex?  Or too
self-centered to commit himself to a relationship with another
human being?  All we know for sure is that St.  John is too
confused to fully understand his own motives.

While St.  John is looking at Rosamond's portrait, he notices
something on the blank sheet of paper Jane uses to protect the
painting.  He's visibly startled.  Jane doesn't know why, but
she sees him tear off a corner of it and slip it into his
glove--then he quickly leaves.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 33

The next evening, in the middle of a driving snowstorm, St.
John pays Jane a surprise call.  She sees at once that he's got
something serious on his mind.  After a long silence, St.  John
begins to tell Jane a story about a poor orphan girl who lived
with a family named Reed, was sent away to Lowood School, and
eventually fell in love with a man named Rochester...

Jane's first reaction is that St.  John has brought her some bad
news about Mr.  Rochester.  Nothing of the kind!--he hasn't
heard anything about Rochester.  He's had a letter from Mr.
Briggs, John Eyre's solicitor, who's been looking for Jane all
over England.  Mr.  Eyre has died and left her a fortune of
20,000 pounds--enough to make her a rich woman for life.  St.
John goes on to explain that it was only when he noticed Jane's
signature on the cover of her portrait that he realized that
Jane Elliott--as she had called herself--was the same person as
the missing heiress Jane Eyre.

Naturally, Jane is overjoyed by her unexpected inheritance.
Only after the news has taken a few minutes to sink in does she
begin to wonder how St.  John managed to get a letter from Mr.
Briggs, confirming the amount of the legacy, in such a short
time.  Reluctantly, he confesses that Briggs had written to St.
John even before he guessed Jane's identity.  John Eyre is the
same "Uncle John" whose death we heard about in Chapter 30!  And
St.  John, Mary, and Diana are Jane's cousins--the children of
her father's only sister.  Jane immediately decides that she
will split her fortune four ways, giving equal shares to St.
John and his sisters.

NOTE:  In a story filled with improbable coincidences, this is
surely the most improbable of all.  Not only does Jane's uncle
know Richard Mason and learn about Jane's wedding in time to
stop it...  not only does he leave his money to a niece he has
never seen...  we're now supposed to believe that he's also
related to the Rivers family, people Jane met purely by
chance!

If you're the kind of reader who wants stories to be true to
life, this string of coincidences might spoil the story for you,
On the other hand, if you believe in omens, as Jane does, you
may believe that something more than chance sent Jane to the
door of the Rivers cottage.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 34

The money from Mr.  Eyre makes it possible for Jane, Diana, and
Mary to give up teaching and set up housekeeping together at
Moor House.

NOTE:  At one time or another, all of us daydream about what
we'd do if we were rich.  Some readers think that Diana and Mary
are idealized portraits of Charlotte Bronte's sisters, and that
the way of life they lead in this chapter is a kind of
wish-fulfillment fantasy--Bronte's own dream of having enough
money so they could all live at home together.  Happiness for
Diana, Mary, and Jane means freedom from having to work for a
living and the pleasure of just being together.  St.  John, it's
true, tells Jane, "You have only worked for a few months!", and
he hopes that she'll soon put her talents to use again.  But
Jane replies that she's perfectly happy just to live at Moor
House.

Modern girls reading this will think, "That's not a very
exciting dream!" Most of you are probably planning to have
careers.  But in Victorian times, women didn't have careers.
They were supported--by their husbands if they were lucky enough
to get one, or by their families if not.  If they worked, it was
out of absolute necessity.  They didn't have a whole lot of
choice in jobs, and they couldn't make very much money.

Meanwhile, Rosamond Oliver has finally given up on St.  John and
announced her engagement to another man.  St.  John pretends to
be happy about this news.  He tells Jane that giving up Rosamond
was a "victory" over his sensual desires.  Jane finds this hard
to believe.

Nevertheless, Jane agrees to help St.  John study Hindostanee
(Hindi), the language he'll be using in his missionary work.
Studying side by side with him, she gradually comes to
appreciate his better qualities--patience, dedication, and a
burning desire to do some good in the world.  By the time summer
comes, and St.  John proposes that they marry and go to India
together, Jane may be ready to consider the offer.  You may well
find this surprising.  Why would Jane be willing to go off to
spend her life in a strange country with a man she does not even
like?  The reasons Jane gives are she has no idea what has
become of Mr.  Rochester and needs to make some kind of decision
about her future.  She will probably never have another chance
to marry.  But are these reasons good enough?  Reading between
the lines, you may notice that Jane's feelings about St.  John
are more complicated than she cares to admit.  Perhaps she feels
guilty about not doing anything useful with her life.  Or,
perhaps, for all her seeming independence, Jane may be secretly
attracted by the idea of marrying a man who wants to dominate
her.

St.  John doesn't make it easy for Jane to say yes.  He tells
her plainly that he's offering a loveless marriage.  "I claim
you--not for my pleasure," he says, but for God's service.  This
is too much for Jane.  She answers that she will go to India
with St.  John as his coworker, but not as his wife.

St.  John turns her down.  His practical excuse is that it
wouldn't be proper for him to take a 19-year-old single girl to
live in India.  The situation would be sure to cause gossip and
misunderstandings.  Jane, however, suspects that this isn't the
real reason.  It occurs to her that St.  John won't be happy
until he has complete control over her life.

NOTE:  Sadism and masochism weren't subjects that could be
discussed openly in 19th-century novels.  But if you read
carefully, you may find hints that the author is trying to say
that St.  John has sadistic tendencies.  For example, he tells
Jane that if she won't marry him, God would regard her going to
India as a "mutilated sacrifice." What kind of man would use
language like this in trying to get a woman to marry him?

The way St.  John talks in this scene may also remind you of Mr.
Brocklehurst--another clergyman who seemed to enjoy seeing the
poor suffer.  When Jane Eyre was first published, some readers
were shocked by the way it portrayed ministers of God.
Charlotte Bronte was accused of writing an "anti-Christian"
book.  Today, some readers would say that the novel is very
religious in spirit--and that it only criticizes those who
pretend to do good, but without love in their hearts.  You will
have to decide for yourself whether the view of organized
religion in Jane Eyre is a fair one.

Before leaving Jane, St.  John quotes a line from a poem by Sir
Walter Scott:  "Looked to river, looked to hill." We're not sure
what he means by this, but it reminds us that Jane is torn
between St.  John (whose last name is Rivers) and Mr.
Rochester, whose mansion Thornfield is set on hilly ground.
Rochester offered Jane love, but without marriage.  St.  John
offers marriage, and with it the useful and socially respectable
position of a missionary's wife, but it is an offer made without
love.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 35

St.  John delays his departure for a week.  He hopes to get Jane
to change her mind, but his coldness and air of repressed
hostility only make Jane more determined to refuse him.  St.
John's attitude is that by refusing to marry him, Jane has not
only rejected him personally but refused to do God's will.  When
St.  John repeats his proposal of marriage, Jane recognizes, in
a flash of insight, that not only does St.  John not love
her--he subconsciously wants to make her suffer, as he has
suffered in giving up everything to follow what he believes is
God's will.  "You almost hate me," Jane tells him accusingly.
"If I were to marry you, you would kill me.  You are killing me
now."

St.  John still does not give up, and Jane repeats her offer to
go to India as his assistant.

Although St.  John doesn't even pretend to be in love with Jane,
he is insulted by her answer.  Turning "lividly pale," he
remarks that he isn't interested in having a "female curate"
(assistant minister).  He wants a wife.  However, he offers to
arrange for Jane to go out to India with a married couple.

Jane says no.  She only considered going to India in the first
place out of a "sisterly" desire to help St.  John, and she
reminds him that she feels no duty to go with strangers,
especially since she feels sure she wouldn't live long in that
tropical climate.  St.  John can't believe that this is the real
reason.  He accuses her of still harboring a "lawless and
unconsecrated" love for Mr.  Rochester.  Jane admits that this
is so.

Nowadays, St.  John's goal of converting India to the Church of
England would be somewhat controversial.  (Many people still
think of missionary work as a noble calling; others feel there's
something condescending about it--that it means you don't think
other cultures are as good as your own.) You won't find this
debate in Jane Eyre, but the novel does pose a more general
question:  Which is more important, changing the world or
concentrating on personal relationships?  In this section of the
story, Jane seems to be torn between the two goals.  But notice
that as soon as St.  John is out of the picture she has no
interest in missionary work at all.  Some readers point out that
her decisions at critical points like this show that Jane Eyre,
for all the talk about her passionate nature, is a very
conventional heroine who can't imagine happiness except in the
role of a traditional wife.  Others defend Jane for insisting on
finding a way of life that is right for her.  There's no right
solution to this debate, but your opinion one way or the other
will influence your judgment of Jane.

Diana Rivers approves of Jane's decision, reminding Jane that
St.  John would be sure to work her as hard as he works himself
and saying that Jane is much too good a person to be "grilled
alive in Calcutta."

However, that same evening, as St.  John leads Jane, Diana and
Mary in family prayers, Jane almost changes her mind.  Although
he's cold and almost repellent in his personal dealing with her,
St.  John is an inspiring speaker on the subject of religion.
Listening to him pray, Jane is impressed by his sincerity and
his zealous desire to do God's work.  "I was tempted to cease
struggling with him," Jane tells us, "to rush down the torrent
of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my
own."

By this time Diana and Mary have gone to bed, leaving Jane and
St.  John alone.  Jane tells St.  John that she could decide now
to marry him, but only if she can be sure that it's truly God's
will.  "Show me, show me the path!" she cries out to heaven.


In her over-excited state, Jane thinks she hears a voice in the
distance.  It is not God's voice, however, but that of Rochester
calling her name in anguish.  "Where are you?" Jane calls out.
But the only answer is the sound of her own voice echoing off
the hills.

Suddenly, Jane feels strong again.  Very much in control, she
sends St.  John home and retires to her room to pray alone--not
under St.  John's influence this time, but on her own.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 36

The next morning, Jane finds a note from St.  John telling her
that he'll return two weeks later, just before leaving for India
to see if she is ready to make a decision in his favor.  But the
voice Jane heard the night before, real or imaginary, has shown
Jane what she must do.  She leaves Moor House that same day to
return to Rochester.

Jane can hardly wait to see Thornfield again.  But she is in for
a terrible shock.  The mansion is in ruins.  Nothing remains but
a charred wreck, overgrown with weeds.

Back at the inn, the innkeeper tells Jane the story of
Thornfield's destruction.

After Jane left, Mr.  Rochester fell into a deep depression.
Adele was sent away to boarding school, and Mrs.  Fairfax (who
has not known the secret of Bertha Mason) retired on a generous
pension.  Grace Poole remained to take care of Bertha.  But it
seems that Grace was given to drinking too much gin--which was
why Bertha had been able to escape when she set fire to
Rochester's bed and frightened Jane in her room.

One night, about two months after Jane's departure, Grace Poole
fell into an especially deep, drunken stupor, and Bertha got out
again.  This time, she went into the room that had belonged to
Jane and set the bed on fire.  Fortunately, Mr.  Rochester
awakened in time to warn the servants and get them out.  But
when he ran back into the burning house to rescue Bertha, she
ran out onto the roof.  Witnesses saw Rochester trying to pull
her to safety, but she leaped to her death from the burning
battlements.  Minutes later, the roof collapsed in flames.
Rochester survived, but with horrible wounds.  He lost one eye,
became blind in the other, and had his left hand amputated.

Since that time, the innkeeper tells Jane, Rochester has been
living as a hermit at Ferndean, a manor house about 30 miles
away.  Jane immediately hires a carriage to take her there.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 37

Ferndean is a roomy but sparsely furnished house buried deep in
the woods, which Mr.  Rochester's father had bought to use as a
hunting lodge.  Jane arrives just before dark, and after paying
off her driver, walks the last mile through the dense forest on
foot.  As she comes near the house, she sees Rochester standing
on the front steps, obviously blind and helpless.  She longs to
rush forward and greet him with a kiss.

NOTE:  Does this scene remind you of another fairy tale?  What
about Sleeping Beauty?  In this version, however, it is the
woman who has arrived to rescue her "sleeping prince."

Jane convinces Rochester's servant to let her carry in the glass
of water he's asked for.  Rochester, though blind, recognizes
Jane's voice and is overjoyed.  He tells her that he has often
imagined her "dead in some ditch" or an "outcast among
strangers" and blamed himself.  On the contrary, Jane tells him,
she is now independently wealthy, thanks to her Uncle John Eyre.
She offers to be Rochester's neighbor, nurse, and
housekeeper--to take care of him from now on.  "It is time
someone undertook to rehumanise you," she says.

Of course, what Jane really wants is to be Rochester's wife, but
she's not sure whether he wants her, given his present
condition.  And he, in turn, is afraid to ask her for fear of
being turned down.
The next morning, listening to the story of her life at Moor
House, Rochester cannot help showing his jealousy of St.  John.
Jane teases him into admitting that he still loves her.  At
this, Rochester tells Jane that he is a "ruin of a man," like
"the old lightning-struck chestnut tree in Thornfield orchard."
Would Jane think him foolish if he still wanted a wife in spite
of this?

Jane replies sensibly that her feelings would depend on whom he
wanted as a bride.  Choose "her who loves you best," she urges.
He tells her he will choose "her I love best."

Rochester then asks Jane to marry him, and she gladly accepts.
She dismisses his suggestion that marriage to a blind,
one-handed man will be a sacrifice.  If "to press my lips to
what I love best" is a sacrifice, she says, then she delights in
it.

Finally, Rochester tells Jane that he now knows he was wrong to
try to trick her into a bigamous marriage.  He is no longer
bitter about losing his sight, and his sufferings have
reconciled him with God.  Only a few days ago, on Monday
evening, he says, he prayed to God for Jane's return and called
her name aloud.  A voice answered, and he knew it was Jane's.


Hearing this story, Jane realizes that it was on Monday night,
at the very hour Rochester called out to her, that she heard his
voice crying her name at Moor House.  Jane decides to keep her
knowledge of this "inexplicable coincidence" to herself.  Her
reunion with Rochester is already a profound and moving
experience in its own right--and the role of the supernatural in
bringing them back together is something that she would prefer
to ponder in private.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  CHAPTER 38

"Reader, I married him." So, with this much-quoted line, begins
the conclusion of the novel.  In this final chapter, we are
reminded that the voice we have been hearing narrate the story
all along belongs to the mature Jane Eyre, who is recalling
events that happened years earlier.

We are now brought up to date on what took place in the ten
years following Jane and Rochester's marriage:  Adele,
Rochester's little French ward, was taken out of her strict
school and placed in a more lenient one where she was able to
grow up free and cheerful.  Diana and Mary Rivers both found
good husbands.

As for Jane and Rochester, their marriage is a complete success.
"...I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine.  No woman was
ever nearer to his mate than I am," Jane says.

After two years of marriage, Rochester even regained the sight
of his one remaining eye--and in time to see the face of his
first-born son.

The story ends on a note of forgiveness for St.  John.  Hard
labor and tropical diseases have already taken their toll on St.
John's health, but St.  John feels no fear at the prospect of an
early death which will reconcile him with God at last and end
his struggles with earthly temptations.

^^^^^^^^^^

JANE EYRE:  GLOSSARY

BARMECIDE FEAST An unsatisfying meal.  The phrase comes from a
story in the Arabian Knights about a Persian nobleman who served
an imaginary meal to a beggar.

BLUEBEARD A character in a French fairy tale who married and
murdered one wife after another.

BOADICEA A warrior queen of ancient Britain who led a revolt
against the Romans.

BRIDEWELL A prison.

CADEAU The French word for gift.

CORSAIR A pirate.

CROQUANT French for eating or crunching on.  The expression,
used by Rochester, comes from the verb croquer, meaning to
crunch.

CUYP-LIKE Resembling a painting by Cuyp, a Flemish painter known
for peaceful rural scenes.

DIAN (spelled Diana in some editions) The goddess of the hunt.
Blanche Ingram is said to have a figure like Dian.  Normally
this would be a compliment, but notice how often Blanche is
compared to women who have some military or predatory
function.

EUTYCHUS A man who fell asleep while listening to a sermon by
St.  Paul and tumbled out of an open window.

HEATH A wild shrub with pink or purple flowers; heather is one
variety of heath.

JUGGERNAUT An idol representing the Hindu deity Krishna.  Once a
year the idol was pulled through the streets in a cart and
devout worshippers supposedly committed suicide by throwing
themselves under the cart's wheels.

MADEIRA An island in the Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles west of
Morocco.

MOOR An area of open land not good for farming.

RASSELAS A philosophic romance by Samuel Johnson.  A young man
named Rasselas searches the world for the secret of happiness
and concludes that happiness lies in being content with one's
lot.

RIZZIO, DAVID An Italian musician in the court of Mary Queen of
Scots.  Thought to be the Queen's lover and involved in a plot
to murder one of her husbands.

SYBIL One of a group of women in ancient Greece believed to have
the power to see into the future.  Usually spelled Sibyl.

TYRIAN-DYED Purple in color.  The name comes from the ancient
Middle Eastern city of Tyre, which was famous for the royal
purple dyes produced there.

VULCAN The Roman god of fire and metal-working.  Vulcan was
portrayed as a cripple and this is the characteristic Rochester
has in mind when he compares himself to the god in Chapter 37.


WOLFE, JAMES A British general who died while trying to capture
Quebec from the French in 1759.  The death of Wolfe, mentioned
in Chapter 11, was a very common subject for patriotic
paintings.

Jane Eyre was an immediate success with the reading public and
has remained popular ever since.  The first critics, too, were
mostly favorable.

One exception was a reviewer named Elizabeth Rigby, who
condemned the novel as profoundly immoral and
"anti-Christian"--not so much because of Mr.  Rochester's
character as because of Jane's "unregenerate and undisciplined"
spirit.

Far more typical was the reaction of the great critic George
Henry Lewes (who, like Rochester, had left his first wife to
live with another woman, the novelist George Eliot):

Reality--deep, significant reality--is the great characteristic
of the book.  It is an autobiography--not, perhaps, in the naked
facts and circumstances, but in the actual suffering and
experience....  This faculty for objective representation, is
also united to a strange power of subjective representation.  We
do not simply mean the power over passions--the psychological
intuition of the artist, but the power also of connecting
external appearances with internal effects--of representing the
psychological interpretation of material phenomena.

Writing in 1925, the novelist Virginia Woolf praised the highly
personal quality of Charlotte Bronte's art:

The writer has us by the hand, forces us along her road, makes
us see what she sees, never leaves us for a moment or allows us
to forget her.  At the end we are steeped through and through
with the genius, the vehemence, the indignation of Charlotte
Bronte.  Remarkable faces, figures of strong outline and gnarled
feature have flashed upon us in passing; but it is through her
eyes that we have seen them.

David Cecil, in his Early Victorian Novelists, makes perhaps the
best case against Charlotte Bronte's writing.  His charges
against Bronte include:

-lack of restraint

-lack of a sense of humor

-thin, two-dimensional characterizations

But, most of all, Cecil attacked Bronte's improbable plot:

....Not one of the main incidents on which its action turns is but
incredible.  It is incredible that Rochester should hide a mad
wife on the top floor of Thornfield Hall, and hide her so
imperfectly that she constantly gets loose and roams yelling
about the house, without any of his numerous servants and guests
suspecting anything:  it is incredible that Mrs.  Reed, a
conventional if disagreeable woman, should conspire to cheat
Jane out of a fortune because she had been rude to her as a
child of ten:  it is supremely incredible that when Jane Eyre
collapses on an unknown doorstep after her flight from Rochester
it should be on the doorstep of her only surviving amiable
relations.

David Cecil was rather typical of his generation in feeling
distaste at Bronte's "naive" and overemotional approach to her
art.

But during the last several decades, many critics have praised
Bronte for the very qualities Cecil disliked:

....If in Rochester we see only an Angrian-Byronic hero and a
Charlotte wish-fulfillment figure (the two identifications which
to some readers seem entirely to place him), we miss what is
more significant, the exploration of personality that opens up
new areas of feeling in sexual relationships.

....Charlotte's remoulding of feeling reaches a height when she
sympathetically portrays Rochester's efforts to make Jane his
mistress.  Here the stereotyped seducer becomes a kind of lost
nobleman of passion and specifically of physical passion.

-"Charlotte Bronte's New Gothic" by Robert H.  Heilman,

reprinted in O'Neill, Critics on Charlotte and Emily Bronte

"Jane Eyre is at bottom...  largely a religious novel, concerned
with the meaning of religion to man and its relevance to his
behavior.  Jane discovers at Lowood that she can comprehend
religion only when it has some relation to man, but at
Thornfield she sees the opposite error, of man attempting to
remake religion to his own convenience."

-Robert Bernard Martin,

The Accents of Persuasion

Madness is explicitly associated with female sexual passion,
with the body, with the fiery emotions Jane admits to feeling
for Rochester.  In trying to persuade her to become his
mistress, Rochester argues that Jane is a special case:  'If you
were mad,' he asks, 'do you think I should hate you?' 'I do
indeed, sir,' Jane replies, and she is surely correct...  When
they finally marry, they have become equals, not only because
Rochester, in losing his hand and his sight, has learned how it
feels to be helpless and how to accept help, but also because
Jane, in destroying the dark passion of her own psyche, has
become truly her "own mistress."

-Elaine Showalter, A Literature of Their Own

And finally, in defense of Bronte's "unrestrained" style:

On the first page of Jane Eyre the first issue raised is in fact
the issue of style.  The wrong style, in girlhood and in
language, is the reason why Jane is kept by Mrs.  Reed from
joining the other children around the fire.

-Ellen Moers, Literary Women

                               THE END