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Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, in a forlorn village in Yorkshire in 1816. She was the third daughter of a clergyman of Irish descent and Maria Branwell. Since their mother died very soon, the children were brought up in a 'suffocating' atmosphere in their maternal aunt's house. Observing profoundly Brontë's way in life and the plot, several analogues are to be found. Charlotte's sisters, Mary and Lizbeth died of tuberculosis, just as Helen Burns in the novel. Helen's character meant a moral model for Jane, but even presented an anticipation which threatened every child in this period: death of negligence or lungs diseases.
Despite the fact that the relationship between the girls and Aunt Elizabeth was much more affectionate than the one between Jane and Mrs Reed; the latter had obviously had a great impact on Charlotte who formed Mrs Reed's character after her.
Later the sisters had been sent to a board school at Roehead, where Charlotte made two long-life friendships affecting her oeuvre: these girls appear in subtle guises in her later novels sooner as well. After founding their own successful school with Emily, they travelled to France, in order to gain further education as a pénsionat. The girls had been learning French in Belgium, and, in addition, Charlotte fell desperately in love with their master, M Héger. (His character is satirized in Vilette, under the pseudonym 'Currer Bell').
Her novel 'The Professor' might have been considered a failure and was badly rejected, Jane Eyre provided her great success and appreciation. At the end of her life she was consented to marry her father's curate, and died of an illness related to pregnancy.
Her style of realist writing, amazing plot, and the cruelty of her own world, besides beautiful command of English touch each reader even today, which is the reason for her wide appreciation. Her geniality has contributed to the fact, that Jane Eyre is one of the most reputed novels of British literature.
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Jane Eyre is a story of a first person narration, comprising social criticism and ominous Gothic elements, divided into 38 chapters. The plot follows the form of a Bildungsroman, a novel that tells the story of a child's maturation and focuses on the emotions and experiences that lead to her maturity. Several themes and motifs are to be found in the marvellous novel, such as morality, religion, social class and gender relations (emancipation).
The protagonist herself is an independent character of a kind and forgiving Christian personality. She is able to reject to be Rochester's paramour due to 'her moral independence and self-respect' such as she is strong enough to decide her destination beside Edward and not St John since she refuses marrying him and his bigot Puritanism. She forgives her wicked aunt.
Jane endeavours to attain an equilibrium between moral duty and earthly happiness in the whole novel. Even as a child she is able to see the difference between hypocritical Mr Brucklewurst and Helen Burns, despite the fact that she denies both way and finds the golden mean that finally drives her to happiness.
Bronte reveals the world of the penniless orphans, a world, from which there is hardly any way to escape. Though she is sophisticated and well-educated, she has to wear eternal stamp of poverty. She makes her very best to overwhelm patriarchalism, to gain female independence in a man-dominated society.
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After reading the unabridged version of Jane Eyre I felt ambivalence. There had been a great catharsis as the heroine achieves her final aim, but the roman itself leaves several questions open. Besides this, the reader might feel sympathy towards the orphans in England, in the 19th century. I earnestly think that Jane Eyre and her morality is a great model for the modern world. That is the reason for I have chosen her touching story to describe.
A Girl at Gateshead and Lowood
Jane Eyre, the daughter of a poor vicar, simply sighed for an affectionate family, though her destiny seemed scarcely is inclined to provide her an optimal atmosphere to be brought up in. As she is an orphan, with no relations apart from the Reeds, she lives in Aunt Sarah's house. Despite the final wish of her maternal uncle, she was apparently not treated as the children in the Reeds house but kept as a servant, or even less.
Eliza, Georgiana and John, her abusive cousins felt eternal oath towards her but they grasped each possibility to bully at her. Not only is she ferociously rejected to 'adjust' and join the family circle but ordered that she be silent and insensible. She had perfectly accustomed to her treatment; she started reading on the window sill, disguised by a curtain. Her cousins did not leave her alone but went on punishing her.
We have a great spot line on her character and present situation as she was treated by John Reed. He commanded that she come for her punishment. She approached tremblingly, deathly threatened of the wicked, plucky lad, of which she was always expected to fear. He kept hitting her strongly until blood and contusions appeared on her forehead. She defended herself strongly in her last desperateness, with which she shocked not even the Reeds but the staff as well. As a punishment, Mrs Reed locked her in the ominous and sinister 'red room', in which no one had spent a night after Mr Reed breathed his last there.
Gradually it became dark outside whilst Jane was thinking about the reasons for her suffer in the room. Life had been always unbearably unfair to her - no one could have contradicted. She claimed to have seen a ghost nearing her but only Bessie, her nurse believed her. Her terrible scream attracted the whole family that simply considered this just a little naughty trick. It could not have been only an attempt to get free, as the phenomenon had considerably influenced her mind. She turned so severely ill that Bessie was not quite sure whether she might survive...
After thorough examination and gaining confidence of Jane, Dr Lloyd prescribed this child ought to have a change of air. Since her presence was pretty awkward for the Reed family, they were glad to get rid of her. Consequently, Jane was sent to a board school to Lowood, where she got a chance to start a new life. As Mrs Reed truly hated Jane, provided her a nasty 'parcel' by lying her teachers that she were wicked and dishonest.
On the 19th of January, the carriage transporting Jane to Lowood arrived at the yard of a charity (orphanage) school. One of her first experiences are related to the hypocritical Mr Brucklehurst who had embezzled the school's funds from time to time, to support his family's luxurious lifestyle while preaching to others a doctrine of privation and poverty. Jane was called a liar and that infuriated her. As a result, children lived similar to recluses, bearing rude offences with passive dignity. Jane had finally managed to adjust herself to the conditions of the charity school, where she should have learnt the deficiencies in nutrition (starving) and differences between mentality if their teachers too (gentle Ms Temple / sour Ms Scatcherd).
Helen Burns, a bright and extremely religious girl infects Jane. She reveres her for her profound Christianity, even though she herself believes that returning hate for hate is necessary to prevent evil from taking over. Helen ceases to exist of malnutrition and the typhus epidemic gone ablaze because of hygienic conditions.
Gradually typhus and tuberculosis fever sunk, Mr Brucklehurst lost his position as a conductor. The school had grown to a useful place for education since several headways were made. Owing to these improvements Lowood School looked forward a generous thrive. Jane spent eight more years there, the last two as a teacher. She felt refreshed and contented with teaching but later (when Ms Temple got married as well) she decided to make a major alternation and to get a job as a governess in a distant part of the country.
A Governess at Thornfield
Longing for a more important job, she advertised herself for a governess. The gently housekeeper of Gothic manor Thornfield, Mrs Alice Fairfax hired her. Not only turned she out to be a nice elderly lady, but became a confidential friend to Jane. Her task would be the appropriate education of a simple-minded but nice French illegitimate girl, Adéle.
Getting acquainted with the house, Jane had gone wandering into the forest; where she met an peculiar man that fell off his horse, claiming that she must have put a spell on his horse to bolt. She offered her altruistic aid and recognized just sooner that the person she had helped was her master, Mr Rochester.
They strike up a rapport; Mr Rochester and Jane have several common speeches. Jane felt proud of gaining Rochester's confidence, telling her about his past. Among others, he spoke about the story of Adéle, about his foolishness at the age of twenty. He had been travelling through Europe when he got known with Céline Varens, a beautiful Parisian dancer. Even though, Rochester himself can hardly believe that Adéle were his own daughter, he had brought her to England, to ensure adequate education and life.
In the middle of that night, Jane heard an ear-splitting, inhuman voice screaming ferociously in the room of Rochester. Rushing in the chamber, she caught sight of his sheets ablaze, so she helped with extinguishing the fire, of course. Though they were still in ardent love with each other, no one of them confirmed it. Rochester became indebted to Jane, he owed his own life. Next day Jane had started contemplating about the fire-case and she came to the conclusion that the only person, who could have set the fire, is Grace Poole. She went on investigating her, obtaining no proof for guilt but astonished at the total lack of twinges of remorse.
Eccentricity of Mr Rochester was partly that he disappeared from to time to the Continent. After a month he returned and declared there would be a great house party at Thornfield. Several high-class ladies and gentlemen arrived at the castle including Miss Blanche Ingram, a beautiful but shallow socialite whom Rochester seemed to be courting, making Jane jealous. The feat was a great success with audible Walzer, music and joy; interfered only by an old, ugly gipsy woman who insisted on that she tell everyone their future. Rochester disguised in the mask of the gipsy, told precisely what Jane was feeling, to hear earnest surprise.
A certain queer Mr Richard Mason arrived from the West Indies, offering bad news Mr Rochester. A blood-curdling cry was to be heard in the middle of the night, Mason got seriously wounded. A surgeon came to help with the stabbed and bitten injury, whisking him at dawn away. Grace Pool is in suspicion but the real reasons still remain obscure for Jane...
Hearing about the suicidal of her cousin John, Jane travelled to Gateshead. She realized that not only John had died but everything had altered. Gorged Georgiana is an ex-star of salons, only moaning about a wealthy marriage had remained her, beside her with sister Eliza became a puritan. Mrs Reed had got badly ill after her son's death but she remained such stern and stubborn as she always had been. She did not accept Jane's proposal for reconciliation, even not in the last minutes of her life, just produced a letter of Mr John Reed of Madeira out of her drawer. The rich uncle of Jane had notified her as his unique infant, which meant necessity of poorness any longer.
Eventually she managed to return home luckily. She got scolded for her long stay at Gateshead but after her arrival, she and Mr Rochester gradually came to the silent admission of tender love towards each other. In fact Jane called Rochester her master; in spite of the fact that she could no longer hide the brightest emotion of all in her heart and she know deep inside that her love was reciprocated. When Edward told her his final decision, she was in the very near of fainting, and her reply was unambiguous: yes. That was the simple word that determined several forthcoming events; a plain word that made Jane Eyre rejoiced and vivacious again, but the word, too, that destroyed their common future.
Outside, a terrible wind was wuthering; the storm went on furiously all that night. The immense oak tree, which had been guarding for peace of the land for decades, was hit by a thunder and ripped apart. Wicked mysteries seemed to have been hidden in the background...
The next few days were engaged with hustle and bustle for the perfect wedding. Everything seemed to run its course, even though everything was in fine harmony. But it was not. Jane was tortured by miserable dreams that ended up in an odd presentiment implying omens about the wedding. One night a woman-like creature with remarkably inhuman faces and outlook turned up in Jane's room while she was sleeping. It put on her head the finest silk veil of Jane, and then admired herself in the mirror, eventually tearing it in two pieces, left the chamber. Presuming another secret in Rochester manor, Jane dizzied into her dreams, still trembling with fear and angst.
After sunrise Jane had hardly had any minutes for dressing, Edward urged her to their oath at church. They had no relation to accompany them to the priest, so they walked hastily to the chapel of Gateshead. As the priest began the mass, Jane saw just two men strolling around the banks. The ceremony arrived at the question whether there were any reasons preventing the catholic admission of love of the pair standing by the altar. For Jane's honest astonishment, there was one.
The lawyer had been approaching with a paper in his hands declaring a marriage fifteen years ago between Edward Rochester and Bertha Mason. He produced an eye-witness as well, Richard Mason (the secret man wounded a little time before) who had evidently proved that the women had been hidden for several years in Rochester's house, was his own wife.
Rochester bitterly confessed everything; he was even ready to show the evidences: the secret chamber of Grace Poole. Opening the door left ajar, after a fierce cry, Rochester was violently attacked. He could beat her wife just after a struggle. Consequently, no wedding was held that day and grief swam across again the Rochester castle.
After the gentlemen had left, Rochester continued his explanation. He said he had been under family pressure for an advantageous marriage, and was enraptured by beauty of Bertha, so they married. He had to realize reluctantly very soon that Bertha went mad, so he locked her in the attic, paying considerably for Grace Poole, in order that she guided Bertha.
Rochester implored Jane to establish a new life in South-France but the woman remained cold and stubborn (partly because of the night vision of her mother): she was surely to move to the far North.
A Woman at Marsh End
Jane hired a carriage on her last spare time and travelled towards the eternal moor in front of her. Meanwhile she could not help thinking about the despair she left in abandoned Rochester's heart, and even though she was desperately yearning for his company, an inner sound had ordered her to the way forward.
When she got out of her money, she started begging for some food in vain. She gained admittance to the house of a young clergyman, St John Rivers. Under the false surname 'Elliott' Jane recovers fast in company of St John and her kind sisters, Diana and Mary. The clergyman arranged for her a cottage and a job as a school teacher, which actually meant teaching of twenty raw girls of Morton. She was contented but she had to remind herself from time to time that she was fortunate to fulfil her destination.
John who kept visiting her, turned out to be a zealous Christian that observes himself as permanent servant of God. Not even adoration of pretty heiress Rosamund Oliver could divert him from his earnest obsession of being a missionary in Africa.
One day when snow had covered the landscape, St John took an unexpected excursion to Jane. He told her about a great inheritance of Uncle John who left Ł 20,000 to his niece, a certain Jane Eyre. After revealing her real identity, Jane shared her allowance with her cousins (Mary, Diana and John). Due to her generosity, none of them have to work any more but conduct their estate at Moor House.
Not very soon John had made up his mind to make a long (and presumably fatal) journey to India, devoting his life to missionary work. He claimed that Jane elaborate as a wife as she seemed to be honestly inclined to contribute to his generous work. Her only condition was that she would not marry him as she had sensed no sign of love but fraternal respect. John's forceful personality had almost caused her capitulation when a desperate cry of Edward Rochester reached her ears. She picked up her courage to reject the attempts of John completely and considered the voice as a clear sign of the Holy Father.
She hesitated no longer and set off to Thornfield.
A wife at Ferndean Manor
After thirty six hour's travelling, Jane arrived at Gateshead and was appalled by the view of the mansion burnt into ashes. The hotel-owner explained her that after the depart of a certain plain governess, with whom Mr Rochester had been deathly in love, had almost driven the master insane and made her wife extremely jealous so that Bertha had set fire in the house and had committed a suicide by jumping off the roof. Rochester himself made his best to save the servants out of the house in flames but he lost his eyes and a hand. The 'family' moved to another house at Ferndean Moor that time, so Jane decided to drive there at once.
The curia at Ferndean Moor was much different from Thornfield. The mansion was in the middle of a forest, surrounded by monumental trees, radiated pain, grief and loneliness. The only servants that Rochester tolerated were John and her wife, Mary. Jane asked Mary to let her take the candles for Mr Rochester who was sitting in the inner chamber. He sensed proximity of her love, for which he had been waiting for years. Jane had finally arrived, claiming to ensure happiness for her and for Edward by marrying him.
The novel ends up in a retrospective soliloquy, in which Jane reports to have been blissfully married for ten years. They live in and ideal partnership that they considered honeymoon shining their life long, which beams shall have been faded only over their grave. Their heart are beating at the same time in separated bosoms, they bestow their confidence completely upon each other.
Adéle is grown to a beautiful and gracious adolescent. Mary and Diana are married; both of them are in affectionate love with their husband, visiting Jane once in a year. St John has found his destination in India, as well: he is a zealous and successful missionary.
Owing to a miracle happened two years ago Edward could wave goodbye to his blindness as one of his eyes has recovered. He acknowledged God's mercy in judgement for being donated the opportunity of viewing his first born sun who inherited his large, black, brilliant eyes. A new life had arrived at Ferndean Moor, owing to which the old mason was looking forward a never seen boost.
Everything was in complete order.
Bibliography
Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre. Penguin Popular Classics - complete and unabridged, Great Britain by Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, 1994.
Jane Eyre - Oxford Bookworm's Library Stage 6. Retold by Clare West, Oxford University Press, 2003.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre
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