The Professor Charlotte Brone Book Review Spark Notes

1847 novel by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre

Championship page of the start Jane Eyre edition
Author	Charlotte Brontë
State	Great britain
Linguistic communication	English
Genre	Gothic Bildungsroman Romance
Ready in	Northern England, early 19th century[a]
Publisher	Smith, Elder & Co.
Publication date	16 October 1847 (1847-x-16)
Media blazon	Print
OCLC	3163777
Dewey Decimal	823.8
Followed by	Shirley
Text	Jane Eyre at Wikisource

Jane Eyre ( AIR ; originally published every bit Jane Eyre: An Autobiography ) is a novel past English language writer Charlotte Brontë, published under the pen name "Currer Bong", on 16 October 1847, by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first American edition was published the post-obit twelvemonth by Harper & Brothers of New York.^[1] Jane Eyre is a Bildungsroman which follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to machismo and her love for Mr. Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall.^[2]

The novel revolutionised prose fiction by being the first to focus on its protagonist's moral and spiritual development through an intimate first-person narrative, where actions and events are coloured past a psychological intensity. Charlotte Brontë has been called the "beginning historian of the private consciousness", and the literary antecedent of writers like Proust and Joyce.^[3]

The book contains elements of social criticism with a strong sense of Christian morality at its cadre, and it is considered by many to be ahead of its time because of Jane's individualistic character and how the novel approaches the topics of class, sexuality, religion, and feminism.^{[four] [5]} It, forth with Jane Austen'south Pride and Prejudice, is one of the virtually famous romance novels.^{[half dozen]}

Plot [edit]

Jane Eyre is divided into 38 capacity. It was originally published in three volumes in the 19th century, comprising chapters ane to 15, xvi to 27, and 28 to 38.

The 2d edition was dedicated to William Makepeace Thackeray.

The novel is a first-person narrative from the perspective of the title character. Its setting is somewhere in the north of England, late in the reign of George 3 (1760–1820).^[a] It has five distinct stages: Jane's childhood at Gateshead Hall, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; her pedagogy at Lowood School, where she gains friends and role models simply suffers privations and oppression; her time as governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her mysterious employer, Edward Fairfax Rochester; her time in the Moor Firm, during which her earnest but common cold clergyman cousin, St. John Rivers, proposes to her; and ultimately her reunion with, and wedlock to, her beloved Rochester. Throughout these sections, it provides perspectives on a number of of import social issues and ideas, many of which are critical of the status quo.

The five stages of Jane'due south life:

Gateshead Hall [edit]

Young Jane argues with her guardian Mrs. Reed of Gateshead, illustration by F. H. Townsend

Jane Eyre, anile 10, lives at Gateshead Hall with her maternal uncle's family unit, the Reeds, as a result of her uncle's dying wish. Jane was orphaned several years before when her parents died of typhus. Mr. Reed, Jane's uncle, was the only member of the Reed family who was ever kind to Jane. Jane's aunt, Sarah Reed, dislikes her, abuses her, and treats her as a burden. Mrs. Reed also discourages her three children from associating with Jane. Every bit a result, Jane becomes defensive against her cruel sentence. The nursemaid, Bessie, proves to be Jane'south simply ally in the household, even though Bessie occasionally scolds Jane harshly. Excluded from the family activities, Jane leads an unhappy babyhood, with only a doll and books with which to entertain herself.

One 24-hour interval, equally punishment for defending herself against her cracking 14-yr-sometime cousin John Reed, the eldest son, Jane is relegated to the crimson room in which her late uncle had died; there, she faints from panic afterward she thinks she has seen his ghost. The red room is significant considering it lays the grounds for the "ambiguous relationship between parents and children" which plays out in all of Jane'due south futurity relationships with male person figures throughout the novel.^[seven] She is afterward attended to by the kindly apothecary Mr. Lloyd to whom Jane reveals how unhappy she is living at Gateshead Hall. He recommends to Mrs. Reed that Jane should be sent to school, an idea Mrs. Reed happily supports.

Mrs. Reed then enlists the assistance of the harsh Mr. Brocklehurst, who is the managing director of Lowood Institution, a charity schoolhouse for girls, to enroll Jane. Mrs. Reed cautions Mr. Brocklehurst that Jane has a "trend for deceit", which he interprets as Jane beingness a liar. Before Jane leaves, however, she confronts Mrs. Reed and declares that she'll never call her "aunt" again. Jane likewise tells Mrs. Reed and her daughters, Georgiana and Eliza, that they are the ones who are deceitful, and that she will tell anybody at Lowood how cruelly the Reeds treated her. Mrs. Reed is hurt badly by these words, but does not have the courage or tenacity to show this.^[8]

Lowood Institution [edit]

At Lowood Institution, a schoolhouse for poor and orphaned girls, Jane soon finds that life is harsh. She attempts to fit in and befriends an older daughter, Helen Burns. During a form session, her new friend is criticised for her poor stance and muddy nails, and receives a lashing as a result. Afterwards, Jane tells Helen that she could not have borne such public humiliation, but Helen philosophically tells her that information technology would be her duty to do so. Jane then tells Helen how desperately she has been treated by Mrs. Reed, but Helen tells her that she would be far happier if she did not bear grudges.

In due grade, Mr. Brocklehurst visits the schoolhouse. While Jane is trying to brand herself expect camouflaged, she accidentally drops her slate, thereby drawing attention to herself. She is and so forced to stand on a stool, and is branded a sinner and a liar. Afterwards, Miss Temple, the caring superintendent, facilitates Jane's self-defence and publicly clears her of any wrongdoing. Helen and Miss Temple are Jane's two master role models who positively guide her evolution, despite the harsh treatment she has received from many others.

The 80 pupils at Lowood are subjected to cold rooms, poor meals, and thin article of clothing. Many students fall ill when a typhus epidemic strikes; Helen dies of consumption in Jane's arms. When Mr. Brocklehurst'south maltreatment of the students is discovered, several benefactors erect a new edifice and install a sympathetic direction committee to moderate Mr. Brocklehurst'south harsh rule. Weather at the schoolhouse and so improve dramatically.

Thornfield Hall [edit]

Subsequently six years as a student and ii every bit a instructor at Lowood, Jane decides to leave in pursuit of a new life, growing bored of her life at Lowood. Her friend and confidante, Miss Temple, also leaves afterward getting married. Jane advertises her services equally a governess in a newspaper. A housekeeper at Thornfield Hall, Alice Fairfax, replies to Jane'south advertising. Jane takes the position, teaching Adèle Varens, a young French girl.

Ane night, while Jane is carrying a letter to the mail from Thornfield, a horseman and dog laissez passer her. The horse slips on ice and throws the rider. Despite the rider's surliness, Jane helps him get back onto his equus caballus. Later, back at Thornfield, she learns that this human is Edward Rochester, main of the firm. Adèle was left in his care when her mother abandoned her. It is not immediately credible whether Adèle is Rochester'southward daughter or not.

At Jane'due south first meeting with Mr. Rochester, he teases her, accusing her of bewitching his horse to make him fall. Jane stands up to his initially big-headed manner, despite his strange behaviour. Mr. Rochester and Jane soon come to enjoy each other's company, and they spend many evenings together.

Odd things outset to happen at the firm, such equally a strange laugh being heard, a mysterious burn down in Mr. Rochester'south room (from which Jane saves Rochester by rousing him and throwing water on him), and an attack on a house-guest named Mr. Stonemason.

Afterward Jane saves Mr. Rochester from the burn down, he thanks her tenderly and emotionally, and that night Jane feels strange emotions of her own towards him. The next twenty-four hours still he leaves unexpectedly for a distant political party gathering, and several days subsequently returns with the whole political party, including the beautiful and talented Blanche Ingram. Jane sees that Blanche and Mr. Rochester favour each other and starts to feel jealous, particularly because she also sees that Blanche is snobbish and heartless.

Jane then receives word that Mrs. Reed has suffered a stroke and is calling for her. Jane returns to Gateshead Hall and remains in that location for a month to tend to her dying aunt. Mrs. Reed confesses to Jane that she wronged her, bringing along a letter from Jane's paternal uncle, Mr. John Eyre, in which he asks for her to live with him and be his heir. Mrs. Reed admits to telling Mr. Eyre that Jane had died of fever at Lowood. Soon afterward, Mrs. Reed dies, and Jane helps her cousins after the funeral earlier returning to Thornfield.

Dorsum at Thornfield, Jane broods over Mr. Rochester's rumoured impending marriage to Blanche Ingram. All the same, 1 midsummer evening, Rochester baits Jane by maxim how much he will miss her later getting married and how she will soon forget him. The normally self-controlled Jane reveals her feelings for him. Rochester and then is sure that Jane is sincerely in honey with him, and he proposes marriage. Jane is at first skeptical of his sincerity, before accepting his proposal. She and then writes to her Uncle John, telling him of her happy news.

Every bit she prepares for her wedding ceremony, Jane's forebodings arise when a strange woman sneaks into her room one night and rips Jane's wedding veil in 2. As with the previous mysterious events, Mr. Rochester attributes the incident to Grace Poole, 1 of his servants. During the wedding ceremony, even so, Mr. Mason and a lawyer declare that Mr. Rochester cannot ally because he is already married to Mr. Stonemason's sister, Bertha. Mr. Rochester admits this is true but explains that his begetter tricked him into the wedlock for her money. One time they were united, he discovered that she was chop-chop descending into congenital madness, and so he eventually locked her abroad in Thornfield, hiring Grace Poole as a nurse to await after her. When Grace gets drunk, Rochester's wife escapes and causes the strange happenings at Thornfield.

It turns out that Jane's uncle, Mr. John Eyre, is a friend of Mr. Mason'southward and was visited by him soon subsequently Mr. Eyre received Jane'southward alphabetic character well-nigh her impending marriage. After the matrimony anniversary is broken off, Mr. Rochester asks Jane to go with him to the south of French republic and live with him as husband and married woman, even though they cannot exist married. Jane is tempted but must stay true to her Christian values and beliefs. Refusing to get against her principles, and despite her love for Rochester, Jane leaves Thornfield Hall at dawn before anyone else is up.^[nine]

Moor House [edit]

St. John Rivers admits Jane to Moor House, illustration by F. H. Townsend

Jane travels as far from Thornfield Hall as she can using the trivial money she had previously saved. She accidentally leaves her bundle of possessions on the omnibus and is forced to sleep on the moor. She unsuccessfully attempts to trade her handkerchief and gloves for food. Wearied and starving, she somewhen makes her way to the home of Diana and Mary Rivers but is turned abroad past the housekeeper. She collapses on the doorstep, preparing for her death. Clergyman St. John Rivers, Diana and Mary's brother, rescues her. After Jane regains her health, St. John finds her a teaching position at a nearby hamlet school. Jane becomes good friends with the sisters, merely St. John remains aloof.

The sisters leave for governess jobs, and St. John becomes slightly closer to Jane. St. John learns Jane's true identity and astounds her by telling her that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her his entire fortune of 20,000 pounds (equivalent to just over $two one thousand thousand in 2021^[10]). When Jane questions him further, St. John reveals that John Eyre is also his and his sisters' uncle. They had once hoped for a share of the inheritance but were left nearly nada. Jane, charmed by finding that she has living and friendly family members, insists on sharing the money as with her cousins, and Diana and Mary come back to live at Moor House.

Proposals [edit]

Thinking that the pious and conscientious Jane will brand a suitable missionary's married woman, St. John asks her to marry him and to get with him to India, not out of honey, merely out of duty. Jane initially accepts going to India but rejects the marriage proposal, suggesting they travel equally brother and sister. As soon equally Jane's resolve against marriage to St. John begins to weaken, she mystically hears Mr. Rochester's vox calling her proper noun. Jane and then returns to Thornfield Hall to observe only blackened ruins. She learns that Mr. Rochester'south married woman fix the firm on fire and died later on jumping from the roof. In his rescue attempts, Mr. Rochester lost a paw and his eyesight. Jane reunites with him, but he fears that she will be repulsed by his status. "Am I hideous, Jane?", he asks. "Very, sir; you always were, you know", she replies. When Jane assures him of her love and tells him that she volition never go out him, Mr. Rochester proposes again, and they are married. They live together in an old business firm in the woods called Ferndean Estate. Rochester regains sight in one middle ii years after his and Jane's marriage, and he sees their newborn son.

Major characters [edit]

In order of get-go line of dialogue:

Chapter 1 [edit]

• Jane Eyre: The novel'due south narrator and protagonist, she eventually becomes the second wife of Edward Rochester. Orphaned every bit a baby, Jane struggles through her nearly loveless childhood and becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall. Though facially plain, Jane is passionate and strongly principled and values liberty and independence. She besides has a strong conscience and is a adamant Christian. She is x at the beginning of the novel, and nineteen or xx at the cease of the main narrative. Equally the last chapter of the novel states that she has been married to Edward Rochester for ten years, she is approximately xxx at its completion.
• Mrs. Sarah Reed: (née Gibson) Jane'southward maternal aunt by marriage, who reluctantly adopted Jane in accordance with her late husband's wishes. According to Mrs. Reed, he pitied Jane and often cared for her more than than for his own children. Mrs. Reed's resentment leads her to abuse and neglect the daughter. She lies to Mr. Brocklehurst nigh Jane's tendency to lie, preparing him to exist severe with Jane when she arrives at Brocklehurst'due south Lowood School.
• John Reed: Jane's 14-year-quondam kickoff cousin who bullies her incessantly and violently, sometimes in his mother's presence. Addicted to food and sweets, causing him sick health and bad complexion. John somewhen ruins himself as an developed by drinking and gambling and is rumoured to take committed suicide.
• Eliza Reed: Jane's thirteen-year-old kickoff cousin. Envious of her more attractive younger sister and a slave to a rigid routine, she self-righteously devotes herself to religion. She leaves for a nunnery most Lisle (France) later on her mother'due south expiry, determined to estrange herself from her sister.
• Georgiana Reed: Jane'south eleven-twelvemonth-old kickoff cousin. Although beautiful and indulged, she is insolent and spiteful. Her elder sister Eliza foils Georgiana'due south marriage to the wealthy Lord Edwin Vere when the couple is virtually to elope. Georgiana somewhen marries a "wealthy worn-out human of fashion."
• Bessie Lee: The nursemaid at Gateshead Hall. She frequently treats Jane kindly, telling her stories and singing her songs, only she has a quick temper. Afterwards, she marries Robert Leaven with whom she has three children.
• Miss Martha Abbot: Mrs. Reed's maid at Gateshead Hall. She is unkind to Jane and tells Jane she has less right to be at Gateshead than a servant does.

Chapter 3 [edit]

• Mr. Lloyd: A compassionate apothecary who recommends that Jane be sent to school. Afterwards, he writes a alphabetic character to Miss Temple confirming Jane's business relationship of her childhood and thereby clears Jane of Mrs. Reed's charge of lying.

Affiliate four [edit]

• Mr. Brocklehurst: The clergyman, director, and treasurer of Lowood Schoolhouse, whose maltreatment of the pupils is eventually exposed. A religious traditionalist, he advocates for his charges the about harsh, plain, and disciplined possible lifestyle, merely, hypocritically, not for himself and his own family unit. His second daughter, Augusta, exclaimed, "Oh, honey papa, how quiet and plain all the girls at Lowood expect… they looked at my wearing apparel and mama's, as if they had never seen a silk gown earlier."

Chapter 5 [edit]

• Miss Maria Temple: The kind superintendent of Lowood School, who treats the pupils with respect and compassion. She helps clear Jane of Mr. Brocklehurst's false accusation of cant and cares for Helen in her terminal days. Eventually, she marries Reverend Naysmith.
• Miss Scatcherd: A sour and strict teacher at Lowood. She constantly punishes Helen Burns for her untidiness just fails to see Helen's substantial proficient points.
• Helen Burns: Jane'due south all-time friend at Lowood School. She refuses to hate those who corruption her, trusts in God, and prays for peace one day in heaven. She teaches Jane to trust Christianity and dies of consumption in Jane's arms. Elizabeth Gaskell, in her biography of the Brontë sisters, wrote that Helen Burns was 'an exact transcript' of Maria Brontë, who died of consumption at age 11.^[11]

Chapter 11 [edit]

• Mrs. Alice Fairfax: The elderly, kind widow and the housekeeper of Thornfield Hall; distantly related to the Rochesters.
• Adèle Varens: An excitable French kid to whom Jane is a governess at Thornfield Hall. Adèle's mother was a dancer named Céline. She was Mr. Rochester's mistress and claimed that Adèle was Mr. Rochester's daughter, though he refuses to believe it due to Céline's unfaithfulness and Adèle's credible lack of resemblance to him. Adèle seems to believe that her female parent is dead (she tells Jane in chapter 11, "I lived long ago with mamma, but she is gone to the Holy Virgin"). Mr. Rochester later tells Jane that Céline actually abased Adèle and "ran away to Italy with a musician or singer" (ch. fifteen). Adèle and Jane develop a strong liking for 1 another, and although Mr. Rochester places Adèle in a strict school after Jane flees Thornfield Hall, Jane visits Adèle after her return and finds a better, less severe schoolhouse for her. When Adèle is quondam enough to leave school, Jane describes her equally "a pleasing and obliging companion – docile, skilful-tempered and well-principled", and considers her kindness to Adèle well repaid.
• Grace Poole: "…a woman of betwixt thirty and forty; a gear up, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face…" Mr. Rochester pays her a very high salary to go along his mad wife, Bertha, hidden and quiet. Grace is often used as an explanation for odd happenings at the business firm such as strange laughter that was heard non long later on Jane arrived. She has a weakness for drinking that occasionally allows Bertha to escape.

Chapter 12 [edit]

• Edward Fairfax Rochester: The main of Thornfield Hall. A Byronic hero, he has a face "dark, strong, and stern." He married Bertha Bricklayer years before the novel begins.
• Leah: The housemaid at Thornfield Hall.

Chapter 17 [edit]

• Blanche Ingram: Young socialite whom Mr. Rochester plans to marry. Though possessing dandy beauty and talent, she treats social inferiors, Jane in particular, with undisguised contempt. Mr. Rochester exposes her and her female parent's mercenary motivations when he puts out a rumour that he is far less wealthy than they imagine.

Chapter eighteen [edit]

• Richard Mason: An Englishman whose arrival at Thornfield Hall from the Westward Indies unsettles Mr. Rochester. He is the blood brother of Rochester'south first married woman, the adult female in the attic, and still cares for his sister's well-being. During the hymeneals ceremony of Jane and Mr. Rochester, he exposes the bigamous nature of the marriage.

Chapter 21 [edit]

• Robert Leaven: The coachman at Gateshead Hall, who brings Jane the news of the decease of the dissolute John Reed, an upshot which has brought on Mrs. Reed's stroke. He informs her of Mrs. Reed'southward wish to see Jane before she dies.

Affiliate 26 [edit]

• Bertha Antoinetta Mason: The first married woman of Edward Rochester. Subsequently their wedding, her mental health began to deteriorate, and she is now violent and in a state of intense derangement, apparently unable to speak or go into guild. Mr. Rochester, who insists that he was tricked into the union by a family unit who knew Bertha was likely to develop this condition, has kept Bertha locked in the cranium at Thornfield Hall for years. She is supervised and cared for by Grace Poole, whose drinking sometimes allows Bertha to escape. After Richard Bricklayer stops Jane and Mr. Rochester's wedding, Rochester finally introduces Jane to Bertha: "In the deep shade, at the further end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether animate being or man beingness, ane could not, at get-go sight, tell… it snatched and growled similar some strange wild animal: but information technology was covered with vesture, and a quantity of dark, grizzled pilus, wild as a mane, hid its caput and face." Eventually, Bertha sets fire to Thornfield Hall and throws herself to her death from the roof. Bertha is viewed every bit Jane'due south "double": Jane is pious and only, while Bertha is cruel and animalistic.^[12] Though her race is never mentioned, it is sometimes conjectured that she was of mixed race. Rochester suggests that Bertha's parents wanted her to ally him, because he was of "expert race", implying that she was not pure white, while he was. There are also references to her "dark" hair and "discoloured" and "black" face up.^[13] A number of writers during the Victorian period suggested that madness could issue from a racially "impure" lineage, compounded by growing up in a tropical West Indian climate.^{[fourteen] [15]}

Affiliate 28 [edit]

• Diana and Mary Rivers: Sisters in a remote moors firm who take Jane in when she is hungry and friendless, having left Thornfield Hall without making any arrangements for herself. Financially poor but intellectually curious, the sisters are deeply engrossed in reading the evening Jane appears at their door. Eventually, they are revealed to be Jane's cousins. They want Jane to marry their stern chaplain blood brother so that he will stay in England rather than journey to India as a missionary. Diana marries naval Captain Fitzjames, and Mary marries clergyman Mr. Wharton. The sisters remain close to Jane and visit her and Rochester every year.
• Hannah: The kindly housekeeper at the Rivers dwelling house; "…comparable with the Brontës' well-loved servant, Tabitha Aykroyd."
• St. John Eyre Rivers: A handsome, though astringent and serious, clergyman who befriends Jane and turns out to be her cousin. St. John is thoroughly practical and suppresses all of his human passions and emotions, specially his love for the cute and cheerful heiress Rosamond Oliver, in favour of good works. He wants Jane to ally him and serve equally his assistant on his missionary journey to Bharat. Subsequently Jane rejects his proposal, St. John goes to India unmarried.

Chapter 32 [edit]

• Rosamond Oliver: A beautiful, kindly, wealthy, just rather simple immature woman, and the patron of the village school where Jane teaches. Rosamond is in dearest with St. John, but he refuses to declare his dearest for her because she wouldn't be suitable as a missionary's wife. She eventually becomes engaged to the respected and wealthy Mr. Granby.
• Mr. Oliver: Rosamond Oliver's wealthy father, who owns a foundry and needle factory in the district. "…a tall, massive-featured, centre-anile, and grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright flower nigh a hoary turret." He is a kind and charitable man, and he is fond of St. John.

Context [edit]

The Salutation pub in Hulme, Manchester, where Brontë began to write Jane Eyre; the pub was a lodge in the 1840s.^{[16] [17]}

The early sequences, in which Jane is sent to Lowood, a harsh boarding school, are derived from the author's own experiences. Helen Burns's death from tuberculosis (referred to equally consumption) recalls the deaths of Charlotte Brontë'south sisters, Elizabeth and Maria, who died of the disease in childhood as a result of the weather condition at their school, the Clergy Daughters Schoolhouse at Cowan Span, about Tunstall, Lancashire. Mr. Brocklehurst is based on Rev. William Carus Wilson (1791–1859), the Evangelical minister who ran the school. Additionally, John Reed'due south reject into alcoholism and dissolution recalls the life of Charlotte'due south blood brother Branwell, who became an opium and booze addict in the years preceding his death. Finally, like Jane, Charlotte became a governess. These facts were revealed to the public in The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857) past Charlotte's friend and boyfriend novelist Elizabeth Gaskell.^[eighteen]

The Gothic manor of Thornfield Hall was probably inspired by North Lees Hall, near Hathersage in the Peak District. This was visited past Charlotte Brontë and her friend Ellen Nussey in the summer of 1845, and is described by the latter in a letter of the alphabet dated 22 July 1845. It was the residence of the Eyre family unit, and its first owner, Agnes Ashurst, was reputedly confined as a lunatic in a padded second floor room.^[18] It has been suggested that the Wycoller Hall in Lancashire, close to Haworth, provided the setting for Ferndean Manor to which Mr. Rochester retreats after the burn at Thornfield: in that location are similarities betwixt the owner of Ferndean—Mr. Rochester's father—and Henry Cunliffe, who inherited Wycoller in the 1770s and lived there until his expiry in 1818; one of Cunliffe's relatives was named Elizabeth Eyre (née Cunliffe).^[nineteen] The sequence in which Mr. Rochester's married woman sets fire to the bed defunction was prepared in an August 1830 homemade publication of Brontë's The Young Men'south Magazine, Number 2.^[20] Charlotte Brontë began composing Jane Eyre in Manchester, and she likely envisioned Manchester Cathedral churchyard as the burying identify for Jane'southward parents and Manchester as the birthplace of Jane herself.^[21]

Adaptations and influence [edit]

The novel has been adjusted into a number of other forms, including theatre, motion picture, television, and at least two full-length operas, by John Joubert (1987–1997) and Michael Berkeley (2000). The novel has also been the field of study of a number of significant rewritings and related interpretations, notably Jean Rhys'due south seminal 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea.^[22]

On 19 May 2016, Cathy Marston's ballet adaption was premiered past the Northern Ballet at the Cast Theatre in Doncaster, England with Dreda Blow as Jane and Javier Torres as Rochester.^[23]

In November 2016, a manga adaptation past Crystal S. Chan was published by Manga Classics Inc., with artwork by Sunneko Lee.^{[24] [25]}

Reception [edit]

Gimmicky reviews [edit]

Jane Eyre 'due south initial reception contrasts starkly to its reputation today. In 1848, Elizabeth Rigby (later on Elizabeth Eastlake), reviewing Jane Eyre in The Quarterly Review, establish it "pre-eminently an anti-Christian composition,"^[26] declaring: "Nosotros do not hesitate to say that the tone of mind and thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code human and divine abroad, and fostered Chartism and rebellion at home, is the same which has also written Jane Eyre."^[26]

An anonymous review in The Mirror of Literature, Entertainment, and Educational activity writes of "the extraordinary daring of the writer of Jane Eyre", withal the review is by and large disquisitional, summarizing: "There is not a single natural character throughout the work. Everybody moves on stilts—the opinions are bad—the notions absurd. Religion is stabbed in the dark—our social distinctions attempted to exist levelled, and all absurdly moral notions washed away with."^[27]

There were some who felt more positive about the novel contemporaneously, like George Henry Lewes, who said, "it reads like a page out of one's own life; and so practice many other pages in the book."^[28] Another critic from the Atlas wrote, "It is full of youthful vigour, of freshness and originality, of nervous diction and concentrated interest ...Information technology is a volume to brand the pulses gallop and the heart beat, and to fill the eyes with tears."^[29]

A review in The Era praised the novel, calling it, "an boggling volume", observing that: "At that place is much to ponder over, rejoice over, and weep over, in its ably-written pages. Much of the heart laid bare, and the listen explored; much of greatness in illness, and littleness in the ascendant; much of trial and temptation, of fortitude and resignation, of audio sense and Christianity—but no tameness."^[30]

The People'due south Journal compliments the novel'due south vigor, stating that, "The reader never tires, never sleeps: the dandy and tide of an affluent existence, an irresistible energy, bears him onward, from outset to last. It is impossible to deny that the author possesses native power in an uncommon degree—showing itself now in rapid headlong recital, at present in stern, violent, daring dashes in portraiture—anon in subtle, startling mental anatomy—here in a grand illusion, there in an original metaphor—once again in a wild gush of genuine poesy."^[31]

American publication, The Nineteenth Century, defends the novel against accusations of immorality, describing information technology as, "a work which has produced a decided sensation in this country and in England... Jane Eyre has fabricated its mark upon the age, and even palsied the talons of mercenary criticism. Yep, critics hired to abuse or panegyrize, at so much per line, take felt a throb of human being feeling pervade their veins, at the perusal of Jane Eyre. This is extraordinary—almost preternatural—smacking strongly of the miraculous—and yet it is true... Nosotros have seen Jane Eyre put down, every bit a piece of work of gross immorality, and its author described as the very incarnation of sensualism. To any one, who has read the work, this may look ridiculous, and notwithstanding information technology is truthful."^[32]

The Indicator, concerning speculation regarding the gender of the author, wrote, "We doubt not it volition soon stop to be a secret; but on one exclamation nosotros are willing to risk our critical reputation—and that is, that no adult female wrote it. This was our decided conviction at the kickoff perusal, and a somewhat careful study of the work has strengthened it. No woman in all the annals of feminine celebrity always wrote such a fashion, terse however eloquent, and filled with free energy bordering sometimes almost on rudeness: no woman ever conceived such masculine characters equally those portrayed here."^[33]

Twentieth century [edit]

Literary critic Jerome Beaty believed the shut first-person perspective leaves the reader "too uncritically accepting of her worldview", and ofttimes leads reading and conversation about the novel towards supporting Jane, regardless of how irregular her ideas or perspectives are.^[34]

In 2003, the novel was ranked number 10 in the BBC'due south survey The Large Read.^[35]

Romance genre [edit]

Before the Victorian era, Jane Austen wrote literary fiction that influenced later popular fiction, every bit did the work of the Brontë sisters produced in the 1840s. Brontë'southward love romance incorporates elements of both the gothic novel and Elizabethan drama, and "demonstrate[s] the flexibility of the romance novel class."^[36]

Themes [edit]

Race [edit]

Throughout the novel at that place are frequent themes relating to ideas of ethnicity (specifically that of Bertha), which are a reflection of the society that the novel is set within. Mr. Rochester claims to have been forced to take on a "mad" Creole wife, a adult female who grew up in the W Indies, and who is idea to be of mixed-race descent.^[37] In the analysis of several scholars, Bertha plays the office of the racialized "other" through the shared conventionalities that she chose to follow in the footsteps of her parents. Her alcoholism and apparent mental instability cast her every bit someone who is incapable of restraining herself, almost forced to submit to the unlike vices she is a victim of.^[37] Many writers of the period believed that one could develop mental instability or mental illnesses only based on their race.^[38]

This ways that those who were born of ethnicities associated with a darker complexion, or those who were not fully of European descent, were believed to be more mentally unstable than their white European counterparts were. Co-ordinate to American scholar Susan Meyer, in writing Jane Eyre Brontë was responding to the "seemingly inevitable" analogy in 19th-century European texts which "[compared] white women with blacks in club to degrade both groups and assert the demand for white male person command".^[39] Bertha serves as an example of both the multiracial population and of a 'clean' European, as she is seemingly able to pass every bit a white adult female for the about part, simply also is hinted towards being of an 'impure' race since she does non come from a purely white or European lineage. The title that she is given by others of being a Creole woman leaves her a stranger where she is non black but is too not considered to be white plenty to fit into college order.^[forty]

Unlike Bertha, Jane Eyre is idea of as being sound of mind before the reader is able to fully sympathize the grapheme, just because she is described as having a complexion that is pale and she has grown upward in a European society rather than in an "animalistic" setting similar Bertha.^[15] Jane is favored heavily from the start of her interactions with Rochester, just because like Rochester himself, she is deemed to be of a superior ethnic group than that of his commencement wife. While she yet experiences some forms of repression throughout her life (the events of the Lowood Establishment) none of them are as heavily taxing on her as that which is experienced by Bertha. Both women go through acts of suppression on behalf of the men in their lives, yet Jane is looked at with favor considering of her supposed "beauty" that can be found in the colour of her peel. While both are characterized as falling outside of the normal feminine standards of this time, Jane is thought of every bit superior to Bertha because she demands respect and is able to use her talents as a governess, whereas Bertha is seen as a animal to be confined in the cranium away from "polite" lodge.^[41]

Wide Sargasso Sea [edit]

Jean Rhys intended her critically acclaimed novel Wide Sargasso Body of water as an account of the adult female whom Rochester married and kept in his attic. The book won the notable WH Smith Literary Laurels in 1967. Rhys explores themes of dominance and dependence, specially in wedlock, depicting the mutually painful relationship between a privileged English man and a Creole woman from Dominica made powerless on being duped and coerced past him and others. Both the man and the woman enter marriage nether mistaken assumptions about the other partner. Her female atomic number 82 marries Mr. Rochester and deteriorates in England as "The Madwoman in the Attic". Rhys portrays this woman from a quite different perspective from the one in Jane Eyre.

Feminism [edit]

The idea of the equality of men and women emerged more strongly in the Victorian menses in Britain, subsequently works past earlier writers, such as Mary Wollstonecraft. R. B. Martin described Jane Eyre as the starting time major feminist novel, "although there is not a hint in the book of any desire for political, legal, educational, or even intellectual equality between the sexes." This is illustrated in chapter 23, when Jane responds to Rochester's draconian and indirect proposal:

Do you think I am an automaton? a machine without feelings?...Practice you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong — I have equally much soul as you, — and full as much heart...I am not talking to you lot now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; — information technology is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just every bit if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God'south feet, equal, — equally we are.^{[42] [43]}

The novel "acted as a catalyst" to feminist criticism with the publication by South. Gilbert and S. Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic (1979), the title of which alludes to Rochester's wife.^[44] The Brontës' fictions were cited past feminist critic Ellen Moers as prime examples of Female person Gothic, exploring adult female'southward entrapment inside domestic space and subjection to patriarchal authorization, and the transgressive and dangerous attempts to subvert and escape such restriction.^[45] Both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre explore this theme.^[46]

Notes [edit]

1. ^ The exact time setting of the novel is incommunicable to make up one's mind, as several references in the text are contradictory. For example, Marmion (pub. 1808) is referred to in Chapter 32 as a "new publication", but Adèle mentions crossing the Aqueduct past steamship, incommunicable before 1816.

References [edit]

1. ^ "The HarperCollins Timeline". HarperCollins Publishers. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
2. ^ Lollar, Cortney. "Jane Eyre: A Bildungsroman". The Victorian Spider web . Retrieved 22 January 2019.
3. ^ Burt, Daniel S. (2008). The Literature 100: A Ranking of the Nearly Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Fourth dimension. Infobase Publishing. ISBN9781438127064.
4. ^ Gilbert, Sandra; Gubar, Susan (1979). The Madwoman in the Cranium . Yale University Press.
5. ^ Martin, Robert B. (1966). Charlotte Brontë'south Novels: The Accents of Persuasion. New York: Norton.
6. ^ Roberts, Timothy (2011). Jane Eyre. p. eight.
7. ^ Wood, Madeleine. "Jane Eyre in the reddish-room: Madeleine Woods explores the consequences of Jane's childhood trauma". Retrieved 7 December 2018.
8. ^ Brontë, Charlotte (16 October 1847). Jane Eyre. London, England: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 105.
9. ^ Brontë, Charlotte (2008). Jane Eyre. Radford, Virginia: Wilder Publications. ISBN978-1604594119.
10. ^ calculated using the UK Retail Price Index: "Currency Converter, Pounds Sterling to Dollars, 1264 to Nowadays (Coffee)".
11. ^ Gaskell, Elizabeth (1857). The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Vol. 1. Smith, Elderberry & Co. p. 73.
12. ^ Gubar 2, Gilbert I (2009). Madwoman in the Attic after Thirty Years. University of Missouri Press.
13. ^ Carol Atherton, The figure of Bertha Mason (2014), British Library https://www.bl.united kingdom/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-figure-of-bertha-mason Retrieved 30 May 2020.
14. ^ Keunjung Cho, Contextualizing Racialized Interpretations of Bertha Stonemason's Grapheme (English language 151, Dark-brown University, 2003) http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/cho10.html Retrieved 30 May 2020.
15. ^ ^{a b} Nygren, Alexandra (2016). "Disabled and Colonized: Bertha Bricklayer in Jane Eyre". The Explicator. 74 (2): 117–119. doi:10.1080/00144940.2016.1176001. S2CID 163827804. {{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
16. ^ "Jane Eyre: a Mancunian?". BBC. 10 October 2006. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
17. ^ "Salutation pub in Hulme thrown a lifeline as historic edifice is bought by MMU". Manchester Evening News. 2 September 2011. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
18. ^ ^{a b} Stevie Davies, Introduction and Notes to Jane Eyre. Penguin Classics ed., 2006.
19. ^ "Wycoller Sheet iii: Ferndean Manor and the Brontë Connection" (PDF). Lancashire Countryside Service Ecology Directorale. 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 June 2013. Retrieved 24 March 2012.
20. ^ "Paris museum wins Brontë bidding state of war". BBC News. 15 December 2011. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
21. ^ Alexander, Christine, and Sara Fifty. Pearson. Celebrating Charlotte Brontë: Transforming Life into Literature in Jane Eyre. Brontë Society, 2016, p. 173.
22. ^ Kellman, Steve One thousand., ed. (2009). Magill's Survey of World Literature. Salem Press. p. 2148. ISBN9781587654312.
23. ^ "Jane Eyre". Retrieved 11 June 2019.
24. ^ Manga Classics: Jane Eyre (2016) Manga Classics Inc. ISBN 978-1927925652
25. ^ Iipinski, Andrea (one June 2017). "The manga in the middle". Schoolhouse Library Journal. 63 (6): 50 – via Gale Academic Onefile.
26. ^ ^{a b} Shapiro, Arnold (Fall 1968). "In Defence force of Jane Eyre". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. eight (4): 683. doi:ten.2307/449473. JSTOR 449473.
27. ^ "Bearding review of Jane Eyre". The British Library . Retrieved 13 September 2021.
28. ^ "Review of Jane Eyre by George Henry Lewes". The British Library . Retrieved xv June 2021.
29. ^ "Jane Eyre: gimmicky critiques". The Sunday Times. 14 March 2003. Retrieved 31 Baronial 2021. {{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-condition (link)
30. ^ "Review of Jane Eyre from the Era". The British Library . Retrieved 14 September 2021.
31. ^ "Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell. Three Volumes". The People'southward Periodical. 1848. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
32. ^ "Sensual Critics. Jane Eyre, Past Currer Bell". The Nineteenth Century. 1848. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
33. ^ "Jane Eyre". The Indicator. 1848. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
34. ^ Beaty, Jerome. "St. John'southward Fashion and the Wayward Reader" in Brontë, Charlotte (2001) [1847]. Dunn, Richard J. (ed.). Jane Eyre (Norton Critical Edition, Third ed.). Westward W Norton & Company. pp. 491–502. ISBN0393975428.
35. ^ "The Big Read". BBC. Apr 2003. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
36. ^ Regis (2003), p. 85.
37. ^ ^{a b} Atherton, Carol. "The figure of Bertha Stonemason." British Library, 15 May 2014,www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-figure-of-bertha-mason. Accessed 3 March 2021.
38. ^   Cho, Keunjung. "Contextualizing Racialized Interpretations of Bertha Mason'south Character." The Victorian Web, 17 April 2003, www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/cho10.html. Accessed 3 March 2021.
39. ^ Meyer, Susan (1990). "Colonialism and the Figurative Strategy of Jane Eyre". Victorian Studies. 33 (2): 247–268. JSTOR 3828358.
40. ^ Thomas, Sue (1999). "The Tropical Extravagance of Bertha Mason". Victorian Literature and Culture. 27 (1): 1–17. doi:ten.1017/S106015039927101X. JSTOR 25058436.
41. ^ Shuttleworth, Emerge (2014). "Jane Eyre and the 19th Century Woman". The British Library. {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
42. ^ Martin, Robert B. Charlotte Brontë's Novels: The Accents of Persuasion. NY: Norton, 1966, p. 252
43. ^ "Jane Eyre, Proto-Feminist vs. 'The Third Person Man'". P. J. Steyer '98 (English 73, Chocolate-brown University, 1996). Victorian Web
44. ^ "The Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature, ed. Marion Wynne-Davis. (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1990), p. 633.
45. ^ Moers, Ellen (1976). Literary Women. Doubleday. ISBN9780385074278.
46. ^ Rosemary Jackson, Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion, 1981, pp. 123–129.

External links [edit]

• Jane Eyre at Standard Ebooks
• Jane Eyre at Project Gutenberg
• Jane Eyre public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• Jane Eyre at the Net Archive
• Jane Eyre at the British Library

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre

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