Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

The novel is about an orphan who is subjected to suffering and mistreated by her auntie. At the tender age of 10 years, Jane was an orphan and lived at her uncle’s place (Brontë, 2011). The novel articulates that her parents died of typhus. In this regard, Jane, as young as she struggled to find love and acceptance in a family. Additionally, it is at this young age that she also was in search of her identity and happiness (Brontë, 2011). The situations that she went through under the arms of her auntie forces her to move from one setup to the other with the hope of finding parental love. Even so, Jane’s quest for freedom similarly affected her relationship with her auntie, Mrs Reed (Brontë, 2011). Several themes have been articulated in the novel. Most of them centre on Jane’s life and her desire for freedom and happiness.

Additionally, the novel makes use of characters that have played a critical role in bringing out Jane’s experiences (Brontë, 2011). The plight that is emphasized by the novel is that of a suffering 10-year-old Jane who strives through to beat all odds against her. This paper will analyze the Jane Eyre novel and establish some of the key themes and concepts used in the novel.

Themes

Family

From the novel, it is evident that Jane is a desperate child who is in dire search for family love and acceptance. Normally, family is important because it provides love and affection. According to Brontë (2011), Jane’s need for such affection occurred after she became an unloved orphan in the hands of her auntie. At that time, she was living at her uncle’s place. Mrs. Reeds subjected her to extreme torture. Through out the novel, Jane found different surrogate maternal figures that in some way offered what she was looking for (Brontë, 2011). For example, Miss Temple and Mrs. Fairfax offered Jane love and care as well as guidance (Brontë, 2011). To return the favor, Jane took care of Adele while at school. Even so, Jane felt that the care and love offered was not enough (Brontë, 2011). Eventually, she came across Rochester whom the novel exhibits that Jane found love and affection. However, they couldn’t start a family with Rochester yet because Rochester was still married to his mad wife. Hence, Jane’s dream and hope for a family were also shattered (Brontë, 2011). As a result of this Jane ended her relationship with Rochester (Brontë, 2011). After hooking up with St. John; however, she also didn’t accept his marriage proposal (Brontë, 2011). She felt that she would be marrying him as an obligation rather than for love. However, Jane later came to find love in Rochester after he lost his eyesight. This was after Rochester’s wife burned down their house and committed suicide (Brontë, 2011). The storyline also indicated that after getting married to Rochester, Jane finally found independence and a family; what she has been looking for all this time (Brontë, 2011).

Religion

Through out her experiences, Jane was introduced to three different kinds of Christianity (Brontë, 2011). However, she ended up partially or completely rejecting all of the three and chose to seek her definition of Christianity. This is evident when Jane seeks Heavenly answers throughout the novel (Brontë, 2011). First, Mr. Brocklehurst’s religion was marred with hypocrisy. In public, Mr. Brocklehurst used to have a humble lifestyle. On the other hand, his private life is full of controversies and even emotionally abuses students at Lowood (Brontë, 2011). Secondly, Helen Burn’s religion is based on utmost forgiveness and tolerance. As such, Jane is unable to cope with such a religion especially after Helen suffered through her punishment and later died (Brontë, 2011). Thirdly, St. John’s religion is based on righteousness and principles that locked out lifestyles with passion. As the novel articulates, Jane rejected John’s marriage proposal because she felt that his religion would cripple her independence and happiness (Brontë, 2011).

Even so, Jane learnt a bit of Helen’s Christianity of forgiveness and gave Rochester another chance. Some of the instances in which Jane sought God was when she learnt of Rochester’s previous marriage and before St. John took her in (Brontë, 2011). What she learnt from other experiences as far as religion is concerned saw her and Mr. Rochester unite together in spirituality and profound love (Brontë, 2011).

Gender Inequality

The novel begins with an illustration of Jane’s imprisonment in the “red-room”. Apart from Bronte’s critique of Victorian class hierarchy, there is an abundance of condemnation of gender inequalities (Brontë, 2011). Later in the book, Bertha’s imprisonment is also revealed to the reader. In this regard, Jane’s imprisonment can be viewed as a symbol of her lower social class.

Similarly, Bertha’s imprisonment also symbolizes of Victorian marriage (Brontë, 2011). As such, marriages that take place on unequal terms used to victimize women. In this regard, women used to suffer in the hands of their husbands; an indication that women were disregarded in marriage (Brontë, 2011).

Oppression in marriage used to happen when one partner was not economically or socially stable. Women, hence, used to suffer, especially those who landed in the hands of oppressive husbands (Brontë, 2011). In this regard, Jane’s turned down Mr. Rochester’s marriage proposal because she was afraid of being oppressed (Brontë, 2011). As such, she only agreed finally after she had already sought her fortune and came into the marriage as Mr. Rochester’s equal. Additionally, Jane faced economic and gender challenges that affected her development. It is evident from the novel that her gender and position as a woman posed a major challenge to her stepping out into the world (Brontë, 2011). Other male characters didn’t experience as much challenges as Jane; which indicates that the society favored men than women (Brontë, 2011). As Bronte (2011) suggests, if Jane was a man, she would not have gone through such economic and social challenges. Instead, she could have ventured out into her destiny. However, the environment and situations that Jane went through clearly show that the place for a woman was always coming in second. As such, Jane was only waiting for her uncle to leave her his fortune.

Fire and Ice

Fire and ice have been illustrated in the novel where fire is illustrated as positive, loving and creative (Brontë, 2011). On the other hand, ice is illustrated as hateful, negative and destructive. Bronte has articulated the two cues using different characters in the novel. Characters that have been associated with ice include Mrs. Reed and St. John (Brontë, 2011). On the other hand, characters that are illustrated with fire include Miss Temple, Jane and Mr. Rochester. Bronte’s (2011) illustration is interesting as fire which is destructive is associated with positivity. Even so, there are instances in the novel when fire is ideally destructive. For example, Jane burned Helen’s humiliating “Slattern” crown (Brontë, 2011). Also, the fire that gutted down Thornfield’s Manor. Similarly, there are instances where fire led to a positive outcome. Bertha’s first fire led to an intimate relationship between Jane and Mr. Rochester. Her second fire led to her demise which then liberated Mr. Rochester from his condemning past; hence having a chance to settle down with Jane.

Another instance when fire results to positivity is when Mr. Rochester is blinded by the same fire that burned his house. In this regard, Jane realizes that Mr. Rochester is now fully dependent on her and that she would not be a victim of oppression in the marriage (Brontë, 2011). Even so, we learn that Mr. Rochester eventually regained his eyesight. Bronte doesn’t entirely indicate that characters associated with ice are villains, she however emphasizes on the essence of fiery love as a critical pillar in happiness.

External Beauty versus Internal Beauty

Bronte (2011) has made use of different perspectives that contrast external and internal beauty. Some of the characters exhibit external beauty yet there are ugly internally (Brontë, 2011). For example, Bertha Mason and Blanche Ingram both exhibit external beauty while their habits and traits show otherwise (Brontë, 2011). Bertha’s beauty misled Mr. Rochester into him falling in love with her but he wasn’t aware of her madness. Bertha’s condition was hereditary hence Mr. Rochester couldn’t have noticed of her condition early enough. The condition was hidden beneath Bertha’s beauty (Brontë, 2011).

Similarly, Blanche’s beauty was deceiving and her intentions were hidden beneath them. She wanted to marry Mr. Rochester because of his money and not for love (Brontë, 2011). However, Mr. Rochester had already learned not to judge by the looks but to look deep inside a person. And because of this he rejected Blanche’s advances (Brontë, 2011). On the other hand, Jane didn’t have the external beauty as is with other ladies. However, her inner beauty was evident eventually. Her intelligence and wits depicted her as someone with a beautiful personality than any other character in the novel.

In conclusion, Bronte made use of different characters in the novel to illustrate different themes. Some of the themes articulated include family, religion, gender inequality, fire and ice as well as external versus internal beauty. She has also highlighted some of the important factors that affect the society. They include the position of women in the society and how such a factor affected Jane’s development economically and socially. Even so, Bronte pointed out Jane as the most significant character in the novel.

References

Brontë, C. (2011). Jane Eyre Thrift Study Edition. Courier Dover Publications.