Character of Jane Eyre

Character of Jane Eyre

The famous novel Jane Eyre by Emily Bronte brings out to the reader a character that is universally acknowledged. Even though she wrote the novel in the Victorian era, the morality she brings out through Jane Eyre's character is apt to the modern day society also. The story weaves around a parentless small girl, who grows up in her aunt's care, even though her aunt's treatment to her is extremely obnoxious. While clearly not a servant, she's nevertheless at the beginning in a subordinate position, obliged to tolerate the abusive treatment of her aunt's and cousins. In the first five chapters we find Jane as a helpless dependant being, the writer emphasizes her vulnerability as a child, a female, an orphan, a pauper and also from appearance. Her vulnerability exits with her until she becomes matured.

Jane isn't like "normal" children as she hasn't given the love and affection she has yearned. She finds escape of reality in the world of imagination. This peculiar characteristic of her makes others around her detest her badly. The Reed household finds Jane intolerable because her character doesn't match in their view. In Open Guides to Literature, King points out "But it's just this perceived discrepancy which marks the originality of Charlotte Bronte's conception" (05). Jane is a child for only a small proportion of the novel. And next we find a more matured person in her character. After she finishes studying at Lowood she sees the reality of life in depth. The development of Jane Eyre's character is central to the novel, because from the beginning, Jane possesses a sense of her self-worth and dignity, a commitment to justice and principle, a trust in God. Her fear of losing her autonomy motivates her refusal to be Rochester's mistress and to become a good worker to St John Rivers under the disguise of a wife. All these are testimonies for her maturity in the character after she reaches womanhood. Eliza Rigby writing about Jane Eyre for the Quarterly Review says, "It is true Jane does right, and exert great moral strength, but it is the strength of a mere heathen mind which is law unto itself. No Christian grace is perceptible upon her".

In "Jane Eyre: Analysis of Major Characters." SparkNotes says "Charlotte Bronte may have created the character of Jane Eyre as a means of coming to terms with elements of her own life." Much evidence suggests that Bronte, too, struggled to find a balance between love and freedom and to find others who understood her. Jane Eyre is very much the story of a quest to be loved. Jane searches, not just for romantic love, but also for a sense of being valued, of belonging. The injustices she suffered at Gateshead and at Lowood Jane learns how to gain love without sacrificing and harming herself. Charles Burkhart suggested that "love is a religion in Jane Eyre". At many points in the book, Jane voices the author's then-radical opinions on religion social class, and gender.

Jane Eyre is critical of Victorian England's strict social hierarchy. Bronte's exploration of the complicated social position of governesses is perhaps the novel's most important treatment of this theme. Jane figures an ambiguous class and consequently,