Jane Eyre

Summary

Jane Eyre is a coming-of-age novel about an orphan child that must face the challenges of life alone. It begins with the main character ten year old Jane Eyre living with her deceased uncle's wife and miserable children. Jane's Aunt Reed is a cruel woman who withholds any form of love and acceptance from her. Her son John physically and verbally abuses Jane which causes her to develop into an unhappy and overly mature child.

After some time Jane's Aunt decides she is no longer capable of caring for her and sends her to the Lowood Institution, a boarding school for orphaned children. At first Jane is filled with hope for a new beginning but soon realizes conditions at Lowood are inferior to which she originally assumed. Living conditions are miserable and a typhus epidemic breaks out causing her close and inspiring friend Helen Burns to die. After living at Lowood Institute for eight years, two of which she spent teaching, she accepts a job as a governess at Thornfield manor.

While at Thornfield Jane teaches a French girl named Adele, a ward of Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester. Rochester and Jane develop a close relationship and realizes she is falling deeply in love with him. Rochester proposes to Jane and accepts but on the day of their wedding she finds out he is already married to a woman named Bertha Mason. Jane refuses to marry Rochester and immediately leaves the Thornfield manor.

For three days Jane is forced to sleep on the streets and beg for food. At this point three siblings, one of whom is Pastor John St. Rivers, find her and take into their home. She forms a great friendship with them and soon finds out they are cousins and that she has been left a 20,000 pound fortune from her deceased uncle. After dividing the fortune among the four of them she continues to be shown great kindness and John St. River her to travel to India with him as a missionary and become his wife.

Jane denies St. Rivers' request because she understands she could never receive the type of love she is looking for from him. Jane realizes she can no longer ignore her love for Rochester and returns to the Thornfield Manor to find it has burned to the ground. After Jane travels thirty miles to Rochester's new home at the Ferndean Manor he proposes to her and they marry three days later. The novel ends with Jane delightfully telling of her ten year marriage