Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Literature & Language Essay

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Jane Eyre is one of the most famous works by the Brontë sisters, for good reason. It tells the story of a young woman in the Victorian era, who has to make her own way in the world due to being (at first) a poor and friendless child. The book shows her journey through early life, as she seeks to carve out a life for herself amidst the mores and social conventions of the time. The book carries her through Jane’s early childhood, and on into her early adulthood at Lowood School, and through her first job as a governess. It covers her journey to keep her own sense of self as she gains life experience, and knowledge of the world. The main character of the novel is undeniably Jane herself, but all of the characters around her are well-written, and important to the storyline in one way or another. This essay will look at the book in three different ways: it will look at how Jane spends the book striving to keep her own identity in the face of everything that happens to her, and every time people try and change her; it will also look at how Jane tries to find a place where she belongs throughout the book, a quest which plays on her own identity several times throughout the narrative. Finally, this essay will touch on the descriptions used in Jane Eyre – Brontë uses a lot of supernatural ideas when she discusses her characters, most particularly Mr Rochester, and Jane herself.
Jane Eyre is poor and plain in a world which values good looks (particularly in a woman) and material possessions. She is therefore under almost constant threat to mould herself into something that she is not, in order to conform to standards of the time to a greater extent. There are three specific times in the novel when her identity and sense of self is put under threat: when she is a child living with the Reeds, when she has just discovered that Mr Rochester has a living wife in Bertha, and when St John tries to convince her to go to India with him as his wife.
Who in the world cares for you? Or who will be injured by what you do? Still indomitable was the reply: ‘I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man.
(Brontë 365)
The moments when Jane finds herself in danger of succumbing to a stronger personality than hers in St John are perhaps more gripping, but the above quote shows the time when Jane’s identity really hangs in the balance. Jane knows she would physically die if she gives in to St John and goes to India, but if she gives to Mr Rochester, she would die emotionally. To Jane, clearly a mental\emotional ‘death’ is worse than a physical one, which is a theme we can also see in her reactions towards her abusive cousins and aunt.
Jnge mentions that Victorian society was in a state of great change at the time the book was written (14). We see that Jane is reacting to the Victorian era in many ways through her own story. She notes herself that she is restless and wants new experiences several times through the book (Brontë 101-104), which is something that is not in the Victorian script for a young woman. Jane seems to need to keep moving beyond simply finding new experiences – she finds herself getting bored of Thornfield very soon after she arrives, describing it as “return[ing] to stagnation” (Brontë 137). Even St John remarks that she is not going to stay in the village school for long (409). Jnge points out that Jane is a woman who has no independent fortune (15), and so she must struggle for her own identity on a number of levels. She must first contend with the matter of finding employment in a society which offered few avenues for women to do so. She must also contend with the extremely sexist outlook that Victorian society had. Consider the actions of Mrs Reed when Jane is still in her house: she tells Jane that she is too passionate (Brontë 45) – that her faults need to be corrected. Interestingly for any discussion about Jane Eyre and identity, Jane herself grows up on (and adores) stories which would have been approved by whoever dictated social mores of the time. She loves stories which feature “conventional images of passive femininity” (Jnge 15) as much as she loves other fare, which is a curious mix for someone who would then spend the novel trying to gain freedom from those bonds.
The theme of belonging is closely tied into the theme of identity in Jane Eyre. Jane sees that she does not belong in society, and so much of her journey is concerned with finding a place where she belongs.
I felt desolate to a degree. I felt – yes, idiot that I am – I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence…But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong
(Brontë 414)
Contrast Jane’s behaviour at the house of her cousins and aunt, with her behaviour at Lowood. When she is with her family, there is nothing to hold her there – she does not behave as a dependent orphan ‘should’ behave according to Victorian morality (Suliman). When Jane goes to Lowood, however, and meets women and girls to love and emulate (miss Temple and Helen being prime examples), she folds herself into the fabric of the...