Jane

Jane Eyre Coursework How does Charlotte Bronte create sympathy for the character of Jane in the first 4 chapters in the novel' Jane Eyre was published in 1847 by Charlotte Bronte but she had to publish her book under the androgynous name of Currer Bell as in the Victorian Era, people were more likely to read books written by male authors of a certain class and as Charlotte was nor Male or high classed, if she wanted her book to be successful with the public she had no choice but to do this. Jane Eyre was published over 150 years ago in the Victorian Era, where gender, social class and religion were very important so Charlotte Bronte chooses to focus particularly on these things throughout the story, also she sets a gothic theme as the gothic genre was extremely popular in this time period and she often uses pathetic fallacy which uses the weather and the setting where we can decipher Jane’s emotions from the language used which cleverly creates an important atmosphere to the whole story. Charlotte uses three traditions in her novel; Bildungsroman, Social Criticism and the Gothic Genre, Bildungsroman is a novel which originated from Germany and tells the story of a small child’s intelligence and focuses on the emotions and experiences that attach to the child’s growth to adulthood Social Criticism is when the author of a novel chooses to comment on the society in which the story is set. Charlotte Bronte uses quotes such as, ‘you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg & not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us!’, which shows that if Jane did not live with her wealthy Aunt Reed she would having nothing or no one. Charlotte Bronte chose to write Jane Eyre in first person, from the point of view of Jane as her feelings and emotions are what the book is based upon. If the book was written from a different point of view we would not feel the sympathy we do for Jane as everyone else is against her. Right from the beginning of the chapter Charlotte Bronte uses pathetic fallacy to catch the reader’s attention and for them to feel the mood that she is trying to portray through the weather, she does this by saying things such as, ‘the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating’, and, ‘chilly afternoons’, which shows that by using images of wicked, cold lonely weather associates with Jane’s emotions as she is also feeling this way. Jane begins to read a book called ‘Bewick’s History of British Birds’, we find that the book purposely has a clear connection to Jane as it says things such as,’ the solitary rocks and promontories’ and ‘melancholy’, the word ‘solitary stands out particularly, as it shows that Jane is alone and melancholy shows Jane’s sadness. Charlotte Bronte goes into tremendous detail of Jane’s feelings whilst she is reading her book and relates her emotions and how she is treated, to coldness and freezing weather conditions as the cold shows aloneness and a lack of love that Jane has encountered whilst she has beenliving with the Reed family, she says things such as, ‘the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone’, ‘frost and snow’, ‘centuries of winters...’ and ‘rigours of extreme cold’ to show this. ‘The rock standing up alone in a sea of billow’, this metaphor shows how Jane is lonely just like the rock and the quote ‘broken boat stranded on a desolate coast’, also shows how sorrowful Jane is and how she is stuck with no way out’. ‘The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms’, ‘the fiend pinning down the thief’s pack...’, the dark images created by these quotes show dejection and hopelessness of Jane. Jane is treated by the Reed family in an inexcusable way, mainly by John in this particular chapter as Jane says that she is, ‘bullied’, ‘punished’, ‘week’ and ‘feared’ in his presence. She also says that she is ‘Habitually obedient’ to him, by this she means that she has no choice but to do as he says as she is scared to obey him. Jane is used to the abuse that she often receives from John on a daily basis, we know this from the quote, ‘I knew he would soon strike again’. We rapidly feel more and more sympathy for Jane as she is helpless towards John’s abuse even when she is simply reading a book she is belittled by him but she does not feel the right to approach him with her true feelings and we therefore witness this tiny, innocent 10 years old girl encounter this outrageous behavior from John, we know this from the quote, ‘Accustomed to John Reed’s abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it: my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly result in insult. On two occasions in this chapter animal imagery is used to describe Jane by the Reed family, saying things such as, ‘bad animal’ and ‘Rat! Rat!,’ which simply shows that Jane is not believed to be human by any of the Reed family members. When John discovers that Jane has been reading a book from the family library he says, ‘you are dependent, mamma says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg’, this quote reminds Jane of her circumstances and the fact that she is alone in the world with nothing or no one, this quote also shows John’s arrogance towards Jane’s low social class and gender which is indicative of wider society at the time. John then cowardly attacks Jane with her book saying, ‘Out of the way of the mirror and the windows’, which tells us how John does not want to be caught doing wrong as he is of great importance in the Reed household and does not want Mrs. Reed to see him. ‘It hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp; my terror had passed its climax’, At this point we feel great sympathy for Jane as we are reminded that she is a 10 year old helpless little girl who is encountering many attacks which cause her to bleed in such a way, through the use of language used by Charlotte Bronte to express Jane’s feelings, we understand and feel what she is going through. At the start of Chaper2 Jane finally rebels against the Reed family, the quotation, ‘like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths’, shows how Jane daringly stood up for herself and did what she could to get out of this extreme situation. ‘Hold her arms, Miss abbot: she’s like a mad cat’, Jane is made out to be out of control and as Charlotte Bronte uses animal imagery to describe Jane and her actions and to make the words ‘mad cat’ jump out of the page and to help us to understand the way that Jane is thought of in the Reed household by her Aunt Reed especially, who clearly sees Jane as a burden to the family. John then says ‘No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep’, which shows how high John’s status in his household is compared to Jane’s as he is referred to as the ‘Master’ of the house and Jane is ‘less than a servant’ which yet again reminds us of the fact that Jane is only 10 years old but certainly is not being treated like a child of her age should be. One of the Reed’s servants, Bessie, then addresses Jane saying, ‘You ought to be aware, miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off you would have to go to the poor house’, this quotations highlights the fact that Jane is completely trapped and there is no way out and no way to gain the independence she longs for, unless she went to the poorhouse, which in the Victorian Era poor people went and had minimum food and outrageous living conditions. ‘I had nothing to say to these words, they were not new to me’, this quote clearly states the fact that Jane is constantly reminded of her own circumstances. Another servant of the Reed family, Miss Abbot, then says to Jane, ‘Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for it will repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away’, by saying this Miss Abbot is trying to make Jane scared and as Jane is a little girl this later on increasingly plays on Jane’s mind. Jane is then introduced to the dark and mysterious Red Room. *We begin to understand Jane’s feelings about the situation which she is in when she says, ‘All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sisters’ proud indifferences, all his mother’s aversion, all the servant’s partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind…why was I always suffering, always accused…’, which shows how Jane is angry at the injustice and does not understand as a 10year old girl why she is being mistreated and what she has done to deserve everything that she has dealt with which makes us sympathise towards Jane. Also as Jane is not the prettiest most fetching young girl she is treated differently and singled out opposed to young Georgina who is seen by Mrs. Reed as a daughter to be proud of, ‘Her beauty, her pink cheeks, and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault’, this quote shows how Georgina is able to get away with anything based on beauty alone, this quote also states the importance of a females appearance in the Victorian Era as females were supposed to be portrayed in a certain way. ‘Unjust! – Unjust! Said my reason’…’running away’…’never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die’, these quotes show how Jane can no longer face living with the Reed family as she begins to think of other options which will maybe get her out of the house or at least gain a small amount of the Reed’s sympathy or maybe make them realise how badly they are treating Jane. The quote, ‘why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of- I will not say how many years- I see it clearly’, shows how now Jane is a matured adult she understands why she was treated so harshly by the reads whereas when she was a 10 year old child she did not. *We deeply sympathise with Jane when she tells us about how she feels about the Reed’s and how they fell about her when she says things such as, ‘I was nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children’, ‘they did not love me’, ‘little did I love them’, which helps us to understand how for a child of her age to be unhappy and unloved must have felt. ‘a heterogeneous thing’, ‘a useless thing’, ‘a noxious thing’, these quotes show how Jane is not part of the family and is seen as a burden by living under their roof. Through the language that Charlotte Bronte uses helps us to picture and understand how Jane must have felt living in a place where she was unwelcome, unhappy and alone which is important as it helps us to feel sympathy for Jane and her situation. Charlotte Bronte cleverly uses pathetic fallacy to describe Jane’s feeling by associating them with the weather and saying things such as, ‘rain still beating’, ‘wind howling’ etc, and the simile, ‘cold as a stone, create a cold, miserable image which is similar to the way that Jane is also feeling. ‘My habitual mood of humiliation…’, the word ‘habitual’ shows how Jane is constantly in this state of depression. As Jane is in the Red Room she suddenly begins to fill up with sheer terror and panic as she believes to have seen a ghost, ‘as my mind was horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation’, ‘my heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears’, Charlotte Bronte again, uses extremely strong, attention grabbing language to describe Jane’s emotions and makes us think about how such a small child has been panicked to the extent where her heart is beating vastly and her head is hot with fear over a misunderstanding of something that in reality was just a light in the garden rather than a ghost, this creates sympathy towards Jane as we begin to understand how by being in the same room as her Uncle. Reed died has made her mind wonder and besides being filled with absolute terror Jane is left to cope with her emotions alone. We then witness Bessie the maid ask Jane, ‘Miss Eyre, are you ill'’, and just by saying this simple sentence shows how Bessie does actually care for Jane and wants to make sure that she is feeling okay. Even after Jane encounters this nightmare in the Red Room which she was imprisoned into, Mrs. Reed still cannot show Jane an ounce of compassion and does not even consider Jane’s feelings when she says, ‘she only wanted to bring us here… I know her naughty tricks’, which shows how Mrs. Reed believes Jane to be attention seeking and how she is mad at the fact that Jane has inconvenienced her. ‘Oh Aunt! Have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it- let me be punished some other way!’, this shows how Jane is forced to beg Mrs. Reed to not lock her back in the Red Room as she is simply petrified of the thought of stepping foot back inside of her own personal nightmare, but Mrs. Reed takes no notice of Jane and forces Jane to go back, this makes us experience sympathy for Jane as we want the best for Jane and for her to be loved by the Reed’s not despised . Jane then faints as a result of the terror inflicted on her, we know this from the quote, ‘I suppose I had a species of fit; unconsciousness closed the scene’. At the start of chapter3 we sympathise with Jane all over again as she wakes up feeling anxious and stressed which we know from the quote, ‘terrible red glare’, shows how Jane feels like she is still in the Red Room. ‘I became aware that someone was handling me…and more tenderly than I had never been raised or upheld before’, ‘fire’, ‘candle burnt’, these quotes form images of warmth and heat and have a sense of kindness to them which contradicts the atmosphere in the last two chapters as they were full with images of frostiness and misery. Jane then meets Mr. Lloyd who is ‘an apothecary’, and as Jane is treated like a servant she is not worthy of a doctor which also relates to social class at this time period. We become more aware of how unwelcome and alone Jane must feel living with the Reed’s when she says, ‘I felt an inexpressive relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security…’, which shows how Jane would much rather be with a stranger opposed to being with the dreadful Reed family. Jane then says, ‘I felt so sheltered and befriended’, which tells us how Jane for the first time feels safe and secure in her own home, but when Mr. Lloyd leaves Jane cannot put into words how sad and upset she is, we know this from the quote, ‘inexpressible sadness weighed it down’, which tells us how she will be unhappy and alone all over again. Bessie, the maid, begins to pity Jane in this chapter as she makes sure that she is well and asks if she would like anything which utterly shocks Jane, we know this from the quote, ‘Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question’, which shows that Jane is stunned at how for the first time someone is actually begin civil and polite to her. As Jane is telling the story in first person as an adult she says, ‘I feel reverberation to this day’, this quote shows how even now that Jane is grownup she is still greatly distressed by what happened in the Red Room as a child and how truly traumatised she still is by her dreadful ordeal. ‘Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering…you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities’, this quote tells us how that now Jane is a mature adult she is willing to forgive Mrs. Reed for everything that she put her through at such a young age, which also tells us more about Jane’s strength of character and how she Is prepared to forgive something so appalling. Once more we feel sympathy for Jane when she says, ‘I felt physically weak and broken down: but my worst ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind’, as we recognise that such a little girl who should be cherished and cared for is having such dramatic feelings. ‘I wiped one salt drop from my check than another followed’, Charlotte Bronte uses skillfully uses words such as ‘salt drop’, to form an image of Jane crying an ocean in our minds to make us feel sympathy for Jane. ‘I ought to have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there’, this quote tells us how Jane’s happiness comes from being alone. As Jane feels she is not worthy of being able to eat as the Reed’s do, when she is brought a tart on a china plate by the caring and considerate Bessie, it does not seem possible to cheer Jane up as it should, ‘I had often petitioned to be allowed to take it in my hand in order to examine it more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a privilege’, this quote shows how although Jane has always wanted to have to chance to take the plate and appreciate it but has never had the privilege of being able to do so. ‘This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it… I could not eat the tart: and the plumage of the bird, the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded! I put both plate and tart away’, this quote shows how Jane’s imagination took her to the point where she was not able to eat the tart no matter how much she would have liked to as Jane’s state of depression was holding her back from what she had always desired. Jane then begins to read the book ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, which is symbolic of the way Jane feels, Charlotte Bronte uses strong language which seizes our attention, to illustrate what Jane is reading, ‘eerie and dreary’, ‘gaunt goblins’, ‘pigmies malevolent and fearful imps’, ‘desolate wanderer’, ‘dread’, ‘dangerous’, which create daunting images of aloneness and threat, which may be why Jane demanded to read such a book as it is related to the way which she also feels herself. As Jane puts her book down Bessie begins to sing her song, which comes across to Jane as being disheartening and negative to Jane as she describes it as being ‘a funeral hymn’, and it brings ‘an indescribable sadness’ to Jane. In the lyrics of Bessie song we get a clue as to what will happen in the rest of the story when she says, ‘Why did they send me so far and so lonely, Up where the moors spread and gray rocks are piled’. ‘Come, Miss Jane, don’t cry, said Bessie, as she finished. She might as well have said to the fire, don’t burn’, which shows how Jane finds it impossible to not cry. When Mr. Lloyd returns to visit Jane again he sees that Jane has being crying and asks, ‘Have you any pain'’, and as Bessie interposes saying, ‘Oh! I dare say she is crying because she could not go out with misses in the carriage’, Jane promptly answers with, ‘I have never cried with such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable’, which shows how Jane wants justice and does not want Mr. Lloyd to think that she is petty as it is her chance to tell someone the truth about how truly miserable she has been living with the Reed’s. The quote ‘I was not knocked down, was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by another pang of mortified pride’, shows us more about Jane’s character, as she is not afraid and is brave enough to speak the truth which allows the confidence within her to shine through. From the quote, ‘however, of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by imparting it’, we know how nobody else is concerned or interested in what young Jane has to say and therefore she has to grab the opportunity whilst she can, which creates sympathy for Jane as we understand how truly isolated she is and worst of all she has nobody to talk to who is concerned about what she has to say. ‘I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters’, ‘possibly I might have some poor relations called Eyre’, and from these quotes we learn that Jane has had no family from such an early age which makes us sympathise even more and also about Jane’s social class and how she may have relations with her name but they are underprivileged and poor. Also we learn Mrs. Reed’s point of view on Jane’s undiscovered relatives when she says, ‘they must be a beggarly set’, which shows how Mrs. Reed looks down at the people less fortunate than herself which also gives us an idea of how the poor where treated in the Victorian time period. We learn about how Jane sincerely wants to leave the Reeds house when she says, ‘if I had anywhere else to go I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman’, which shows Jane’s understanding to the fact that she is unable to leave until she is a woman but how she still longs to be independent. ‘School would be a complete change; it implied a long journey from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life’, this quote shows Jane’s enthusiasm and passion for freedom and a new journey in life as she sees an education as a way out and an escape route towards independence. As Jane overhears a conversation between the two maids, Miss Abbot and Bessie talking about Jane’s family background and the reason behind Jane being parentless, the quotes, ‘my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends who considered the match beneath her’, and, ‘Grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling’, show how important social class was at this particular time period as if you were wealthy you were expected to marry someone of a similar class but as Jane’s Mother did not and married a poor man who had nothing to offer, she brought shame to the family and so her grandfather ‘cut her off’ as it she seemed to have brought great disappointment to the family. Also due to poverty and how the poorer you were, the younger you died, after Jane’s parents had been married for a year they both caught a disease called ‘typhus’ and both died ‘within a month of each other’, this is tragic for Jane to find out about her parents in such a way as she has never been told directly which makes us sympathise towards Jane as she has never been deserving enough to be told this small piece of disastrous information that is so very vital and important to her. Jane’s only friend Bessie, after hearing this then has sympathy for Jane and says, ‘Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied too, Abbot’, which shows how Jane has at least one person who cares a little for her. At the beginning of chapter4, Jane is still thinking about the idea of starting a new independent life at school, ‘a change seemed near- I desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however; days and weeks passed’, this quote shows Jane’s frustrating and desperation for a fresh that fresh start that she so terribly desires which seems unlikely as Mrs. Reed’s attitude towards Jane becomes colder than it ever was, ‘appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to take my meals alone, and pass the time in the nursery’, which shows how Jane is being singled out more and more and is clearly not seen as part of the family like she should be, this creates sympathy Jane as we want the best for Jane and for her to be treated equally. Charlotte Bronte uses numerous quotes which suggest that Jane is treated in a way which deserves the readers sympathy such as, ‘spoke to me as little as possible’, ‘John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he saw me and once attempted chastisement’, ‘I told you not to go near her’, ‘I do not choose that either you or your sisters should associate with her’, which makes us understand how Jane is treated unfairly, almost as if she is an animal who does not deserve to be spoken to or about which reminds us of the fact that Jane is only 10 years old and should not be served with such injustice. We then witness how Jane feels the right to speak out for what she believes to be right, ‘Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and without all deliberating on my words- The are not fit to associate with me’, and by doing we see the courageousness of Jane’s character and her passion for people to know the truth. As Jane is swept back to her crib she confronts Mrs. Reed and tries to make her feel guilty as she is morally outraged at how she is treated and says things such as, ‘What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive'’, and, ‘My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mamma; they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead’. Mrs. Reed is speechless at Jane’s outbursts and from the quote, ‘she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears, and then left without a word’, shows how Mrs. Reed seems to feel no guilt but is infuriated at how Jane has spoke to her and simply says not a word and leaves the room.