family in jane eyre essay

Themes and Analysis

By charlotte brontë.

‘Jane Eyre’ represents the typical contemporary feminist woman who loves herself and searches for respect from others. Some of the well-thought-out themes she personifies anchor around self-love, romantic love, spirituality, independence, and social class.

Article written by Victor Onuorah

Degree in Journalism from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Among other themes, religion also comes up top as a major influencing factor that goes on to shape the protagonist in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘ Jane Eyre ,’ and the lessons learned to stay with her for the rest of her life – often serving as a curb to her immoderations and moral excesses.

Jane Eyre Themes

Spirituality.

Spirituality makes a major part of Charlotte Brontë’s ‘ Jane Eyre ’ – and goes on to have a massive influence on several of the book’s characters , especially on Jane, the protagonist. Because the book’s time setting is centered around Victorian English society , from the early 1800s, Christianity became the prevalent religion that had the most influence on the people. 

Jane certainly has a few people in her life – like Helen and St. John Rivers- that help sharpen her spirituality and build a moral life. Although, like these characters whose views are extreme, she finds a middle ground that works well with her personality.

Independence and Self Love

Charlotte Brontë succeeded in building Jane into a strong, independent woman who develops a sort of iron-clad mentality on her selfhood and integrity. She discovers the kind of woman she wants to be from early on, and It’s not life, and actions are dictated by men or society. She works towards this goal without compromises, even though she has no close family, home, or social security to make the decision easier. 

Social Class

Social class is another such theme dealt with heavily by Charlotte Brontë in her book, ‘ Jane Eyre ,’ and readers get to see this being called into action throughout the book. As is normal with the class system, the people at the low end of the class tend to suffer the most, and Jane finds herself in this position – having lost her parents at a tender age and left to stay with her mean aunt who, despite her affluent status, is unable to lift Jane the social ladder instead causes more troubles for her by horribly treating her.

Key Moments in Jane Eyre

• At Gateshead, ten years old, Jane endures the most horrible treatment living with Mrs. Reed, a wealthy but cruel widow and mother of three, and also Jane’s aunt. 
• Aside from putting up with her mean aunt, Jane also has to manage her mean cousins – especially John Reed, who often bullies her at the slightest chance. 
• Jane soon gets into trouble with Mrs. Reed for challenging John and is put into a chamber called the ‘red room,’ the same place where Mrs. Reed’s husband and Jane’s uncle had spent his final hours.
• Jane is traumatized by a possible ghostly presence and reacts to it by crying and fainting. 
• After her release, she is tended to by two persons, Bessie – a servant who is the only one in the house that feeds and truly cares for her; and Mr. Lloyd, a pharmacist who has come to treat her. 
• After examining Jane and feeling pity for her, Mr. Lloyd advises Mrs. Reed that allowing Jane to go to a distant school may be the only way to get rid of her troubles. 
• Jane is sent to a highly disciplinary Lowood School where she meets some nice people, but also deplorable ones. One of the latter is her headmaster, Mr. Brocklehurst, who is later fired for his hypocrisy, extravagance, and poor management skill. 
• At Lowood, Jane also meets the kind and virtuous Helen Burn – who sadly dies prematurely, and a caring mother figure-like Miss Temple – who replaces Mr. Brocklehurst.
• Jane stays at Lowood for eight years and leaves afterward – seeking new experiences from the outer world. She finds a job as a home tutor at Thornfield, where she attends to the young and vibrant Adéle, an illegitimate stepdaughter of the shrewd and aggressive Mr. Rochester, Jane’s boss and owner of the Thornfield mansion. 
• Shortly after, Jane begins falling for her boss, and one time saves him from a fire set by Mr. Rochester’s mentally sick wife, Bertha Mason, although Jane doesn’t know about this as housekeeper Grace Poole takes the blame instead. 
• Mr. Rochester, who secretly now has feelings for Jane, intends to make her jealous and brings home Blanche Ingram, a beautiful woman, as his mistress. Jane is devastated by this and doesn’t say anything. 
• Suddenly and unexpectedly, Mr. Rochester proposes to Jane. Astonished and dumbfounded, Jane accepts, but the wedding is not about to stand Richard Mason, Mr. Rochester’s in-law, flies into town with a lawyer to disrupt the marriage. 
• Jane learns that Mr. Rochester has a living wife after he takes them to the attic where she’s kept. This is too much for Jane to handle, so she leaves Thornfield. 
• Depressed and without any clear destination, Jane wanders the street for three days – sleeping outside and begging for bread. 
• On the third day, and to Jane’s luck, a clergyman, St. John Rivers, and his two sisters find Jane around their residence, the Moor House, and bring her in. He helps Jane secure a teaching job in Morton and helps Jane claim an inheritance of 20,000 pounds left by her John Eyre, which Jane knows nothing about.
• St. John also tells Jane that John Eyre was also their uncle – this makes Jane and the Rivers siblings cousins. 
• St. John plans a missionary trip to India and asks Jane to marry and accompany him. Jane wants to travel but doesn’t love him enough to marry him. She continues to ponder about it until one, and in what feels like a dream, Mr. Rochester calls out to her to come home to him. 
• She leaves for Thornfield the next morning only to find the house is burnt to ashes by Bertha – who died in the fire, leaving Mr. Rochester with an arm and blind after he managed to rescue the servants. 
• Jane locates Mr. Rochester at his new home in Ferndean and marries him.
• After one decade of marriage, the couple stays very happy with their children. Jane shares that her husband regained half of his sight early enough to see his first son being born.

Style and Tone 

In the story of ‘ Jane Eyre ,’ Charlotte Brontë utilizes a descriptive first-person perspective – allowing her protagonist, Jane, to share her deeply touching story with her readers for a chance to fully understand her plight and the pains she passed through on her way to becoming an independent, well-respected wife and society woman. 

Charlotte’s tone for ‘ Jane Eyre ’ is warm and welcoming , thanks to the personality of the book’s protagonist. However, the book is by designation a gothic romance and so is characteristically imbued with plot mysteriousness, occasional dread, and horror.

Figurative Languages

Charlotte Brontë brings to play a wide range of figurative languages in her masterwork, ‘ Jane Eyre ,’ and except for a good few, quotes therein are typically stretchered using sentence joiners like commas, semicolons et cetera. For the figurative language, readers should expect to find a bulk of metaphors, similes, and personification being used throughout the pages of the book. 

Analysis of Symbols in Jane Eyre  

Fire is portrayed on several occasions in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘ Jane Eyre ,’ and outside of its literal meaning, concerning Jane, it’s a clear motif for her drive, delicateness, and passion towards achieving her goals.

Ice and Chills

These hold a motif of loneliness, personal pains, and suffering Jane faces at different points in her life – from Gateshead, under her cruel aunt and her children – to Lowood school, then to sleeping three days in the streets. Ice and chills are a representation of the harsh conditions Jane faces throughout the book.

The Red-Room 

Restrictive, repressive, and scary, the red room symbolizes how society represses Jane’s shine and ability to become an independent, self-sustaining woman of her time, seeing as that is nearly impossible for any woman to achieve in such a society. 

What is a frontal theme in ‘ Jane Eyre ’?

Search for one’s voice, freedom and independence prove a prevalent theme in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘ Jane Eyre ,’ however, there are also the themes of love, religion and spirituality, and social class. 

What does the red room signify in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘ Jane Eyre ’?

One important sign of the red room is its restrictive and scary nature, and this is similar to the limitations and challenges Jane would later face in the outer society.

In Charlotte Brontë’s ‘ Jane Eyre ,’ how does Jane become the woman she always wanted to be?

Jane becomes the best version of herself because she sets a goal for herself, follows through on it, and in the end, becomes an independent woman with her voice and obtains respect and equality for her gender. 

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About Victor Onuorah

Victor is as much a prolific writer as he is an avid reader. With a degree in Journalism, he goes around scouring literary storehouses and archives; picking up, dusting the dirt off, and leaving clean even the most crooked pieces of literature all with the skill of analysis.

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Love, Family, and Independence

As an orphan at Gateshead, Jane is oppressed and dependent. For Jane to discover herself, she must break out of these restrictive conditions and find love and independence. Jane must have the freedom to think and feel, and she seeks out other independent-minded people as the loving family she craves. Jane, Helen Burns , and Ms. Temple enjoy a deep mutual respect, and form emotional bonds that anticipate the actual family Jane finds in Mary …

Social Class and Social Rules

Life in 19th-century Britain was governed by social class, and people typically stayed in the class into which they were born. Both as an orphan at Gateshead and as a governess at Thornfield, Jane holds a position that is between classes, and interacts with people of every level, from working-class servants to aristocrats. Jane's social mobility lets Brontë create a vast social landscape in her novel in which she examines the sources and consequences of…

Gender Roles

In 19th-century England, gender roles strongly influenced people's behavior and identities, and women endured condescending attitudes about a woman's place, intelligence, and voice. Jane has an uphill battle to become independent and recognized for her personal qualities. She faces off with a series of men who do not respect women as their equals. Mr. Brocklehurst , Rochester , and St. John all attempt to command or master women. Brontë uses marriage in the novel to…

Religion and spirituality are key factors in how characters develop in the novel. Jane matures partly because she learns to follow Christian lessons and resist temptation. Helen Burns introduces Jane to the New Testament, which becomes a moral guidepost for Jane throughout her life. As Jane develops her relationship with God, Mr. Rochester must also reform his pride, learn to pray, and become humble. Brontë depicts different forms of religion: Helen trusts in salvation; Eliza …

Feeling vs. Judgment

Just as Jane Eyre can be described as Jane's quest to balance her contradictory natural instincts toward independence and submission, it can also be described as her quest to find a balance between passionate feeling on the one had and judgment, or repression of those feelings, on the other. Through the examples of other characters in the novel, such as Eliza and Georgiana, Rochester and St. John—or Bertha, who has no control over her emotions…

The Spiritual and the Supernatural

Brontë uses many themes of Gothic novels to add drama and suspense to Jane Eyre . But the novel isn't just a ghost story because Brontë also reveals the reasons behind supernatural events. For instance, Mr. Reed's ghost in the red-room is a figment of Jane's stressed-out mind, while Bertha is the "demon" in Thornfield. In Jane Eyre , the effects of the supernatural matter more than the causes. The supernatural allows Brontë to explore…

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Jane Eyre , novel by Charlotte Brontë , first published in 1847 as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography , with Currer Bell (Brontë’s pseudonym) listed as the editor. Widely considered a classic, it gave new truthfulness to the Victorian novel with its realistic portrayal of the inner life of a woman, noting her struggles with her natural desires and social condition.

When the novel begins, the title character is a 10-year-old orphan who lives with her uncle’s family; her parents had died of typhus . Other than the nursemaid, the family ostracizes Jane. She is later sent to the austere Lowood Institution, a charity school , where she and the other girls are mistreated; “Lowood,” as the name suggests, is the “low” point in Jane’s young life. In the face of such adversity, however, she gathers strength and confidence.

In early adulthood, after several years as a student and then teacher at Lowood, Jane musters the courage to leave. She finds work as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets her dashing and Byronic employer, the wealthy and impetuous Edward Rochester . At Thornfield Jane looks after young Adèle, the daughter of a French dancer who was one of Rochester’s mistresses, and is befriended by the kindly housekeeper Mrs. Alice Fairfax . Jane falls in love with Rochester, though he is expected to marry the snobbish and socially prominent Blanche Ingram. Rochester eventually reciprocates Jane’s feelings and proposes marriage. However, on their wedding day, Jane discovers that Rochester cannot legally marry her, because he already has a wife, Bertha Mason , who has gone mad and is locked away on the third floor because of her violent behaviour; her presence explains the strange noises Jane has heard in the mansion. Believing that he was tricked into that marriage, Rochester feels justified in pursuing his relationship with Jane. He pleads with her to join him in France, where they can live as husband and wife despite the legal prohibitions, but Jane refuses on principle and flees Thornfield.

Jane is taken in by people she later discovers are her cousins. One of them is St. John , a principled clergyman. He gives her a job and soon proposes marriage, suggesting that she join him as a missionary in India. Jane initially agrees to leave with him but not as his wife. However, St. John pressures her to reconsider his proposal, and a wavering Jane finally appeals to Heaven to show her what to do. Just then, she hears a mesmeric call from Rochester. Jane returns to Thornfield to find the estate burned, set on fire by Rochester’s wife, who then jumped to her death. Rochester, in an attempt to save her, was blinded. Reunited, Jane and Rochester marry. Rochester later regains some of his sight, and the couple have a son.

The book was originally published in three volumes as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography , with Currer Bell listed as the editor. (The Lowood section of the novel was widely believed to be inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s own life.) Though some complained that it was anti- Catholic , the work was an immediate success. Jane Eyre ’s appeal was partly due to the fact that it was written in the first person and often addressed the reader, creating great immediacy. In addition, Jane is an unconventional heroine, an independent and self-reliant woman who overcomes both adversity and societal norms. The novel also notably blended diverse genres . Jane’s choice between sexual need and ethical duty belongs very firmly to the mode of moral realism. However, her close escape from a bigamous marriage and the fiery death of Bertha are part of the Gothic tradition.

Jane Eyre inspired various film, TV, and stage adaptations , including a 1943 movie that starred Orson Welles as Rochester and Joan Fontaine as Jane. Jean Rhys ’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) offers an account of Rochester’s first marriage.

Jane Eyre Themes

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Jane Eyre Characters with Analysis

August 25, 2024

This article will provide a comprehensive list of characters in Charlotte Bront ë ’s Jane Eyre . Though Jane and Mr. Rochester are the two gothic spires of this text, there is a whole host of characters who populate the manors and moors. If you need it, here’s a summary of the text to help you out as well as the 7 Best Quotes in Jane Eyre with Analysis . 

While you can certainly use Project Gutenberg’s searchable Jane Eyre , I continue to recommend the Oxford World Classics text for its helpful endnotes and footnotes. 

Major Characters in Jane Eyre with Analysis

Jane eyre .

As the protagonist and narrator, Jane’s interior life is the whole point of the novel. Remember – Jane Eyre is an “autobiography” written from a future where Jane and Mr. Rochester are happily married (with at least one son). That is not to say that the events of the novel are unimportant. However, far more important is how Jane understands these events as shaping her present self. Indeed, Jane Eyre was revolutionary precisely because of this focus on the private, emotional development of its main character. (The literary critic Daniel Burt calls Charlotte Bront ë “ the first historian of private consciousness. ”)  

We first meet Jane, she is ten years old girl and in the care (if it can be called that) of her aunt, Mrs. Reed. We find out later that Jane’s father was a poor clergyman who married a woman from a wealthy family. Jane’s maternal grandfather was so irritated with his daughter’s choice of husband that he cut them off financially. When Jane’s mother and father both catch typhus and die, Jane is left in the care of Mr. Reed, her mother’s brother (who dies soon after). 

Jane Eyre Characters (Continued)

Though Mrs. Reed has three children – Eliza, John, and Georgiana – they shun their cousin Jane. Of the three, the fourteen-year-old John is particularly cruel. When Jane stands up for herself against John’s bullying, Mrs. Reed throws Jane in the “red-room.” Jane thinks she sees a ghost and is terrified. She begs to be released, but Mrs. Reed pushes her back into the room, where Jane subsequently faints. 

In response to her “disobedience,” Mrs. Reed sends Jane off to Lowood academy, where Jane will spend the next eight years – six as a student and two as a teacher. Eventually, Jane bores of Lowood and advertises her services as a governess. Within a few weeks, Jane is off to Thornfield Hall to take care of Adele, a young French girl in the care of Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester. 

When Jane finally meets her boss, Mr. Rochester, she is (justifiably) wary. He seems an angry, tempestuous man. ( Their subsequent romance has not aged well. ) Though it takes time, Jane eventually confesses her love to Mr. Rochester, who reciprocates. Things go pear-shaped when they try to marry. [Spoiler alert!] Unbeknownst to Jane, Mr. Rochester is already married to Bertha Mason, an insane woman that he keeps imprisoned in on the third floor of Thornfield Hall. 

Such is Mr. Rochester’s passion for Jane that he suggests that they move to France and live as husband and wife away from the prying, prudish eyes of English high society. Though Jane is tempted, she refuses to be led astray by her feelings for Mr. Rochester. She has no intention of being a rich man’s mistress. In an impressive act of will, Jane leaves Thornfield without telling anyone.

She makes it as far as “Whitcross.” After paying for her travel, Jane has no money – she then accidentally forgets her suitcase in the coach. Penniless and possessionless, Jane begs for food and sleeps outside. After three days of this, near death, she knocks on the door of a house and is taken in by Mary, Diana, and St. John Rivers. Through a series of unlikely events, Jane 1) inherits a fortune, 2) finds out that Mary, Diana, and St. John are her cousins, and 3) decides to split her inheritance equally with them. ( I’ve written a chapter-by-chapter summary here. )

Her financial future secured, Jane turns her eyes to the future. St. John has taken a shine to Jane and proposes marriage (and a missionary existence in India). Though Jane is enamored with St. John’s intellect and Christian faith, she refuses to marry someone she doesn’t love . Like her rejection of Mr. Rochester earlier in the novel, Jane manages to resist the seductive allure of giving her existence over to another’s will.

Having rejected St. John, Jane turns her thoughts back to Mr. Rochester (it’s been a year since she left him). She returns to Thornfield to find it burned to the ground. When Jane asks around, she finds out that Bertha Mason set the house on fire and subsequently killed herself. Mr. Rochester managed to save all the servants but was blinded and maimed in the fire. Jane goes to him immediately, rekindles their romance, and marries him within the month. 

At the end of the book, Jane reflects on her path and feels that her success is a result of her having stayed true to her own inner compass instead of submitting to the will of others. 

Mr. Rochester 

Mr. Edward Faifax Rochester is Jane’s boss (suitor, and (eventually) husband). Much has been made of Mr. Rochester’s brooding, Gothic vibes, but his main narrative purpose is to prompt Jane to trust herself. Remember, Mr. Rochester asks Jane to marry him under very false pretenses. It’s not until Jane is kneeling at the altar with him that she finds out that Mr. Rochester has been married for fifteen years to a crazy lady he keeps on the third floor of his mansion. 

Mr. Rochester’s subsequent proposal – that they move to southern France and live as man and wife – is tempting. While Jane loves Mr. Rochester, her Christian faith will not let her live as a man’s mistress, crazy wife or not. The intensity of Jane’s feelings for Mr. Rochester makes her decision to leave him more poignant. 

Jane’s rejection of Mr. Rochester also allows for him to become a better (more Christian) person. His eventual blinding and maiming strip him of his arrogance and haughtiness. By the time Jane returns, he is a humble, middle-aged man, finally ready for the love of a nineteen-year-old girl.  

St. John Rivers 

Like Mr. Rochester, St. John exists as a sort of test for Jane’s self-determination. The brother of Maria and Diana, St. John is driven to be a missionary. He proposes marriage to Jane because he sees in her a worthy helpmeet for his missionary life. (While he not-so-secretly burns for the wealthy Rosamund Oliver, he knows that missionary life would be a poor fit for her.) 

Jane is very nearly convinced by St. John’s religious fervor. Though he is presumptuous and aloof, she understands the allure of giving over her will to such a force. If she were to marry St. John, Jane would cease to suffer from the burden of self-determination. Ultimately, Jane cannot betray her belief in the value of romantic love. She rejects St. John’s conventional understanding of Christian duty in favor of finding her own way in the world. On the last page of the book, we find out that St. John is ailing in India and will soon die. 

Bertha Mason

Though she doesn’t speak a single line in the text, there’s no doubt that Bertha Mason is a major character in Jane Eyre . Like her mother before her, Bertha suffers from “congenital madness.” Mr. Rochester implies that his marriage to Bertha was rushed by both families. The Rochesters wanted the Masons’ wealth and the Masons wanted someone to take Bertha off their hands. 

We find out that the strange laughter Jane hears from the servants’ quarters is Bertha (though Mr. Rochester blames Grace Poole). Though Grace is supposed to keep watch over her, Bertha escapes whenever Grace hits the gin too hard. On one occasion, she tries to burn Mr. Rochester in his bed. In another, she sneaks into Jane’s room and tears Jane’s bridal veil in half.

Mrs. Reed takes Jane in when her parents die of typhus. Though she is Jane’s aunt, there is no love lost between the two. Indeed, the only reason that Mrs. Reed bothers with Jane is because she promised her late husband that she would take care of her. Mrs. Reed is consistently unkind to Jane and keeps her away from her own children, John, Eliza, and Georgiana. 

A few years after Mrs. Reed sends Jane to Lowood, one of Jane’s uncles comes searching for her. It turns out that this uncle has made a fortune and would like Jane to be his heir. In an act of particular spitefulness, Mrs. Reed tells him that Jane died at Lowood. We find out later that Mrs. Reed couldn’t bear the thought of Jane’s conditions improving.  After her son, John, dies (implied to be suicide), Mrs. Reed has a stroke from which she does not recover. 

Minor Characters in Jane Eyre with Analysis 

Helen burns.

When Jane arrives at Lowood, she befriends Helen Burns. While an excellent student, Helen is frequently punished by the teachers for being “slatternly.” Like many of the characters in Jane Eyre , Helen exists to highlight Jane’s unique refusal to conform. Helen accepts every punishment she receives without protest, believing that this world is merely preamble to the next. Helen dies of consumption soon after Jane’s arrival at Lowood. 

Mrs. Fairfax

Distantly related to Mr. Rochester, Mrs. Fairfax manages Thornfield Hall. It is she who hires Jane as governess. 

Blanche Ingram

Before Mr. Rochester can admit that he loves Jane, he courts Blanche Ingram to make Jane jealous. Because Jane finds Blanche so thoroughly boring, Mr. Rochester’s interest in her lowers Jane’s opinion of him. In a testament to her shallowness, Blanche’s interest in Mr. Rochester wanes when she comes to believe that his fortune is smaller than expected. 

Mary and Diana Rivers

Sisters of St. John, they welcome Jane into their home after she flees from Thornfield. When Jane discovers that they are her cousins, she shares her inheritance with them and invites them to return from London to live at their ancestral home. 

Rosamund Oliver

Rosamund is the wealthy woman who St. John is in love with. She also funds the school that Jane works at while in Morton. While Rosamund’s father makes it clear that he would accept St. John as a son-in-law, St. John refuses, knowing that Rosamund would never consent to being a missionary. 

Adèle Varens

Adèle is the ten-year-old French girl who Jane teaches at Thornfield. Though her paternity is unclear, Mr. Rochester might be her father. 

Celine Varens

The French opera dancer with whom Mr. Rochester has an affair, she claims that Adèle is Mr. Rochester’s daughter. Mr. Rochester ends his affair with Celine after he learns that she has been unfaithful and is only interested in his money. 

Georgiana, John, and Eliza Reed

After bullying Jane in the first four chapters of the text, we don’t hear much from Georgiana, John, and Eliza until Mrs. Reed has a stroke. When Jane returns to care for her aunt, we are reintroduced to her cousins. John has led a dissolute life and killed himself over gambling debts, Georgiana is a beautiful, if vapid, society lady, and Eliza has become a stern woman destined for the nunnery. 

Bessie 

One of Mrs. Reed’s servants, Bessie is one of the only people who is (sorta) kind to Jane during her childhood. Before Jane leaves for Thornfield, Bessie comes to visit Jane and tell her news of Mrs. Reed and her cousins. She later marries the Reeds’ coachman.

Mr. Lloyd is the apothecary who visits Jane after her fainting spell in the red-room. A kind man, he recommends to Mrs. Reed that Jane be sent to school. When the headmaster of Lowood (Mr. Brocklehurst) claims that Jane is a liar, it is Mr. Lloyd who attests to Jane’s good character. 

Miss Temple

Miss Temple is the only teacher at Lowood who is kind to Jane. When Miss Temple marries and leaves Lowood, Jane realizes she too wants to set out on adventures. 

Mr. Brocklehurst

As the headmaster of Lowood, Mr. Brocklehurst is responsible for the atrocious conditions at the school. A strict, tyrannical Christian, he keeps Jane and the other girls on the brink of starvation so that they can better focus on God. 

Grace Poole

Grace Poole is Bertha’s caretaker at Thornfield. Whenever something weird happens, Mr. Rochester blames Grace Poole. We find out later that Grace keeps a bottle of gin in her room. Bertha escapes whenever Grace gets drunk. 

Richard Mason

Richard is Bertha’s brother. When he comes to visit Thornfield, Bertha attacks him, nearly killing him. Upon hearing that Mr. Rochester plans on marrying Jane, he comes to the wedding and exposes his bigamy. 

Jane’s long-lost uncle, he leaves Jane 20,000 pounds in his will. 

Wrapping Up – Jane Eyre Characters and Analysis

While Charlotte Bront ë ’s Jane Eyre is focused on the moral and ethical development of its eponymous narrator, the text also provides a detailed depiction of the various strata of Victorian society. From governesses to coachmen, nobles to beggars, Jane Eyre weaves a rich tapestry of characters and classes. 

If you’ve found this article useful or interesting, you can also check out my summaries and analyses of 1984 , Frankenstein , The Great Gatsby , Hamlet , The Crucible , Beloved, Brave New World , The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , and Macbeth . 

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A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

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Summary and Study Guide

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography is a bildungsroman, or coming of age novel, written by Charlotte Brontë and originally published in 1847 under the male pseudonym Currer Bell by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. Through Jane’s life and experiences, Brontë examines social issues including religious hypocrisy, class discrimination, and sexism. Many literary theorists and biographers—including Brontë’s friend and fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell—have also noted numerous similarities between the novel’s events and Brontë’s personal history.

The novel has been widely adapted into plays, operas, films, and television series. Jane Eyre has also been the subject of significant feminist theoretical texts, such as The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, and literary reinterpretations, such as Jean Rhys’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea . This guide refers to the Project Gutenberg eBook edition of the novel.

Plot Summary

When Jane Eyre opens, its narrator, a 10-year-old orphan named Jane, is living with the Reeds, her maternal uncle’s family, in a manor called Gateshead. Jane’s embittered Aunt Reed sees her as a burden, encouraging her children to mistreat and exclude Jane. When Jane retaliates against her particularly cruel, tyrannical cousin John Reed , her Aunt punishes her by locking her in the “red-room”—the room where Jane’s Uncle Reed died—and then sends her to a nearby boarding school called Lowood. Before Jane departs, she confronts her aunt about her cruel mistreatment.

Led by its vicious and hypocritical headmaster Mr. Brocklehurst , Lowood treats its students even more harshly, with punishments meted out for even the slightest perceived infractions. Only Jane’s new friend Helen and her kind teacher Miss Temple offer Jane any consolation. Lowood’s students lack basic needs like nourishing food, clean water, and insulation from the winter cold—ostensibly to build their Christian character, though Mr. Brocklehurst profits from these cutbacks. When a typhus epidemic strikes, many of the girls become gravely ill, having been made susceptible by the school’s poor conditions. Helen tragically dies in Jane’s arms.

After the typhus epidemic, new leadership takes over Lowood and makes it into a much better institution. Jane stays on as a student and then a teacher for eight years, until she accepts a post as a governess at a country manor called Thornfield.

There, Jane teaches a young French girl named Adèle, the ward of Thornfield’s mysterious owner, Mr. Edward Rochester . Jane meets Mr. Rochester when he is thrown from his horse. As he summons Jane for evening conversations, the two quickly learn that they share many interests and eccentricities, and they establish themselves as intellectual equals. Jane struggles with her romantic feelings for Mr. Rochester, since he intends to marry a beautiful woman named Blanche Ingram . As time passes and the two grow increasingly close, Mr. Rochester abandons the idea of marrying Blanche and offers an impassioned proposal to Jane.

A man named Mr. Mason interrupts their wedding: Mr. Rochester cannot legally marry Jane because he is already married. Mr. Rochester confesses: His father tricked him into marrying the wealthy Bertha Mason, ignoring her incipient mental illness and violent outbursts. To protect both the community and himself from her, Mr. Rochester has kept Bertha locked in the attic for 15 years, in the care of a woman named Grace Poole . Mr. Rochester begs Jane to run away with him, but despite her love for him, Jane staunchly refuses becoming his mistress. She flees Thornfield.

She wanders until she reaches the house of governesses Diana and Mary and their brother, a clergyman named St. John Rivers . The cold and severe St. John learns Jane’s identity and tells her that her uncle, John Eyre, recently passed away and left her 20,000 pounds. He also reveals that John Eyre was his own uncle, making him and Jane cousins. Jane is delighted to learn that she has living relatives and insists on dividing the inheritance equally between herself, Diana, Mary, and St. John.

St. John feels called to serve as a missionary in India and asks Jane to join him. He does not love Jane, but feels that her hardworking, steadfast demeanor would make her an ideal missionary’s wife. Jane tells St. John that she will go to India with him, but she cannot marry him because they are not in love.

Soon after, Jane mysteriously hears Mr. Rochester’s voice calling her from a great distance. She swiftly returns to Thornfield, now a charred ruin. At a local inn, she learns that Bertha set Thornfield on fire before jumping from the roof. Badly burned, Mr. Rochester lost his eyesight in the fire. Jane finds Mr. Rochester living at a remote cottage in the woods. Jane affirms that she loves him and is content to remain by his side for the rest of their lives. They marry, and Mr. Rochester eventually recovers some of his eyesight. He is thus able to see the face of his newborn son. 

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• Jane Eyre Summary

Ten-year-old orphan Jane Eyre lives unhappily with her wealthy relatives, the Reed family, at Gateshead. Resentful of the late Mr. Reed ’s preference for her, Jane’s aunt and cousins take every opportunity to neglect and abuse her as a reminder of her inferior station. Jane’s only salvation from her daily humiliations is Bessie, the kindly servant who tells her stories and sings her songs. One day, Jane confronts her bullying cousin, John, and Mrs. Reed punishes her by imprisoning her in the “red-room,” the room in which her uncle died. Convinced that she sees her uncle’s ghost, Jane faints. When she awakes, Jane is being cared for the apothecary, Mr. Lloyd , who suggests that she be sent off to school. Mrs. Reed is happy to be rid of her troublesome charge and immediately sends Jane to the Lowood School, an institution fifty miles from Gateshead.

Jane soon discovers that life at the Lowood School is bleak, particularly because of the influence of the hypocritical headmaster, Mr. Brocklehurst , whose cruelty and evangelical self-righteousness results in poor conditions, inedible meals, and frequent punishments for the students. During an inspection of the school, Mr. Brocklehurst humiliates Jane by forcing to stand on a stool in the middle of the class and accusing her of being a liar. The beautiful superintendent, Miss Temple , believes in Jane’s innocence and writes to Mr. Lloyd for clarification of Jane’s nature. Although Jane continues to suffer privations in the austere environment, Miss Temple’s benevolence encourages her to devote herself to her studies.

While at Lowood, Jane also befriends Helen Burns , who upholds a doctrine of Christian forgiveness and tolerance. Helen is constantly mistreated by Miss Scratcherd, one of the more unpleasant teachers at the school, but maintains her passivity and “turns the other cheek.” Although Jane is unable to accept Helen’s doctrine completely – her passionate nature cannot allow her to endure mistreatment silently– Jane attempts to mirror Helen’s patience and calmness in her own character. During the spring, an outbreak of typhus fever ravages the school, and Helen dies of consumption in Jane’s arms. The deaths by typhus alert the benefactors to the school’s terrible conditions, and it is revealed that Mr. Brocklehurst has been embezzling school funds in order to provide for his own luxurious lifestyle. After Mr. Brocklehurst’s removal, Jane’s time at Lowood is spent more happily and she excels as a student for six years and as a teacher for two.

Despite her security at Lowood, Jane is dissatisfied and yearns for new adventures. She accepts a position as governess at Thornfield Manor and is responsible for teaching a vivacious French girl named Adèle. In addition to Adèle, Jane spends much of her time at Thornfield with Mrs. Fairfax , the elderly housekeeper who runs the estate during the master’s absence. Jane also begins to notice some mysterious happenings around Thornfield, including the master’s constant absence from home and the demonic laugh that Jane hears emanating from the third-story attic.

After much waiting, Jane finally meets her employer, Edward Rochester , a brooding, detached man who seems to have a dark past. Although Mr. Rochester is not handsome in the traditional sense, Jane feels an immediate attraction to him based on their intellectual communion. One night, Jane saves Mr. Rochester from a fire in his bedroom, which he blames on Grace Poole , a seamstress with a propensity for gin. Because Grace continues to work at Thornfield, Jane decides that Mr. Rochester has withheld some important information about the incident.

As the months go by, Jane finds herself falling more and more in love with Mr. Rochester, even after he tells her of his lustful liaison with Adèle’s mother. However, Jane becomes convinced that Mr. Rochester would never return her affection when he brings the beautiful Blanche Ingram to visit at Thornfield. Though Rochester flirts with the idea of marrying Miss Ingram, he is aware of her financial ambitions for marriage. During Miss Ingram’s visit, an old acquaintance of Rochester's, Richard Mason , also visits Thornfield and is severely injured from an attack - apparently by Grace - in the middle of the night in the attic. Jane, baffled by the circumstances, tends to him, and Rochester confesses to her that he made an error in the past that he hopes to overturn by marrying Miss Ingram. He says that he has another governess position for Jane lined up elsewhere.

Jane returns to Gateshead for a few weeks to see the dying Mrs. Reed. Mrs. Reed still resents Jane and refuses to apologize for mistreating her as a child; she also admits that she lied to Jane’s uncle, John Eyre , and told him that she had died during the typhus outbreak at Lowood. When Jane returns to Thornfield, Rochester tells her that he knows Miss Ingram’s true motivations for marriage, and he asks Jane to marry him. Jane accepts, but a month later, Mason and a solicitor, Mr. Briggs , interrupt the wedding ceremony by revealing that Rochester already has a wife: Mason's sister, Bertha, who is kept in the attic in Thornfield under the care of Grace Poole. Rochester confesses his past misdeeds to Jane. In his youth he needed to marry the wealthy Bertha for money, but was unaware of her family's history of madness. Despite his best efforts to help her, Bertha eventually descended into a state of complete madness that only her imprisonment could control. Jane still loves Mr. Rochester, but she cannot allow herself to become his mistress: she leaves Thornfield.

Penniless and devastated by Mr. Rochester’s revelations, Jane is reduced to begging for food and sleeping outdoors. Fortunately, the Rivers siblings, St. John (pronounced “Sinjin”), Diana, and Mary, take her into their home at Moor House and help her to regain her strength. Jane becomes close friends with the family, and quickly develops a great affection for the ladies. Although the stoically religious St. John is difficult to approach, he finds Jane a position working as a teacher at a school in Morton. One day, Jane learns that she has inherited a vast fortune of 20,000 pounds from her uncle, John Eyre. Even more surprising, Jane discovers that the Rivers siblings are actually her cousins. Jane immediately decides to share her newfound wealth with her relatives.

St. John is going to go on missionary work in India and repeatedly asks Jane to accompany him as his wife. She refuses, since it would mean compromising her capacity for passion in a loveless marriage. Instead, she is drawn to thoughts of Mr. Rochester and, one day, after experiencing a mystical connection with him, seeks him out at Thornfield. She discovers that the estate has been burned down by Bertha, who died in the fire, and that Mr. Rochester, who lost his eyesight and one of his hands in the fire, lives at the nearby estate of Ferndean. He is overjoyed when she locates him, and relates his side of the mystical connection that Jane had. He and Jane soon marry. At the end of the novel, Jane informs the readers that she and Mr. Rochester have been married for ten years, and Mr. Rochester regained sight in one of his eyes in time to see the birth of his first son.

Jane Eyre Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Jane Eyre is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Why did Jane go to the party?

Jane attends the party out of curiosity, she leaves because Rochester's guests are rude and arrogant.

What is it that you most admire about Jane?

I think this is asking for your opinion rather than mine. What do you admire about Jane? Is it her sense of independence as a woman in a patriarchal culture? Is it her thirst for education? Is it her resilience?

Why was Jane so invested in the ingrams?

I think your quesstion is embodied in the character of Blanche Ingram. The young and beautiful society lady who is Jane's primary romantic rival. Jane is convinced that the haughty Miss Ingram would be a poor match for Mr. Rochester, but she...

Study Guide for Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a book by Charlotte Brontë. The Jane Eyre study guide contains a biography of Charlotte Bronte, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Jane Eyre
• Jane Eyre Video
• Character List

Essays for Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a novel by Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

• Women in Literature: Examining Oppression Versus Independence in Henry V and Jane Eyre
• Jane Eyre: The Independent and Successful Woman Of the Nineteenth Century
• Mystery and Suspense
• In Search of Permanence
• Jane's Art and Story

Lesson Plan for Jane Eyre

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Jane Eyre
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Jane Eyre Bibliography

E-Text of Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is an e-text that contains the full text of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

• Chapters 1-5
• Chapters 6-10
• Chapters 11-15
• Chapters 16-20

Wikipedia Entries for Jane Eyre

• Introduction

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