Compare the presentation of childhood in

Compare the presentation of childhood in “Great Expectations” and “Jane Eyre”

Both "Jane Eyre" and "Great Expectation" adopt a typically Victorian outlook on childhood, which can seem quite alien set against modern values. However in both books, and particularly in "Jane Eyre", there is an effort to create a convincing expression of childhood through strong emphasis of the child’s point of view above all others.

In both books there is a interesting use of hindsight within the first person narration; not only does the narrator describe their childhood with perfect clarity of detail “before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible-reading was over, I felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast time came at last, and this morning the porridge was not burnt…” but also with a very mature and refined description of events that, at the time, the child would most likely not have been capable of. In "Jane Eyre" this maturity of description is visible both through the intricacy of the language “reader though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind” and through the complexity of the ideas used “I was in discord in Gateshead Hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage.” However, Dickens mostly attempts a slightly more realistically childlike and basic narrative in "Great Expectations" than does Bronte in "Jane Eyre". Linguistically, Dickens achieves this with a very structured childlike, blow-by-blow listing of events “He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was about to…” but frequently he changes the tone to one that is far more elevated “It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.” And often what is written is directly intended for the audience of the period or an adult joke, “a money box…into which… all my earnings were dropped. I have an impression that they were to be contributed eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt”. In this way Dickens could be considered a little less ‘true’ to his characters than Brontë is, as he regular interposes his own personality into his main character’s thoughts and dialogue “I saw speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home, and running out from it, as if some circumstance of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the spider community.”

However, all this is not to say that the authors were wrong to use such techniques in their books; perfect recollection of the past is accepted convention of first person narration, and it is not unrealistic that an adult recalling their childhood would speak about it from an adult perspective. Yet it is worthy of note that where modern authors may draw attention to the great differences between childhood and adulthood, and the significance of the passage between those two, in “Jane Eyre" and "Great Expectations", where Pip and Jane are treated more like ‘little adults’ than ordinary children, Dickens and Bronte maintain roughly the same tone and dynamic throughout regardless of the age of the protagonists at the time of the events. This is certainly partly to do with Pip’s and Jane’s unusual circumstances but is perhaps also a reflection on the period in which the books were written.

Contemporary culture may see children as being without much or any moral structure; particularly at an early age when children lack empathy that adults tend to possess. However, in "Great Expectations" and "Jane Eyre" Pip and Jane are painted as very moral beings and in fact conversely, for Pip, the degradation of moral fortitude comes later in life.

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Towards the beginning of "Jane Eyre" although Jane is still very young she expresses strong moral feelings against the injustice she suffers at Gateshead “‘Unjust – unjust!’ said my reason, Forced by the agonizing stimulus into precocious though transitory power”, here it is suggested that Jane’s precocious development of morality is a product of the adversity she suffers, which is a curious juxtaposition as it is this same moral conviction, kept from childhood, that proves a great asset to Jane in her future undertakings. In "Great Expectations" Pip’s moral code is more prevalent than is necessarily his strict accordance to it. When pip Steals the file and brandy from the forge and the pantry, the moral pangs he experiences are severe “I got up and went down stairs; every board upon the way, and every crack in every board, calling after me, ‘Stop thief!’ and ‘Get up, Mrs Joe!’” Also later on when he lies to Mr Pumblechook and Mrs Joe Gargery and afterwards overhears them communicate his outrageous lies to a trusting Joe he is driven to confess all, although only to Joe: “It’s a terrible thing, Joe; it ain’t true.” But after the initial shock Joe is understanding: “‘you are not angry with me, Joe?’ ‘No, old chap… that’s all, old chap, and don’t never do it no more.’” We see, for pip, it is only those who behave morally who deserve moral treatment, and it is this that ultimately makes him confess to Joe, who represents Pip’s only source for moral mentorship in his early life. The purity of childhood becomes a shared theme between both books. The fact that Jane and Pip have such a strong sense of morality as children helps draw attention to the corruptness of the adult world and, to some extent, the supposed inherent goodness of children. This comparison is made more apparent in "Great Expectations" as during Pip’s passage from childhood into adulthood his morality falters when he returns to the moors and treats old characters from his childhood with snobbish resentment.

The intention of Dickens and Bronte in giving their leading characters such strong morality seems to be at least partly due to their usefulness as a vessel for the exposition by contrast of the hypocrisy exhibited by some adults in some passages whose subtext is particularly scathing and darkly comic in each novel. In "Jane Eyre" the supercilious and pompous speech from Mr Brocklehurst “my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying…referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations of our blessed lord himself” shows how a supposedly respected and pious member of the community is in actuality a false and self-congratulating old man. In "Great Expectations" Mr Pumblechook is seen to be vain and similarly pompous in passages such as “‘Now you see, Joseph and wife,’ said Pumblechook, as he took me by the arm above the elbow, ‘I am one of them that always go right through with what they’ve begun. This boy must be bound, out of hand. That’s my way. Bound out of hand.’”

Another obvious parallel between each book can be found within orphaned status of Jane and Pip They were both brought up grudgingly by relatives; in the case of Pip it is ‘By hand’ of his oppressive sister, and for Jane it is by the loveless and uncaring Mrs Reed at Gatehouse manor, where she is seen as nothing more than a worthless ‘dependant’. The idea of family and identity are important themes in each novel, with an air of mysticism surrounding the origins of Pip and Jane: the dying wish of Jane’s father that she should be taken care of by Mrs Reed and the fact that Pip’s sister was charged with his upbringing, contributes to some of this mysticism.

Jane and Pip are both mistreated by those charged with a duty of care to them, and there are some salient similarities between their situations. Whilst Jane remains at Gateshead she is “trodden on severely” by her antagonist Mrs Reed however she is not completely without hope or companionship; Bessie her young nursemaid is judicious on the side of her mistress but still shows compassion towards Jane “I don’t dislike you, miss; I believe I am fonder of you than all the others.” Jane goes through a major upheaval quite early in her life and is so freed from the oppression at Gateshead manor, which she so despises “Good-bye to Gateshead!” is her somewhat joyous exclamation as she is moved to Lowood School. However this is not to say she does not endure hardship or encounter injustice at Lowood, but there she also finds friends, when at Gateshead she had none.

Similarly Pip is much berated by his sister when on the ‘ram-page’ and also by Mr Wopsle and Pumblechook through their self-righteous dictation “‘Swine,’ pursued Mr Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his fork at my blushes, as if he were pronouncing my Christian name…‘what is detestable in a pig, is more detestable in a boy’” but Pip is able to take solace from Joe, who is a character of simple nature but great kindness “He always comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinner-time by giving me gravy”, here a useful measure of Pip’s general abuse can be found in the amount of gravy used as remedy by Joe, and on this occasion it is said to exceed “about half a pint”.

Between both books, then, there is a similarity in that Pip and Jane may both be downtrodden but they are not without there exponents, albeit ones far weaker than there antagonists.

Aside from their family lives Jane and Pip have some contact with a number of children. Early on in her life Jane lives with the two daughters of Mrs Reed and her older son, and later she befriends girls from Lowood School, most notably Helen Burns. Pip, however does not have any explicit contact with other children at the beginning of "Great Expectations" although it is sometimes implied that that he does know other children, later he meets Estella, and briefly, the pale young gentleman.

Jane’s early life at Gateshead is lonely and unpleasant, she is abused by John Reed, both verbally “Now I’ll teach you to rummage my book-shelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows” and physically “The volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, and the pain was sharp”. Georgina and Eliza do not play a major role in Jane’s mistreatment, but they shun her and speak against her to the servants and their mother. She is excluded from the family life, as she describes when Mrs Reed “with her darlings about her” sits on the couch whilst she is exiled to sit elsewhere until she can “acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition”.

Once she is free of Gateshead Jane begins to make friends with other children, and she is able to escape her previous oppression, although on one occasion her past at Gateshead does return to haunt her when Mr Brocklehurst calls her up in front of all the girls at the school when she accidentally drops her slate, and gives a damning and untrue speech suggesting she is in league with the devil and is a liar “no single deformity points her out as a marked character. Who would have thought the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her?” All of which elaboration is based on the false information given to Mr Brocklehurst by Mrs Reed. This forms the introduction into the book of a later recurring theme: the ill of effects of the past upon the present.

On meeting Helen Burns, Jane is very impressed “you are such a great girl”, with Helen Jane grows more comfortably with the Spartan conditions in which she lives, we see she favours being liked and appreciated by Helen and Mrs Temple “god bless you my children!” In poor conditions than being hated and abused in rich and opulent surroundings by Mrs Reed and her family, which reflects positively on her character and lifts the novel away from the empathic hatred of those who oppress Jane and into a more mellow intermediary stage of Jane’s life.

Pip’s introduction to Estella represents a far less significant shift in the plot in "Great Expectations" than does the move to Lowood in "Jane Eyre", but we are introduced in small doses to the strange Mrs Havisham and Estella (which is possibly necessary considering her spiteful temperament), this builds tension and heightens the intrigue of Pip’s visits to Mrs Havisham’s old mansion, but only occupies around half the text, with the intervening sections covering Pip’s continuing family life. Unlike the chronologically comparable meeting of Jane and Helen, Estella is not good and worthy, but instead sharp, spiteful and very beautiful “She seemed much older than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed; and she was as scornful of me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a queen.” After Pip’s visits are brought to an end he is profoundly affected by Estella’s beauty and her scathing attacks on his common roots “with this boy! Why, he is a common labouring-boy!” It is this that strengthens his resolve to become a gentleman and “oncommon scholar”, this drive of self-improvement becomes important as a theme both in "Great Expectations" and "Jane Eyre".

“I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life, and that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would impart all her learning to me”; Pip makes his endeavours to become a gentleman in earnest and begins to read and learn from Biddy.

Jane also strives to improve herself and overcome her ignorance “a fondness for some of my studies, and a desire to excel in all” and by the time she is instated as teacher at the age of sixteen she has risen “to be the first girl of the first class”. The ‘Great Expectations’ of both Pip and Jane here contrast significantly, which represents a feminist message from Bronte, and a moral one from Dickens. Jane is a talented and able woman, but despite her skills (surpassing that of many men), the constraints of her period mean that the highest office she can expect to fill is that of governess of a house. Conversely, Pip can expect to be taught to be a gentleman and find wealth and happiness in London. As it happens, they are both wrong.

In conclusion; neither books could be said to deal with childhood as a central theme, but inclusion of the protagonists’ childhood as hefty sections of prose in each novel is a deliberate and necessary addition by the authors, serving the overall message of each text. Primarily children offer a perspective of innocence through which Dickens and Bronte can portray the adult world and its hypocrisy with a view untainted by the preconceptions and expectations of adults. Frequently this technique is used to the detriment of those less admirable adult characters (Mr Brocklehurst, Mr Wopsle, Mrs Reed, Mr Pumblechook, Mrs Gargery, and the list goes on), but it is also used to illuminate those good adult characters (Mr Joe, Mr Lloyd, Mrs Temple, and others).

Also childhood is the first constituent of the identity of our protagonists. Pip’s childhood is pivotal in the creation of his identity, which becomes so thematically important later in "Great Expectations". Also, Jane’s moral conviction to honesty and justice can be traced back to her mistreatment in childhood, and knowing of her childhood allows the reader to see in context her later actions, and so her identity.

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