Dicuss why Jane's early life at Lowood should be so important in shaping her character.

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GCSE Coursework                                                       Rebekah Mahoney 11A

JANE EYRE                                                                                      Page          -  

Dicuss why Jane’s early life at Lowood should be so important in shaping her character.

When Charlotte Brontë set out to write “Jane Eyre”, she boldly promised her sisters:

“a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.”

As promised, Jane appears decidedly plain, “so little, so pale”, with “features so irregular and so marked”, “sensible but not at all handsome”, “queer” and “a little toad”.

The novel opens at Gateshead with Jane moving from childhood to puberty.  Even at ten years of age, Jane feels that “I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman” and tells this to Mr Lloyd.  She actually leaves by the end of Chapter 4.  Her becoming an adult is marked by her revolt against the Reeds, which at this early age shows a self-assertiveness, but one which gets her severely punished and ostracised, but also wins her her freedom from the Reeds, first to the red room and then on to Lowood School.

Lowood School represents repression and prolonged discipline.  Here the girls are “starved” – (in Yorkshire dialect this means frozen as well as hungry) and deprived of all sensory awareness.  They are all uniformly dressed in stiff brown dresses which “gave an air of oddity even to the prettiest” and shorn of their hair, the last sign of their femininity.  The girls of Lowood are instructed in the chastity they will need for their future lives as poor teachers and governesses.  Mr Brocklehurst proclaims that his mission is “to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh, to teach them to clothe themselves with shamefacedness and sobriety”.

Lowood disciplines its inmates by attempting to destroy their individuality at the same time that it punishes and starves their sexuality.  The forced wearing of the uniform obliterates distinctions between all age groups young and older.  Mr Brocklehurst, the self-righteous minister of Lowood, tells Miss Temple “you are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls, is not to accustom them to luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient and self-denying”.  Mr Brocklehurst stresses the importance of plain clothing and humility (but his own family have long beautiful hair and are dressed richly).  It was this influence that Jane was never able to shake and at Thornfield, she continued to wear dull clothes covered by a plain pinafore.  She had, however, no influence over the clothes which Adele chose to wear. Even on her wedding day, Jane would not conform by wearing elaborate headwear.

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Jane herself is very clear about the sort of demeanour that is required of a governess.  When Rochester has guests at Thornfield, she knows she must “shrink into the shade”.  She is expected to be present in the drawing room in the evening but not take part in the conversation unless directly addressed.  She frequently refers to the plainness of her dress, and sometimes to her own lack of physical beauty, as appropriate to a governess.  When she thinks she is about to marry Rochester, she is not really surprised at Mrs Fairfax’s opinion that it is unwise for ...

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