When Mr Brocklehurst is visiting Gateshead hall before Jane has gone to Lowood, he and Jane are discussing the bible. An argument fires up. Jane says that she thinks the psalms are not interesting and Mr Brocklehurst disagrees. Because Jane thinks they are not interesting, Brocklehurst tells her that she has a wicked heart and that she must pray to God to change it. This notifies the reader that Jane is not very religious although that changes when she befriends Helen Burns at Lowood. It also informs the reader that she and Mr Brocklehurst have an aversion to each other immediately and continue to dislike each other at Lowood. This is shown at Lowood when Mr Brocklehurst stands Jane on a chair in front of the entire school and humbling her by branding her a liar, then leaving her standing there for half an hour telling everyone, “no one speak to her during the remainder of the day.”
Jane has a strong sense of right and wrong. She says it is right to pay people back if they treat you badly. For example, when she sees Helen being hit by Miss Scatcherd, she says, “If I were in your place, I should dislike her; I should resist her; if she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should break it under her nose.” Normal Victorian children would not think like this, they would probably think like Helen Burns; that Miss Scatcherd is not cruel at all but severe, that she dislikes her faults, whereas Jane thinks it is very cruel and Miss Scatcherd should be punished.
Charlotte Bronte writes the novel from Jane’s point of view. This helps the reader to understand how Jane thinks and feels.
When Jane is grown up she has changed in many ways but she has also stayed the same. She still has a strong sense of right and wrong but she may not act on this as much or as severely as she would of when she was young. She refused to marry Edward Rochester once she had found out he was still married. Jane would not have trusted him anymore and if she could not trust him, how could she love him? She has also learnt to control her temper even though she might be extremely angry. Jane still speaks her mind to a certain extent. She became very religious since Helen Burns had died. She falls in love with Mr Rochester but does not know how to act on it, as she has not experienced love before. She does not know how to act around him. She acts how she has been taught, not what her heart says. However, she does learn how to act around Edward as she falls more in love with him.
Jane gets more and more adventurous as time goes by. Whilst she was living at Thornfield, she chose to walk across a few fields in the dark on her own and they did not have torches in Victorian times. She also tries to find out what is going on in the attic.
When Mr Mason got stabbed, Rochester asked Jane if she turned sick at the sight of blood and she replied, “I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.” He then took her into Mr Mason’s room and showed her his wound. She did not react the way most Victorian woman would. They would usually faint at the sight of blood as it was not right for them to see blood whereas Jane does not faint or feel nauseas but remains calm and does what she is asked to do.
Her stay with St. John Rivers and his sisters shows us different aspects of her nature. Jane refused to be a missionary’s wife even when he said if she were his wife she would be serving God. She said she should not marry if it is not for love. Just like she wouldn’t marry Edward Rochester after she found out about his wife. Jane sticks by her feelings of love throughout her life. When she said this St. John replied that she was made for labour not love. When she talked to Mrs Reed earlier in the novel, she says, “you think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so…”
Jane Eyre is a typical Victorian girl in some ways. She is religious, which everyone was then unlike people today that are not really bothered about religion. She also wouldn’t stay with Edward Rochester once he had found out he was still married as that was wrong and would mean Rochester was committing bigamy. There are other aspects of her character, however, that are much more modern. She wants to be independent and to not rely on anyone for anything. She does not even want a man to buy her clothes or jewels whereas women in Victorian times would have wanted a man to buy them things and take care of them. Jane does not want to be below Edward as well. She wants to be viewed as his equal, nothing less and nothing more. Women back then would not have wanted to be seen as an equal or if they did, they would not have said anything and stayed with conformity. As well as all this, she will not marry St. John Rivers just to be his fellow-missionary. Most girls would have done though because it would seem the right thing to do in society and also in the eyes of God. Today’s society is like Jane in this matter as we would marry for love and not labour. Additionally, we have not got the pressure of God; that if we did marry him it would be seen as serving the Lord. Furthermore, if we were Jane, we would not marry him as he is Jane’s cousin and it is not right. Back then though, it seems as though it did not matter if you were related.
Many of the people who read Jane Eyre when it was first written in the middle of the nineteenth century would have been surprised and shocked that a girl would have behaved and talked the way Charlotte Bronte portrays Jane. However, I am sure there were many young women who felt restricted but could not escape their lives. By reading the book they might have wished they were like her in many ways but would not dare do anything about it. When they read the book it might have been their way of escaping.
We still enjoy reading the novel today because Jane has some of the views we have today so we can relate to this and we also learn what it was like in the nineteenth century. We discover other people’s reactions and views to Jane’s ways so we get to see what it would be like with our views and beliefs in the nineteenth century.
