Miss Temple is the super intendent at Lowood School and is the nicest and most sympathetic teacher there. She doesn’t teach accordingly to Mr Brocklehurst’s guidelines. She loves all the girls and all the girls love her, she is the only one who cares for the girls like when she gets the girls extra food because the porridge was burnt at breakfast. She keeps the girls spirits up like when the girls had to walk 2 miles in the freezing cold. She always encouraged them to keep going. Miss Temple is caring for Jane and sympathetic with her. She puts her hand on her shoulder and kisses her on the cheek.
Charlotte Bronte describes Miss Temple as a beautiful well-dressed woman. She describes her as a refined, attractive, kind woman. Charlotte Bronte uses narrative in the book to describe her as being “Young, tall, fair, shapely and fashionable, brown eyes with a benignant light in their irids, and a fine pencilling of long lashes round, relived the whiteness of her large front; on each temple her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in round curls, according to the fashion of those times, when neither smooth bands nor long ringlets were in vogue; her dress also in the mode of the day, was purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet and a gold watch shone at her girdle”.
Charlotte Bronte also uses dialogue to say how good miss Temple is when Jane says to Helen Burns “Miss Temple is very good and very clever; she is above the rest, because she knows far more than they do”. So Charlotte Bronte uses Dialogue and Narrative to make Miss Temple seem like a princess and the best teacher at Lowood School. She describes the way she looks as a very attractive, young, well-dressed woman.
Mr Brocklehurst is the Principal of Lowood School and is in charge of it. Charlotte Bronte describes Mr Brocklehurst using imagery and metaphors. She describes him as a black pillar using metaphors. Charlotte Bronte says that he is “placed above the shaft by way of capital” using imagery. What this shows us is that Mr Brocklehurst is quite frightening but the description of him is a bit over exaggerated. Charlotte Bronte uses metaphors and Imagery to describe Mr Brocklehurst as a tall man, wearing a black suit, who has an unusual face and stands straight.
Mr Brocklehurst is a hypocrite who believes the girls at his school should be humble and not have any luxuries at all so their souls will be pure. Mr Brocklehurst is a hypocrite because he says the girls in his school should not have luxuries and be humble but in his house and family have a vast amount of luxuries and are not humble, so that makes him a hypocrite and does not practice what he preaches.
The best example of Mr Brocklehurst being a hypocrite is when he tells off Julia Severn for having curly hair even though it curls naturally and says her hair will have to be cut off “Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature. I wish children to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance? I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, modestly, plainly. Miss Temple that Girls hair must be cut off entirely” but then Mr Brocklehurst’s family (wife and two daughters) come in and they have lovely fur clothes and have curls in their hair and some are even fake curls, so this shows Mr Brocklehurst’s hypocrisy at it’s best. Mr Brocklehurst was very nasty to Jane. She accidentally broke a slate and was noticed by Mr Brocklehurst who brought her up to the front and told everyone she was a liar, due to what Mrs Reed told him about her and Mr Brocklehurst told everyone to exclude her from their conversations and ignore her and don’t be friends with her. He made Jane look like an evil girl and humiliated her and ruined her fresh start at the school. Miss Temple told Jane not to be frightened and breaking the slate was an accident but she did not know what Mr Brocklehurst was going to say about her. Charlotte Bronte uses Dialogue and contrast in this to show how Mr Brocklehurst is.
At Lowood school Charlotte Bronte shows us two different reactions to things from how Jane and Helen react. Helen Burns accepts being punished and feels she deserved it and her philosophy is that no love is greater than god’s love. She also doesn’t want to cause trouble for her family being expelled and so must accept the punishment given. When Helen is being beaten with the sticks she does not make a sound but continues to stand there. Helen uses complex language for a small girl, which no one today would use today.
She believes strongly in the bible and she says, “The bible bids us to return good for evil”. Jane is quite the opposite 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”. So Jane opposes to the punishment and feels that it is wrong for such a petty reason. She says all of this in first person which is very effective.
At Lowood School I think, as a reader, that the conditions were very harsh and was far too strict. The children were beaten for petty reasons which had a reasonable explanation for, but couldn’t say because they were excuses. The children didn’t have enough food and the food wasn’t even edible and were denied of luxuries that would seem compulsory today. The health conditions were excusable because they didn’t have the knowledge of germs etc. of what we know today. There was a sense of Christian values there basing everything on god. The education there was strongly based on religion and religious education was the most important lesson there. It usually consisted of learning passages of the bible, which I see as pointless and should base the education on more of the important subjects like science and maths.
The education there and the education we receive nowadays are different. Then Religious education was extremely important but today it is not as important at all but today the most important are Maths, Science and English. Today children are forbidden to be hit by teachers but then children were hit very regularly. Nowadays every child receives education whether going to school, boarding school, tutor or home schooled. In those days not everyone went to school especially girls.
If I was in Lowood School in those times I would be extremely angry because I am used to the way they teach in these days. I would find the ways horrible and not right
So times have changed from then to now and has changed for the better
