She also looks back on her childhood experience from an adult view point and comments on the situation with hindsight
- ‘I was a discord in Gateshead hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed, her children or her chosen vassalage.’ Pg17
- ‘I could not answer the ceaseless inward question –why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of – I will not say how many years – I see it clearly.’ Pg17
Jane’s character
Many aspects of her character make her an outsider:
She cannot tolerate what she sees as injustice
- ‘I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and miss abbot were disposed to entertain of me.’ Pg 14
- ‘ “What does Bessie say I have done?”’ I asked. Pg 1
- ‘Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, without at all deliberating on my words-
“They are not fit to associate with me.”’
This is Jane’s reaction upon overhearing Mrs Reed telling john not to associate with her.
- During Mr Brocklehursts visit Mrs Reed tells him Jane is deceitful – a liar. After Mr B leaves Jane gives Mrs R a piece of her mind and, even after Jane has been told to leave she stay and tells Mrs reed that she is not a liar. Jane says that she hates the reeds and hopes she is sent to school soon. Mrs Reed leaves, so Jane feels like she has won.
She is unforgiving and bears a grudge
Relationship with other characters
The writer shows Jane is a misfit in the way other characters react to her. Yet she is shown to be capable of inspiring affections in Bessie, Mr Lloyd, miss temple and Helen burns
She is an orphan
- In the novel we discover the reason of Jane’s inhabitance with the reeds: Jane's mother was Mr Reeds [deceased] brother, they came from a wealthy background. In contrast Jane’s father was a vicar, and the marriage was very unpleasing to the reed family. One day, when on a visit, Jane’s father caught typhoid, which as it is infectious, made his wife ill too. They both died which left Jane an orphan.
She is bullied by others
- All john reeds violent tyrannies, all his sister’s proud indifference, all his mothers’ aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten.
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He bullied and punished me; not two or three times a week nor once or twice in a day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh on my bones shrank when he came near.
This is Jane talking about how john reed treats her. The highlighted has an impact on the reader and Jane successfully wins the reader as she describes her emotions.
Language
The writer suggests aspects of Jane’s character through her use of language. Her language is formal and she uses complex sentences. This suggests intelligence and maturity.
