1)At Gateshead Hall
Both her father and mother have died when Jane is a baby, the little girl is passed into the care of Mrs. Reed of Gateshead Hall. Mrs. Reed’s husband, now dead, has been the brother of Jane’s mother, on his deathbed, he has directed his wife to look after Jane as she would her own 3 children. However, Mrs. Reed and her children John, Eliza and Georgiana despise the poor orphan because they label her a poor creature of lower class; her mother has been disinherited from the family fortune upon marriage to Jane’s father, a poor clergyman. They never let her forget her lack of wealth of position, or their abundance of both. They see her as nothing more than a servant and treat her coldly even cruelly. Jane suffers neglect and abuses for quite a long time. They want Jane to obey them unconditionally and absolutely. As Bessie Leaven, the nurse at Gateshead Hall says to Jane: “You should try your best to please you masters.” they hope Jane to be always obedient. So Mrs. Reed feels extremely furious when Jane dare to fight back against John who represents physical forces and patriarchal family. In order to punish Jane, Mrs. Reed sent her to the gloomy room where Mr. Reed has died. However, Jane doesn’t yield to her even under these circumstances. She cries to Mrs. Reed: “People think you are a good woman, but you are bad, bad-hearted. You are deceitful!” Even she is still a child, she first feels her soul begin to “expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph”. When Mrs. Reed realizes that it is impossible for her to place Jane under control, she makes arrangements for Jane’s admissions to Lowood School.
2)At Lowood
On Jane’s second morning at Lowood, the water in the girl’s breakfast pitchers is frozen. As Jane learns quickly, life at the school is harsh: they are underfed, overworked, and forced to endure freezing temperatures and sit still during endless sermons. Jane finds the ultimate “monument to the destruction of the most basic human unit, the family.” here. Mr. Brocdlehurst, the cruel, hypocritical master of the Lowood School preaches a doctrine of privation. As a clergyman, he is supposed to be an authority of morality, but he is an utter hypocrite. As a member of the privileged elite, he believes his luxurious life style is a natural right. The poor orphan girls are not members of this elite, and he makes it clear that he does not believe comfort to be their right as well. In a manner of speaking, he wants to teach them to accept their class status. One lesson they are expected to learn at Lowood is that a sparse existence is their natural station in life. In order to justify his own life of ease and comfort, he provided for the education of orphan girls with a charity school. His “charity” has little to do with any real concern for improving the lot of unfortunate girls. It has more to do with making them accept their miserable, deprived existence which allowing him to set himself up as a moral authority.
Brocklehurst’s visit to the school represents a bitter indictment of insincere philanthropy. He chastises Miss Temple for providing the girls with the extra lunch in compensation for the inedible breakfast, he also decides to cut off girl’s naturally curled hairs because he believes they should not take vain pleasures in their appearances though his wife and daughters wear wigs and elaborate curls. All exposes that his maintenance of his own luxuriously wealthy family at the expense of the girls bring the matter of religion the larger theme of social class. Christianity becomes an instrument of power used by the upper class (the Brocklehursts) to maintain their superior position over the lower class (the girls at Lowood)
So it is not surprising that Mr. Brocklehurst gets furious and declares Jane a liar when she inadventently drops the slate in his presence. He forces Jane to stand on a stool and forbids other students to speak to her. Deeply ashamed, Jane feels as though she has been ruined but she never surrenders. She finds the enjoyment of expanding her own mind and talents .She forgets the hardships of living at the school and focuses on the work of her own hands. Under the watchful and unforgiving eyes of Brocklehurst, Jane’s closest friend, Helen, told her that she practices a doctrine of Christian endurance, loving enemies and accepting her privations. Helen tries to live out the idea of Christian love and forgiveness and patiently endures even the cruelest treatment. Unlike Helen, Jane disagrees strongly with such tolerance, saying that no one should endure injustice quietly. As she says, when someone strikes her, she wants to strike back, so that the offender knows never to strike her again. Her resistance proves Blocklehurst’s praise of self-denial and sparse living as a sure road to an upright, moral character to be utterly false. Helen’s doctrine of endurance and love is incompatible with Jane’s belief in self-defense and justice. When Jane grows weary of her life at Lowood, she gets a position as governess at Thornfield.
3)At Thornfield
Jane lives a quiet country life at Thornfield. Her particular personal characteristics impress her wealthy and powerful master, Mr. Rochester deeply. They fall in love. Mr. Rochester’s love for Jane is not only spiritual, but also passionate. Though Jane is poor, humble and plain, she defeats class structure and social convention of British society as Mr. Rochester wishes to marry her in spite of the disapproval that will come from his class.
However, Mr. Rochester also finds fault with Jane’s need to express herself, it is the one thing that keeps her from being totally possessed by him. He always concerns his hold over Jane while Jane resists becoming dependent on him and his money. After learning Mr. Rochester has already married, she refuses to be his mistress. “It would not be wicked to love me.” Rochester protests, Jane stands her ground, “It would be to obey you.” She does not want to betray her own moral principle with the fancy gowns and jewels. She is unwilling to give up her independence to Mr. Rochester. Jane overcomes the male power facing as a prominent obstacle by leaving Thornfield. As we know later that Jane is free to return to Rochester after achieving independence by finding a family in the Rivers and wealth in her inheritance. Due to the fire at Thornfield, she finds him not as powerful as he once was, this works well for her because she is now more powerful than she once was. Mr. Rochester welcomed Jane back with open arms, realizing that he would never possess her the way he once wants to. Jane’s resistance to sacrificing her own belief pays off in the end. She is able to marry for love once she reunites with Mr. Rochester. Throughout her life, Jane has always been looking for the one thing, more than wealth or position, which has always seemed to evade her - love. She succeeds. Their marriage not only ends the many conflicts involved, but also fulfills every woman’s wish of achieving both independence and love.
4)At Moors
After leaving Thornfield, Jane runs out of her small storage of money for the coach fare. Starving, she actually begs for food. Fortunately, she is befriended by the Reverend St. John Rivers and his sisters. When St. John decides to go to India as a missionary, he proposes to Jane. Though she can get a good opportunity to lead a stable life if she accepts his proposal, Jane refuses. She knows that St. John wants to marry her not because he loves her, as he frankly admits, but because he admires her and want her to be his assistant. Jane upholds her belief that marriage should be for love and not for convenience. St. John’s love for her is “merely spiritual”, for Jane, this will never do. Her refusal of him for such a reason is considered shocking at a time when women are “imagined as merely inhabiting bodies meant to bear children and being, in other aspects, tasteless and without appetite.’ Before St. John’s moral and spiritual authority and his view of her as being selfish and unworthy of God, Jane keeps her integrity successful.
Conclusion:
Jane Eyre suffers patriarchal abuse at Gateshead for her defiance; suffers cruel regime of Lowood because her prejudice and insensitive aunt wants to punish her; suffers heart-break for her attempt to marry her beloved Mr. Rochester when she chooses her own personal convictions over his desires and she also suffers an estrangement from her newly-found cousin when she chooses to uphold her view of marriage. Despite the pains her choices bring to her. Jane manages to maintain her independence by her free choices of the principles by which she wants to live. In a society that women are seen only as trophies, mean to cling to the arms of men, but never mean to develop a mind of their own or to venture out on their own, Jane set a glorious example. In a sense, Jane Eyre is a role model for women not only in the 19th century but also for women today. She is not only successful in terms of wealth and position, but more importantly, in terms of family and love. She is an embodiment of brilliant qualities of modern women.