considered unsociable and un-childlike. Jane is a more advanced individual
although she never had been to school, she read broadly as she did not
like to be outside in the cold.
When Jane is banished by Mrs Reed from the company of the Reed
children, instead of arguing back like a normal child of her age, Jane
stays calm and collected and asks Mrs Reed a simple question:-
“What does Bessie say I have done?”
Mrs Reed answers her without an explanation and turns it around to make
it look as though Jane is being troublesome, but Jane shatters these
assumptions as she stays calm, leaves the Reeds and goes into the
breakfast room to read.
When Mrs Reed sends Jane to the ‘Red Room’ after her conflict with
John Reed, Bessie and Abbot try to take her, but Jane resists them, she
believes that she is being punished unfairly and kicks and screams at
them all the way. This is the start of a radical change in the way Jane
acts. She starts to realise that she does not deserve to be treated the
way she is and wants to change peoples actions towards her.
After the incident with the “Red Room”, Bessie has a change of
heart towards Jane, realising she is only a child and is unfairly treated.
This shows Jane that people are capable of being nice to her and she
should be treated differently to what she was before.
When Jane thinks about leaving Gateshead to go to school she
knows of the goings on there from what Bessie had told her and from
John Reed. But she still finds a good side to it: -
“Besides, school would be a complete change: it implied a long journey, an
entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.”
Jane thinks that no matter how bad school could be, it will always be
better than living at Gateshead with her Aunt and cousins and so many
people that treated her badly.
But when Jane is asked if she had family from her father’s side
and whether she would like to live with them, she refuses, as she does not
want to live a poor life; she values education and the higher-class way of
living over happiness and love. Jane learnt a lot from living at Gateshead
though mostly about how she should be treated as a person.
Lowood Institute: the name suggests that Jane’s time here will not
be good. However, Jane looks forward to going to school and getting
away from Gateshead and the Reeds.