To what extent is Jane Eyre a 'gothic fairytale'?

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To what extent is Jane Eyre a ‘gothic fairytale’?

Jane Eyre can be described as many things. Romantic, sad, happy etc. but one of the most common descriptions of this novel is ‘gothic fairytale’. This is a popular genre used in many novels such as Dracula and The Woman in White. In my opinion this is an accurate description of the novel, the reasons for which I will now discuss.

In the first few chapters, Charlotte Bronte describes Jane’s early life, from the time she spent at her aunt’s until she got to Lowood. The impression the reader gets of the aunt is of an evil aunt and cruel cousins who ‘take her away to the red-room and lock her in there’ when she misbehaves. Her eldest cousin John ‘bullied and punished’ her while the other cousins, two girls by the names of Eliza and Georgiana, showed no love for her, only ‘proud indifference’ but took their brothers side in all matters. This is not unlike the scene portrayed in the popular fairytale Cinderella which gives the book its first reference to a fairytale. When her aunt locks her in the red-room, Jane is so afraid that her imagination runs away with itself and causes her to see things that are not there. ‘Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished’ which is what the servants say she saw, although what she actually saw is not too clear. This is a reference to the gothic aspect of the book where the main character of the story sees a ghost outside and there is ‘a light’ over her uncles grave, as if he was protecting her.  After she saw this apparition in her minds eye, Jane was taken quite ill and upon recovering she found herself being sent away to Lowood to learn Sewing, French, Geography etc and out of her aunts care forever.

This is where a new part of Jane’s life began and is also another reference to the fairytale part of the story, the wicked aunt sending the troublesome niece to school to relieve her of her duty to protect the child. During the time that she is at Lowood there are only two events that affect Jane’s life, the proclamation to the school that she is a liar, which is passed on by Mrs Reed, and the redemption of this, and the death of her friend Helen Burns. The first of these events is a cruel way for Mrs Reed to stay in the child’s life. When Mr Brocklehurst tells the teachers to watch her and ‘weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul’ it shows how cruel the two people who really have this opinion are. When Miss Temple pronounced Jane ‘completely cleared from every imputation’ it gives the story another fairytale-like quality because this episode makes it seem as though no lasting harm can come to the girl. The second of these events is another infrequent reference to the gothic aspect of the novel because in fairytales, the nicest people do not usually die, but the bad people do. The death of Jane’s closest friend makes it seem like a gothic fairytale because it is a sad event for the heroine, instead of the person she dislikes most dying, which would be a happy, normal fairytale occurrence.

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Not many other things happened to Jane while she was at Lowood but she does stay there for eight years, ‘six as pupil, and two as teacher’ until she leaves to go in search of governess work and so a whole new part of the book begins. She finds some when a Mrs Fairfax who wants her to look after a young girl answers her advertisement. While on her way to the town near the job she took she is met by a stranger whose horse ‘had slipped on the sheet of ice which glazed the causeway’ near where she ...

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