I think to an extent Charlotte Brontë has based the character of Jane Eyre on herself. The bad school she went to, being a teacher, turning down the marriage proposal of a Reverend, and the unreturned love of Constantin Heger is partially mirrored by the love Jane Eyre had for Mr. Rochester, however this love was returned later in the book. I think that by going through what she did, she felt it would have been good to let other people know of what not just her but countless other children living at that time suffered. This wasn’t the only book she wrote that was based on a part of her life. As mentioned above the book Villette was also written based on her unrequited love of Constantin Heger.
Jane Eyre is an orphan being looked after her aunt and obnoxious cousins. Her uncle is dead and was the only person, apart from her parents, who loved her. She was eventually sent to Lowood Institution and faced more tribulation from some of the teachers and children their. After finishing her education she stayed a further two years at Lowood to teach and then left to find work as a governess. She started work with a Mr Rochester and taught the little French girl in his charge. The rest of the story sees her fall in love with him and then leave shortly before their marriage finding some relatives of her parents on the way.
Harry Potter as many people know was the boy who lived after the attack on his life by Lord Voldermort. His parents died in an attempt to save his life and he was in the charge of his uncle and aunt. He goes to Hogwarts School and makes friends and enemies. The book just looks at the first year of his in the school and the trials he has.
Aside from the 150 years difference in the time the two books were written these two books are different in a lot of ways. For instance the writing style of these two books greatly differ, mainly due to the time difference but also concerning the different audiences the books were aimed at. The words used in Harry Potter are usually about three or four syllables long so younger children will have little trouble reading it. But Jane Eyre is in a very formal style and although it isn’t as easy to read as Harry Potter I found that Jane Eyre has the same captivating power that Harry Potter holds over many of its readers.
I like both of these books because they are easy to read and easy to follow the characters’ lives. I am able to imagine the situation the two people are in when they are in trouble and literally couldn’t put either book down until I finished reading them. Which as you can imagine would be a problem when it came to reading Jane Eyre. I think that Charlotte Brontë was trying to show the readers of that time the injustices that poor young children had to face in that time. The prejudice that people had against them was horrific and I think that Charlotte was trying to show the richer people of that time the error of thinking like that. For instance in Jane Eyre when Mr Brocklehurst starts to say things about Jane that are not true he also commented on the vanity of the girls simply because they plaited their hair. When rich girls entered the room who had done far more than jus plait their hair nothing was done. In fact they were given honoured seats. Class was a much bigger issue then than it is now. People of that time put a lot of importance on class which funnily enough is like the situation in the Asian community.
In Harry Potter I think that the class factor is in there as well in the separation that the different houses bring. The rivalry that the Slytherin house and the Gryffindor house have is immense. Likewise the high class and the low class had a lot of tension and hatred between them in the Victorian times. In the school the Slytherin students are seen as low evil characters whereas the Gryffindor students as the noble ones who have good hearts at the very least. What one house stands for is what the other house is against. So naturally the tension between the two houses just keeps increasing. I think the way Miss Rowling wrote her books the reader realises that all Slytherin students are not to be admired. On the contrary they are to be despised and hated. Likewise with Jane Eyre, her aunt and cousins are recognised as people who are the Slytherins of Jane Eyre if you will.
When I watched a television programme about J.K Rowling I learned that the Harry Potter Series was written in basic form while she was on a train from Manchester to London, I don’t think that she intended to base some of the characters on people who were in her life at that time. She admitted that she bore a strong resemblance to Hermione from the story and the main character was based on a real Harry Potter who she knew. In my opinion I think that what started as something small escalated into something much bigger than she imagined it could have been. I think the key to both their writing is that the plot is simple. They are both easy to read and the suspense that is built in them is fascinating.
In Harry Potter for instance, you’re literally on the edge of your seat when Harry, Ron and Hermione are on their way to stop who they think is Professor Snape but is actually Professor Quirell. Things aren’t what they seem in either book. In scenes where Harry sees Professor Snape and Professor Quirell arguing you automatically assume that Snape is the bully. As you read more of the book you start to have doubts as you read bits of the dialogue between them. Similarly in Jane Eyre when Jane and Mr Rochester are about to get married you’re led to believe up till that point that there is some dark secret that not many people are aware of. Then when you do find out that he has a wife that has gone mad it is the climax of the little bits in the text that give away the existence of something mysterious.
The worlds that the two books are set in are different and similar at the same time. The difference being that Harry Potter is obviously set in a Fantasy and Jane Eyre in what England used to be like. In Harry Potter J.K Rowling has been clever. She didn’t make so obviously different to this real world that children could only imagine it. She made it look like the fantasy world and the real world are in harmony with the magic world being hidden from human eyes. That, in my opinion, is part of the magic of Harry Potter. You can’t help but think that there is a chance that the magic that J.K Rowling writes about is real. In Jane Eyre although it is set in the real world of that time it still has the ability to captivate its readers. The life of Jane as a child is one to be sorry for. As an adult things don't get much better. The problems she faces is could have been broadcasted as a Victorian soap opera. However aside from these differences there are similarities between the two. Like the class system of the Victorians in Jane Eyre there is also the differentiation between those wizards who are pure blooded as in both parents are wizards and the ‘mud bloods’ as Master Malfoy puts it, who have one or no parents with magic capabilities. The kind of racial prejudice that is prevalent in the world today is the same between them.
I think that Harry Potter is written to be more than what he looks like on the outside. He is just a normal boy with the ability to do magic, ploughing through his school work and trying to get the good grades he needs. However under pressure he copes very well. He shows this when faced with Lord Voldermort at the end of the book. He sends Hermione back to help Ron and attempts to face Lord Voldermort single-handedly. It takes a lot of guts to do something like that, especially for a person of that age. Jane Eyre on the other hand is a girl hardened by the treatment she received from her guardians when she was a child, she has been mistreated most of her life and as a result of that I think that she has found it difficult to trust people. She is always formal when she talks to people and I think that by getting to know Mr Rochester and her better relatives she got over this. Blinded by love and hurt she did run away from Mr Rochester but there’s the saying that people do crazy things when there in love.
I think the message that Charlotte Brontë was trying to convey was that little children didn’t need to face mistreatment for things that were out of their control. Like them being orphans for instance or them being poor. Here was a girl who, although she faced some difficulties, made something of her life education wise. Likewise Harry Potter was someone who lost his parents was treated very badly by his aunt and uncle but still managed not to be a brat because of it and made sure that he didn’t let his uncle and aunt spoil his good humour and temperament. I think that J.K Rowling was trying to show children that although they may face things that seem impossible to overcome there is always a way out. You just need to be brave and stick to your guns. From her short biography earlier on I noticed the amount of things she has been through in life is truly phenomenal. I think the money she has earned on the Harry Potter books and manufactured goods is well deserved and shows that good things come to those who wait. She didn’t just wait of course; she worked very, very hard for it all.
Similarly with Charlotte Brontë she also had a very hard life, but she didn’t let that interfere with her being able to live a very successful life. Despite being from a poor family she still managed to make something of her life. I think that Jane's later life is how Charlotte would have liked her own to be. It is like many stories, even those written in the present day, which is the author's fantasy. The fairytale-like ending resembles not just any fairytale, but one in particular, Cinderella.
In my opinion both of these books were very good. They both had the quality of captivating their audience – me. I think that the good thing about Jane Eyre was that even though the characters are set in a past time. I think that the story could easily be re written to be set in the present day and age. She could live in one of the slums of Britain, her parents die when she is very young and the rest of her childhood would not be very hard to fit in after this bit. When she finishes in her orphanage she could get a job as a tutor or governess. The rest of the story with mild editing would also fit in. things like changing carriages to cars and the dialect of the characters. It reminds me of what I saw when I was doing Macbeth for English. The many different versions of the play shown had been set in the modern era at times and only had a few minor alterations. I think that Jane Eyre could be edited in the same way.
Harry Potter was a good book in my opinion because it set fantasy in reality. Joanne Rowling set the story in a place we would know in a time that we are familiar with but the story is basically indifferent to the goings on of the outside world which we live in. which is funny as we, the audience, really do believe that what we read is real. So in a sense we start to believe that as they are indifferent to us we are to them. Except they are aware of our existence but we are unaware of theirs. Even though we know that wizards do not exist like when I read The Hitchhiker as part of the short story book ‘The Story of Henry Sugar and six more’ I couldn’t help but think that someone in the world could do that. I think that the further books by J.K Rowling will all be hits if she carries on writing like she does now.
So in conclusion, Harry Potter and Jane Eyre were both children in the face of adversity but one thing that I noticed about them is that they never lost the thing that keeps the whole human race going. That thing is hope they both held on to their hope that one day things would get better and that hope came through in the end. Jane was united with her cousins and Harry went to a boarding school where he had more fun than at home.
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