John Reed, in contrast to Jane is superior in strength, age and mind; this is evident from the following quotation:
‘Humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John and Georgiana Reed’
Jane tells this story from her point of view, so the description of John is most likely to be biased and not completely true. John Reed attacks Jane with a book, which makes us hate John Reed, and also makes us feel sympathetic towards Jane. Bronte uses words such as tyrant, murderer and fear, this use of language shows us the cruelty of John Reed and reinforces our sympathy to Jane. One of the reasons why John attacks Jane and hates her so badly is the fact that in the 19th Century females were inferior to males. Sons treated even their mothers as minors. When John attacks Jane, Mrs. Reed doesn’t scold John or do anything at all. Instead, she locks Jane up. Nowadays, if this happened, the offender would be brought to justice. This shows us the hardships endured by orphans and the attitude to physical punishment.
‘…And I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp…’
Bronte used the idea of physical pain to achieve the purpose of evoking sympathy. ‘the cut bled’ and ‘the pain was sharp’ are two quotations that support this idea. Bled gives us the idea of gore and pain, this makes us sympathetic towards Jane whilst it makes us hate John. The word ‘sharp’ is particularly effective as it gives us an idea of how painful the pain was.
The red room is the scene of the next occurrence of suffering but in a much more extreme way. Charlotte Bronte describes the red room as a room full of colours and she really focuses on the colours:
‘soft fawn…red…crimson…blush of pink…glowed white’
Bronte is emphasizing the colours in the room. The room glimmers with a red glow, she focuses on the glowing white objects. When describing the ‘red’ colours she gives the reader an intense, blood drenched feeling. When describing the ‘white’ colours, however, we have heavy and spiritual feeling as white is often associated with religion. All this adds up to the suffering Jane had to endure. Jane Eyre is locked up in the red room by Miss. Reed, her ‘benefactress’ and is very afraid of the room and has a nervous breakdown. It is obvious that Bronte’s purpose for doing this
Mr Brocklehurst visits the school and lectures pupils and staff, including Miss Temple, on the moral virtues of poverty unbroken by any natural pleasure. He is quite ready to bully Miss Temple, as well as the girls, because she is a paid employee:
"Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these girls to be the children of Grace; and why the abundance? …" (Pg 62)
The hypocrisy of his attitude is underlined by the luxury and extravagance displayed in the dress and style of his wife and daughters who accompany him.
The majority of Victorian reader may not treat children differently just because of this novel because they would not care and would not be bothered by it. Some may reconsider but only a minority. In addition, there were not a lot or any groups such as RSPCC to defend the children that are in need. Life being very different means that the Victorian people were very different as well. They thought differently and maybe did not think that they were mistreating the children in any way. Furthermore, this is one author's opinion and may be exaggerated or due to her own experience so that maybe is another factor in not affecting readers.
