She is vulnerable and is forced to obey. John is violent and aggressive towards her, “Go and stand by the door”. Her blind obedience is childlike, the punishment mocks her ability to defend herself. Instead of asking her he gives her an imperative this also highlights her social inferiority from the previous paragraph. John tells Jane to go and stand away from ‘his’ books as he thinks of her as a leper or some other contagious disease who is likely to damage ‘his’ tomes by being just near them but he then contradicts his own action by throwing one of the books at Jane just to cause her harm this also shows that john is a sadist, this makes the anguish that Jane has to bear all the more worse as it would be constant.
John expresses a deep-seated hatred it emphasises his lack of consideration and value for their blood relation. She relents to his punishments his purposeful manner is spiteful tormenting her for her existence. The cousins’ persistent attitude of suppressing and hunting Jane is ridiculous. This emotive approach is strengthened by the violence John inflicts upon Jane, “He struck suddenly and strongly….That is for the look you had in your eye.” His sudden lashes are extreme and shock the reader to the core. In modern day society abuse of women is considered unlawful and brutal, this creates a stronger sympathetic bond between Jane’s and the audience.
Brontë seems to use Jane’s cousins as weaponry, yet the one in command is their mother. Her ignorant and insensitive treatment towards Jane has created a boundary between Jane and her family. Se refuses to go into any detail about anything, as though she is trying to finish the conversation without saying anything this keeps Jane in the dark about certain things and makes her a social outcast. This gives the children the idea that because there mother doesn’t care about Jane it means that it is okay to torture and goad her, “Eliza, John and Georgiana were now clustered around their mama” Jane is not included in this gathering, this shows how little Mrs Reed cares for her niece, by not including Jane their neglect for her steadily increases until she becomes completely obsolete for them.
Whenever Jane questions her benefactress’ decision she gets cut off and called a “caviller and questioner”. Mrs reed states that she regrets to keep her at a distance until she behaves herself; Jane asks, “What does Bessie say I have done” this implies that there is an underlying sense of respect as the question is not directly impudent, she is not being rude and just asking what have I done, she is doing it in a subtle way which denotes equal amounts of respect and fear even though Mrs Reed has done nothing to gain either of these things, in fact instead of answering Jane’s question she chastises her for being impertinent and tells her to go away and sit silently until she can speak “pleasantly”
“Tell Mama she has run out into the rain – bad animal,” by telling one of his sisters to inform their mother shows that John is purposefully searching for ways to get Jane into trouble, even though he has no conclusive evidence he jumps to the worst possible conclusion which will get Jane into the most trouble possible. This quote indicates Jane’s inferiority socially as John Reed bluntly states that she is nothing more than an animal,
Jane’s cousins torment her constantly so that there is no affection in her heart for her relatives, Jane cannot stand up to her cousins who are bigger than her, “…the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it.” there is no one to defend her as the servants all belong to Mrs Reed, Jane’s aunt, and in her eyes the Reed children can do no wrong and so Jane is always wrong even if she is innocent.
Brontë also utilises the Gothic horror genre. She describes the red room where Jane is locked as punishment with formidable clarity, as a dark crimson chamber inhabited by the girl’s uncle’s ghost whose recent death is put untruthfully but squarely on her young and terrified shoulders. It is impossible for Jane to have been responsible for her uncle’s early death but Bessie and miss Abbot scare her to prevent her from doing anything mischievous. Mrs Reed is characterized to be the wicked aunt who always stands up for her own children, for instance when Jane retaliates to Johns bullying for the first time the maids ‘come to the rescue’ of John Reed and not Jane and her aunt punishes her instead “Take her away to the red room, and lock her in there”, it was John and his sisters that bullied Jane but to Mrs Reed that was of no concern, the serious crime was the retaliation and so Jane was punished.
Even the servants show Jane to be the troublesome child who is to blame. The servants are highly biased and they must listen to their masters and support them and Bessie and miss abbot were no different they talk about Jane as if she’s not even there, “She’s an underhand little thing” they say these kinds of things in front of Jane to discourage her from retaliating to Johns Taunts and even though she is not thought of as equal to her relatives she is thought of as even lower than the servants and due to this the servants think of her like this as well and so she is the lowe3st of the low with no one to help or support her.
So in Conclusion Charlotte Brontë utilizes a whole wealth of procedures to provoke our sympathy for the character of Jane Eyre the main technique that she uses is the pain and suffering that she puts Jane through and then by writing it in first person she makes us understand it so that we are forced to feel her pain and this is enough to melt even the stoniest of hearts. I myself feel that Jane is an innocent character but I believe that Jane is not the main character and the story isn’t just about her it is also as much about her relatives and the other characters as it is about her.
