Jane is also beginning to show signs of being quite wick and intelligent even before she starts school as Bessie says ‘You sharp thing’ you’ve got quite a new way of talking.’ Proving that she is getting quite clever and quick with words.
Before she goes to school Jane seems to be not afraid of anything, she doesn’t think before she blurts into a rage, says what she thinks, is very independent and deep down I think she likes it best when she is on her own because no one can upset her and make her frustrated, she has a temper which sometimes she can’t control, some of these things change when she goes to school.
When Jane starts at Lowood I also discover new things about her. Firstly what she is like with other people. At first she says she isn’t bothered by being alone and not having any friends as she says ‘I stood lonely enough but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much’, which means that she was so used to being lonely, it didn’t really upset her.
She does make friends with one girl and she seems to be very plainspoken towards her she even says, ‘I said to her directly’. Jane is the one who makes the effort to speak to her and she says, ‘is your book interesting?’. She has obviously choose to speak to someone who she thinks she might have something in common with because she is reading a book and Jane is a great book reader who loves reading. I think this move is clever as she wont be making friends with someone who is a waste of time and she might not have anything in common with. She even thinks this also; ‘I think her occupation touched a chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked to read’ She also seems very confident towards this stranger as she asks lots of questions ranging from ‘are you an orphan?’ to ‘what are the other teachers called?’ .She even admits to herself that she was surprised by her own confidence, ‘I hardly know where I found the hardihood to thus open a conversation with a stranger’. Although we have seen this new side of Jane being interested and quite polite asking questions and giving responses she also still (even though it is only the first few days) is not afraid of expressing her feelings and we begin to see what she thinks and believes in, she says, ‘you are good to those who are good to you, that is all I desire to be’ and even confirms what she has done and been like in the past, ‘when we are struck at without a reason we should strike back again very hard’, summarizing her personality in those two quotes. Firstly she isn’t afraid to tell this stranger what she believes in so she must have quite a lot of self esteem even though so many people at Gateshead put her down which shows she is determined that her past will not have any affect on her and secondly she is still thinking that she will behave in the same manner she did at Gate head and that everyone should act the way she thinks.
As time goes on in Lowood Jane changes her actions, but maybe not her thoughts and beliefs. She says it was an ‘irksome struggle in habituing myself to new rules of unwonted tasks’, which proves she is finding it hard not to express her feelings and stomp her feet and shout that things aren’t fair! The determined side of Jane shines through though as the thought of failure seems to trouble Jane the most as she says ‘the fear of failure in theses points harassed me the most’. She is very determined to be successful at Lowood even from the start as she says, ‘I had meant to be so good at Lowood’, and then ‘to earn respect and win affection’. Jane is not at all big headed, as she says, which means she wasn’t perfect in anyway. She tries hard; ‘I toiled hard’ though and she becomes very clever and bright, a model student one could say as Jane says in her book; ‘in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class’, she learned French and she seems to understand that even though she doesn’t have a terrific memory if she keeps learning and trying she will become successful, she says, ‘my memory not naturally tenacious improved with practise’ and she continues by saying ‘my success was proportionate to my efforts’ which means that the more she tried the better at things she got, practise makes perfect!
All this tells me that Jane’s character is what will make her successful, she has always been head strong from the beginning and by using this factor in a different way it has benefited her. She was very headstrong at the beginning but she opened her mouth too much and told people what she was thinking, which was a bad mistake. Going to Lowood taught her to keep her feelings and beliefs inside, but this made her determined to do well, which was what made her successful, her determination to succeed.
Billy is also like Jane in a few ways. He likes to be alone most of the time and has started to try to reads books on an interest in birds he has developed, even though he isn’t a natural reader, for instance he goes to the library because he is interested in birds and says, ‘have you got any books on hawks missis?’Notice he doesn’t use pleases or thank you showing he has no manners. He does have a mother and brother but they don’t care about him, which forces him to take care of himself. He doesn’t depend on anyone and is very capable. In a way this is good, because he is very independent and grown up. He has got himself a job even though it is only a paper round and it shows that he is bothered about making money to fend for himself. But that isn’t enough and Billy realises that he must steal, when he is at his own work place (newsagent) when his boss turns around, it says ‘Billy reached out and lifted two bars of chocolate from a display table’, and then it says, ‘he dropped them in his bag as porter turned round’, which makes him quite audacious and daring, he takes risks in life because he knows if he gets caught he will be in serious trouble as he has already been in trouble before for stealing, and then he steals again only a few minutes later from the milk truck, it says ‘he lifted a bottle of orange juice and a carton of eggs and popped them into his bag’. It sounds as if he does this every morning, and has worked out a plan in which neither the milkman or the porter will catch him. He obviously doesn’t listen to anyone either because he has already got into trouble once or hasn’t learnt from his mistakes. Billy isn’t afraid to lie either as he says to the porter ‘I've never taken owt o’ yours, have I?’, only a few seconds after he has stolen the chocolate and then he lies again saying ‘I've stopped getting into trouble now’, which isn’t true because he has just stolen something which could get him into trouble.
Billy is also not really afraid of his mother and cares less about her as she does about him they don’t really have a good relationship. When Billy’s mum asks him to go and get her some fags from the shop Billy says ‘I’m not going’, so unlike Jane he does not obey orders. He is also a lot more crude and common, and I already have guessed he doesn’t live in a very nice place because the porter says that people have told him to keep an eye on Billy ‘cos there all alike off that estate’, meaning that they all steal and come from a rough estate. Billy also uses rude signs and was described as giving a ‘V sign’ and making a ‘farting noise’ which shows he has a vulgar character and has not been brought up properly to know any better.
Billy, like Jane, isn’t afraid to say what he is thinking either, even to bigger and stronger people than him. When Jud says that Billy is going to go down the pit with him next year Billy says straight to him ‘I’ll not’ and then says, ‘I’m not goin’ to work down t’pit’, he calls Jud a ‘big bully’ and even says when they are talking about hawks, ‘I know more about it then thee, anyroad’, not holding back what he is thinking, even though he knows that he will get beat up for it, and the same with Macdowall, it is as if he is asking for a fight just by saying what he thinks and not really being able to control what he feels. When Macdowall says, ‘Casper the cadger, that’s what they ought to call thee’ Billy retaliates and says, ‘I wouldn’t gi’thee owt if I had Macdowall.’ Like Jane he doesn’t seem to be able to know when to stop and can’t take defeat. When Jud comes in late one night drunk Billy sees an opportunity at where he will be able to get Jud back and Jud won’t be able to retaliate because he is so drunk he calls him, ‘Jud the drunken Pig’ and ‘thumped Jud’ but then when Jud rumbles Billy seems to get a thrill from running away and says he ‘squeals softly with fear and excitement’. He is a bit of a trouble causer, but not on purpose, it is mainly because he can’t control his frustration when Macdowall is winding him up he ‘runs at him’.
Jane seems to be afraid of the dark whereas Billy is more brave and even when it seems to be the middle of the night, it says ‘the moon was almost complete’ and ‘the farmhouse was in darkness’, Billy still wasn’t afraid to ‘enter the woods’. Billy doesn’t like school, whereas Jane seems to eventually not dislike school. Billy just seems to trouble cause without meaning to. He is bullied at school but yet he fights back and tells people to ‘shut thi mouth’. He doesn’t seem bothered when he gets in trouble and when he is asked what it was like going to the headmasters office to be caned he says ‘not bad’ and is fairly laid back about it.
Deep down I think Billy; if he was paid more attention to could actually be quite bright. One time in class when he was given some attention about something he was actually interested in he tells them almost a whole essay about birds, even saying some things the teacher doesn’t even know like jesses. The teacher says, ‘and what are jesses Billy?’. Billy replies with a full-blown explanation and even goes to the front of the class to do a demonstration. Which show Billy isn’t really that dense as everyone thinks, he just can’t be bothered with things he is not interested in. For example at the start of the lesson Billy wasn’t even listening and while the teacher was talking was described as ‘inspecting his hands’ and then ‘he blew on them and cooled them with his tongue’ obviously, more interested in his hands than what he should be paying attention to. Why should he try when it may land him nowhere, just a boring office job? He has no encouragement or backup from any one so why should he listen. Billy says ‘you can’t help not listnin’ when it’s not interestin’, can you, sir?’ This to me proves why Billy doesn’t work or listen, because he doesn’t know what he will gain from it. He doesn’t find it interesting and he probably isn’t interested in any of the jobs that are on offer if he does try hard. When Billy was asked to write a story he makes lots of spelling mistakes which most four year olds would make, misspelling words such as carpets as ‘carpits’, ‘any’ as ‘eny’, ‘breakfast’ as ‘brecfast’ and many others. In his story he wrote about Jud leaving home and his dad returning and everyone smiling. This reflects Billy’s character a lot, I think that he misses his dad and would like to see him again, and doesn’t like Jud because he is sick of being beaten up by him. I think this shows the sensitive Billy who would like to do ‘interesting things’ as he says in his story. He writes about all the things he would like to happen, like ‘living in a big house’, ‘brecfast in bed’, ‘a big fire in the room’. I think Billy says all these things like, ‘All the teachers were good to me they said allow Billy awo you gowing on and they all patted me on the head and smiled’. Because he knows that he will never please the teachers and be successful and all of these things are just impossible to get, they are out of reach, just a fantasy world a million dreams away. Billy, although he is brave, daring, independent and likes to be on his own, he has a very vulnerable side also. When he is hit by Macdowall it says ‘Billy began to cry’. I think Billy is embarrassed by his family, and is too embarrassed to confide in any one, or maybe he thinks no one will listen to him. When the teacher says ‘what’s it all about Casper’ he says ‘I cant tell you’ but soon he tells him everything. I think the fact that Billy isn’t successful is entirely because of his background, he even tells us that it is and it does make sense. He seems to get into trouble for things that cant be avoided for example when he falls asleep in assembly it is because he had to get up early because he has a paper round to do and in P.E when he gets blamed for not having a gym kit, it is because his mum doesn’t have enough money to buy him it, and so he gets mocked and told off which is his mums fault for not buying him one. He just doesn’t seem to be able avoid trouble
Billy doesn’t really have anyone to love so he doesn’t know how to be caring to people. But he says to the teacher, ‘I can talk to you better than most folks’ which I think is the lovable side to Billy the kind, friendly sort of Billy who likes this teacher and is trying to be nice to him. He is described after that as ‘blushing’ feeling embarrassed maybe because he is not used to expressing his feelings n a caring sort of way this gives off a shy impression of Billy. I think Billy does try and do the right things in life and even stopped being friends with the bad gang maybe to start afresh, but this just gets him into more trouble because he is bullied.
He does however have a sense of humour and when they were playing a football match in PE he does gymnastics on the goal posts and ‘stood up straight, smiling: the cross bar still quivering’, and after ‘an applause broke out’ from the other boys at his gymnastics
Billy’s only interest seems to be in Kestrels and in other animals because when there was a dog on the pitch and Mr Sugden told Billy to go and get some cricket balls to scare it off Billy said ‘It’ll not hurt you’ and then he ‘lead it firmly towards the school’, he ‘fondled its ears’ and ‘talked quietly to it all the time’. He obviously has a good way with animals. I t surprises me why when asked by the youth employment person, ‘what about hobbies?’ he doesn’t tell him about training Kes. He could of got a job with animals but he doesn’t say anything. I don’t know whether it is because he is too scared to say anything or not confident enough or whether it is because he just cant be bothered.
Jane and Billy’s schools are both single sex schools. I think that this has a big effect on their personality. Boys are rougher and fight a lot; there is more trouble at an all boys school, especially one that isn’t paid for like Jane’s. If Billy is surrounded by boys who are all strong and insensitive he will have less self confidence because he is bullied, I think he has too appear tough when deep inside he is really sensitive, being around boys all the time and having male teachers doesn’t really give him a mother figure to look up to. His mother his hardly the sensitive type, I think this might be why Billy is in fact so venerable at time and distance because he has no one to talk to or tell about his difficulties and emotions. Jane’s is an all girls school and I think that girls then were more reserved and not as confident, more quiet and wanting to get on with work and what they were meant to be doing. Not having to really make friends with anyone makes Jen more devoted on her work and less distracted. Jane going to a boarding school meant that the teachers could keep her in line twenty four hours a day, with Billy he could get into trouble in and out of the school as the teachers weren’t as cautious so didn’t care as much. Maybe this was because they weren’t getting paid anything.