Jane Eyre :: essays papers

Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, is the story of Jane, an orphan girl with a harsh upbringing. During a time when women were condemned for learning more than custom pronounced necessary, Jane becomes educated intellectually, socially, and spiritually. In the course of growing up she travels to many places as she battles to learn more about herself and about the world. In the following paragraphs you’ll see how Bronte establishes that money and power do not make a person. Mrs. Reed, Mr. Rochester, and Mr. Brocklehurst all reflect this, they are not nice or perfectly content people. She demonstrates that general education is more important than wealth. The story begins at the Reed’s residence at Gateshead Hall. Jane is excluded from the Reed’s activities so she tries to educate herself by reading books. Soon enough though, John Reed finds her, takes away the book and strikes her with it. â€Å"You are like a slave-driver† (Bronte: 43), cries Jane. In this passage Jane compares John with a slave-driver because like one, John deprives her of her endeavor to educate herself and keeps her suppressed. In the boarding school for orphaned girls called Lowood, Jane sees that movement towards progress and knowledge is retained. Mr. Brocklehurst, the director of Lowood, wants the girls to â€Å"clothe themselves with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel† (Bronte: 96). So he doesn’t allow for girls to be dressed neatly or with curls in their hair because to him that’s a sin of showing off. His goal it seems is not to truly educate this girls for their own improveme nt, but merely to educate them to serve the wealthy. In spite of many hardships, Jane manages to graduate and becomes a governess under Mr. Rochester’s employment. Mr. Brocklehurst’s influence on Jane to be plain, to be an underclass to serve becomes more apparent when Jane thinks, â€Å"is it likely he (Mr. Rochester) would waste a serious thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?† (Bronte: 191). Having no money or a house of her own, she considers herself inferior and unlikely that Mr. Rochester, being a man of power and class, would ever lay eyes on her. When Jane leaves Thornfield after she finds out that Mr. Rochester is married, she decides that it’s better to be a schoolmistress, honest and free, than to stay and become a slave full of remorse and shame.