Jane Eyre Essays

Jane Eyre

What means does Charlotte Bronte employ to create mystery and suspense in Jane Eyre?

Mystery and suspense in Bronte's novel Jane Eyre provides a crucial element to the reader's interpretation of the novel, allowing Bronte to subtly aid the reader...

Jane Eyre

In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, the setting is used as a tool to reflect the hardships its protagonist, Jane Eyre, experiences. The locations Jane resides in play an integral part in determining what actions she is to take next. Her transient...

Jane Eyre

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"Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting." --Jane Eyre (9)

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There is something extraordinary and spiritual about Jane Eyre's artwork. In...

Jane Eyre

Subjective novelists tend to use personal attitudes to shape their characters. Whether it be an interjection of opinion here, or an allusion to personal experience there, the beauty of a story lies in the clever disclosure of the author's...

Jane Eyre

"There was an unspeakable charm in being told what to do, and having everything decided for her"

--George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

The feminist literary critics, Gilbert and Gubar, claim, in their famous essay on Jane Eyre in The Madwoman in the...

Jane Eyre

Scorching flames, conflagration, burning. The imagery of fire has long been linked to power and passion. Fire can enact complete obliteration, and yet can also forge a new beginning where only scattered ashes of the past remain. The symbolic motif...

Jane Eyre

"They are not fit to associate with me," says young Jane Eyre of her rude, spoiled cousins who consider themselves above her.(29) In this simple quote lies all the facets of the young Jane: she is angry, passionate, and subtly - but positively -...

Jane Eyre

In Jane Eyre, each episode Charlotte Brontë tells of Jane's life recounts a new struggle, always featuring a man and his patriarchal institution: John Reed's Gateshead, Brocklehurst's Lowood, Rochester's Thornfield, and St. John's Moor House. In...

Jane Eyre

Jane’s marginal status as an orphan is partially obviated by various parental figures that appear throughout the novel. For example, Bessie and Miss Temple play very maternal roles and take Jane under their wings when she is wrongfully accused....

Jane Eyre

Two popular feminist theorists, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, have said in their essay “The Madwoman in the Attic” that there is a trend in literary history that places women characters into one of two stereotypes: either the “passive angel”...

Jane Eyre

As the cult of domesticity grew during the nineteenth century, society began to fixate on the proper role of a woman. Jean Rhys examines the contradictions and consequences involved in setting such standards through documenting the decline of Jane...

Jane Eyre

Jane’s relationship with Mr. Rochester is marked by uncertainty in equality and independence in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Using the Gothic elements of disguise in the gypsy scenes, Mr. Rochester assumes an ambiguous role of gender and class...

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre opens at dreary Gateshead Hall, where the orphaned title character is compelled to live with her wealthy aunt. Here the young Jane appears reserved and unusual, a girl who says she can be “happy at least in my way”...