YEAR IV AND V - LIFE AND WORKS OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE, author of JANE EYRE

LIFE AND WORKS OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE, author of JANE EYRE

At age twenty, Charlotte Brontë sent a sample of her poetry to England's Poet Laureate, Robert Southey. His comments urged her to abandon all literary pursuits: "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and a recreation." His response indicates the political difficulties women faced as they tried to enter the literary arena in Victorian England; domestic responsibilities were expected to require all their energy, leaving no time for creative pursuits. Despite a lack of support from the outside world, Charlotte Brontë found sufficient internal motivation and enthusiasm from her sisters to become a successful writer and balance her familial and creative needs.

Born at Thornton, Yorkshire on April 21, 1816, Charlotte was the third child of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell. In 1820, her father received a curate post in Haworth, a remote town on the Yorkshire moors, where Charlotte spent most of her life. In 1821, Mrs. Brontë died from what was thought to be cancer. Charlotte and her four sisters, Maria, Elizabeth, Emily and Anne, and their brother, Branwell, were raised primarily by their unpleasant, maiden aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, who provided them with little supervision. Not only were the children free to roam the moors, but their father allowed them to read whatever interested them: Shakespeare, The Arabian Nights, Pilgrim's Progress, and the poems of Byron were some of their favorites.

When a school for the daughters of poor clergymen opened at Cowan Bridge in 1824, Mr. Brontë decided to send his oldest four daughters there to receive a formal education. Most biographers argue that Charlotte's description of Lowood School in Jane Eyre accurately reflects the dismal conditions at this school. Charlotte's two oldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died in 1824 of tuberculosis they contracted due to the poor management of the school. Following this tragedy, Patrick Brontë withdrew Charlotte and Emily from Cowan Bridge.

Grieving over their sisters' deaths and searching for a way to alleviate their loneliness, the remaining four siblings began writing a series of stories, The Glass-Town, stimulated by a set of toy soldiers their father had given them. In these early writings, the children collaboratively created a complete imaginary world, a fictional West African empire they called Angria. Charlotte explained their interest in writing this way: "We were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we had know from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition." Through her early twenties, Charlotte routinely revised and expanded pieces of the Angria story, developing several key characters and settings. While this writing helped Charlotte improve her literary style, the Angria adventures are fantastical, melodramatic, and repetitive, contrasting with Charlotte's more realistic adult fiction.

After her father had a dangerous lung disorder, he decided once again that his daughters should receive an education so they would be assured of an income if he died. In 1831, Charlotte entered the Misses Wooler's school at Roe Head. Shy and solitary, Charlotte was not happy at school, but she still managed to win several academic awards and to make two lifelong friends: Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey. Although she was offered a teaching job at Roe Head, Charlotte declined the position, choosing to return to Haworth instead. Perhaps bored with the solitary life at Haworth and looking for an active occupation in the world, Charlotte returned to Roe Head in 1835 as a governess. For her, governessing was akin to "slavery," because she felt temperamentally unsuited for it, and finally, following a near mental breakdown in 1838, she was forced to resign her position. Unfortunately, governessing was the only real employment opportunity middle-class women had in Victorian England. Because the family needed the money, Charlotte suffered through two more unhappy governess positions, feeling like an unappreciated servant in wealthy families' homes; she didn't enjoy living in other people's houses because it caused "estrangement from one's real character."

In an attempt to create a job that would allow her to maintain her independence, Charlotte formed the idea of starting her own school at Haworth. To increase her teaching qualifications before beginning this venture, she enrolled as a student, at the age of twenty-six, at the Pensionnat Heger in Brussels so she could increase her fluency in French and learn German. Charlotte loved the freedom and adventure of living in a new culture, and formed an intense, though one-sided, passion for the married headmaster at the school: Monsieur Heger. After two years in Brussels, suffering perhaps from her love for Heger, Charlotte returned to England. The plan to open her own school was a failure, as she was unable to attract a single student.

Instead, Charlotte began putting all of her energy into her writing. After discovering Emily's poems, Charlotte decided that she, Anne, and Emily should try to publish a collection of poems at their own expense. In 1846, they accomplished this goal, using the masculine pseudonyms of Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell because of the double standards against women authors. Although their book, Poems, was not a financial success, the women continued their literary endeavors. Excited to be writing full-time, they each began a novel. Anne's Agnes Grey and Emily's Wuthering Heights both found publishers, but Charlotte's somewhat autobiographical account of her experiences in Brussels, The Professor, was rejected by several publishers. Again refusing to become discouraged, Charlotte began writing Jane Eyre in 1846, while on a trip to Manchester with her father where he was undergoing cataract surgery. While he convalesced, Charlotte wrote. The firm of Smith, Elder, and Company agreed to publish the resulting novel, and the first edition of Jane Eyre was released on October 16, 1847. The novel was an instant success, launching Charlotte into literary fame. It also netted her an impressive 500 pounds, twenty-five times her salary as a governess.

But the pleasures of literary success were soon overshadowed by family tragedy. In 1848, after Anne and Charlotte had revealed the true identity of the "Bells" to their publishers, their brother Branwell died. Never living up to his family's high expectations for him, Branwell died an opium-addicted, debauched, alcoholic failure. Emily and Anne died soon after. Although Charlotte completed her second novel, Shirley in 1849, her sadness at the loss of her remaining siblings left her emotionally shattered. She became a respected member of the literary community only when her sisters, her most enthusiastic supporters, were no longer able to share her victory. Visiting London following the publication of this book, Charlotte became acquainted with several important writers, including William Thackeray and Elizabeth Gaskell, who was to write Charlotte's biography following her death.

In 1852, the Reverend Arthur B. Nicholls, Mr. Brontë's curate at Haworth beginning in 1845, proposed marriage to Charlotte. Earlier in her life, Charlotte had rejected several marriage proposals because she was hoping to discover true love, but loneliness following the death of her last three siblings may have led her to accept Nicholls' proposal. Saying she had "esteem" but not love for Nicholls, Charlotte's relationship with her husband was certainly not the overwhelming passion of Jane and Rochester. Her father's jealous opposition to the marriage led Charlotte initially to reject Nicholls, who left Haworth in 1853, the year Villette was published. By 1854, Reverend Brontë's opposition to the union had abated somewhat, and the ceremony was performed on June 29, 1854. After the marriage, Charlotte had little time for writing, as she was forced to perform the duties expected of a minister's wife and take care of her aging father. In 1854 Charlotte, in the early stages of pregnancy, caught pneumonia while on a long, rain-drenched walk on the moors. She died on March 31, 1855, a month before her thirty-ninth birthday. The Professor, written in 1846 and 1847, was posthumously published in 1857, along with Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë.

JANE EYRE QUICK NOTES

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre opens with Jane, an orphaned, isolated ten-year-old, living with a family that dislikes her. She grows in strength, excels at school, becomes a governess, and falls in love with Edward Rochester. After being deceived by him, Jane goes to Marsh End, where she regains her spirituality and discovers her own strength. By novel's end, Jane is a strong, independent woman. Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre still raises relevant questions to readers today.

Written by: Charlotte Brontë
Type of Work: novel
Genres: gothic; Victorian; romance; bildungsroman (coming of age novel
First Published: 1847
Setting: English countryside, 1800s
Main Characters: Jane Eyre; Edward Fairfax Rochester; St. John Rivers
Major Thematic Topics: class conflict; gender conflict; courtship; mythic; spirituality; family
Motifs: rebellion; substitute mothers; Byronic hero
Major Symbols: Thornfield burning; the red room

Here are eight important things to remember about Jane Eyre:

•     Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel. Other examples of this form include Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Jane Eyre is a typical coming-of-age novel in that its main character, Jane, is young, brave, and resourceful in the face of difficulty and even danger. As a result, she is easy for readers to sympathize with. The phrase "coming-of-age" literally means the character is maturing and coming closer to adulthood.
•     Jane Eyre is a gothic novel. Gothic novels focus on the mysterious; take place in dark, sometimes exotic, settings (often houses that appear to be haunted); but still entail an element of romance. The double is a frequent feature of the Gothic novel, and in a sense Jane and the madwoman in Rochester's attic are doubles — two wives, one of sound mind and the other insane.
•     The most famous line in Jane Eyre is "Reader, I married him." This line is significant not only in that it provides the novel with a happy ending, but also because of its active quality, which was probably shocking at the time of the novel's publication. The line "Reader, he married me." would have been more conventional.
•     St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester are foils — meaning opposites — of one another, especially in relation to Jane. St. John is cold and dispassionate, while Mr. Rochester is wildly indulgent and passionate. Even their physiques are a foil. Mr. Rochester is not handsome, but he does have extremely masculine features. On the other hand, St. John is classically beautiful. At one point he's described as Athenian, which recalls a grandiose statue to mind.
•     Jane Eyre is rebellious in a world demanding obedient women. In her own way, Jane rebels against Mrs. Reed, St. John Rivers, and even Mr. Rochester, the man she marries at the end of the book. Jane's personality contains many qualities that would be considered desirable in an English woman; she's frank, sincere, and lacks personal vanity. But the rebel streak she has is targeted at "inequalities of society." Jane reacts strongly when she is discredited due to her class and/or gender.
•     One primary theme is class conflict. Although English society has a very strict hierarchy, moments throughout Jane Eyre reveal those lines being blurred.
•     Gender conflict is a theme that threads throughout Jane Eyre. Time and again, Jane is vulnerable to a patriarchal class system that doesn't always have her best interest in mind.
•     A major symbol in Jane Eyre is that of Thornfield burning. Prior to meeting Jane, Mr. Rochester is impulsive and wild. He wants to change and tries to use Jane's purity to help motivate his transformation. Even with Jane's influence, Mr. Rochester can't change. It's not until Thornfield burns down and Mr. Rochester loses his hand and sight that he is able to change. Symbolically, it's as if his lies and passions have finally exploded. Now, Mr. Rochester can change, with the help of Jane, and be the perfect husband. 

 JANE EYRE - DETAILED SUMMARY    
Jane Eyre is a young orphan being raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel, wealthy aunt. A servant named Bessie provides Jane with some of the few kindnesses she receives, telling her stories and singing songs to her. One day, as punishment for fighting with her bullying cousin John Reed, Jane’s aunt imprisons Jane in the red-room, the room in which Jane’s Uncle Reed died. While locked in, Jane, believing that she sees her uncle’s ghost, screams and faints. She wakes to find herself in the care of Bessie and the kindly apothecary Mr. Lloyd, who suggests to Mrs. Reed that Jane be sent away to school. To Jane’s delight, Mrs. Reed concurs.
    Once at the Lowood School, Jane finds that her life is far from idyllic. The school’s headmaster is Mr. Brocklehurst, a cruel, hypocritical, and abusive man. Brocklehurst preaches a doctrine of poverty and privation to his students while using the school’s funds to provide a wealthy and opulent lifestyle for his own family. At Lowood, Jane befriends a young girl named Helen Burns, whose strong, martyrlike attitude toward the school’s miseries is both helpful and displeasing to Jane. A massive typhus epidemic sweeps Lowood, and Helen dies of consumption. The epidemic also results in the departure of Mr. Brocklehurst by attracting attention to the insalubrious conditions at Lowood. After a group of more sympathetic gentlemen takes Brocklehurst’s place, Jane’s life improves dramatically. She spends eight more years at Lowood, six as a student and two as a teacher.
    After teaching for two years, Jane yearns for new experiences. She accepts a governess position at a manor called Thornfield, where she teaches a lively French girl named Adèle. The distinguished housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax presides over the estate. Jane’s employer at Thornfield is a dark, impassioned man named Rochester, with whom Jane finds herself falling secretly in love. She saves Rochester from a fire one night, which he claims was started by a drunken servant named Grace Poole. But because Grace Poole continues to work at Thornfield, Jane concludes that she has not been told the entire story. Jane sinks into despondency when Rochester brings home a beautiful but vicious woman named Blanche Ingram. Jane expects Rochester to propose to Blanche. But Rochester instead proposes to Jane, who accepts almost disbelievingly.
    The wedding day arrives, and as Jane and Mr. Rochester prepare to exchange their vows, the voice of Mr. Mason cries out that Rochester already has a wife. Mason introduces himself as the brother of that wife—a woman named Bertha. Mr. Mason testifies that Bertha, whom Rochester married when he was a young man in Jamaica, is still alive. Rochester does not deny Mason’s claims, but he explains that Bertha has gone mad. He takes the wedding party back to Thornfield, where they witness the insane Bertha Mason scurrying around on all fours and growling like an animal. Rochester keeps Bertha hidden on the third story of Thornfield and pays Grace Poole to keep his wife under control. Bertha was the real cause of the mysterious fire earlier in the story. Knowing that it is impossible for her to be with Rochester, Jane flees Thornfield.
    Penniless and hungry, Jane is forced to sleep outdoors and beg for food. At last, three siblings who live in a manor alternatively called Marsh End and Moor House take her in. Their names are Mary, Diana, and St. John (pronounced “Sinjin”) Rivers, and Jane quickly becomes friends with them. St. John is a clergyman, and he finds Jane a job teaching at a charity school in Morton. He surprises her one day by declaring that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her a large fortune: 20,000 pounds. When Jane asks how he received this news, he shocks her further by declaring that her uncle was also his uncle: Jane and the Riverses are cousins. Jane immediately decides to share her inheritance equally with her three newfound relatives.
    St. John decides to travel to India as a missionary, and he urges Jane to accompany him—as his wife. Jane agrees to go to India but refuses to marry her cousin because she does not love him. St. John pressures her to reconsider, and she nearly gives in. However, she realizes that she cannot abandon forever the man she truly loves when one night she hears Rochester’s voice calling her name over the moors. Jane immediately hurries back to Thornfield and finds that it has been burned to the ground by Bertha Mason, who lost her life in the fire. Rochester saved the servants but lost his eyesight and one of his hands. Jane travels on to Rochester’s new residence, Ferndean, where he lives with two servants named John and Mary.
    At Ferndean, Rochester and Jane rebuild their relationship and soon marry. At the end of her story, Jane writes that she has been married for ten blissful years and that she and Rochester enjoy perfect equality in their life together. She says that after two years of blindness, Rochester regained sight in one eye and was able to behold their first son at his birth.

Literary Anlysis of Jane Eyre

 

    Many themes, styles, genres, and modes of Victorian Literature are reflected in the works of the Bronte Sisters', especially that of Jane Eyre. Common

themes of victorian literature are shared with Jane Eyre. Food was a reoccurring theme of throughout many Victorian novels because of the hunger that many people faced in this time period. This theme is reflected in the vivid description of under nourishment at Lowood School in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Another common theme was women's morality and sensuality. Before the publication of Jane Eyre, women were simple and genuine under the expectations of society, the "wife and mother from whom all morality sprang" (Lowes). After this novel was published, the "new woman" became predominant who was based off the main character, Jane, who was independent, strong, forward, and radical in the sense of marriage and contraception opinions. The theme of sex scandal goes along with women's morality and sensuality because it, also, went against the prior conservative social expectations and beliefs for women. This theme started to become common in victorian literature. An example of sex scandal is in Jane Eyre when Jane got involved with Rochester, her wealthy boss, and ended up marrying him.

    Jane Eyre is written in first-person from the point of view of Jane. The genre of Jane Eyre can be classified as many different types; Romance, Mystery, and Gothic Fiction. It can be considered a classic romantic novel because of the passionate relationship that Jane and Rochester form. It is a mystery in the sense that throughout the book, Jane suspects something about Rochester and his past based on the incident of Grace Pool accidently setting his bed on fire in a drunken state and not getting fired for it. She then discovers the secret of his past that he has a wife, Bertha, who has one mad and was the one who set his bed on fire. It is considered Gothic Fiction because of the supernatural and fantasy elements that Charlotte Bronte includes (http://www.shmoop.com/jane-eyre/literary-devices.html) Through Charlotte's unique writing style, she incorporates "fantasy elements in Jane Eyre through references to fairy tales, prophetic dreams, mythic imagery, and extraordinary plot twists," (Shwingen). An example of the mythic imagery is shown through Charlotte's emphasis on the image of passion. Jane was always a passionate and emotional character since she was a child. Charlotte writes about Jane after her cousin hits her with the book, "my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigor."  The image of her warm blood and her intense anger compared to that of a revolted slave shows Jane's great emotion even as a child. This image is emphasized through imagery when Charlotte writes of Jane's feelings for Rochester as "fiery iron" and "blackness and burning". These figurative images of a fire portray to the reader the intense passion that Jane has for Rochester. Fire is another image that Charlotte writes about throughout the novel; "in the bedroom blaze which Jane saved Rochester from, in the language that both Rochester and Jane use in describing their emotions towards each other, and in the final fire that destroyed Thornfield Hall, crippled Rochester, and killed Bertha," (Vaughon).  In Vaughon's opinion, this imagery of fire and passion was Charlotte's way of emphasizing the unethical and sinful love that Jane and Rochester shared with each other based on the fire of hell. As said before, in Victorian times, this relationship would be considered scandalous not only based on the difference in their classes, but also because they believed in purity. Charlotte goes against the traditional beliefs with her imagery of passion and lust between Jane and Rochester. 

    Charlotte's writing style is generally educated, complex, and emotion filled. Most of her sentences are contain numerous adjectives and sensual images. Her unique style may be overwhelming for some readers, but it's powerful and strong. The reader is able to identify with Jane Eyre as a character through the complex sentence structure that is filled with  emotion and imagery. (http://reviewmaterials.tripod.com/english/jane_eyre.html)

  

 According to George P. Landow, Jane Eyre is divided into five distinct settings. The story starts off when Jane is a child living in her relative's, the Reed's, house in Gateshead Hall. Then she is sent to Lowood school and has many experiences there with Miss. Temple, Helen Burns, and Mr. Brocklehurst. After eight years in boarding school, she lives at Thornfield as a governess to Adele. This is where she falls in love with her boss, Rochester. Then she moves out after he discovery of Bertha, Rochester's mad wife. She is then taken into the Moor House by her cousins, the Rivers. In the end, she is reunited with Rochester at the Ferndean Manor. 

    Each setting of the book has it's own unique mood in strong relation to the characters present at each place. For example,Robert B. Martin points out that the setting of Thornfield is much more personal than the two preceding settings at Gateshead and Lowood because of the connection Jane makes to Rochester and the connection Rochester has to Thornfield (George P. Landow). In chapter 11, Mrs. Fairfax first makes mention to Rochester when she says, "Great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor". Because Mrs. Fairfax said this, Jane felt as though it was not alive unless Rochester was present which is strongly connected to how Jane felt lonely and down because when he was not there. This connection between character and setting reflects the complex mood of Thornfield depending on whether Rochester is there or not. When he is away on a trip, the mood is somber and desolate because the reader can understand and feel the longing that Jane has for Rochester and the loneliness she feels in the huge, empty house. When he is there, the mood changes to exciting and intimate because of the strong feelings that Jane has toward him and the liveliness that she associates with the house. 

    Charlotte Bronte does a great job with reflecting the characters in Jane Eyre to the reader through her writing. One very unique and interesting character is Bertha, Rochester's insane wife. The Victorians during the nineteenth century had a fascination with health, sometimes greater than that of politics, religion, and Darwinism. They believed  "an interdependent mind-body connection gained strength, and many people saw physical and mental health as being interrelated rather than separate entities," (Sonja Mayer). According to Mayer, these attitudes of the time are reflected in Bertha's character through her mental illness and the physical threat she puts on Rochester. Compared to Jane, Bertha is her opposite and portrayed to the reader as a monster. Rochester "describes her as having 'red balls' for eyes, a 'mask' instead of a face, and 'bulk' instead of an attractive form like Jane," (Sonja Mayer).  Jane is strong in body and mind. She endured the unhealthy conditions at Lowood where many students had died and survived through cold and hunger when she had ran away from Thornfield and lived outside. Her mental strength is shown through her courage as a child with her evil aunt, bullying cousin, and hypocritical head master. She stayed true to herself and motivated to be successful as a woman in this time despite the difficult situations these people had created for her. In contrast, Bertha is portrayed by Rochester as having "gone mad". The Victorians would view this as a lack of mental strength. She, also, poses a threat to Rochester physically by her acts such as setting his bed on fire while he was sleeping, lunging at him and Jane in the room, and actually succeeding in burning down the house at the the end of the book. 

  

 Rochester is  depicted as the ideal hero of the Victorian times. He is very romantic and charming which adds to the gothic style of this novel (Lowes). Despite his charm, there was much controversy over Rochester's character in Victorian times. English law at the time said that a man whose wife became insane could not get a divorce. To deal with his problem, he put his wife into confinement, locked in a room with a servant to care for her. He then proceeded to almost partake in bigamy by marrying Jane. Many Victorians of the time questioned why Jane would ever go back to such a man. (http://reviewmaterials.tripod.com/english/jane_eyre.html)

     The character of Jane isn't the traditional heroine of the time. In many romantic novels of the Victorian era, the heroine was beautiful. Jane is described by Charlotte as "simple and plain". She also differs from the traditional heroine in her strength as a woman. Charlotte created a woman character that was equal to the male character. Jane is not equal in status or class, but in emotional strength and maturity. This went against society's beliefs of the time because Victorians traditionally  believed that women were not capable of strong emotions. 

LITERARY ANALYSIS TAKEN FROM: https://sites.google.com/a/cheshire.k12.ct.us/victorian-era/influential-authors/the-bronte-sisters/biography/jane-eyre-analysis/literary-anlysis-of-jane-eyre
Thanks to SPARKNOTES for the plot summary