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Spoiler Alert: This page contains major plot revelations. If you haven’t read the novel and wish to experience it for the first time, we recommend stopping here.

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Jane Eyre: Overview and Analysis

By a Literary Scholar of 19th-Century English Literature

Brief Overview

Jane Eyre (1847) traces the life and moral development of its eponymous heroine, an orphaned girl of strong will and deep integrity. Beginning in the abusive home of her aunt, Mrs. Reed, Jane is soon sent to the austere Lowood School, where hardship and injustice test her character. Emerging as a governess, she takes a position at Thornfield Hall and falls in love with its enigmatic master, Edward Rochester. Their relationship, however, is impeded by the revelation of Rochester’s secret wife, Bertha Mason, hidden in the attic.

Jane flees Thornfield to preserve her moral autonomy, nearly perishing before finding shelter with the Rivers siblings. Upon inheriting a fortune and rejecting a cold proposal from St. John Rivers, Jane returns to find Rochester maimed and humbled by a fire set by Bertha. The novel concludes with their union, now founded on spiritual and emotional equality.

Principal Characters:

• Jane Eyre: The narrator and moral center of the novel
• Edward Rochester: A brooding, tormented figure hiding secrets
• Bertha Mason: Rochester’s wife, symbol of colonial madness and repression
• St. John Rivers: A foil to Rochester; self-denying, pious, and emotionally cold
• Helen Burns: Jane’s saintly childhood friend at Lowood

Historical and Biographical Context

Published in 1847 under the male pseudonym Currer Bell, Jane Eyre entered a literary world skeptical of women’s authorship and sensibility. Charlotte Brontë chose a male pen name to shield herself from gendered critique and to ensure fair assessment of her work’s literary merit. The novel quickly gained acclaim for its passion and originality, though some Victorian critics considered its frank portrayal of female desire and independence unsettling.

The novel critiques and subverts Victorian norms on several fronts:

• Gender roles: Jane’s assertiveness and insistence on moral agency challenge the submissive ideal of femininity.
• Class boundaries: Her resistance to patronization reflects the growing tensions of a meritocratic society.