Jane Eyre: Complex Character in Development

“They are not match to associate with me,” says young Jane Eyre of her rude, spoiled cousins who consider themselves above her.(29) In this basic quote lies all the facets of the young Jane: she is angry, passionate, and subtly – but positively – self-assured. It would be straightforward for Charlotte Bronte to continue the story of Jane in this fashion, casting her as a perpetually bitter and proud heroine who is rendered incapable of development by her traumatic childhood, but Bronte refuses to cast her heroine as a flat character. All through the novel, Jane grows, matures, and learns to forgive, but she by no means loses her courage and acute sense of self. Her growth is mostly shown in her pay a visit to to the Reed house as an adult, and in her ability to create intimate relationships with men and women, while her retention of self is demonstrated in her determination to comply with her convictions with each Rochester and St. John.



Jane’s check out to the Reed home at nineteen is a exceptional demonstration of her development. The final time that we see her in direct speak to with her aunt and cousins, she has an outburst of passion: “I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you, but I declare that I do not really like you: I dislike you the worst of anyone in the planet except John Reed” (38). In her short but charged speech, Jane reveals all of her suppressed anger at years of ill treatment. She carries her disdain for the Reed family until she meets Helen Burns at Lowood. When Jane divulges her tale of woe to Helen, she expects affirmation of her appropriate to be angry. Rather, she receives a considerably far more constructive response:

She has been unkind to you, no doubt…would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, with each other with the passionate emotions it excited? Life seems to me also quick to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. (61)

Even though Jane does not totally convey to the reader the effects of this tips, it can be assumed that she requires it to heart and enables it to soften and transform her when she begins her friendship with Helen, her references to the Reeds’ cruelty turn out to be fewer, and far less emphatic. When Helen dies, Jane seems to take part of Helen’s forgiving spirit into her – not adequate to remove her assertiveness, but sufficient to make her significantly less grudging. Hence, when our heroine returns to Gateshead, she has risen above her passions and the wrongs done her, and can state merely and freely to her dying aunt, “I am passionate, but not vindictive…I must have been glad to adore you if you would have let me” (242). Even although her aunt has mentioned nothing at all type to her, has admitted to keeping Jane’s only other relation a secret from her, and has even described her petty reasons for her years of harshness, Jane has turn into mature enough to forgive her and to not let herself be negatively impacted by the occasion. Right after her aunt passes away, she stays to aid her cousins pack their items and leave Gateshead, and even withholds what she truly thinks of them in order to stay away from conflict. Had Bronte been a less skilled writer, she would have had Jane refuse the invitation to see her aunt out of spite and resentment, or she could have had her come and say cruel items to her “family”. The fact that Jane is capable to quit dwelling on the previous and supply support to the Reeds shows both the character’s private growth, and Bronte’s talent as a novelist.



An additional facet of Jane’s character that demonstrates her development is her potential to cultivate intimate relationships with folks. Although her young life is mostly created up of pain and abuse, she by no means restricts herself or tends to make any work to be cold and unaffectionate. Although she has a excellent quantity of self-manage, she nevertheless permits herself to really like other folks, wanting absolutely nothing but for them to really like her back. Again, this could have been an additional instance where Bronte could have created Jane flat and predictable. As a consequence of her childhood at Gateshead, exactly where her only buddy was Bessie, and her adolescence at Lowood, where the really like was offered in rations smaller sized than the bread, Jane could have guarded her feelings so closely that she may well have shut herself off totally and refused to have much more than a functioning partnership with other people. However, she permits herself to turn out to be attached to Thornfield and to Adele, and she is passionate towards Edward when he ultimately reveals his enjoy. Even after the ill-fated wedding, she is still capable to type new relationships with the Rivers. Hostility and distrust would have left her a classic, disgruntled young lady, but her maturity and aptitude for personal development make her a character that is open and excellent-hearted despite her history.



Notwithstanding her capability for adore and forgiveness, Jane by no means loses the powerful sense of self that she first exhibited in her battles with Aunt Reed. Since every person at Gateshead tends to make a point on a daily basis to convince Jane that she is useless and evil, Mr. Brocklehurst tries to convince every person that she is a liar, and the Lowood atmosphere is not especially conductive to self-esteem, it would not have been surprising to locate the 19-year-old Jane in a state of uncertainty, self-loathing, and depression. But such items do not plague Jane Eyre for more than an instant. Although she has a tendency to be extremely self-essential, insisting on drawing an ugly portrait of herself and a beautiful a single of her “rival” (which ties in with the larger scheme of her assurance that Rochester does not love her), this could truly be observed more as realism than as self-hatred. Her strong sense of self is most evident in her tough circumstances with the two males who want to marry her. The assertiveness grants the character verisimilitude, as it would be impossible for Jane to alter fully from a fiery girl to a passive, meek lady with no trace of her earlier bravery. When Edward Rochester’s existing marriage is revealed to her at the altar, Edward does not want Jane to leave him. He is sure that in spite of their unmarried state, she will agree to continue their connection and to travel to France with him. Thinking about the extremely passionate state of their partnership and the fervid adore that Jane has for Edward, it takes a exceptional quantity of self-assurance and self-respect to tell Edward that she loves him, but that it would be immoral to remain – and to leave Thornfield at evening, without having so considerably as a look at her beloved. After this, we after again see her sense of self and her complete understanding of what she desires and who she loves when St. John Rivers proposes to her. Again, due to her constant search for really like and the tendency of many to attempt and convince her that she is unlovable, she could have weakened and accepted the proposal in fear of by no means getting another one once again. But she is stronger and truer to her heart: “As his wife – at his side constantly, and often restrained, and always checked – forced to preserve the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and by no means utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed essential after vital – this would be unendurable” (410). She knows that a marriage to St. John would demand her to compromise herself and to forsake the only man she really loves, and she is sturdy sufficient to maintain her resolve and to not marry the somber clergyman. Both of these situations prove that regardless of everything Jane has been via, she knows herself and trusts that understanding above something that anyone else may possibly say or do.



There are a lot of chance to make Jane Eyre a “textbook case” angry teenager, unable to rise above all the abuse she has suffered. Such a static characterization would have made Charlotte Bronte a restricted writer, and “Jane Eyre” a forgettable function, but Bronte’s ability for dynamic character improvement tends to make the novel stand out. We see Jane as an adult with the capability to forgive her dying aunt in spite of the info that is revealed to her, and who has the capacity to create intimate relationships and trust individuals regardless of what has been carried out to her. At the very same time, she does not soften to the point where she loses self-confidence and self-understanding, and she does not stay in what she considers to be immoral or restrictive scenarios. This development and self-retention make Jane Eyre a believable and relatable character, Jane Eyre a memorable book, and Charlotte Bronte a wonderful author.