Ⅰ.Introduction···················································3 Ⅱ. Ⅱ.Overview of Jane Eyre‟s Life··························3 Ⅲ. The Psychological Path of Jane Eyre·····················6 i. Emotional and Sensitive Childhood··················7 ii. Independent Youth of Self-analysis···················7 iii.
A Wise and Calm Woman······························8
Ⅳ. Conclusion····················································13 Bibliography····················································· 14
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Abstract
Jane Eyre is written by famous talented English critical realist woman novelist charlotte bronte in 1846. Although having more than 174 years by now, it is popular with lots of people because of the heroine—Jane Eyre, who is a unique beauty of great virtue. The thesis focuses on the analysis of Jane Eyre‟s psychological path. First, it introduce the author Charlotte Bronte and the historical background of this work. Second, it takes a overview of Jane‟s life. Third, it mainly analyses the characters of Jane Eyre through the three periods in her life path in terms of psychology. Finally, it has a disscussion about Jane Eyre‟s independent personalities which enlighten us greatly and concludes that Jane is an independent woman who will always be an example for us.
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Ⅰ.Introduction
Jane Eyre is written by charlotte bronte in 1846, which is Charlotte Bronte‟s second novel. In this work, she described a timeless woman in British Literature. Jane Eyre is the self-image of the author to some extent. The author, Charlotte Bronte was born in the year after Waterloo.Those were years of swift and kaleidoscopic change in England. Few periods have been such changes in the face of a country in such a short time. Though there had long been some industrial centers, England in the early years of the nineteenth century was still predominantly rural. The majority of the people were in some way connected with the land and land was what counted in terms of power and prestige. Landowning gentry were important socially and politically, but the common people were still in misery. Women who lack social status, wealth and physical beauty were regarded as lower-class hierarchy. However, some outstanding well educated women like Charlotte Bronte appeared. Charlotte Bronte took a part in a feminist movement started fighting for women‟s equality and freedom, as well as their educational and employment opportunities. Then, she writed this novel to express her will of persauing woman independence. Ⅱ.Overview of Jane Eyre‟s Life
Jane Eyre is a young orphan raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel, wealthy aunt. She is mistreated in the family until her aunt decides to sent her to a
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charity school following the kindly apothecary Mr.Lloyd‟s suggesstion. Jane is delighted about that, however, she finds that her life in the Logwood School is far from idyllic. The school‟s headmaster is Mr. Brocklehurst, a cruel, hypocritical, and abusive man. He preaches a doctrine of poverty and privation to the orphans. At logwood, Jane befriends a young girl named Helen Burns, whose srong, martyrlike attitude toward the school‟s miseries is both helpful and displeasing to Jane. A massive typhus epidemic sweeps Logwood, and Helen dies of consumption. The epidemic also results in the departure of Mr. Broklehurst by attracting attention to the insalubrious conditions at Logwood. After a group of more sympathetic gentlemen takes Brocklehurst‟s place, Jane‟s life improve dramatically. She spends eight more years at Logwood, 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 French girl named Adele. The master of the 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. 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
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disbelievingly.
The wedding day arrives, and as Jane and 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. 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, she meets a clergyman, John, who finds her a job teaching at a charity school in Morton. John surprises her one day by declaring that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her a large fortune, when Jane asks how he received this news, he shocks her further by declaring that her uncle was also his uncle: Jane and he are cousins. Jane immediately decides to share her inheritance equally with her newfound relatives.
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. John pressures her to
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reconsider, and she nearly gives in. However, she realizes that she cannot abandon forver 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.
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.
Ⅲ. The Psychological Path of Jane Eyre
Jane is a unique girl whose life is full of tears, misery, and starvation, but she always strives to become stronger and has the courage to fight for freedom and equality. She is a plain girl who doesn‟t have status and money, on the contrary, she is so poor that she has to live a life relying on her aunt. She never lowers her dignified head facing the difficulties, instead, she does as her will and communicate with others positively. In the front of many tempatations and choices, she firmly insists on her own feeling and finally, she gets married with her true love. The characters of
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Jane can be analysed according the following periods. 1. Emotional and Sensitive Childhood
When Jane is in Gateshead, she has a blind and incomplete outlook because of lacking knowledge of christianity. Human nature gives her impetus to resist unfair treatment; the cruel treatment she receives from her Aunt Reed and her cousins only exacerbates her feeling of alienation.once her hair is grasped by her bullying cousin John Reed and then she tries to hit him with her hands, as a result , 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, rushing to the door and shocking the lock desperately. She begins to regret, which suggests that her resistance is emotional and blind. 2. Independent Youth of Self-analysis
When Jane realizes that her resistance is useless, she considerd carefully for her own future.She doesn‟t want to stay there and to her delight, she is sent to Lowood School. Beyond her expectation, her idea of pursuing free life are challenged by the headmaster of the school. Jane is forbidden to talk to others and to take part in games, which is intolerable for her. So, when her friend, Burns is meeting with Miss Temple is Jane‟s biggest achievement in the school. She cares about Jane and teaches her to be a virtue person. With the guidence of Miss Temple,
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Jane master many skills as well as complete her outlook. Miss Temple and Helen calm her. She becomes more reasonable than before. Now, she is a girl with dignity and wisdom. 3. A Wise and Calm Woman
Jane gets a position as a governess in Thronfield. The governesses in the Voctorian Age are still the lower class, in a word, they are no more than servants. Jane gets acquaintance with Mr Rochester under the circumstance. We can know that she is turely mature from the scene she meets with Mr Rochester. Mr Rochester is injured falling from the horse and Jane offers help to him, but, proud Rochester refuses her even without making a glimpse of her. Jane pursades him with her passion, saying, “I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse.”① They begin to talk from the point and finally become friends, lovers. Jane is no longer the extremely headstrong who is always expressing her own wronged feelings. She communicates with others positively, cares for others passionately and even forgives her aunt mercilly. She owes the quarrels with her aunt to her own self-willed manners. She is really grown up, facing everything with a settled mental condition.
In spite of Jane‟s plainess and penniless, Rochester falls in love with her because of her special inner beauty, and Jane feels as if he were her
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relative rather than her master. Afraid that she will never find a true sense of home or community, Jane feels the need to belong somewhere, to find “kin,” or at least “kindred spirits.” This desire tempers her equally intense need for Mr Rochester‟s love. However, when Rochester asks her to marry him, she does not believe and says the words,
„Why do you confide in me like this? What are you and she to me? You think that because I'm poor and plain, Ihave no feelings? I promise you, if God had gifted me with wealth and beauty, I would make it as hard for you to leave me now as it is for me to leave you. But He did not. But my spirit can address yours, as if both have passed through the grave and stood before heaven equal.‟②
„Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!‟ ③
She is moved by Mr Rochester‟s true love for her and they decide to get married.
In her search for freedom, Jane struggles with the question of what
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type of freedom she wants. While Rochester initially offers Jane a chance to liberate her passions, Jane comes to realize that such freedom could also mean enslavement—by living as Rochester‟s mistress, she would be sacrificing her dignity and integrity for the sake of her feelings. so, when Jane knows that Rochester has a mad wife who is alive, she makes a decesion of leaving the man whom she is deeply attached to to pursue her new life , refusing to be a mistress. These are her thoughts and words.
Feeling . . . clamoured wildly. “Oh, comply!” it said. “. . . soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?” Still indomitable was the reply: “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation. . . . They have a worth—so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs.”④
„I do love you,‟ she said, „more than ever: but I must not show or indulge the feeling:and this is the last time I must express it.‟⑤
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„ I must leave Adele and thornfield. I must part with you for my whole life. I must begin a new existence among strange faces and stange scenes.” ⑥
„ I am a free woman with an independent will, which I now extend to leave you.‟⑦
Jane asserts her strong sense of moral integrity over and against her intense immediate feelings. Rochester has been trying to convince her to stay with him despite the fact that he is still legally married to Bertha Mason. His argument almost persuades Jane: Rochester is the first person who has ever truly loved her. Yet she knows that staying with him would mean compromising herself, because she would be Rochester‟s mistress rather than his wife. Not only would she lose her self-respect, she would probably lose Rochester‟s, too, in the end. Thus Jane asserts her worth and her ability to love herself regardless of how others treat her.
Jane‟s words show her understanding of religion. She sees God as the giver of the laws by which she must live. When she can no longer trust herself to exercise good judgment, she looks to these principles as an objective point of reference.
She silently leaves at dawn.
What a brave girl she is! Although she loves Rochester deeply and Rochester has been trying to convince her to stay with him, she leaves
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just because she thinks that if she stayed with him, she will lose her integrity; ultimately, she will degrade herself and dependent upon Rochester for the unprotected marriage bond.
At Moor House, St. Jones and his sisters save the dieing Jane and treat her friendly. When Jane recovers, she insists on having a work no matter how hard and humble it is. John asks Jane to marry with him. In many aspects, the suggestion tempts her for it is a good opportunity for Jane to have a decent job and to be more than a governess or a schoolteacher, it also can help her to relieve from the previous painful experience. However, Jane rejects John‟s offer of marriage. She doesn‟t want to purchase caste at the price of liberty and love. She goes back to Thornfield only to find it has been burned down and become a blacken ruin. When she encounters Rochester finding that he has been blind, losing one of his hand and his wife, she says,
„ if you won‟t let me live with you, I can build a house of my own close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlor when you want company of an evening.⑧
Mr Rochester has lost his house, his hand, and his eyesight to a fire,he can no longer presume to be Jane‟s “master” in any sense. Moreover, Jane has come to Rochester this second time in economic independence and by free choice; at Moor House she found a network of love and support, and she does not depend solely on Rochester for
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emotional nurturance. This time, Jane chooses her love, which shows her reason personalities. This is Jane‟s affirmation of the equality between her and Rochester.
She now is a wise and calm woman with reasonable thoughts. Ⅳ. Conclusion
From the analysis, we can learn that Jane searches, not just for romantic love, but also for a sense of being valued, of belonging. Thus Jane says to Helen Burns,
„to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest.‟ Yet, over the course of the book, Jane must learn how to gain love without sacrificing and harming herself in the process.⑨
Her fear of losing her autonomy motivates her refusal of
Rochester‟s marriage proposal. Jane believes that “marrying” Rochester while he remains legally tied to Bertha would mean rendering herself a mistress and sacrificing her own integrity for the sake of emotional gratification. On the other hand, her life at Moor House tests her in the opposite manner. There, she enjoys economic independence and engages in worthwhile and useful work, teaching the poor; yet she lacks emotional
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sustenance. Although St. John proposes marriage, offering her a partnership built around a common purpose, Jane knows their marriage would remain loveless.
Nonetheless, the events of Jane‟s stay at Moor House are necessary tests of Jane‟s autonomy. Only after proving her self-sufficiency to herself can she marry Rochester and not be asymmetrically dependent upon him as her “master.” The marriage can be one between equals. As Jane says,
„I am my husband‟s life as fully as he is mine. . . . To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. . . . We are precisely suited in character—perfect concord is the result.‟⑩
The development of Jane Eyre‟s character is central to the novel. Jane possesses a sense of her self-worth and dignity, a commitment to justice and principle, a trust in God, and a passionate disposition. Her integrity is continually tested over the course of the novel, and Jane must learn to balance the frequently conflicting aspects of herself so as to find contentment.
Her independent personality enlightens us a lot. Bibliography
⑪ Bronte Charlotte. Jane Eyre. ShanHai Foreign Language Educational Press, 2001
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