Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë Orphaned at an early age, Jane Eyre leads a lonely life until she finds work as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets the mysterious Mr. Rochester and sees a ghostly woman who wanders around the halls by night. This is a story of passionate love, struggle and final triumph. The relationship between the heroine and Mr. Rochester is only one episode, although the most important, in a detailed fictional autobiography in which the author transformed her own experience into high art. In this work, the brave heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, but possesses a strong spirit, a sharp wit and great courage. She is forced to battle against the demands of a cruel guardian, a cruel employer and a rigid social order which limits her life and position. About the author Charlotte Brontë was born in 1816, in Thornton, Yorkshire, in the north of England, the third child of the Reverend Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell Brontë. In 1820 the family moved to neighbouring Haworth, where Reverend Brontë was offered a lifetime curacy. The following year Mrs. Brontë died of cancer, and her sister, Elizabeth Branwell, moved in to help raise the six children. The four eldest sisters—Charlotte, Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth—attended Cowan Bridge School, until Maria and Elizabeth contracted what was probably tuberculosis and died within months of each other, at which point Charlotte and Emily returned home. The four remaining siblings—Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne—played on the Yorkshire moors and dreamed up fanciful, fabled worlds, creating a constant stream of tales. Reverend Bronte kept his children abreast of current events; among these were the 1829 parliamentary debates centred on the Catholic Question, in which the Duke of Wellington was a leading voice. Charlotte's awareness of politics filtered into her fictional creations. Throughout her childhood, Charlotte had access to the circulating library at the nearby town of Keighley. She knew the Bible and read the works of Shakespeare, George Gordon, Lord Byron, and Sir Walter Scott, and she particularly admired William Wordsworth and Robert Southey. In 1831 and 1832, Charlotte attended Miss Wooler's school at Roe Head, and she returned there as a teacher from 1835 to 1838. After working for a couple of years as a governess, Charlotte, with her sister Emily, travelled to Brussels to study, with the goal of opening their own school, but this dream did not materialize once she returned to Haworth in 1844.
Jane Eyre, which was published in 1847 and met with instant success. Though some critics saw impropriety in the core of the story—the relationship between a middle-aged man and the young, naive governess who works for him—most reviewers praised the novel, helping to ensure its popularity. One of Charlotte's literary heroes, William Makepeace Thackeray, wrote her a letter to express his enjoyment of the novel and to praise her writing style. Following the deaths of Branwell and Emily Brontë in 1848 and Anne in 1849, Charlotte made trips to London, where she began to move in literary circles that included such luminaries as Thackeray, whom she met for the first time in 1849; his daughter described Brontë as "a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady." In 1850, she met the noted British writer Elizabeth Gaskell, with whom she formed a lasting friendship and who, at the request of Reverend Brontë, later became her biographer. In 1854 Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls, a curate at Haworth who worked with her father. Sadly, less than a year later, Brontë died during her first pregnancy. Download the original book here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1260/1260-h/1260-h.htm Other interesting information: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/jane-eyre-and-the-19thcentury-woman https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/09/100-best-novels-janeeyre Topics for Discussion: 1. If Jane and Rochester are "akin," then what is their "kind"? What do they actually share, and what made them similar in the first place? 2. Does the reader feel sorry for Bertha Mason? Does Rochester treat her fairly? Does she seem as bad as he suggests? 3. Is Jane’s ethical sense innate? Is she born knowing right from wrong, or does she learn the difference? 4. In what ways might Jane Eyre be considered a feminist novel? What points does the novel make about the treatment and position of women in Victorian society? 5. Discuss Jane as a narrator and as a character. What sort of voice does she have? Does she seem to be a trustworthy storyteller, or does Brontë require us to read between the lines of her narrative?