Jane Eyre Summer HW Essay

By: Abby Juarez

This book is about Jane Eyre, a 10 year old girl who starts out by being prohibited to play with Eliza, John, and Georgiana. One day, Jane reads a book and John comes up to her saying she has no right to read their books because she’s an orphan, causing them to fight. Aunt Reed blames it on Jane and orders the maids, Bessie and Abbot to throw her in the Red Room which was the same room that her Uncle Reed died. While in the room, Bessie suggests that Jane goes to school. Jane enrolls in a school Lowood school and befriends Helen Burns, who is strong and independent. This leads for Jane to stay at Lowood for a student and a teacher for two years. She gets a job offer at Thornfield to private tutor a girl named Adele and accepts. Jane meets Adele’s father, Mr. Rochester. During Christmas, the two have a little chat and Mr. Rochester confides in Jane that he wishes to have an angel, later that day, Jane saves him in a fire. Throughout talking to him, Jane begins to have feelings. But then, Mr. Rochester leaves and doesn’t come back until months later. He comes back with a woman named Blanche Ingram, but he never proposes to her. Jane runs to the tree and Rochester follows, and proposes out of nowhere. Jane accept and during their wedding, a secret gets out and that Rochester is married to a woman named Bertha. Jane leaves and is homeless but three siblings named Diana, Mary and Saint John take her in. They quickly become friends and Saint John offers a job as a school teacher in their church. He receives news that their uncle was about to die and realized that Jane Eyre was the person the uncle wanted to give his fortune to and tells her they’re cousins. Things take a weird when Saint John has to go to India and wants to take Jane with him as his wife. As she rejects him, she hears Rochester calling her name and decides to go visit Thornfield. The two end up together and eventually have a son. 

The literary devices that stood out to me the most were imagery, allegory and symbolism. In chapter 1, Bessie and Abbot throw Jane into the Red Room, which was the room her aunt died. Meanwhile in chapter 2, Aunt reed releases a secret that her uncle’s last wish was for her to treat Jane like one of their own children but Aunt Reed disregarded his wish, therefore, showing her hypocrisy. Jane, being held in a room for like so long is showing her feelings of isolation. In her childhood, she is being distant from the rest of her family and will come back in the future, dealing with becoming a woman and her trauma of being rejected throughout her life. Imagery is also useful to describe the fires in Bertha’s acts of arson, in regards to her failing relations with her husband. For example, more resulted when Rochester describes his wife "in the style of Blanche Ingram" (27) that she has a sexual appetite, and is only interested in sex and not love, and his act of marrying Jane who loves him leads up for her to burn down the entire Thornfield with the intent of burning Jane’s previous bedroom. After Rochesters’ proposal to Jane under chestnut tree it later gets struck by lightning and is separated in half. The allegory in this is that the tree represents Rochester and Jane together until their separation which Rochester says he’ll never recover from because he can’t be himself without her in his life.