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Charlotte Bronte<-novels<-chapter 7<-contents<-position

3.Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)
Life
    Charlotte Brontë was born in a poor clergyman’s family in the little village of Haworth, Yorkshire, in northern England. In 1821, her mother died, leaving five daughters and one son. In 1824, she and her other three sisters including Emily were sent to a charity school where they were treated cruelly and inhumanely. After her two sisters died there, Charlotte and Emily were brought home. In 1835-1838 she became a schoolteacher and later a governess in rich families. In 1842, Charlotte and Emily studied language in a boarding school in Brussels for eight months. She came back at Haworth in 1844. In 1846, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, each under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, published a volume of verse entitled Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell at their own expense. After Charlotte’s first novel The Professor was refused by publishers, she continued to write another novel Jane Eyre which was published in 1847 and brought her great fame. However, misfortunes fell on her soon. She lost her only brother and Emily in 1848 as well as Anne in the following year. Later, she wrote two other novels, Sherley (1849) and Villette (1853). She married her father’s curate A.B.Nicholls in 1854 and died less than a year later.

Jane Eyre (1847)
   Jane Eyre is the novel that achieved immediate success and placed Charlotte in the ranks of the foremost English realistic writers. Jane Eyre, an orphan girl who loses her parents shortly after birth, is brought up by her aunt, Mrs. Reed, a harsh and unfeeling woman. Jane’s reaction against Mrs. Reed’s ill treatment infuriates Mrs. Reed, and then she sends Jane to a charity school for poor girls in Lowood. Under the abuse of school authority and the half-starved living condition, Jane stays there for eight years. Then Jane goes to Thornfield Hall to teach a girl as a governess. There she and the rich master of Thornfield, Mr. Rochester, fall in love with each other. However, Jane leaves Mr. Rochester because at the wedding ceremony she learns that Mr. Rochester has a mad wife locked secretly at Thornfield Hall. After experiencing a lot of hardship, Jane is taken in and cared for by Rev.Rivers and his sisters. At the meantime, Mr. Rochester meets with misfortune. His mad wife sets a fire and kills herself. Mr. Rochester loses his sight when he attempts to save his wife. After Jane learns this accident she marries Mr. Rochester because they still love each other.
    In the beginning of Jane Eyre, Jane struggles against Bessie, the nurse at Gateshead Hall, and says, “I resisted all the way: a new thing for me…"(Chapter 2). This sentence foreshadows what will be an important theme of this book, that is female independence or rebelliousness. In chapter one, though Jane is very young, she has the courage to fight against her cousin when she is insulted and hit. She denounces indignantly at her cousin in her direct way: “Wicked and cruel boy! You are like a murderer-----you are like a slave driver----you are like the Roman emperors.” These innocent words were just the true portrayal of Jane’s rebellious spirit. In Thornfield, a completely unfamiliar place, Jane still maintains her rebellious spirit. Though Jane clearly realizes the impassable chasm, different social classes, between her and Mr. Rochester, she does not lose heart and withdraw or even belittle herself because she loves Mr. Rochester’s friendness and frankness rather than his countless property and his celebrated family status. She feels satisfied because Mr. Rochester regards her at an equal level, which agrees with her rebellious spirit. It is also not surprised that when Jane misunderstands that Mr. Rochester plans to marry Ingram and still wants her to stay at Thornfield, Jane speaks out the following words angrily:
    ‘I tell you I must go!’ I retorted, roused to something like passion. ‘Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton? –a machine without feelings? And can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? 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, not 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!’

    This paragraph, which is considered as one of the most wonderful parts of the novel, is Jane’s declaration to defend her dignity and call for equality. Jane’s high demand for equality is to fight against not only the unjust social treatment but also the traditional marriage system. She takes the view that love signifies the identity of revolutionary ideals, the unanimity of common wills rather than the equivalent of material benefits, or obedience to money.

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