Jane Eyre: Themes (Edexcel GCSE English Literature)

Jane Eyre: Themes

Your exam question could focus on any topic. However, having a really strong understanding of the following themes and why Brontë is exploring them will enable you to produce a “conceptualised response” in your exam: 

• Justice and injustice

• Social class

• Love and romance

• Personal growth

Producing a conceptualised essay answer that discusses the ideas in the text clearly will enable you to gain the highest marks on the mark scheme.  

Justice and injustice

Jane Eyre’s story addresses ideas of justice and injustice. The ways in which others treat Jane is often unjust, but her sense of moral justice enables her to survive and find happiness.

Jane Eyre as a critique of injustice

Knowledge and evidence:

• Jane is treated unjustly by Mrs Reed and her children at the outset of the novel: 

  • She is regarded as “less than a servant”

  • John Reed, her cousin, is violent towards her and is not punished

• Jane’s experiences at Lowood school expose the injustice of the harsh, unhealthy conditions endured by the charity school’s pupils

• As a governess at Thornfield Hall, Jane is treated unjustly by Mr Rochester:

  • He is determined to marry her, despite having a wife who is still alive

• Mr Rochester unjustly imprisons Bertha Mason, who is powerless

What is Brontë’s intention?

• Brontë wants to illustrate the injustice experienced by many girls and women in the nineteenth century by focusing on a protagonist with very limited power

• Brontë exposes the hypocrisy of those who claim they are doing good, especially in the name of religion, but who are in reality unjust, oppressive and cruel

• Brontë shows that wealth and high social status make it possible for some people to behave unjustly towards those without the power of rank or money

Jane Eyre’s desire for moral justice

Knowledge and evidence:

• Jane fights against injustice at every opportunity, often at great cost to her comfort and wellbeing

• Jane disagrees with the unjust treatment of others, like Helen Burns at Lowood

• Jane’s sense of moral justice prevents her from marrying St John Rivers, because they do not love each other

• Jane strives to see that justice is done when she shares her inheritance with the Rivers family

• Jane’s independent spirit and morality enable her to overcome many injustices and find personal fulfilment

What is Brontë’s intention?

• Brontë shows how personal strengths like honesty, imagination and resilience can empower individuals and enable them to find justice and personal contentment

Social class

All of the events in Jane Eyre happen against a background of social class. Characters are aware of their position in the social hierarchy, which governs their freedom to act as they wish. 

Jane Eyre’s social class

Knowledge and evidence:

• Jane Eyre is an orphan, who has been left no money by her father

• This makes Jane dependent on wealthier relatives like her aunt, Mrs Reed:

  • Mrs Reed’s ownership of a large, comfortable home and servants signifies her high social status

• Jane’s social class gives her very few options in life:

  • As an educated but poor woman, she must find work if she does not marry

  • These were the only options available to respectable women in Jane’s circumstances

• Jane’s position as a governess means she is an employee, but she is not treated in the same way as other servants:

  • She is both part of the family and not part of it, a typical situation for governesses

  • Mr Rochester orders Jane to spend social time with him

What is Brontë’s intention?

• Brontë wants to show us that Jane’s social class means that although she is well-educated, her lack of money prevents her from having any autonomy 

The uses and abuses of social class

Knowledge and evidence:

• Mrs Reed uses her social status to make decisions about Jane’s life, such as sending her away to Lowood at the age of ten

• Mr Rochester is Jane’s employer, which means she must call him “sir”:

  • Jane refers to Mr Rochester, in her thoughts, as “my master”

• Upper-class characters can treat characters of a lower social class with disrespect:

  • For example, Lady Ingram calls Jane “stupid” in front of other people

• Mr Rochester’s class status means he has the power to imprison Bertha Mason and ensure his servants keep his secret:

  • Only Mr Mason, who is of the same class as Mr Rochester, has the power to challenge him

• Running away from Thornfield Hall after her aborted wedding results in Jane becoming temporarily homeless and penniless

• Her inheritance towards the end of the novel means that Jane finally has the freedom to do what she wants

What is Brontë’s intention?

• Brontë shows the unequal power dynamics between Jane and Rochester, and between Jane and other characters, such as the Reeds and the Ingrams

• Brontë is critical of the way that social class, rather than intelligence or kindness, determines how much power individuals have in Victorian society

Love and romance

The romantic relationship between Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester is central to the novel. However, it is Jane’s experiences of platonic love and friendship that give her the strength to deal with the hardships in her life.

The power of friendship

Knowledge and evidence:

• Having been deprived of love in Mrs Reed’s home, Jane finds comfort in the friendship of Helen Burns and Miss Temple at Lowood

• The support and respect of her friends help Jane’s confidence to develop

• The Rivers family rescues Jane after she has run away from Thornfield Hall

• Diana and Mary’s kindness and intelligence can be seen as reflections of Jane’s

• Their friendship empowers her to believe she can live an independent life

What is Brontë’s intention?

• Until the very end of the novel, Brontë shows Jane’s friendships as the most important source of her emotional comfort and self-confidence

• Brontë suggests that platonic love and friendship have the power to sustain an individual emotionally

The complexity of romantic love

Knowledge and evidence:

• Mr Rochester’s position as Jane’s employer creates a power imbalance in their relationship from the start

• The elements of mystery and secrecy at Thornfield Hall create a dreamlike context for Jane’s developing relationship with Mr Rochester

• Mr Rochester often describes Jane, who he loves, in supernatural terms:

  • He calls her an “elf”, a “fairy”, a “witch” and a “sorceress”

  • He also uses supernatural language, such as “goblin” and “monster”, to describe Bertha, who he hates

  • This creates uncomfortable parallels between Jane and Bertha

• Mr Rochester deceives Jane in many ways:

  • His fake flirtation with Blanche Ingram

  • His disguise as a fortune-teller

  • Adèle’s status as his possible illegitimate daughter

  • His secret imprisonment of Bertha

  • His bigamous marriage proposal:

    • None of these deceptions prevent Jane from loving him, despite her moral reservations

• Jane leaves Rochester after the truth about Bertha is revealed on her wedding day:

  • She feels it would be morally wrong to stay with Rochester, but continues to love him

• When Jane returns to a blinded Rochester after Bertha’s death, she marries him and becomes his “prop and guide”

What is Brontë’s intention?

• Brontë demonstrates that romantic love is often in conflict with morally correct behaviour

• Brontë’s ending – “Reader, I married him” – suggests that choosing the morally right action can eventually result in romantic and personal fulfilment

Personal growth

Jane Eyre’s story is told in the first person, which gives it the directness and emotional intensity of personal experience. Jane’s account of her life and honest evaluation of her actions show how she overcomes adversity through strength of character.

Jane Eyre as a bildungsroman

Knowledge and evidence:

• The novel is in the form of a bildungsroman, which means it focuses on the learning and development of its protagonist, Jane Eyre, from childhood to adulthood

• Jane Eyre is written in the first person, so the narrative is presented entirely from Jane’s perspective

• Jane’s account of the way she is treated at home, at school and as a governess at Thornfield Hall demonstrate her disempowerment in each situation

• Despite her lack of power in the world, Jane is able to exercise power over her own thoughts and feelings

• She possesses an independence of will and spirit, even when her actions are restricted by her circumstances

• Jane’s personal strengths enable her to overcome many obstacles to achieve a positive outcome. This is a typical conclusion for a bildungsroman

What is Brontë’s intention?

• Brontë wants to illustrate the experience of many girls and women in the mid-nineteenth century by portraying a protagonist with very limited power

• Brontë shows how personal strengths can empower individuals and lead to a happy conclusion

The ‘I’ in Jane Eyre

Knowledge and evidence:

• Jane Eyre’s point of view controls the narrative, which means that:

  • The speech and actions of other characters are described from her perspective

  • Readers get a more intimate, detailed picture of her thoughts and feelings

  • Readers must also must rely entirely on her account of events

• At several points in the novel, Jane addresses readers directly: “True, reader”:

  • This type of direct dialogue reinforces the intimacy between narrator and reader

  • It also reminds us that we are reading a work of fiction

• Jane is direct and candid about her thoughts in a way that she often cannot be with other characters:

  • For example, when she is walking on the roof of Thornfield Hall, she thinks about her longing for “rebellion”

  • She muses that “women feel just as men feel”

  • These are challenging statements in the context of Victorian gender norms

• Jane claims that her account is not a “regular autobiography”:

  • Imagery from fairy tales, ghost stories and folk beliefs are found throughout the novel

  • This imagery indicates the richness of Jane’s imagination

  • Such supernatural elements also destabilise the realism of her account

What is Brontë’s intention?

• Brontë wants to show a female protagonist who is the author of her own story

• Brontë aims to persuade her Victorian readers to view women as individuals in their own right, with feelings and moral convictions that are equal to men’s