Background Information for Jane Eyre

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Background Informationfor Jane Eyre

• By
• Charlotte Bronte

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THE NOVEL

• Published in October 1847
• During the Industrial Revolution

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Schooling

• During the early 19th century, it became
  fashionable to educate females.
• However, free education was not yet available for
  either sex.
• Only the very rich could send their daughters to
  elegant girls schools

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Governesses

• 1. Less costly schools were formed by
  well-meaning benefactors in order to educate poor
  females.
• 2. Illness was common because there was not a
  clear understanding of the relationship between
  dirt disease

• 3. With the new stress on female education,
  governesses were in demand.
• 4. Pay was poor, but it was one of the only jobs
  available to educated, yet impoverished young
  women

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Role of the governess

• Employers other servants shunned the governess
  because they felt she was putting on airs.
• Her employers would ignore her, too, because she
  had a superior education, which intimidated many
  people.

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A ground breaking novel

• Why?
• The heroine is small, plain, poor
• The heroine is the first female character to
  claim the right to feel strongly about her
  emotions and act on her convictions
• This romantic ground had previously been reserved
  for males
• Such a psychologically complex heroine had never
  been created before

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Charlotte Bronte

• Lived at Haworth, a parsonage

• Born of Irish ancestry in 1816

• Mother died of cancer when Charlotte was 5 years
  old.

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The Bronte sisters

• Charlotte had 4 sisters and 1 brother.
• While at the Clergy Daughters School, her 2
  older sisters (Maria Elizabeth) died of
  tuberculosis

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Charlottes family con.t

• The Clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge
  became the model for Lowood, the fictitious
  girls school in Jane Eyre.
• Anne and Emily Bronte were also successful
  writers.
• Charlottes brother, Branwell, was a gifted
  painter.

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More on Charlottes Family

• In 1846, Charlotte her sisters started
  publishing poems and began writing novels
• The Professor was Charlottes attempt to
  fictionalize her love for a college professor she
  had met at Brussels.
• In 1847 Wuthering Heights was sister Emilys
  first success. Charlotte followed with Jane
  Eyre.

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All 3 Bronte Sisters

• Used a masculine pen name because women writers
  were not taken seriously at that time in
  Victorian England.
• Charlotte used the name Currer Bell.

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Marriage Bells

• In 1854 She marries her father's curate, Arthur
  Bell Nichols.
• The next year, she became pregnant, then ill.
• She died a month before her 39th birthday

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Charlottes Religious Views

• Father, Patrick Bronte, was an Anglican clergyman
• Due to her upbringing, she often wrote about
  religious hypocrisythose who preach one doctrine
  but live by another

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Jane Eyres Romantic Heritage

• The Romantic Movement
• Came into play in at the end of the 18th Century.
• Championed for the rights of the individual over
  the demands of society.
• Believed that humans were inherently good
• Valued imagination over reason
• Inspired by nature

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Charlottes Gothic Influence

• Jane Eyre displays some characteristics of the
  gothic novel
• Imprisoned women
• A heroine who faces danger
• Supernatural interventions at crucial moments in
  the plot
• A romantic reconciliation

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Byronic Hero

• This term is created by the famous poet George
  Gordon, Lord Byron.
• Characteristics are
• Proud
• Gloomy
• Mysterious
• Passionate
• Mr. Rochester is an example of this type

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Charlottes Quotes

• It is vain to say human beings ought to be
  satisfied with tranquility they must have
  action and they will make it if they cannot find
  it.
• If we would build on a sure foundation in
  friendship, we must love friends for their sake
  rather than for our own.

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THE END