History Literature / JaneEyre

* ManipulativeBastard: Rochester, who has a tendency to play with the emotions of the women around him. He plays an elaborate game with Jane so she believes he is going to marry Blanche Ingram, dresses up as a gypsy woman to draw secrets out of her, and goes so far as to pretend to find her a position in Ireland so she will break down and confess love for him first. He also strings Blanche along when he has no intention of proposing... though this [[KickTheSonOfABitch seems less cruel since Blanche is not depicted sympathetically]].

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Because Blanche is after money and position and because she is extremely rude to Jane, Rochester's callous treatment of Blanche's hopes for marriage [[OldMaid at the age of twenty-five]] are not lingered on long.

* MadwomanInTheAttic: Various mysterious events around Thornfield Hall are revealed to be due to the presence of Bertha, Rochester's mad wife, hidden away in the attic. Bertha is pretty much the TropeMaker, and is unquestionably the TropeCodifier.

* UnexpectedInheritance: Jane inherits money from her paternal uncle who was told she had been dead but who still believed her to be alive, which he got confirmed later. Jane is surprised by the huge amount, too, whih she splits among her cousins who were also related to said uncle (he was their mother's brother).

* WhatMeasureIsANonCute: Jane's entire childhood with the Reeds. Neither the servants nor any friends of the family dote on Jane the way that they do her cousin Georgiana, because, in addition to being a friendless dependent, Jane is neither pretty nor does she act like a child "should", that is to say, in a cute fashion.

* SignificantSketchbook: Jane showed some of her drawings to Mr. Rochester upon their first conversation in drawing room. The latter chose three drawings he likes which foreshadowed their future relationship.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Bertha. From what little we see of her (and from what Rochester tells us of her behavior), some symptoms suggest suggests hypermania, some severe dementia, and some is like very severe autism -- though that was hardly going to have developed in adulthood. It doesn't help that her description sounds like she's badly neglected- however difficult she is, Grace could at least do something with her hair. Justified, as this was long before any modern language about mental illness was in use even by experts.

** "Ejaculate" is used as a SaidBookism several times.

** John Reed fails college and commits suicide.
%% ** Mrs. Reed.

* KissingCousins: St. John proposes to his first cousin Jane that they get married and become missionaries in India. At the time, marriage between first cousins was not considered incestuous - indeed, only a few years before publication, Queen Victoria married her First Cousin, Prince Albert, and few people batted an eye about it. St. John is handsome, but neither he nor Jane find each other physically desirable, although Jane actually has a wobble on this point and comes close to giving in shortly before she is drawn back to Rochester.

** The name Eyre is very likely a reference to a medieval legal term. An 'eyre' was the name of a circuit traveled by an itinerant justice, or the circuit court he presided over. Certainly, Jane acts as a judge in the case of her aunt, and Mr. Rochester. Although "Eyre" was also the name of one of the most powerful families in the area that Charlotte Brontë grew up in.
** "Thornfield" is based on North Lees hall, owned by the Eyre family and where one of the early female residents was a lunatic and confined to a padded room on the second floor. "Thorn" is an anagram of "North", and "lees" is an old word for "field".
** Blanche is dull and bland, or thought of as such by Jane. In addition, Blanche, a name that literally means white, is dark-haired and brown-skinned (olive complexion, dark and clear). As it turns out, she greatly resembles Rochester's wife Bertha.

* NoPronunciationGuide: St. John Rivers always trips people up: it's pronounced "Sinjin", not "Saint John". It doesn't help that the character's religious nature continually invokes saints.

* AlternateHistory: A very subtle example shows up at the very end of the book when Jane mentions Diana Rivers's happy marriage to a naval officer named Captain Fitzjames. The only Captain Fitzjames in the Royal Navy at the time the book was published, and a relatively well-known figure, was Commander (though he had held the acting post of captain) James Fitzjames, who would have been lost in the Arctic (and still single) with the doomed Franklin Expedition by the time the book was printed. (You might know him from the first season of ''Series/TheTerror''.) From Jane's account, it sounds as though Diana and her husband's visits to the Rochester family are ongoing, meaning presumably in this book's timeline Fitzjames never went to the Arctic in the first place.

* LethallyStupid: Mr. Brocklehurst. He forces such poor conditions upon the pupils attending Lowood in the name of teaching them humility, that he contributes to a typhus epidemic that kills a large amount of the student body. Naturally, once the outside world finds out, a change in leadership occurs.

* EpicFail: Mr. Brocklehurst's ways of teaching humility to the girls attending Lowood. He forces them to endure such awful conditions that [[LethallyStupid he typhoid fever outbreak that kills half the student body]].

* EpicFail: Mr. Brocklehurst's ways of teaching humility to the girls attending Lowood. He forces them to endure such awful conditions that [[LethallyStupid he causes a tuberculosis outbreak that kills half the student body]].

* DramaticallyMissingthePoint: Jane tells Rochester she must part from him. He takes this to mean she must become a part of him.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Heavily subverted with St. John and Jane. One of St. John's arguments as to why Jane should marry him is that he will "love" her enough afterwards that she should be well satisfied. Jane immediately internally notes that while he would scrupulously perform husbandly duties, both of them would be well aware that he was only doing so for external example to others and not out of any genuine feeling for her. She rejects his offer and calls this sort of love 'counterfeit', which offends him greatly.

* CoolTeacher: Miss Maria Temple, whom Jane as an adult counts as one of her dearest friends.

* SeldomSeenSpecies: Mr. Rochester's dog is an obscure breed called the Landseer.

* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Helen Burns, Jane's best friend at school. Also an IllGirl with an oh-so-romantic case of consumption (tuberculosis). Helen was not only based on her sister Maria (who really did die, at age 11, of TB contracted at the school) but that she'd had to tone down Maria's real nature lest she is considered unbelievable. People who had known Maria at school vouched for this.

Jane Eyre is an unloved orphan sent to a grueling boarding school, Lowood, by her aunt who dislikes her fiery wit and sharp tongue (and the fact that her husband appeared to love his sister, Jane's mother, more than his own family). She's put through the wringer several times over there and emerges as a solemnly quiet person, but is just as free-spirited inside as she was before she went in. It is this spirit that causes her to long for adventure and new pastures, and she accepts a job as the governess of a young girl named Adèle, who lives with Mrs. Fairfax and the little-seen Mr. Edward Rochester at Thornfield Hall.

* BaitAndSwitch: The first chapter has quite a bit of the Gateshead members talking about Jane and how she doesn't belong there and is not entitled to any of the things the family has, with Mrs. Reed and John going on about how Jane doesn't belong at the house and how different and heterogeneous she is to the family and that her parents irresponsibly took advantage of relationships to have her here, with the general dynamic painting a picture of Jane being in the house of an acquaintance of her parents after having gone through debts. Mr. Reeds is never seen but is painted in a foreboding way, with how his son is a bully and how his wife talks about he would be upset with the burden that Jane is. Then it is revealed to the reader by Jane that Mr. Reed is her uncle by blood and that he took her in out of love after her parents died when she was an infant. So the children who were contemptuous of Jane were her first cousins, and her aunt (who is the in-law of Jane's late mother) was blind to the physical abuse Jane (the blood relative of her late husband, the financial head of the household) suffered from her son, who was supposed to be at school and not home. It does make sense in terms of theme and character, as Jane's aunt was jealous of how close (platonically) her husband was to his sister and how he seemed to care more about baby Jane than about his own children. She ends up revealing that she would have rather taken care of a non-related beggar than Jane despite how she has called and has treated Jane as a freeloader. This seems to be more projection than anything, as she felt jealous of Jane despite being Mr. Reed's wife and how she felt that his children deserved more of his attention than someone she was already inclined to dislike. While this is understandable to the reader as the information is given, Jane grew up in this environment and has internalized it despite having had more of a right to be at Gateshead than John Reed, who was supposed to be at school.

** Adèle often speaks in (untranslated) French, to which Jane responds in English.

* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: Zigzagged. Jane spends quite an amount of time telling the reader of all the horrible aspects of Lowood such as ever-present coldness in the winter, poor meals, and a few stern teachers. Subverted in that Jane loves getting an education and she makes a few great friends. In fact, Jane quickly considers Lowood more of a home than Gateshead ever was. When the poor food causes a typhus outbreak that kills a large group of students, including the daughters of influential families, the outside world finds out about the horrors going on at the school, condemns the culprits, and puts the school under better management.

Mother, I will.''

** As a child, Jane is locked inside a terrifying room alone one afternoon as punishment and comes to believe that she is being haunted by the ghost of her dead uncle. She is so frightened that she faints, and doesn't regain consciousness until midnight.

* KarmaHoudini: Subverted. At the beginning of the book, Jane has an inner monologue where she thinks how her cousins constantly harass her with no repercussions; they're also allowed to misbehave in general without ever being punished. Then, she goes for school, leaving the Reeds rich, respected in society, and apparently set to still be Karma Houdinis for a long time. When we hear from then again, still going strong. But then we learn they've lost their fortune, John has failed at university and eventually committed suicide, Mrs. Reed is dying, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Georgiana no longer has the same matrimonial prospects as before.]] Only Eliza has done well, in kind of an esoteric fashion; she responds to family chaos by becoming obsessed with order and schedules, and later [[TakingTheVeil becomes a nun]], not because she loves God but because she wants to cut off her emotions.[[note]]Being a cloistered nun is ''not'' a good way to do that, it's more like you learn to use and express your emotions through prayer and work, but Charlotte Brontë didn't know that.[[/note]]

* BigBadEnsemble: The Reeds, who serve as a threat to Jane and Bertha Mason who serve as a threat to Edward

* DeanBitterman: Mr. Brocklehurst. He is not only the headmaster but the treasurer of a charity school for girls, and he appears to relish publicly humiliating the young women in his care for such horrific sins as having ''naturally'' curly hair. When his own wife and daughters troop in, however, they are shown to be expensively dressed, complete with stylish false curls. Even worse, Brocklehurst's insistence on the lowest-quality food contributes to a typhus epidemic that kills a large portion of the student body.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Mr. Brocklehurst demands that his students at Lowood live as practical ascetics yet has super-spoiled daughters and wife. Jane is considerably less harsh in her attitude toward St. John despite him holding similar views to Brocklehurst on worldly pleasures and discipline because he at least walks the talk and doesn't force others to do anything he isn't willing to do himself.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Ms. Scatcherd, as mean-spirited as she is, is quite right to be hard on Helen for her untidy ways, for a student trained as a domestic servant who cannot tidy consistently or well would reflect very poorly on the school as a whole and would constantly be dismissed from positions. Likewise, Mr. Brocklehurst is correct when he points out to Ms. Temple that providing the students with better food may lead to them taking her kindness for granted and having unrealistic expectations of future employers. These would be hard, but perfectly reasonable, lessons to learn if the school wasn’t such a WretchedHive and completely ineffective at modeling Christian virtues prior to a change in leadership.

%% * ReasonableAuthorityFigure: [[NamesToTrustImmediately Miss Temple]] at Lowood School.

--> ''My daughter, flee temptation!''
--> ''Mother, I will.''

-->'''Jane:''' “That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I will say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a beggar ... and though [...] you wished to turn me from the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog.”


-->'''Hannah:''' “Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o' th' childer nor of mysel: poor things! They've like nobody to tak' care on 'em but me. I'm like to look sharpish.”

** After Jane has saved Rochester from the fire in his room [[spoiler: set by his wife Bertha]], he demands that she shake his hand. She describes his demeanor as ‘fiery’ and ‘passionate,’ and notes how unexpectedly energetic he seems by the whole misadventure. [[spoiler: This is the point at which Jane's and Rochester’s relationship takes a turn towards mutual romantic attraction.]]
** After Jane refuses St, John’s initial proposal of marriage [[spoiler: and he intentionally hurts her by publicly refusing to give her even common courtesy]], Jane demands that he shake her hand. She notes how very cool he feels, like marble. [[spoiler: This marks the end of their friendship, although it does not stop St. John from proposing again later.]]

** When Mr. Rochester messes with Jane and tells her that he has found her a new position, the names of the person and the place he uses are really anything but nice-sounding. Mrs. O’Gall and Bitternutt Lodge. Jane shrugs at the thought. If she'd been paying attention, she'd have recognized it as a farce name; "the gall of bitterness" is from Acts 8:23, about a guy who tried to buy the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

* TheMissionary: St. John aspires to be a missionary in India. [[spoiler: Jane doesn't.]]
* TheMistress: Rochester has had a string of lovers -- usually very beautiful, from high circles or well-known performers, such as Céline Varens -- throughout his life, but says he's grown tired of keeping girlfriends. [[spoiler: After their would-be wedding is busted, Rochester offers this position to Jane. Jane realizes she could not possibly live with herself in this way, and Rochester will likely grow resentful of her as he did with his earlier mistresses, and leaves him rather than stay.]]

* NoPronunciationGuide: St. John Rivers always trips people up: it's pronounced "Sinjin," not "Saint John". It doesn't help that the character's religious nature continually invokes saints.

* RejectedMarriageProposal: Jane turns down St. John's proposal that they marry, saying they should go to India as friends because she loves him [[LikeBrotherAndSister more like a brother]], and he only wants to marry her because he thinks she'll make a good missionary's wife rather than from love. He argues that they would be happy enough once they got married, but Jane is decidedly unconvinced. Just when she's considering giving in, [[spoiler: she inexplicably hears her true love, Mr. Rochester, calling to her and decides to return to him]].

* ShoutOut: A subtle one in the scene where young Jane first meets Mr. Brocklehurst:
-->I stepped across the rug; he place me square and straight before him. What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! What a great nose! and what a mouth! [[Literature/LittleRedRidingHood and what large prominent teeth!]]

--> ''"Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage. I had learnt her whole character; which was without mystery or disguise: she was coquettish, but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she could not help it, when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness), but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth; ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively and unthinking: she was very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex like me; but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive. A very different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters of St. John. Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adèle: except that for a child whom we have watched over and taught a closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult acquaintance."''

* GoodIsNotSoft: St. John, while consistently described as a ‘good man,’ clearly lacks empathy and warmth. He has the qualities that allow him to command admiration and the ability to do great deeds, but he does not have a loving nature and is clearly ill at ease in a common domestic setting. Jane attempts to bring out a softer side of him by complying with his unusual demands and making his family home more inviting. [[spoiler: She fails.]]
* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Heavily subverted with St. John and Jane. One of St. John’s arguments as to why Jane should marry him is that he will “love” her enough afterwards that she should be well satisfied. Jane immediately internally notes that while he would scrupulously perform husbandly duties, both of them would be well aware that he was only doing so for external example to others and not out of any genuine feeling for her. She rejects his offer and calls this sort of love ‘counterfeit,’ which offends him greatly.

** St. John (dispassionate and "good")for Jane (full-hearted and genuinely pious).

** It was implied that Jane's parents were like this way. Jane's mother was a noble who fell in love with the minister and commoner who is Jane's father. Said mother's family disowned her and she decided to travel with him.