Jane Eyre KEY QUOTES

• "teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness"

  "mortify"


  Mr Brockelhurst lectures the students at Lowood and Miss Temple, before his family comes in
• "splendidly attired in velvet, silk and furs"


  Mr Brockelhurst's family visiting Lowood - hypocricy, Victorian readers would be outraged
• "black marble clergyman"

  "black pillar"

  "grim face"

  "standing erect"


  Descriptions of Mr Brockelhurst

  Marble extended metaphor of unfeeling, iciness throughout the novel

  Villainous, unyielding, phallic language cement his patriarchal dominance
• "render them hardy, patient and self denying"


  Indoctrinate them with Calvinist, christian values, "self-denying" implying a suppression of passion, spirit and joy
• "an account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G"


  Child's guide is no doubt based on some of Carus Wilson’s own publications, either Child’s First Tales (1836), the reverend at Lowood
• "to take your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh"

  "wicked heart"


  Mr Brockelhurst to Jane, harrowing and distressing to tell a child this, irony due to his connection to "marble"
• "as if a martyr, a hero"


  As Jane is shamed in front of the school, Helen's kindness gives Jane hope. Perhaps this could be foreshadowing, the symbol of the 'martyr' implying that Helen died so that Jane could develop and avoid Bertha's fate
• "the Bible bids us to return good for evil"

  life is "too short to be nursing animosity"

  'Rasselas'


  Calvinist indoctrination of young Helen, kind heart but passive

  Helen reads 'Rasselas' - a philosophical book on the pursuit of happiness and the meaning of life, accepting the reality of life and being content with the unfair
• "I live in calm, looking to the end"


  Readers would've seen Helen as a tragic character, tragic that Eveangelical views have made her loose sight of her present life, time of intellectual questioning
• Doesn't show signs of "distress" or "shame, neither "blushed nor wept"


  Foil to Jane, bearing punishment to escape eternal damnation, stifling of emotions
• "You are formed for labour, not love"

  "You shall be mine; I claim you - not for my pleasure but my sovereign's pleasure"


  The modal verb "shall" implies the expectations of women to submit to men. Jane subverts this expectation. Cements the understanding that St John lives a life devoid of pleasure. Men dictated women's lives, tries to instil similar values in Jane
• "reason and not feeling is my guide"

  Loved Rosamund Oliver "so wildly"


  The adverb "wildly" denotes a lack of control, something which he tries to repress.

  St John represses his human desires and emotions, and ends up alone and dead. Perhaps this could be Bronte's way of criticising the "threat that Charlotte saw in icy reason without emotion" - Johnson
• "God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife"


  Duty to "god and nature", implying that in his eyes she was built to serve. This links to colonialism, and the idea that missionary work was seen as a way to speed up the second coming of Jesus. Really, what it did was forcefully embed British culture into third world countries, a concept which perhaps Bronte rejects through her portrayal of St John.
• "cold, cumbrous, column"

  "no longer flesh, but marble"

  "Greek face" "pure in outline" "straight classic nose"


  Physical portrayal of St John denotes severity, hardiness and authority. The extended use of the "marble" to describe male characters exposes masculinity as unsympathetic and cold. The phallic imagery in "column" further cements the patriarchal power that St John has, especially in his status as a clergyman.
• "the sole helpmeet" he could "influence efficiently in life and retain absolutely till death"


  Power, colonialist St John - post colonial reading would see his power as oppressive, domination
• "uniform duties...worried me to death"


  Human side to St John - felt restricted at the beginning, but caved to divine prescence
• "shouting till they could hear her a mile off"

  "yelled and gave a spring"


  Bertha's public rejection of confinement of the harsh expectations placed on women at the time, sexual repression due to the evangelical ideals surrounding chastity

  Final unashamed act, scandal

  Reasserting her existence in a spectacle to belittle Rochester
• 'The vampyre' ''She bit me' 'She sucked the blood'


  When Bertha bites Richard Mason, gothic event, violence is her way of expressing her inner turmoil, fear and intimidation
• "waving her arms above the battlements"


  "battlements" denotes entrapment in a castle/tower, mirroring the story of Blue beard, a man who entrapped women in his castle

  Final public act of defiance, passion destroys Rochester's manhood and dignity with passion

  Only in death is she emancipated from her past
• "snatched and growled"

  "wild animal"

  "hyena"


  Physical introduction to Bertha - woman succumbed to hysteria and mental illness, due to sensitivity and dependency, attic mirrors a mental asylum

  Animal and wild, effects of her entrapment, what Jane could become
• "It was a discoloured face.. it was a savage face" "the lips were swelled and dark" "demoniac laugh" "moaned" "gurgled" "tongues of flames"


  Descriptions of Bertha that aren't physical, before we meet her face to face, connoting some sort of omnipresent demon

  Gothic portrayal, race is a defining part of her character, post colonialist reading would emphasise that she represents racial entrapment
• "savage, hideous demon"


  Rochester trying to turn Jane against Bertha, dehumanises her with a predatory lexis, paints her to be dangerous and undesirable
• "until you can speak pleasantly, please remain silent"

  "It is only on the condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall liberate you then"


  Upholds strict patriarchal values, dedicated to being a true woman, Jane views this as 'unjust', women and young girls were expected to be pleasant to appease
• "me, she had dispensed from joining the group"

  "You were born, I think, to be my torment"


  Traumatic experience for young Jane, neglected by Mrs Reed, power within the household, protective of her own children and saw Jane as a threat due to her late husband's love of her
• "She was an exact clever, manager" kept her "household and tenancy" under control


  Francis Goodby - able, upright and firm, revered idealised woman who oversaw the domestic sphere
• "demanding"

  "eye devoid of truth"


  Hypocritical figure, one that preaches strong moral values, however deviates from these values, middle class supremacy, ideal woman was pious and christian
• "I feel I have adequate course to be happy, and I will be happy"


  Jane to St John - transcends traditional gender roles of being passive, academic and intellectual ambition, links to the belief that ambition lead to infertility
• "I did not love my servitude"

  "I am not fit for it"


  Jane found the societal expectations placed on her confining, due to her powerful emotions and vivid imagination

  Autonomy from societal and marital constraints, ardent proclamations, perhaps Brontes way of expressing her proto feminist views without persecution, as Jane ends up with a man at the end of the novel
• "become part of" St John

  "counterfeit sentiment" of love


  Finds power in her all consuming, fervent emotions, Jane wants to be an equal to men not possessed by them, a modern, feminist reading would see Jane as a character with an underlying political purpose, as an advocate for women forced into submission
• "you are dependant" "you have no money" "you ought to beg"

  "gentlemen's children like us"


  John Reed embodies the middle class dominance over the working class, harrowing experience which further destroyed Jane's self worth

  A marxist reading would focus on the contrast between the upper and lower classes in the socioeconomic context of the period, John Reed as a villian
• "bad animal"


  John Reed degrades and dehumanises Jane, embodies his control over her
• "every nerve I had feared him and every morsel of flesh on my bones shrank when he came near"

  "Habitually obedient to John" 


  Female entrapment, constraints against Jane, violence against women

  All consuming nature of her fear, John embodies moral hypocrisy
• "all the house belongs to me" "or will do in a few years"


  Ironic considering his descent into alcoholism

  The eldest son inherited most of the property, giving him power and status. John was probably promised this very young, and was therefore elevated to a certain air of pompousness
• "slave-driver" "tyrant" "murderer" 


  Tyrrannical language used by Jane to describe John, reflecting imperialist, patriarchal attitudes at the time. Jane's honesty and brutal reality shocks John, as it's the first time anyone has properly stood up to him.
• "old girl"


  John calls his mother this, sign of disrespect and patriarchal dominance, lack of empathy that's not stifled, and therefore he continues to disrespect people
• "he struck suddenly and strongly"


  John hits Jane before throwing the book at her, embodiment of the misogynistic violence rife in Victorian society, as a way to ensure power over women
• "picture of passion"


  Jane, ironically as John is who attacks first - foreshadows Bertha's violence
• "God will punish her" "strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums" 


  Miss Abbot - harrowing and traumatising, punished for standing up for herself and defying violence
• "massive pillars of mahogany"


  The red room - "massive pillars" - phallic imagery connoting masculine presence and control, John Reed
• "Curtains of deep red demask"

  "red" "crimson" "blush of pink"


  Colours associated with the red room - femininity, womb like imagery, stifling, the rebirth of Jane as a woman