Jane Eyre By Charlotte Bronte

Preface
A preface to the first edition of ?Jane Eyre? being unnecessary, I gave none: this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark
My thanks are due in three quarters
To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale with few pretensions
To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an obscure aspirant
To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended Author
The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them, ie, to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart
Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as ?Jane Eyre:? in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry?that parent of crime?an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths
Conventionality is not morality Self-righteousness is not religion To attack the first is not to assail the last To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns
These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world- redeeming creed of Christ There is?I repeat it?a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them
The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth?to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose?to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it?to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him
Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaannah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel
There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital?a mien as dauntless and as daring Is the satirist of ?Vanity Fair? admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time?they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Rimoth-Gilead
Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day?as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison

Summary
Jane Eyre was published in 1847 and is a form of fictionalised autobiography of its author It follows the fortunes or lack thereof of the eponymous heroine who begins her life as a girl orphaned without a penny to her name She is left in the care of her aunt, Mrs Reed, who treats her in an unfriendly and often a cruel manner This leads to a spirited escape - taking Jane to the charitable Lowood Institution (Charlotte Brontл herself attended the similar Cowan Bridge institute) This alone was enough for the book to be considered unsuitable for young ladies - even though it never veers from the accepted moral codes of the period After a time with the kind Miss Temple and a fellow orphan, Jane moves to a post teaching the illegitimate child of a Mr Rochester This unconventional hero figure finds himself drawn to Jane not for her (plain) face but for her intellect and spark The story follows the difficulties they face as the truth of Rochester's earlier marriage to a mad Creole woman emerge and the new life Jane attempts to make under the false impression that Rochester is an evil and heartless bigamist The novel inspired the feminist criticism of the 1980s through Gilbert and Gulbar's The Madwoman in the Attic in which unstable female characters in such literature were presented as proof of the suppression of the feminine

It is a cold, wet November afternoon when the novel opens at Gateshead, the home of Jane Eyre?s relatives, the Reeds Jane and the Reed children, Eliza, John, and Georgiana sit in the drawing room Jane?s aunt is angry with her, purposely excluding her from the rest of the family, so Jane sits alone in a window seat, reading Bewick?s History of British Birds
As she quietly reads, her cousin John torments her, reminding her of her precarious position within the household As orphaned niece of Mrs Reed, she should not be allowed to live with gentlemen?s children John throws a book at Jane and she calls him a ?murderer? and ?slave-driver? The two children fight, and Jane is blamed for the quarrel As punishment, she is banished to the red-room

This opening chapter sets up two of the primary themes in the novel: class conflict and gender difference As a poor orphan living with relatives, Jane feels alienated from the rest of the Reed family, and they certainly do nothing to make her feel more comfortable John Reed says to Jane: ?You have no business to take our books; you are a dependant, mamma says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentleman?s children like us ? John claims the rights of the gentleman, implying that Jane?s family was from a lower class She appears to exist in a no-man?s land between the upper and servant classes By calling John a ?murderer,? ?slave-driver? and ?Roman emperor,? Jane emphasizes the corruption that is inherent in the ruling classes Her class difference translates into physical difference, and Jane believes that she is physically inferior to the Reed children

Jane?s argument with John also points to the potential gender conflicts within the text Not only is Jane at a disadvantage because of her class status, but her position as female leaves her vulnerable to the rules of a patriarchal tyrant John is an over-indulged only son, described by Jane as ?unwholesome? and ?thick,? someone who habitually gorges himself Contrasting with Jane?s thin, modest appearance, John Reed is a picture of excess: his gluttony feeds his violent emotions, such as constant bullying and punishing of Jane One of Jane?s goals throughout the book will be to create an individual place for herself, free of the tyrannies of her aunt?s class superiority and her cousin?s gender dominance By fighting back when John and his mother torment her, Jane refuses the passivity that was expected for a woman in her class position
Jane?s situation as she sits reading Bewick?s History of Birds provides significant imagery The red curtains that enclose Jane in her isolated window seat connect with the imagery of the red-room to which Jane is banished at the end of the chapter The color red is symbolic Connoting fire and passion, red offers vitality, but also the potential to burn everything that comes in its way to ash The symbolic energy of the red curtains contrast with the dreary November day that Jane watches outside her window: ?a pale blank of mist and cloud? Throughout the book, passion and fire will contrast with paleness and ice Jane?s choice of books is also significant in this scene Like a bird, she would like the freedom of flying away from the alienation she feels at the Reed?s house The situation of the sea fowl that inhabit ?solitary rocks and promontories,? is similar to Jane?s: Like them, she lives in isolation The extreme climate of the birds? homes in the Arctic, ?that reservoir of frost and snow,? the ?death-white realms,? again creates a contrast with the fire that explodes later in the chapter during John and Jane?s violent encounter
Books provide Jane with an escape from her unhappy domestic situation For Jane, each picture in Bewick?s tale offers a story that sparks her keen imagination But Jane also says that the book reminds her of the tales that Bessie, one of the Reeds? servants, sometimes tells on winter evenings Books feed Jane?s imagination, offering her a vast world beyond the claustrophobia of Gateshead; they fill her with visions of how rich life could be, rather than how stagnant it actually is Not a complacent little girl, Jane longs for love and adventure

As she?s being dragged to the red-room, Jane resists her jailors, Bessie and Miss Abbott After the servants have locked her in, Jane begins observing the red-room It is the biggest and best room of the mansion, yet is rarely used because Uncle Reed died there
Looking into a mirror, Jane compares her image to that of a strange fairy The oddness of being in a death-chamber seems to have stimulated Jane?s imagination, and she feels superstitious about her surroundings She?s also contemplative Why, she wonders, is she always the outcast? The reader learns that Jane?s Uncle Reed?her mother?s brother?brought her into the household On his deathbed, he made his wife promise to raise Jane as one of her own children, but obviously, this promise has not been kept
Suddenly, Jane feels a presence in the room and imagines it might be Mr Reed, returning to earth to avenge his wife?s violation of his last wish She screams and the servants come running into the room Jane begs to be removed from the red-room, but neither the servants nor Mrs Reed have any sympathy for her Believing that Jane is pretending to be afraid, Mrs Reed vows that Jane will be freed only if she maintains ?perfect stillness and submission? When everyone leaves, Jane faints
Jane awakens in her own bedroom, surrounded by the sound of muffled voices She is still frightened but also aware that someone is handling her more tenderly than she has ever been touched before She feels secure when she recognizes Bessie and Mr Lloyd, an apothecary, standing near the bed Bessie is kind to Jane and even tells another servant that she thinks Mrs Reed was too hard on Jane Jane spends the next day reading, and Bessie sings her a song
After a conversation with Jane, Mr Lloyd recommends that Mrs Reed send her away to school Jane is excited about leaving Gateshead and beginning a new life Overhearing a conversation between Miss Abbot and Bessie, Jane learns that her father was a poor clergyman who married her mother against her family?s wishes As a result, Jane?s grandfather Reed disinherited his daughter A year after their marriage, Jane?s father caught typhus while visiting the poor, and both of her parents soon died within a month of each other and left Jane orphaned