Jane Eyre (1824)

//Summary - Level-B2//

Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë in 1847, tells the story of an orphaned girl who grows up facing hardship and discrimination. She becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with Rochester. However, she leaves after discovering he has a mad wife. Later, she meets St. John, who proposes marriage, but she refuses after hearing Rochester’s voice. She returns to find him blind and alone after a fire kills his wife. They marry, proving love can overcome wealth and status. The novel challenged gender roles and promoted women’s independence, making it groundbreaking.

Jane Eyre is a novel by Charlotte Bronte, first published in 1847, originally under the male pseudonym Currer Bell.

The story follows the orphan Jane as she falls in love with the man who lives with her as a governess. The protagonist, who rebelled against the society of the time, offered a new image of women and caused a great stir.

Heroines in novels are usually portrayed as beautiful, but the heroine of this work (Jane Eyre) is not beautiful. Moreover, it depicts the dissatisfaction with being an orphan and the rebellious spirit of gender equality, and the fact that a woman confesses her feelings is a major departure from the social norms of the time. The idea of free love and marriage, unconstrained by wealth or status, was groundbreaking in Victorian literature.

Synopsis:
1)
Jane Eyre is orphaned and grows up angry and sad at the discrimination she suffers at the hands of Mrs Reed and her children. At age 10, she is sent to Lowood boarding school, where she meets the kind Mrs Temple and Helen Burns.

Jane gradually comes to respect Helen for her deep faith and generosity.

At the same time, a typhoid epidemic breaks out at Lowood due to poor sanitation, and Helen dies of tuberculosis. Later, the poor food and clothing caused by excessive austerity and the polluted environment are exposed and improved.

2)
After six years as a pupil and two as a teacher at Lowood, Jane is employed as a governess at Thornfield Hall.

There, she experiences a love affair with the head of the family, Rochester, that transcends her status. He proposes to her, but on the wedding day, she discovers that his wife is mad.

3)
At the time, bigamy was severely punished based on Christianity, and Jane, deeply troubled, seeks God's help, admonishing him by saying, "The laws and morals which God gives, and men accept do not exist where there are no temptations," and leaving Thornfield alone in silence.

4)
Lost in the street, she is rescued by the vicar, St. John, and his sisters Diana and Mary. They take her into their home, and through St. John's introduction, she works as a schoolmistress.

After a wh,ile she finds out that St. John and his sisters are Jane's cousins, and she spends a year studying with them.

Still, St. John, willing to risk his life for his mission as a missionary, asks her to marry him as a faithful servant of God and accompany him to India.

5)
Jane knows she has no romantic feelings for him and is deeply distressed, but when she gives in to his persistent pleas and is about to accept St John's proposal out of faith, she hears Rochester's voice calling to her in the middle of a storm, so she rejects St John and leaves home.

6)
Jane later learns from the innkeeper that Mrs Rochester died in a fire and that Rochester himself lost an arm and went blind. Jane visits him, tells him that wealth, age and even a healthy body are no obstacles to love, and vows to marry him.

7)
Strangely, when Jane heard Rochester's voice, he called to her and listened to her answer. The two then had a quiet wedding ceremony. Two years later, Rochester's eyesight recovered somewhat, and he had his first child to inherit his own eyes.