Jane Eyre Leaving Cert Notes

Jane Eyre. Romance. Auth. Charlotte Bronte. Published 1847

Jane Eyre is an orphan sent to live with her aunt. Her Aunt Mrs. Reed and her cousins all hate her so she is sent off to a boarding school for young girls. It is here that Jane has her first lesbian experience with her only friend Helen. Helen dies of Typhoid soon after and Jane becomes a teacher.

Jane gets a job as a governess outside of the school at Thornfield Hall, owned by Mr.Rochester. Rochester is obviously incredibly heterosexual, and has a ward named Adele from a previous liaison. Rochester is being courted by a tramp called Blanche Ingram. Ingram is an air-headed bitch who must like it rough to put up with the treatment she receives from the nut-job Rochester. It turns out Rochester is only leading Blanche on to make Jane jealous.

Jane learning of his deception decides to marry him. The wedding gets to the “Does anybody know of any just cause…” bit, and a lawyer (who might as well be called Mr.McGuffin) declares Rochester is already married. This turns out to be true, and he is keeping his mad wife in the attic. Rochester rationalises this behaviour by saying he could of have had her killed by having her locked up in a damp house up north, but thought the attic would be more humane.

Rochester only got married to Antoinette in the first place because he thought he was going to be disinherited by his father and brother. The father and brother then had the temerity to die and leave him rich with a mad wife.

Rochester asks Jane to run off with him to somewhere hot, where they will live a brother and sister-like arrangement with the odd chaste peck on the cheek before elevenses. Jane, not being a complete moron, thinks perhaps Rochester would like a bit more than this and flees Thornfield Hall to wander the moors.

She wanders the moors for a few days until she is picked up by a local Vicar St. John Rivers. Rivers is an obvious homosexual, who is completely dysfunctional around women. The story loses a bit of its dynamic here, as we are expected to believe that women (especially the churches patron’s daughter) are chasing after this sad-sack of shit. St. John finds out that Jane is actually his cousin and that she is rich, so he asks her to marry him and go to the west-indies to be a missionary. He also says he doesn’t love her. Jane, never having seen Last Tango in Paris, still went to an all girls boarding school so has a pretty good idea what may happen if she becomes the wife of a missionary fag, and refuses. She does give him the money to go to India though.

Then, in the barmy way of Bronte novels, she hears Rochester’s voice calling to her on the wind. She sets off to Thornfield to find him. Once there, she finds the Hall burnt to the ground. It turns out that Rochester’s mad bitch wife burnt the place down and he lost an eye and a hand trying to save her. After ruining his life, you’d have thought he’d let her burn, but there you go.

Jane finds Rochester, tortured and blind, in his country estate. Here they reconcile, marry, have good, rough, straight sex and have children. The book ends with the Death of St. John in India, most likely representing the dangers of being a weak homosexual in a Bronte book.