Jane Eyre: Context (AQA GCSE English Literature)

Your knowledge of context will give you a huge advantage if you focus your revision on how it relates to the themes of Jane Eyre. That way, you’ll produce an exam response that only uses the most relevant information. The highest marks are awarded to responses that use context to support an argument about Brontё’s ideas. The following topics relate directly to the themes in Jane Eyre:

• Gender
• Social class
• Christianity
• The supernatural

• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontё’s first novel, was published under a male pseudonym: Currer Bell
• Brontё used a male pseudonym because most publishers in the mid-19th century did not take female authors seriously:
• When Jane Eyre was published, many reviewers thought its powerful style meant it must have been written by a man
• This publishing context is an example of the gender norms that Brontё critiques in Jane Eyre
• Victorian society was extremely patriarchal, which meant that girls and women did not have equal access to education, employment or property ownership:
• This is illustrated from the start of the novel, with John Reed attending an expensive school, while his sisters are educated at home
• When women married in the Victorian era, any property or money they owned automatically belonged to their husbands:
• Mrs Reed, Jane’s aunt, has inherited her property, wealth and social status from her husband following his death
• Bertha Mason’s fortune became Rochester’s property when he married her
• In Jane Eyre, Brontё addresses the gender inequality of her time directly:
• In Chapter 12, Jane reflects that “millions are in silent revolt against their lot… Women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do”
• Brontё also addresses gender inequality indirectly:
  • Mr Brocklehurst controls the conditions for all the female teachers and pupils at Lowood
  • Rochester is free to come and go as he pleases at Thornfield in a way that Jane and other female characters are not
  • Rochester is able to imprison Bertha because she is his wife and, legally, his property:
  • Bertha’s mental illness additionally deprives her of the legal right to make her own decisions
  • St John Rivers can make his own life choices, but his sisters are dependent on him for their home and income 
• Male characters have far more agency than female characters in Jane Eyre:
• Brontё subverts Victorian gender norms in Jane Eyre, too: 
  • We see every event and character in the novel from Jane’s perspective 
  • The emotional power and directness of her narration demonstrates that women have the same strength of feeling and intellect as men
  • Jane’s independence of thought and spirit results in the outcome she desires
  • The active verb is given to Jane, rather than Rochester, and she is the subject of the sentence
• Jane is the author of her own story, as its narrator and main protagonist:
• When Jane states, “Reader, I married him” in the final chapter, it is a reversal of the more conventional “he married me”:
• The ending of Jane Eyre seems both to reinforce and challenge Victorian gender conventions: 
• Having gained financial independence, Jane still refers to Rochester as her “master”
• However, Rochester acknowledges Jane as his “equal”, illustrating Brontё’s ideal of an egalitarian marriage

• Nineteenth-century society was strictly divided by social class
• It was rare for people from different social classes to marry
• Social class was usually, but not always, defined by wealth
• The Ingrams are an example of the highest social class, the aristocracy:
  • They have inherited their wealth and do not work
  • However, they are not rich, and their social status is due to their hereditary title
• Mr Rochester is also upper class, but not an aristocrat:
  • He is a landowner whose wealth comes from the rents paid by his tenants
  • Jane believes Rochester wants to marry Blanche Ingram to improve his social status by benefitting from “her rank and connections”
• The poorest people in society often depended on workhouses and charitable institutions for their survival:
  • In Jane Eyre, Lowood school is an example of a charitable institution for orphans, who had no other means of support
• As an orphan, Jane experiences social disadvantages:
  • She is dependent on the Reed family for her survival
  • While her education means she can find work, Jane is poor for most of the novel and has a lower class status than Rochester
  • The wealth she gains from her inheritance gives Jane financial independence and raises her social status

• In Jane Eyre, Brontё is uncritical of her society’s class structure:
  • Jane accepts her social position as being of a lower class than Rochester, but a higher class than the Thornfield servants

• However, Brontё is critical of the value placed on wealth and social status: 
  • Jane sees her personal merits as more meaningful than Blanche Ingram’s beauty, expensive clothes and personal “attainments
  • Jane describes Blanche’s character as “inferior” because she is “not genuine”, “good” or “original”
• Bertha Mason is a character who is completely disempowered by her social status:
  • As a Creole woman with mixed ethnicity, she is disadvantaged by imperialist attitudes:
    • In the 19th century, white British people considered themselves to be superior to other races, especially those they exploited for financial gain
• Brontё is not critical of Bertha’s disempowerment and social exclusion:
  • Jane describes Bertha in terms that dehumanise her:
    • She refers to Bertha as “it” and a “vampire”, and cannot tell if Bertha is a “beast or human being”
    • She feels more horror than sympathy towards Bertha, and does not criticise Rochester for locking her up

• Christianity was centrally important in 19th-century England, and nearly everyone was a Christian:
  • Christianity provided the moral framework for 19th-century life 
  • Even people who could not read or write knew most of the Bible by heart
• Jane Eyre, like all Victorian literature, is filled with biblical references, which its readers would have recognised
• Brontё’s father, Patrick, was an Anglican curate and the Brontё family lived in the parsonage provided by his employers
• Brontё and three of her sisters all attended The Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge:
  • Conditions at the school were harsh, with inadequate food, freezing conditions and poor hygiene
  • Elizabeth and Maria, Brontё’s two eldest sisters, were sent home from Cowan Bridge and died of tuberculosis soon after, aged 10 and 11
• Lowood School is based on the most negative aspects of Cowan Bridge:
  • Over a third of the 60 pupils at Cowan Bridge were sent home ill, and six of them died from infections picked up at the school
  • This caused a scandal like the one following the outbreak of typhus at Lowood
• Helen Burns in Jane Eyre is based on Brontё’s eldest sister, Maria:
  • Helen’s certainty about the afterlife and the unimportance of personal suffering is very similar to Maria’s
  • Jane cannot visualise the afterlife, seeing it as an “unfathomed gulf”
• Mr Brocklehurst represents the idea of religious hypocrisy:
  • He claims to educate the girls according to Christian principles, but in reality is cruel and unjust
  • He diverts donations intended for the girls’ support in order to give his own family a luxurious lifestyle
• St John Rivers represents the negative aspects of religious idealism:
  • He ignores his love for Rosamund Oliver in order to pursue his religious vocation
  • He wants to marry Jane because he thinks she will make a good missionary’s wife, not because he loves her

• Brontё critiques the misuse of Christianity, but accepts the baseline realities of Christian belief:
  • Characters like Mr Brocklehurst, St John Rivers and even the saintly Helen Burns represent Christian beliefs that are either distorted or extreme
  • Characters like Miss Temple and the sisters Mary and Diana Rivers represent moderate Christian beliefs, like kindness and tolerance

• Awareness of the supernatural was as common in the 19th century as religious belief
• Supernatural storylines were used by many successful authors prior to Brontё
• Most 19th-century readers would have recognised the supernatural elements used by Brontё 
• Brontё uses the supernatural in Jane Eyre:
• To illustrate the richness of Jane’s imagination and to add an extra dimension to her story 
• To provide readers with elements of excitement, mystery and suspense
• Jane Eyre is about Jane’s real-life experiences, but Jane’s account is filled with supernatural elements:
  • For example, when Jane is locked in the Red Room in Chapter 2, she believes that Mr Reed’s ghost will appear
  • When Jane looks in the mirror of the Red Room, she sees her reflection as a “spirit” that is “half fairy, half imp”
• These include folk beliefs, such as elves and monsters like the “Gytrash” and ignis fatuus, as well as fairy tales and ghost stories:
• Other supernatural elements include Jane’s dreams, which often seem to predict the future, and frightening experiences that she cannot explain rationally:
• The “demoniac” laughter she hears on the upper floor of Thornfield
• The fire in Rochester’s bedroom
• The invasion of her room by a “spectre” two nights before her wedding
• Jane’s relationship with Rochester takes on a supernatural dimension when she “hears” his voice calling her name
• Imprisonment was often used by 19th-century authors to evoke the supernatural, because the state of being confined is unnatural:
  • Jane’s imprisonment in the Red Room
  • Bertha’s imprisonment at Thornfield
• There are two main examples of imprisonment in Jane Eyre:
• The parallels between Jane and Bertha suggest another supernatural motif: the doppelgänger:
• When Bertha breaks into Jane’s room on the night before her wedding, she tries on Jane’s wedding veil and Jane sees her reflection in the mirror, which echoes her experience in the Red Room in Chapter Two
• Although Jane is not physically imprisoned like Bertha, her social and financial position means she is trapped in her situation
• Brontё’s use of the supernatural supports her critique of social inequality: 
• By suggesting parallels between Jane and Bertha’s lack of freedom
• By suggesting that the imagination has the power affect the real world, especially for the socially disempowered