book report of Jane Eyre

Book Report of Jane EyreJane Eyre is a famous and influential novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell," the "autobiography's" supposed editor. The Penguin edition describes it as an “influential feminist text” for its in-depth exploration of a strong female character’s feeling. Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative of the title character. It is partly autobiographical, and the novel abounds with social criticism, Gothicism and romanticism to create a distinctive Victorian novel.The author Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters, whose novels are English literature standards. This novel is partly autobiography, so there were many similarities between Jane and the author. In August 1824, Charlotte was sent with three of her sisters, Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth, to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire (which she would describe as Lowood School in Jane Eyre). What’s more, many people appeared in her life had been written in his novel in different names.Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative of the title character. The novel goes through five distinct stages: 1. Jane's childhood at Gateshead, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; 2. her education at Lowood School, where she acquires friends and role models but also suffers privations and oppression; 3.her time as the governess of Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her Byronic employer, Edward Rochester; 4.her time with the Rivers family during which her earnest but cold clergyman-cousin St John Rivers proposes to her; 5.and the finale with her reunion with and marriage to her beloved Rochester.The novel begins with a ten-year-old orphan named Jane Eyre who is living with her uncle's family, the Reeds, as her uncle's dying wish. Both of Jane's parents died of typhus. Jane’s Aunt Sarah Reed doesn’t like her a nd treats her like a servant. She and her three children are abusive to Jane, physically and emotionally. One day Jane gets locked in the room in which her uncle died, and panics after seeing visions of him. She is finally rescued when she is allowed to attend Lowood School for Girls. At Lowood, Jane is branded as a liar by accident and shamed before her entire assembly. But Jane is comforted by her friend, Helen Burns. The eighty pupils at Lowood are subjected to cold rooms, poor meals, and thin clothing. Many students fall ill when a typhus epidemic strikes. Jane's friend Helen dies of consumption in her arms.After eight years of school Jane decides to leave.She advertises her services as a governess, and receives one reply. It is from Alice Fairfax, who is a keeper of Thornfield Hall. She takes the position, caring for Adele Varens, a young French girl. While Jane is walking one night to a nearby town, a horseman passes her. The horse slips on ice and throws the rider. She helps him. Later, back at the mansion she learns that this man is Edward Rochester, master of the house. Mr. Rochester and Jane enjoy each other's company. And they spend many hours together.Odd things happen at the house, such as a strange laugh, a mysterious fire and anattack on Rochester's house guest, Mr. Mason. Jane hears that her aunt was calling for her, after being in much grief because her son committed suicide. She returns to Gateshead and remains there for a month caring for her dying aunt.Mrs. Reed admits to telling her uncle that Jane had died of fever. Soon after, Jane's aunt dies, and Jane returns to Thornfield.After returning to Thornfield, Jane broods over Rochester's impending marriage to Blanche Ingram. But on a midsummer evening, he proclaims his love for Jane and proposes. Jane decides to get married with Mr. Rochester. During the wedding ceremony, Mr. Mason and a lawyer declare that Mr. Rochester can not marry because he is married to Mr. Mason’s sister. He admits this is true, and explains his wife is crazy and that he was tricked into marrying her. Refusing to go against her principles, and despite her love for him, Jane leaves Thornfield in the middle of the night.Jane travels through England using the little money she had saved. Exhausted, she makes her way to the home of Diana and Mary Rivers, but is turned away by the housekeeper. After she regains her health, St. John finds her a teaching position at a nearby charity school. Jane becomes good friends with the sisters, but St. John is too reserved.The sisters leave for governess jobs and St. John becomes closer with Jane. St. John discovers Jane's true identity, and astounds her by showing her a letter stating that her uncle John has died and left her his entire fortune of ￡20,000. Jane, overjoyed by finding her family, insists on sharing the money equally with her cousins, and Diana and Mary come to Moor House to stay.Jane then goes to Thornfield to find only blackened ruins. She learns that Rochester's wife set the house on fire and committed suicide by jumping from the roof. In his rescue attempts, Mr. Rochester lost a hand and his eyesight. Jane reunites with him, but he fears that she will be repulsed by his condition. When Jane assures him of her love and tells him that she will never leave him, Mr. Rochester again proposes. He eventually recovers enough sight to see their first-born son.Jane Eyre is very much the story of a quest to be loved. Jane searches, not just for romantic love, but also for a sense of being valued.In this novel, there are many parts impressed me a lot. The most famous line in Jane Eyre is "Reader, I married him." This line is significant not only in that it provides the novel with a happy ending, but also because of its active quality, which was probably shocking at the time of the novel's publication. The line "Reader, he married me." would have been more conventional. This sentence is only three words, but it contains a lot. From this line, we can see that Jane take the initiative in her marriage. She is not the one who has to accept the marriage. It is really not common at that time which shows that Jane is an independent and thoughtful woman.“Do you think because I am poor, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? –You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you are,-and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with beauty and much wealth, I should have make it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now though the medium of custom, conversationalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood atGod’s feet, equal, as we are!”---- Chapter 23 This paragraph is also very famous. From these sentences we can see that what Jane Eyre wants is not only romantic love but also a sense of value and equal. Jane Eyre is not only a love story; it is also a plea for the recognition of the individual's worth. Throughout the book, Jane demands to be treated as an independent human being, a person with her own needs and talents. Charlotte is remarkable in port raying Jane Eyre is as self-respecting and rebellious girl, desiring equality, bravely showing her love and deciding on her own marriage. In the latter part of 20th century, Jane Eyre has come to be seen as a feminist heroine and her character has been closely identified with what of its creator.Actually, she wasn’t pretty, and of course, the ordinary appearance didn’t make others feel good of her, even her own aunt felt disgusted with it. And some others even thought that she was easy to look down on and to tease, so when Miss Ingram met Jane Eyre, she seemed quite contemptuous, for that she was obviously much more prettier than ‘the plain and ugly governess’. But as the little governess had said: ‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!’ This is the idea of equality in Jane Eyre’s mind. God hadn’t given her beauty and wealth, but instead, God gave her a kind mind and a thinking brain. Her idea of equality and self-respect really impress me so much and let me feel the power inside her body.Jane Eyre, as she tells Rochester on more than one occasion, has a brain in her head, and her own intellect speaks to her as clearly as her heart. We can see that when Jane and Rochester are finally united in marriage, theirs is an equal partnership. Conveniently, Jane has inherited a fortune from her deceased uncle in the West Indies, another issue which was regarded by the writer perhaps the most important key to women’s independence, fina ncial self-sufficiency. In my opinion, financial self-sufficiency is essential for both men and women, no matter in the past or now. Nowadays, many young people still ask their parents for money even when they have jobs. If they do so, they will never be independent. Jane gives us a good example of self-independence. Although many readers related to the book as a straightforward love story its great power is also attributable to its complexity as a statement of the position of women in the mid-nineteenth-century. It is certainly true that Charlotte set out purposely to create a heroine who was not beautiful, rich, and accomplished, but a woman who is small, plain, penniless and alone in the world. Her intention was to some extent to turn romantic fiction on its head, to have her female character wrestle with the moral issue central to her relationship.There are many factors contribute to Jane’s success. Reading, education, and creativity are all essential components of Jane's growth, factors that help her achieve her final success. From the novel's opening chapters to its close, Jane reads a variety of texts: Pamela, Gulliver's Travels, and Marmion. Stories provide Jane with an escape from her unhappy domestic situation, feeding her imagination and offering her a vast world beyond the troubles of her real life: By opening her inner ear, she hears "a tale my imagination created . . . quickened with all incident, life, fire, feeling, that Idesired and had not in my actual existence." Similarly, she believes education will allow her the freedom to improve her position in society by teaching her to act like a "lady," but her success at school, in particular her drawing ability, also increases her self-confidence. Jane confesses that artistic creation offers her one of the "keenest pleasures" of her life, and Rochester is impressed with Jane's drawings because of their depth and meaning, not typical of a schoolgirl. As far as I am concerned, reading, education, and creativity are essential components for everyone. “Nurture passes nature.” Everyone needs knowledge. We can get knowledge both from education and experience. But we should combine them into one, so that we can get more. Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it. No matter what we learn, we should try to practice them as Jane does.Although artistic and educational pursuits are essential elements of Jane's personality, she also feels a need to assert her identity through rebellion. In the opening chapters of the novel, Jane refers to herself as a "rebel slave," and throughout the story she opposes the forces that prevent her from finding happiness: Mrs. Reed's unfair accusations, Rochester's attempt to make her his mistress, and St. John's desire to transform her into a missionary wife. By falling in love with Rochester, she implicitly mutinies against the dictates of class boundaries that relegate her, as a governess, to a lower status than her "master." Besides rejecting traditional views of class, she also denigrates society's attempts to restrict women's activities. Women, she argues, need active pursuits and intellectual stimulation, just as men do. Most of Jane's rebellions target the inequities of society, but much of her personality is fairly conventional. In fact, she often seems to provide a model of proper English womanhood: frank, sincere, and lacking in personal vanity.Jane's personality balances social awareness with spiritual power. Throughout the novel, we can know that Jane's spirituality isn't a purely Christian one — in fact, she rejects many of the Christian characters in the novel, such as St. John Rivers, Eliza Reed, and Mr. Brocklehurst —but a mixture of Christian and pagan ideas. Like nature, Jane's God is filled with bounty, compassion, and forgiveness —qualities lacking in many of the spiritual leaders she criticizes in the novel.In my mind, though a person’s beauty on the face can make others once feel that one is attra ctive and charming, if his or her mind isn’t the same beautiful as the appearance, such as beauty cannot last for, when others find that the beauty which had charmed them was only a falsity, it’s not true, they will like the person no more. For a long time, only a person’s great virtue, a noble soul, a beautiful heart can be called as an everlasting beauty, just as Kahill Gibran has said, that ‘Beauty is a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted’.Jane does not have a beautiful appearance, but her self-respecting and rebellious mind make her much more beautiful then the people who only have beautiful appearance.This novel not only let me know a good love story, but also give me a spiritual lesson. It let me see a self-respecting and independent woman. All in all, this novel is worth reading and will teach you a lot.。