230 Brontë, Charlotte
other victims’ deaths are not in vain: Their demises
bring the school to public scrutiny. Although Mr.
Brocklehurst is not discharged, a few gentlemen are
roped in to aid him in his duties, transforming the
school into a better institution.
In a nurturing environment, with the encour-
agement and cultivation of Miss Temple, the head-
mistress of Lowood, Jane blossoms: She excels
in her studies and becomes a teacher in Lowood
and, later, a governess for Adele Varens, ward of
Edward Rochester. Not only is Jane able to earn her
own living, she is also inwardly changed. Through
education, she manages to control the hysteria she
previously manifested to Mrs. Reed when she was
- Such is Jane’s transformation that, as an adult,
she readily forgives Mrs. Reed on her deathbed, even
though the woman had mistreated Jane.
In addition to Jane, other female characters are
also improved by education. When Jane suspects
that Rochester might tempt her to be his mistress,
she leaves him without taking a penny. On the verge
of collapsing from extreme exhaustion and starva-
tion, she chances upon the Rivers’s cottage. When
Jane sees Mary and Diana, her long-lost cousins,
through a window poring over a book, she knows
they will be willing to help her. It is not coincidental
that Diana and Mary are kind and learned; educa-
tion instills in one a sense of righteousness. The
influence of an educated upbringing is so power-
ful that it can also overcome what nature gave to
Adele. Adele has inherited the faults of her vain and
materialistic French mother, but “a sound English
education corrected in a great measure [Adele’s]
French defects.”
While the women in the novel undertake a
secular education in embroidery, music, art, and lan-
guages, the men’s education is of a spiritual nature.
St. John Rivers, Diana and Mary’s brother, learns
Hindi for his missionary work in India. For Roches-
ter, his spiritual education comes from his sufferings.
Only after his estate is lost and he is maimed and
blinded does he start praying. It is one of his prayers
that brings Jane back to him: When Jane is deliber-
ating over St. John’s marriage proposal, she hears Mr.
Rochester’s prayer, even though they are miles apart.
Education is an important theme in Jane Eyre.
The novel criticizes the abominable way many
schools were run in the 1800s, but it also shows that
if they were run properly, schools had the potential
to develop students of intellectual and moral distinc-
tion like Jane and Adele.
Aaron HoGender in Jane Eyre
Although Jane Eyre is not the first feminist mani-
festo, it is provocative for the Victorian period as it
advocates equality between the sexes. For instance,
after Jane Eyre has moved into Thornfield as a gov-
erness, she is restless because she has no intellectual
equal. Her two companions are Adele Varens, a
child, and Mrs. Fairfax, a kind but dull housekeeper.
Women of the time are generally regarded as calm
and resigned to their fate, but Jane argues that
“women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for
their faculties and a field for their efforts as much
as their brothers do.... It is narrow minded in their
more privileged fellow-creatures [men] to say that
they ought to confine themselves to making pud-
dings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano
and embroidering bags.”
It is, however, not easy to achieve gender equal-
ity in the Victorian patriarchal society. Jane is
constantly being put down by men—Mr. Brockle-
hurst, Edward Rochester, and St. John Rivers. Mr.
Brocklehurst is the clergyman in charge of Lowood
School, where Jane studies from ages 10 to 18. His
philosophy in education is for the students to live
a frugal and severe existence so that they can gain
spiritual fortitude; the girls are therefore taught to
deny and stifle their natural instincts, and as a result,
they are often starved and cold. Because of semi-
starvation, neglected colds, and poor conditions of
the school ground, many of the students fall ill and
die. Mr. Brocklehurst’s dictatorial powers are greatly
diminished when several gentlemen are roped in to
ensure the school’s proper running.
Like Mr. Brocklehurst, St. John advocates self-
abnegation. Unlike the hypocritical Brocklehurst,
however, St. John practices what he preaches. He
proposes to Jane even though he does not love her;
as a missionary, he chooses Jane because she has the
right qualities to be a missionary’s wife. He expects
Jane to deny her natural instincts—for she does
not love him, either—in order to serve God. Even