Quotes by theme

Question 1

Illusion and reality: pre-Thornfield

Answer 1

Gateshead –
‘having drawn the red moreen curtain’

Mrs Reed –
‘her worst fault, a tendency to deceit’
‘I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity’

Lowood -
Brocklehurst: ‘you must be on your guard against her; (…) this girl is – a liar!’
Miss Temple ‘carrying a light’ (symbolic of virtue and truth)

Question 2

Illusion and reality: Jane and Rochester

Answer 2

‘Do you know Mr Rochester? (…) Can you tell me where he is?’
‘it was not my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you’
‘you were no beauty as a child’/’I smiled at Bessie’s frank answer’ (foreshadows Jane telling Rochester he is not handsome)

Question 3

Illusion and reality: marriage/Celine/Blanche

Answer 3

Rochester and Celine/Blanche –
‘I liked bonbons too in those days’
‘a carriage, cashmeres, diamonds, dentelles, etc’
‘a scent of musk and amber, than an odour of sanctity’
‘I bethought myself to open the window’
‘Mon ange’
‘their conversation eased me completely; frivolous, mercenary, heartless and senseless’/’neither of them possessed energy or wit’

Charades and marriage –
‘easy to recognise the pantomime of marriage’

Gypsy –
‘a web of mystification’
‘the fire scorches me’

Question 4

Illusion and reality: Bertha

Answer 4

‘beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell’
‘on all fours’
‘clothed hyena’
‘rent (the veil) in two parts’

Question 5

Religion: corrupt

Answer 5

Lowood –
‘half of [Lowood] seemed gray and old, the other half quite new’
‘long hour and a half of prayer and bible-reading’
‘ready to perish with cold’
‘encouraging them to evince fortitude under the temporary privation’
Brocklehurst: ‘do you know where the wicked go after death?’
B’s children and wife with ‘fine silk’ and ‘furs’
‘God will punish her’

Question 6

Religion: St John

Answer 6

St John –
‘we must be married’
gives up his ‘elysium’

Question 7

Religion: Helen/Ms Temple

Answer 7

Helen –
‘there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits’
‘I had not qualities or talents’
‘patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment’
warns Jane ‘thinks too much of the love of human beings’
‘a hero, a martyr’
‘I live in calm, looking to the end’

Ms Temple –
‘we shall think you what you prove yourself to be’
‘on nectar and ambrosia’

Question 8

Religion: Jane’s own

Answer 8

Jane’s own –

The moon: ‘it spoke to my spirit (…) ‘my daughter, flee temptation’’, Jane answers ‘I will’

Question 9

Love and marriage: pre-Thornfield

Answer 9

Gateshead –
‘you think I have no feelings; and that I can live without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so’

Lowood –
Helen warns Jane ‘thinks too much of the love of human beings’

Question 10

Love and marriage: Jane and Rochester

Answer 10

‘my bride is here (…) my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?’
‘a jay in borrowed plumes (…) tricked out in stage trappings’
‘Janette’
‘Reader, I married him’
‘I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom (…) it is my spirit that address your spirit’
‘Reason, and not feeling, is my guide’
‘Reason holds the reins’
‘flaming and flashing eyes’
‘I thought unaccountably of fairytales’

Question 11

Love and marriage: Jane and St John

Answer 11

‘Our union must be sealed and consecrated by marriage’
‘freezing spell’
‘he will never love me; but he shall approve me’
St John gives up his ‘elysium’

Question 12

Love and marriage: Rochester and Bertha

Answer 12

‘‘That,’ said Rochester, ‘is my wife’’
‘rent (the veil) in two parts’
‘she took (Jane’s) veil from its place (…) then threw it over her head’
‘mad, bad and embruted partner’

Question 13

Love and marriage: Rochester and Blanche

Answer 13

during charades, ‘easy to recognise the pantomime of marriage’
‘I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps for political reasons (…) she could not charm him’
‘probably she loves him or, if not his person, at least his purse’

Question 14

Home and family: Gateshead/Ms Temple/Moor House/Thornfield

Answer 14

Gateshead –
‘you think I have no feelings; and that I can live without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so’

Ms Temple –
‘from the day she left I was no longer the same; with her was gone every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me’
‘my little girl’

Moor House –
‘Diana’ and ‘Mary’ names of the Greek deity and Christian mother

Thornfield –
‘I love Thornfield: - … because I have lived in it a full and delightful life… I have not been been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried in inferior minds’
To leave it is ‘like looking on the necessity of death.’

Question 15

Madness: Jane

Answer 15

‘picture of passion’
‘wild, involuntary cry’
‘frantic anguish and wild sobs’

Question 16

Madness: Bertha

Answer 16

‘beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell’
‘on all fours’
‘clothed hyena’
‘mad, bad and embruted partner’

Question 17

Freedom

Answer 17

Gateshead –
‘you wicked and cruel boy – you are a slave driver – you are like the Roman emperors!’

Thornfield –
‘What! You are my paid subordinate, are you?’
‘arraigned at my own bar’
‘leave Thornfield at once’
‘Janette’
‘a jay in borrowed plumes (…) tricked out in stage trappings’

Question 18

Social class: Gateshead/Lowood

Answer 18

Gateshead –
‘you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us’
‘you would have to go to the poorhouse… these words were not new to me’
‘you wicked and cruel boy – you are a slave driver – you are like the Roman emperors!’
‘under obligations’

Lowood –
B’s children and wife with ‘fine silk’ and ‘furs’

Question 19

Social class: Thornfield

Answer 19

‘What! You are my paid subordinate, are you?’
‘Reader, I married him’
‘half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous, and all incubi’
Mrs Fairfax: ‘but you see they are only servants’/’I’m only a housekeeper’

Question 20

Social class: St John

Answer 20

‘you shall take a walk, and with me’

‘I will not marry you’

Question 21

Social class: Adele

Answer 21

‘a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs’
‘in very bad taste that point was’
‘gave me pretty dresses and toys’
‘not been used to regular occupation’

Question 22

Beauty: Georgiana/Blanche/St John

Answer 22

Georgiana –
‘seemed to (…) purchase indemnity for every fault’

Blanche –
‘delineate carefully the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest hues, according to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram’

St John –
‘Classical’
‘Athenian’

Question 23

Beauty: Jane/Rochester/Bertha

Answer 23

Jane –
‘you were no beauty as a child’/’I smiled at Bessie’s frank answer’

Rochester –
‘broad and jetty eyebrows’
‘flaming and flashing eyes’
‘neither tall nor graceful’

Bertha –
‘figure’
‘it was a discoloured face – it was a savage face’
‘goblin’
‘the foul German spectre – the Vampyre’

Question 24

Substitute mothers: Reed/Bessie/Ms Temple/Moon/Diana

Answer 24

Reed –
‘impatient of my now frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me in’
‘under obligations’

Bessie –
‘you’ve not quite forgotten me’
‘you were no beauty as a child’/’I smiled at Bessie’s frank answer’
‘each went her separate way’

Ms Temple –
‘from the day she left I was no longer the same; with her was gone every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me’

Moon –
‘it spoke to my spirit (…) ‘my daughter, flee temptation’’, Jane answers ‘I will’

Diana –
‘it was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers’

Question 25

Gender: Equality

Answer 25

‘A woman feels as a man does’
(to St John) ‘I will not marry you’
‘Reader, I married him’
‘at least shake hands’ (after fire)

Question 26

Gender: Jane and Rochester

Answer 26

‘Janette’
‘a man like me (…) quaint, inexperienced girl like you’
‘a jay in borrowed plumes (…) tricked out in stage trappings’
‘Reader, I married him’
‘my bride is here (…) my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?’
‘Jane, Jane, Jane’
‘at least shake hands’ (after fire)

Question 27

Gender: Rochester

Answer 27

‘grimacing grimly’
‘he mastered it directly’
‘impatient yet formal tone’
‘I am used to say “do this” and it is done’
‘you have secured the shadow of your thought; no more’

Question 28

Gender: Jane and St John

Answer 28

‘you shall take a walk, and with me’

‘I will not marry you’

Question 29

Gender: Bertha

Answer 29

‘‘That,’ said Rochester, ‘is my wife’’
‘she took (Jane’s) veil from its place (…) then threw it over her head’
‘mad, bad and embruted partner’
‘witch, sorceress’

Question 30

Violence and suffering: Gateshead

Answer 30

‘every nerve I feared him’
‘you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us’
‘you would have to go to the poorhouse… these words were not new to me’
‘curtains with deep red damask’
‘the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze’
‘you wicked and cruel boy – you are a slave driver – you are like the Roman emperors!’
(towards Jane) ‘this violence is almost repulsive’

Question 31

Violence and suffering: Lowood

Answer 31

‘it was bitter cold’

‘stifling my breath and constricting my throat’

Question 32

Violence and suffering: Thornfield

Answer 32

‘my sole relief was to walk along the corridor… backwards and forwards’
‘stagnation’
‘too rigid a restraint’
‘the more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself’
‘arraigned at my own bar’

Question 33

Fire and Ice

Answer 33

Gateshead –
‘curtains with deep red damask’
‘the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze’
‘it was bitter cold’

Rochester –
‘the fire scorches me’
‘flaming and flashing eyes’

Thornfield –
‘strong smell of burning’

St John –
‘freezing spell’

Question 34

Isolation

Answer 34

Gateshead –
‘broken boat’
‘wreck just sinking’

Lowood –
‘coach instantly drove away’

Thornfield –
‘return to stagnation (…) ascend the darksome staircase (…) my own lonely little room’
‘the more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself’

Question 35

Light

Answer 35

Lowood –
‘uncertain light of the fire’
Miss Temple ‘carrying a light’
‘a light shone through the keyhole’ (Helen’s death)

Thornfield -
‘A livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud’

Question 36

Spiritual bildungsroman

Answer 36

Gateshead –
‘my tears had rise, just as in childhood; I ordered them back to their source’
‘children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings’

Lowood –
‘momentarily forgot my own sorrows to yield a vague concern’ for Helen
‘mindful of Helen’s warnings about the indulgence of resentment’
‘mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend’