Themes

Question 1

Religion

(Helen Burns)

Answer 1

‘Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.’ (Helen Burns)

Question 2

Religion

(Brocklehurst)

Answer 2

‘We are not to conform to nature. I wish these girls to be the children of Grace.’ Brocklehurst-Chapter 7

Question 3

Religion

(Jane)

Answer 3

‘He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.’Jane’s sense of independence and blasphemous ideas about her love for Rochester.

Question 4

Gothic

(Gateshead)

Answer 4

‘I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed… I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp’ Jane in the Red Room chapter 2

Question 5

Gothic

(Thornfield)

Answer 5

‘The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd murmur.’ Chapter 11, when Jane first hears Bertha’s laugh.

Question 6

Gothic

(Thornfield)

Answer 6

“No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marveled where you had got that sort of face. When you came upon me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?” Rochester describes Jane.

Question 7

Gothic

(Thornfield-linked to Bertha)

Answer 7

It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell.” Description of Bertha

Question 8

Gothic

(Moor House)

Answer 8

“Jane! Jane! Jane!”—nothing more.’ When Jane hears Rochester’s voice calling out for her to return.

Question 9

Colonisalism 1

Answer 9

“These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common.’ Rochester’s thoughts on Bertha

Question 10

Colomialism 2

Answer 10

‘Wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with such language!—no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word—the thin partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish cries.’ Rochester’s thoughts on Bertha.

Question 11

Women in the patriarchal society 1

Answer 11

Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, “Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot.”

“Yes,” responded Abbot, “if she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that.” Chapter 3

Question 12

Women in the patriarchal society 2

Answer 12

“Oh, sir!—never mind jewels! I don’t like to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would rather not have them.”

Question 13

Role of a governess 1

Answer 13

‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain.’

Question 14

Role of a governess 2

Answer 14

‘I have just one word to say of the whole tribe; they are a nuisance. Not that I ever suffered much from them; I took care to turn the tables.’ Blanche Ingram emphasises the divide between upper and working class-she is discussing governesses.

Question 15

Social Class 1

Answer 15

‘A more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner-something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were-she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contended, happy little children.’ (Chapter one, Mrs Reed’s claims about Jane)

Question 16

The Marriage Market 1

Answer 16

‘I am my husband’s life as fully as mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.’ (Jane’s final thoughts on her marriage to Rochester-Chap 38)

Question 17

The Marriage Market 2

Answer 17

“Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two picture and compare them: say, ‘Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady’s love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?’

Question 18

Education 1

Answer 18

‘I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, modestly, plainly.’ Mr Brocklehurst

Question 19

Education 2

Answer 19

“Julia Severn, ma’am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she conform to the world so openly—here in an evangelical, charitable establishment—as to wear her hair one mass of curls?” Mr Brocklehurst, chapter 7

Question 20

Education

Answer 20

“I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel’ Mr Brocklehurst, chapter 7

Question 21

Equality 1

Answer 21

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” (Jane, Chapter 23)

Question 22

Equality 2

Answer 22

‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart!’ (Jane, Chapter 23)

Question 23

Equality 3

Answer 23

‘Women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer.’ Jane’s ideas on gender inequality in chapter 12

Question 24

Passion 1

Answer 24

‘Like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.’ (Chapter 2, Jane feeling rebellious in her punishment-she links here to Bertha for the first time.)

Question 25

Passion 2

Answer 25

‘My soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty’ (Jane’s thoughts after confronting Mrs Reed-chapter 4.)

Question 26

Passion 3

Answer 26

“I am a hard woman-impossible to put off.” “And then,” he pursued, “I am cold: no fervor infects me.” “Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice.”’ St. John and Jane’s battle of wits. Chapter 33.

Question 27

Passion 4

Answer 27

‘I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to visit you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick’

Question 28

Independence 1

Answer 28

‘Soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? Or who will be injured by what you do? Still indomitable was the reply: ‘I care for myself.’ Chapter 27-Jane is torn between her love for Rochester and her need to maintain self-respect and morality.

Question 29

Independence 2

Answer 29

‘Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic.’ St. John’s description of Jane, but it appears that although this seems like praise St. John does not appreciate Jane’s true nature.

Question 30

Independence 3

Answer 30

“A new servitude! There is something in that,” I soliloquized (mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud). “I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly’ When Jane wants to leave Thornfield.