Summer Reading Guide Essay

Helen Burns has a very different perspective than Jane. She is able to accept everything that happens to her and when punished, she feels that she deserves it. Helen is a great believer in G-d and is determined to live by biblical precepts. While Helen is not oblivious to the injustices the girls suffer at Lowood, she believes that punishments and rewards will be received in the next world. “[Jane] heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance, and still less could I understand a sympathise with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected she might be right or wrong, but I would not ponder the matter deeply: like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season” (Brontë 47). Although she is picked on and reprimanded for all her misdeeds,

As a feminist, Jane is able to protect herself when she is in a situation where she needs to be defended. For instance, when her brutish older cousin John hurls a hardcover book at her head, she pounces back by attacking him in defense. She also faces no difficulty in successfully defeating her cold-hearted aunt in a verbal fight, just at the tender age of ten. Jane is surely unafraid of the consequences that she has to face on actions that she believes as rightfully done. This amazing trait remains even as she proceeds into adulthood and meets the love of her life. She is able to deal with, and even stand up to Mr. Rochester’s unreasonable verbal attacks directed at her. She clearly shows her dauntless side of her personality, by speaking her own mind when Mr. Rochester demands for the money that he had given her. Jane refuses clear cut, and Mr. Rochester asks to then at least let him see the cash. Jane refuses again by retorting that he is “not to be trusted.” Jane has an honest and truthful soul who knows how to speak for herself, unlike many women during this period of time. Jane is never concerned about what other people would think of her if she tells them the exact truth about everything. She is able to inform her departure by cancelling off the wedding between herself and Mr. Rochester after what she had witnessed and experienced. Jane cries out “you are a married man-or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you- to one with whom you have no sympathy- whom I do not believe you truly love; for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union: therefore I am better than you- let me go!” Jane is able to truthfully utter her thoughts, her true opinion without being afraid; even if it was to someone she dearly loved. When Mr. Rochester angrily cries out, “Jane, be still; don’t struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in its

Jane's aunt was a very mean and cold person, she disliked Jane and would often show it by keeping her isolated from her kids and not letting Jane enter certain parts of the house. At one point in the story Jane was punished and sent to a room where she was locked up,she let out a loud scream after seeing what she thought was a ghost. Mrs. Reed eventually came down to see her and that's where Jane began to beg ‘’O aunt! Have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it-Let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if-’’. Although Jane begged to be let out in the story it said ‘’Mrs.Reed impatient of my now frantic anguish and wild sobs abruptly thrust me back and locked me in’’. Mrs. Reed had absolutely no remorse for any actions she committed toward Jane,she often neglected

The character Jane starts off as an orphaned young girl. Jane was born into the poor class, she lives with her aunt and cousins that torture her. Jane is then sent away to a school called Lowood where she is taught how to become a woman. Jane remains as a student at Lowood until she is sixteen years old. When Jane reaches the age of Eighteen she then moves up to the working class and becomes a teacher at Lowood. Jane works as a teacher for a good amount of time and teach girls that were just like her. When a disease outbreaks, everything at Lowood falls apart. When an Mrs. Temple, a teacher who has helped Jane, leaves lowood to get married Jane realizes that she should leave and search for a new job. When Jane come across a job at a place called Thornfield she leaves Lowood for good and sets off to her new journey.

With this new information, Jane has a new-found confidence, leading her to stand up against her wicked aunt and displays that she is not afraid of them anymore. With this incident occurring between her and her Aunt Reed, she is sent to school to receive an education. This school, titled the Lowood Institution, was an all-girls charity school that was ran by Mr. Bokorhurst, the one who paid for all the food, clothes, and servants and teachers. After early scrutiny by her peers, Jane was soon accepted and made friends with Helen Burns, one of the outcasts at Lowood. Along with her new companion, Jane discovers that Mr. Bokorhurt was turning the schoolgirls into zombies, which lead Jane to take action. While trying to thwart Mr. Bokorhurt’s plan, one of Jane’s teachers, the kind Miss Temple discovers Mr. Bokorhurst’s wrongdoings and aides Jane in her quest. While Jane and Miss Temple are trying to cease Mr. Bokorhurst’s plan, Helen becomes ill, leading her to become one of the zombies, causing Jane to behead her, and end her misery. Along with Miss Temple, her only friend, Jane slays all the

However Helen Burns, one of Jane‘s best friends, who’s very forgiving and a patient person, Helen rebels and brings some food to Jane after everyone left the dining room. Helen helps Jane to be more cheerful and forgives those who have made Jane unhappy; Helen teaches Jane how to offer kindness. Soon after Jane‘s punishment, unfortunately, the diseases approached to Lowood school causing Helen and other students to become ill. Helen asks Jane if she will stay with her at night, “ but don’t leave me, Jane; I like to have you near me” (Bronte 153). As both girls go to sleep, Helen dies in her sleep and in the morning Jane is carried away from Helen. Jane’s got rid of naivete and instilled after Helen’s death, and Jane's more mature perspective on life.

She wakes up in the care of Bessie and the doctor Mr. Lloyd, who suggests to Mrs. Reed that Jane be sent away to school (Lowood). At Lowood things start out rough but progressively get better. After finishing school there she becomes a teacher at Lowood for 2 years. After teaching, she accepts a governess position as a manor where she teaches a French girl. She secretly falls in love with her employer (Rochester) and has to save him from a fire one night.

Jane lived for ten years at Gateshead Hall with her uncle’s family, the Reeds. After her cruel aunt and cousins made her life miserable, they sent her to Lowood Institution, a

Jane’s reaction to punishment and abuse is much opposed to Helen’s reaction. While still at Gateshead Hall, when Mrs. Reed calls Jane a deceitful girl, Jane responds with fiery passion, “I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you” (36), letting out a tirade of accusation against her. Jane is very likely to respond to punishment and injustices against her by “resist[ing] those who punish [her] unjustly” (58). Contrary to Jane, Helen’s philosophy is one of enduring. She views Miss Scatchard’s actions against her as severe and strict rather then

Brocklehurst for a little while, Jane finally has an ugly encounter with him where he publicly humiliates her and tells the student body that she is a liar and forbids anyone to speak to her for the remainder of the day. Jane is defeated and believes her relationship with other students and teachers will be tarnished permanently after this kind of embarrassment. In a pleasant turn of events, after Miss Temple gets confirmation that Jane’s childhood and home-life was miserable and that her aunt had created the scuttlebutt about Jane, Miss Temple announces to the school in retaliation that Jane is not a liar and was falsely accused. Fast forward a little to the spring where people are becoming ill all throughout the school because of the changing temperatures. Helen becomes ill with malnutrition rather than typhus and is dying. He expresses that she is happy to go and Jane lays in bed with her where Helen dies in her sleep that same night. Because of the typhus epidemic, Mr. Brocklehurst is blamed and a new group of administrators is brought in. Jane becomes a very dedicated student after this and eventually becomes a teacher. Later, she accepts a position in a manor called Thornfield. Life at Thornfield is comfortable and much better than Jane’s early life. She meets Adele and Rochester and learns of their troubling and mysterious past which resonates with

While at Lowood the reader also starts to see one of Jane’s weaknesses - she desperately needs people to love her since she was without love for so long at Gateshead. She receives this love from Helen and the head of the school, Miss Temple. Unfortunately Helen dies after Jane being there only a short time. Jane finishes her schooling at Lowood and begins to teach there. Eventually Miss Temple gets married and leaves. Since Miss Temple moves on, Jane has nothing left there and takes a Governess job at Thornfield that she knows nothing about.

      At Lowood Jane also learns she can be judged by her own merits. Mr. Brocklehurst, the administrator, announced to the entire school that by her Aunt Reed's assessment, Jane is a liar. The superintendent, Miss Temple, as well as Helen Burns, rally to Jane's support. They declare Jane, by the conduct they have observed, to be of good character. This opinion is collaborated and Jane is publicly cleared of any wrong doing.

Though Mr. Brocklehurst leaves the Lowood institution, Jane continues to feel the urge to leave the premises once the sense of a home is gone. Miss Temple helps manage the institution after Brocklehurst for many years. However, she eventually marries and leaves Lowood. Miss Temple’s absence, however, inadvertently makes Jane restless. To the audience, Jane conveys, “...it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed, but the reason for

Jane receives a letter from Mr. Bingley and her mother quickly thinks that she has to visit him and go there riding so she is caught by a storm and has to stay in Mr Bingley’s house all the night. She is caught by the storm and gets a cold, so she has to stay there some time more.

Perhaps as a result of her upbringing, which was full of cruelty and abuse, Jane developed a strong sense of what was right and what was wrong. As a child, these traits translated to insolence as she disobeyed and spoke out against the wrongdoing of adults that were so used to children being seen and not heard, resulting in Mr Brocklehurst warning her that “wicked” children go to hell . However, her moral compass develops and as an adult Jane begins to relish her own freedom and independence. She has been under other people’s care for so long – for example Mrs Reed, Miss Abbot and Mr Brocklehurst – that when she is able to start anew at Thornfield she values her ability to control her own life and does not wish to become a possession of Mr Rochester. This can be seen when Mr Rochester takes her to Millcote to buy new dresses following their engagement and her cheek “burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation” as she “never [could] bear being dressed like a doll by Mr Rochester” , and would value the money from her uncle in Madeira as it would give her a sense of independence from Mr Rochester. Her desire for independence and freedom is further stressed when she leaves Thornfield following the