Text References
From Jane Eyre
Notes for Jane Eyre* Quotations from Text*
| Page 13 - The idea that there is a specific way for a child to behave and that it is naturally to behave in that manner. That it is natural for a child to be sweet tempered, content, and happy. |
"but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavoring in good earnest to acquire 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 contented, happy, little children" |
| Page 15 - Reading is Jane's outlet to escape from the horrors of her world. | "With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption" |
| Page 17 - Class is brought up in the first chapter, that Jane is of a low class status is significant to consider against all she does and how her class status changes in the novel. | "you are a dependant, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us" |
| Page 20 - Idea the since Jane has nothing she should try to please others regardless of how she feels or what she wants. | "it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to them." |
| Page 28 - Religious reference to Jesus when he is dieing on the cross. She knows that she should forgive Mrs. Reed since her Aunt does not know the extent of suffering she makes Jane endure. | "But I ought to forgive you, for you know not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only up-rooting my bad propensities." |
| Page 32 - Jane has very high expectations for herself. | "poverty for me was synonymous with degradation." |
| Page 41-42 - Shows that Jane is honest and says what is real. She does not say what she thinks that people want to hear and will not tell a lie to get out of trouble but always tells the truth. | "'What must you do to avoid it?'" [hell] "'I must keep in good health, and not die'" / "'And the Psalms? I hope you like them.' 'No, sir.'" |
| Page 45-46 - Jane finally breaks down and yells at her Aunt. All ties with her so called family are severed and we see how her life with the Reeds and her visit to the red-room has taken a large emotional toll on Jane. We see that Jane needs love and care which she has not had. | "'How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth. You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity.'" |
| Page 86 - Jane finally wants to expand her mind and learn instead of thinking about the lack of food and material things. | "That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper, of hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings. I feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark – all the work of my own hands…" |
| Page 98-99 - Jane has a desire to do something new and get outside of the world that she knows even if there are risks. In the time period this novel is set in, perhaps Jane is ahead of her time to express and do what she wants. | "now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils." |
| Page 113-114 - Jane sees her physical appearance as a set back. See views herself as unattractive and wishes to be more beautiful. | "I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer" |
| Page 152-153 - Jane refuses to be intimidated and will not let what she believes is right get in the way even if it means not talking to her master, Mr. Rochester. | "If he expects me to talk for the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed himself to the wrong person." |
| Page 198 - Jane is trying to talk herself out of loving Mr. Rochester although impossible. She also is addressing the reader. | "I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, great and strong! He made me love him without looking at me" |
| Page 225 - There have been many spiritual moments in Jane's life such as the red-room that lead to life changing events. This is one of those moments. Jane describes the gipsy as spirit like in the way it affects her and leads to Mr. Rochester and Jane knowing they like one another. | "whose strange talk, voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings, and taking record of every pulse." |
| Page 321 - Jane sees herself in the mirror and it seems like she is seeing a stranger. Perhaps Jane can not picture herself being married. Is this an omen? | "I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger." |
| Page 361 - Although Jane knows that leaving Thornfield will not be easy, making her face many hardships, she knows that she must. She will not sacrifice her values even for love. | "Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt? May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonized as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love" |
| Page 443 - Here Jane is doing everything to please St. John even against her will. Why? Maybe Jane wants to fit in as part of their family or St. John is disappointed or upset with Jane. | "I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said 'go' I went; 'come', I came; 'do this', I did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me." |
| Page 452 - St. John is trying to get Jane to marry him but Jane wants love and knows that she will not receive that from John. | From the paragraph before "Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you.'" until "'Oh! I will give my heart to God,' I said. ' You do not want it.'" |
| Page 500 - Is Jane and Mr. Rochester's marriage one of equality? Is it one only because Mr. Rochester is blind? | "No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh." |
* All text references are as in the Penguin Classics Edition Published in 2003