Student Essay on Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Essay

Jane Eyre is a story of a courageous 18 year old girl who is paved to the path of love by her own choices. She falls in love with her master, Mr. Rochester, who is twice as old as she is and is confronted with problems. As she lives in his huge mansion, he has parties with wealthy people and her character doesn't fit in with the crowd. She isn't prepared to please him if he offends her dignity and so she refuses to become his mistress. So she runs away from thornfield and finds a battered house atop a hill where she finds three people who are siblings. St. John asks her to marry him but not out of love and she bravely rejects his proposal. When she is reunited with Mr. Rochester she finds that he's been disfigured because of the fire at thornfield. Even so, she marries the disfigured and blind Edward Rochester. On the path of finding true love, she still holds her individuality because of her courage and acceptance of her individuality.

From the beginning of the book, Jane had a sense of her self-worth and dignity, a commitment to justice and principle, and a trust in God. Jane had to learn to balance the frequently conflicting aspects of her. Jane was an orphan since early childhood, and felt exiled at the beginning of the novel. The cruel treatment Aunt Reed and her cousins gave her only increased her feeling of alienation. She felt the need to belong somewhere. She also wanted freedom. In her search for freedom, Jane struggled with the question of what type of freedom she wants. While Mr. Rochester offers Jane a chance to have her passions, Jane realizes that that kind of freedom could also mean enslavement--by living as Rochester's mistress, she would be sacrificing her dignity for the sake of her feelings. St. John Rivers offers Jane another kind of freedom: the freedom to let her go by her principles. Jane eventually realizes, though, that this freedom would also have a form of imprisonment, because she would be forced to keep her true feelings and her true passions always in check.

Jane Eyre's major conflict is her social class and Mr. Rochester's social class. Mr. Rochester is a wealthy man and Jane is far below his level in social status.