The search for identity and independence in Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bront is a novel which develops the story of a poor girl, Jane,
which is in a continuous search for love and admiration, but also for her true existence. What I
want to prove through this essay is that the writing called Jane Eyre represents a real
masterpiece of the Victorian literature, describing the life of an unhappy child and his
transformation into an independent adult. Jane Eyre manages to become an intelligent woman
with the help of her motivation and education. The fact that she learns to read, to write and to
draw at the boarding school makes her a special character and we will see why.
Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman, written from the first person point of view. As Lilia
Melani says, In general, a first person point of view has the advantages of being a constant point
of view and helping to make the work consistent; also, it tends to give authority and credibility to
the narrative, since the person telling the story observed and/or was involved in all the
incidents. (Melani)
I agree with this critical statement because the narrative writing has a stronger impact
on the reader by expressing in a direct way the feelings of the character. The fact that the main
character is the narrator too gives the opportunity to see and to feel the emotions of Jane.
The first appearance of Jane Eyre lets to see the weakness of the main character, she is
offended by her cousin, John Reed. In spite of the fact that she is innocent, she is punished by
two housemaids by the obligation to stay locked in an uninhabited room, with red walls and red
furniture. That room will be the first frightening experience of Jane because she hears a strange
noise. Because of the shock, Jane passes out. This is the first moment of Janes development, the
first meeting of the character with the anxiety. This situation is special put by the author, to make
Jane Eyre to react against her statut of poor and orphan child.

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All John Reeds violent tyrannies, all his sisters proud indifference, all his mothers
aversion, all the servants partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a deposit in a turbid
well (Bront 10).
When she is sent to a boarding school she manages to survive there in spite of the
authority of that place. There she learns to read, to paint, to read, to sew, essential elements of her
education and development. The prove of her will is the fact that she decides to stay in that
school two years having the statut of a teacher.
The independence of the character is cleary seen in the moment in which she takes the
decision to leave the school and to work as a governess for Adle, the alleged daughter of
Edward Rochester. At Thornfield, Jane lives a beautiful period of her existence with the old Mrs.
Fairfax and the playful Adle. The only mysterious and serious character is Mr. Rochester, her
master. The relation between these two characters is a cold one at the beginning, Jane and Mr.
Rochester avoiding to talk too much. Although he is twenty years older than her, intellectually
speaking, they can be considered equal. The female character manages to impress Edward
Rochester with the help of her intelligence. But the Thornfields master is not the only character
of the book which is impressed by the intelligence and the wisdom of Jane, St. John, her
unknown cousin, begins to have interesant dicutions with her. These two characters represent the
proof of her development.
The failed marriage with Mr. Rochester, in spite of his love for Jane, makes the main
character to run away from Thornfield and to arrive to an unknown place, where she is forced to
beg for the help of some strangers. In this way she finds out that Diana, Mary an St. John are her
cousins. When she is announced by St. John that she inherited the fortune of her uncle, she is not
happy for the financial benfit, she is grateful for the fact that she finally found some benevolent
relatives. This moment proves the wisdom of the character.
All in all, Jane Eyre is an important character, which represents the independence, the
freedom and the strength of the woman. Her will to develop herself started from a frightening
experience (in the red room, at Gateshead) and made her to overcome the condition. In this way,
Charlotte Bront brings in the English literature the first female figure, which represents the
opposite of the ordinary woman in the nineteenth century.

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Bibliography
Primary source:
Bront, Charlotte, Jane Eyre, 1847. London: Wordsworth Classics, 1999.
Secondary source
Melani, Lilia, Charlotte Bronte , March 30, 2011
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/bronte.html

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