Jane Eyre Essay

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Jane was a European woman in the 18th or 19th century with no family or connections. This was a bad start to creating an enjoyable life, but although Jane’s status didn’t give her great odds of happiness, she achieved it by being a creative thinker. Throughout this book, Brontë showed how Jane’s wits and good ideas shaped her journey to adulthood. By examining Jane through a Psychological lens, the reader gains insight to her how she and her thoughts mature, how she analyzes the people around her, and how she is driven by her thoughts. Reading the book through this particular lens helps to understand who exactly Jane is. From a young age, Jane was independent, because she grew up with no one to mentor. Most people are constantly exposed to their parents’ and siblings’ views and therefore accept them as their own. Jane did not have that problem. Because of Jane’s orphancy and her disconnection from her caretakers, the reader has the opportunity to see a fresh set of views and thoughts, and it helps that the story was told in the first person. As Jane recounted her life story many years later, there was the potential for emotional bias. For example, In her description of her encounter with John Reed, she says “Wicked and cruel boy! You are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!” (Gutenberg ch1). Surely Jane didn’t actually think these things, but she let her immaturity and feelings get the best of her because Jane’s thoughts were driven by passion. People don’t remember the little details of their childhood. They remember the times that make them emotional. Because of this, Jane likely left out a lot of other stories from this time that weren’t the most exciting. Although these stories would better help the readers understand Jane, it is interesting to only know the major points from her childhood. Jane’s thought …show more content…
She described those around her in simple, surface-level terms. For example Jane’s depiction of John Reed was that he “was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities” (Gutenberg Ch2). From a young age, Jane already wanted to better understand those around her, and she started out by describing John’s looks. Her undeveloped sense of analysis bounded the reader to mediocre descriptions in the early chapters. But, as Jane grew more mature, so did her vocabulary and thoughts of other people; she began to think of people on a deeper level. After Jane settled in St. John’s home, she immediately began to analyze the people in it. “Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it, and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing,” Jane said of Diana (Gutenberg Ch28). By looking through the psychological lens here, the reader obtains indirect characterization of Jane. Jane looked deeper than the physical aspects of Diana. She thought about how her facial expressions conveyed emotion and thoughts. Brontë reveals Jane’s maturity through the way she thinks. Jane understood people after only a few moments spent together. Jane’s analyses show that she was in an intentional person. Jane wanted to understand everyone in the room, and if she could not pin them down

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