What does the ending of

Jane Eyre mean?

For many readers, “the blackened ruin” which

Jane finds when she returns to Thornfield, and the

blinded, scorched and charred Rochester she

seeks out at Ferndean, represent the vanquishing

of the novel’s sexual energies. “Mr Rochester’s sex

passion is not ‘respectable’,” said D.H. Lawrence,

“till Mr Rochester is burned, blinded, disfigured

and reduced to helpless dependence.

Why does Jane return to

Rochester?

The portion of the novel which recounts Jane’s

time as a parish schoolteacher at Morton, and her

connection with the Rivers family, is often

neglected, especially in film or television

adaptations, as being irrelevant or at best

secondary to the central love story. But this

episode does not simply fill in gaps in the plot or

delay Jane’s climactic return to Rochester.

Why does Jane leave

Rochester?

“All self-sacrifice is good,” wrote George Eliot, on

reading Jane Eyre, “but one could like it to be in a

somewhat nobler cause than that of a diabolical

law which chains a man body and soul to a

putrefying carcase.

Where is sex in Jane Eyre?

What is love?

To the first question the answer often seems

simply: “sex is in Bertha” – albeit imperfectly

contained – or “in Rochester”, the two obviously

sexual creatures of the book. If Bertha seems to

offer a cautionary illustration of the dangers of

excessive sexual appetite, Rochester’s example is

much more equivocal.

Why is Bertha so

important?

In the deep shade… a figure ran backwards and

forwards… Whether beast or human being… it

snatched and growled… gazed wildly at her

visitors… [At] Mr Rochester… the lunatic sprang

and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her

teeth to his cheek: they struggled.

What is the significance of

Jane’s role as governess?

The crimson curtain hung before the arch: slight

as the separation this drapery formed from the

party in the adjoining salon, they spoke in so low a

key that nothing of their conversation could be

distinguished…

“Why, I suppose you have a governess for

[Adèle]: I saw a person with her just now – is she

gone? Oh, no! there she still is behind the window-

curtain. You pay her of course.”

What makes Rochester

such a distinctive hero?

When Rochester arrives at Thornfield on a “tall

steed” whose “rude noise” breaks the evening calm,

accompanied by a “great dog” – “a lion-like creature

with long hair and a huge head” (12) – he thunders

into Jane’s life as if destined to fulfil his role as

powerful masculine incumbent of secluded,

brooding Thornfield, with its “chill and vault-like

air”, “dark and spacious staircase”, “long cold

gallery” and “wide hall” hung with likenesses of

“grim” personages and an oak-carved ebony clock.

The “narrow, low, dim passage” of the third storey

strikes Jane as resembling “a corridor in some

Bluebeard’s castle”; and here, while Jane’s

imagination prepares itself for a creature from fairy

tale – “As this horse approached… I remembered

certain of Bessie’s tales wherein figured a North-of-

England spirit” – the villain-hero himself seems

about to appear through the dusk.

What does Jane learn at

Lowood?

“Is she going by herself ? ... What a long way!”…

The coach drew up… I was taken from Bessie’s

neck, to which I clung with kisses.