Jane Eyre A.'s & I.'s

(1.) Pages 1-14

"clouds so sombre, and rain so penetrating"(1).

-The weather sets a depressing mood. Why is the rain penetraiting? What or who will be penetrating into Janes life later on?

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  Mrs. Reed keeps Jane seperate from Eliza, John, and Georgiana because she isn't happy and asks questions.


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  "I sat cross legged like a Turk," (1). Why does she say like a Turk? Other people sit cross legged too. Is there a significance to Turks?


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  "Afar: offered pale blank mist and cloud; near, a scene of wet lawn and storm beat shrub," (2). The second mention of poor weather. Will the weather be significant later on?


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  bleak shores, death-white realms. The descriptions, and wordings are very depressing and sad.


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  Solitary church yard. She was just talking about winter, and how depressing it is, why is she now suddenly talking about a church yard? (They are pictures in her book)


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  "attesting the hour of eventide"(2). What does this even mean? eventide is evening.


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  "[T]he black, horned thing seated aloof on a rock," (2). She is seperate from her family, watching them earlier taks of barred windws (connected to surrounding a gallows?).


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  imperfect feelings - she is not happy not good enough for Mrs. Reed.


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  John calls her "bad animal" and forces her to call him "Master Reed" only because he is older? (3).


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  Mrs. Reed babies John, he's fat.


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  "you have no money' your father left you none' you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us,"(4). So Jane is of the same mother but not of the same father? Does Mrs. Reed hold a resentment against Janes father that she treats Jane so poorly?


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  The Red room - why refer to it as The Red Room. Why is going to this romm her punishment for "flying at" John? (5).


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  She refers to herself as a rebel slave, 'your benefctresses son, your master," (6).


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  "Two large windows with their blinds always drawn down" A conncetion to Mrs. Reed's blind and deafness to how John treats Jane? Or does she just not care?


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  The only tings not red are mattresses pillows, chair and footstools. Why?


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  Her jewel CASKET and a miniature of her deceased husband.


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  "Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high..."(7). "The bed rose before me," (8) places emphasis on the red room. Roses are adeep color of red. Why is everything red? Why is this color important?

"colder and darker in that visionary hollow," "White face" "arms specking the gloom," "glittering eyes of fear" (8).

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  Loaded with geneeral opprobrium " a thing that could not sympathize with one amongst them," "a heterogeneous thing," (9). She is referring to herself as a thing previously contemplated starving herself to death. She's ten years old, and already so miserably as to think of suicide!


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  scapegoat of the nursery


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  "Embers of my decaying ire," (10).


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  Mrs. Reed is her aunt by marriage, Mr. Reed was her mothers brother.


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  "dark room," (10) Maybe that's why everything is red? So as to be dark like the rest of Jane's world?


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  "I abhor artifice, particularly in children, it is my duty to show you that tricks will not answer; you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that i shall liberate you then," (11). Jane previously referred to herself as being a slave in this house. This further proves it. While Mrs. Reed says it is her duty to basically civilize her, it is one of the huge excuses people in the south gave for having slaves. As well as the word liberate, shows that she isn't liberated and that Mrs. Reed is the only one that can set her free.


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  such description of the china plate, what she had always wanted to examine, now seemed faded.


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  She could find no joy in Gullivers Travels either.

(2.) Pages 15-28

• Sore, weary, long...way, ;mountains...wilds, moonless, dreary, ORPHAN CHILD, lonely, hard-hearted, kind angels only.....
• In the third stanza of the song there is a shift from depression into hope: clouds-none (no clouds means good weather, good weather means good happinings for Jane.), stars beam, protection-God, comfort hope.
• Stanza four: promise and blessing, broken bridge, false lights(Mrs. Reed is false), strength-avail me, shelter and kindred despoiled.
• Bessie sings the song for Jane to hear, she is trying to give her hope for the future.
• The song is a symbol of Jane's life.
• Jane doesn't feel like the song is a hopeful one, she feels it's like a funeral hymn- she has no hope for the future and thinks her life is going to be horrible forever.
• Who is Guy Fawks? (page 19).
• Her father was a poor clergyman and her mother was cut off from her father's will for marrying him.
• Jane's first favorite book of the bible is the Revelations. That's kind of strange for a ten year old girl to cherish the story of the total destruction of human kind and the world.

(3.) Pages 29-42

• Eye devoid of ruth, opaque, flaxen, constitution sound as a bell.
• Directly refers to Mrs. Reed as her antagonist.
• "[H]er eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly..." maybe the winter setting will only stay while she is at the Reed's? her life there was like winter- like Mrs. Reed? (Reed is cold to her and so the accounts that take place at the Reed house, take place in the winter when it is cold.)
• Describes the taste of vengance as something tangeble: aromatic wine, warm and racey when swallowing; after flavor: metallic and corroding poisoned.
• Bessie is being kind to her, "Even for me life had it's gleam of sunshine," .
• Page 37"wind rave in furious gusts" "rain fall in torrents". STill terrible weather, less still, less dead, less constant than the snow and frost and "dead" plants at Gateshead- but just as harsh.

(4.) Pages 43-56

• "Love your enemies" (50).
• en masse- why is this the only piece in a different language?
• Jane refers to Brocklehurst as a "Black coloumn."

(5.) Pages 55-68

• Brocklehurst refers to the girls as martyrs and compares them to the disciples.
• First he asks why Julia conforms to the outside worldand when he finds out they're natural curls, he asks why she conforms to nature : he contradicts himself. he just wants to find something to get Miss Temple and Julia introuble for. He's making her shave off all her hair. (56).
• againg contradicts-dress code-vanity= hell. His wife and grils awre wearing showy and expensive clothes. (57).
• Basically calls Jane a servant of the devil because of what Mrs. Reed said.
• Once Miss sTemple arrives, the wind pushes the clouds away leaving the moon to shine on her making it seem like she is eminating her own lights. good eather 9clear sky) good person.
• Brocklehurst is said to be made of whale bone and iron. Very hard, tough things. He is a hard, tough, mean person.
• Mythology allusion "we feaswted that evening on nectar and ambrosia"(65). what the gods feasted on in Olympus. Jane is saying that she and Helen were treated like gods by Miss Temple (didn't think Jane wicked, allowed her to tell her side of the story, gave them tea, buttered toast and seed ckae, Kissed Jane on the cheek....probably the first person to ever do so.)

(6.) Pages 81-94

• She compares a new chapter in her life to a new scene in a play.
• accounts of Janes life no longer as a child, she addresses the Reader a lot. why is this and why does this start now?
• Connexion-why is it spelled like that?

(7.)Pages 95-108

• Mrs. Fairfax keeps the rooms clean for Rochester even though he hardly comes, he must be important and have a more important role in the future.
• Fairfax comments that he is a hard person to understand.
• Rochesters have been violent in the past, will Jane's new master turn out to be like Reed and Brocklehurst?
• Grace needs to be more controlled, she laughs loud, indication that she will be more trouble in the future?
• Jane describes the laugh as tragic.
• Gytrash. The dog. Name =Pilot.

(8.) Pages 109-122

• Jane likes Thornfeild better with the master there. She likes how it is a more quiet and controlled atmosphere.
• The attic is described in great detail....what happend in this attic? The only other room that was described so much was the Red Room and her uncle died there, so something must be up with the attic.
• "Twilight and snowflakes" (110). Cold weather, indicates a cold person or cold actions by a person.
• 111 Rochester is very cold to Jane, she says so herself to Fairfax later. He doesn't care if she is seated with them or not at tea.

(9.) Pages 123-136

• Rochester wants more of Jane than to be a governess. Jane thinks he's drunk.
• "I am disposed to be gergarious and communicative to-night," he says this twice, in a matter of minutes.He thinks Jane can suit him for company. And then he calls her dumb, as not being able to speak.
• "claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experiance" (125). Jane is more insightful when it comes to the right for one to be supirior to the other. She is more sensible than Rochester, who thinks just because he's been to more places (sort of implying that because he is of wealth) and because he is older, he is more supierior. Jane feels age has nothing to do with superiority which must come with wisdom and wisdom comes from expiriance.
• Adele mentions her mother, and Rochester will not explain about her until later.

(10.) Pages 131-144

• Varens is the woman who Rochester had a long affair with, she was engaged to another man and Rochester broke it off, he refuses to accept that Adele is his child but when Varens dies he makes sure she is taken care of.
• The creepy laughter is heard again. Grace had something to do with the smoke coming from Rochester's room. Why would she try and set him/ or his belongings on fire? What does she have against him?
• Jane has saved his life, and he tells her to tell no one of what happend. Why not tell anyone? Shouldn't Grace be repremanded? Maybe she's a little unstable in the head and Rochester feels sorry for her.
• What do they mean when they say "singular person"?
• She wants to see Rochester again, yet fears looking into his eyes. Is she afraid she might find the "strange fire"(142) she found in his eyes the night before, again? If so, it seems like she is afraid of falling for him.

(11.) Pages 145-158

• She seems to be jealous of Grace, trying to point out her faults to herself saying she has a corse face, and is flat figure. But then thinks of herself as ugly aswell.
• Adele notes the discomfort of Jane, saying that her fingers tremble like a leaf and her cheeks are red as cherries.
• Hateful, hopes, desire,darkness,disappointed,irritated,vexing,soothing, heart,rejected,devoured,jeudgement,fool,fantastic idiot,sweet lies, "swallowed poison as if it were nectar" (another greek mythology allusion?)
• By these words Jane seems to be nervous that Rochester will fall in love with the "beautiful Blanche"(149) and she seems to be falling for him. She fee's like a fool for doing so however, because she thinks no one could fall in love with someone as plain as her when there are people like Georgiana and Blanche in the world.
• "dusk actually closed" Is dusk a metaphor for the way she feels her chances are with Rochester? they are closed? She believes she has no chance with him because of Blanche?
  

(12.) Pages 159-172

• Why is there always something of Adele talking to Jane in French? Why isn't it translated into english? Is it not important what she says or what they say to eachother? If not then why would it be in the book at all?
• Jane says the 8 ladies made themselves look like there were much more of them. She is intimindated by these women.
• "The dowager..." The second time she is mentioned Jane as a narrorator doesn't feel the need to capitalize her name. This is done on purpose, she doesn't think very well of this woman at all. insupporatable haughtiness, Roman features, double chin, pride, fierce and hard eye, pompous, dogmatical, intolerable. "she thought....she had a imperial dignity" --> Jane doesn't like this woman at all by the way she describes her. She scrutinizes her appearance, and how the woman thinks she is superior, Jane see's nothing superior about her.
• Blanche was like a Diana. Who is Diana?
• noble, graceful, unfurrowed, pride, satirical, haughty lip. Jane's description of Blanche.
• The way Jane describes the features of these people also describes their character. They have immense pride, are haughty, think they are superior to everyone else.
• They treat Jane cruelly. Almost make her cry. Her perception of their personalities was right.

(13.) Pages 173-186

• Jane assumes Rochester and Blanche are going to be married. She thinks Rochester doesn't notice her at all.
• "a great lady who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed" Blanche dispises Jane and thinks so little of her that she cannot stand her even touching such a small part of her clothing that isn't even touching her. Blanche thinks Jane is beneath her because of her social status. Because she isn't wealthy.
• dark, withdraw, scorne, careless, pain, suffered, inferior, betrayed, spiteful, coldness, acrimony,shrewdly.
• Blanche starts to treat Adele how Mrs. Reed treated Jane, banishing her from rooms, ignoring her, being cold to her ... etc.
• Blance just wants to marry Rochester for his wealth.
• Jane doesn't like Mr. Mason because of his vacant eyes. He was polite, and a fine-looking man otherwise. His features were "too relaxed"
• queenly Blanche, bulgar, tinkler, blockhead

(14.) Pages 187-199

• Jane is only close to happiness.
• Jane is very skeptical of the gipsy. She doesn't believe in her ability to read people and her supposed powers. When Jane learns the gipsy woman is friends with Grace Poole she freaks out.
• "The eagerness of a listener quickens the toungue of a narrator"(187). The more people want to know of something the more people will talk about it. Gossip.
• She is wraped in a dream by the gipsy, she is entraced by her. She's starting to believe her because she tells of Janes accounts accurately.
• The gipsy examines Jane's eye. soft, full of feeling, smiles, clear sphere, ceases to smile, sad, melancholy, loneliness, suffer, pride, reserve.
• These are all the traits of Jane herself.
• So when Jane speaks of the way people look in the eyes, she is speaking of their character traits? Reed: hard, cold. Mason: vacant of life. Jane: sad, proud, reserved, soft, lonely,
• "So far i have governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as i inwardly swore i would act; but further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me; 'the play is played out'." Link to what Jane said about her life a while ago. That every new chapter in life is a new scene in a play. But the play is played out now....what does that mean?
• Rochester is worried about what Jane would do if his guests would turn on him and be nasty to him, she would comfort him.
• She heard a cry. fearful shriek. cloud shrouding his eyrie. Mr. Mason was stabbed in the arm. But Rochester tells everyone but Jane that it was just a servant who had a nightmare. He trusts Jane.

(15.)Pages 200-214

• disgust, horror, hatred, distortion,clodhopping messanger,
• someone bit Mr. Mason. Was it Grace?
• real, sweet, pure.
• Rochester is always worried if Jane is at ease with him.
• He's trying to allieviate guilt of not wanting to marry Blanche by trying to make Jane understand his situation, she doesn't not feel guilty or sorry for him but gives him the blunt truth.
• He wants Jane to be his company the night before he is to be married.
• Mason was gone at four in the morning.
• Jane derams of a baby which brings poor fortune to you or the ones you're related to, John turns out to be dead. Mrs. Reed had a stroke because of it and keeps asking for Jane. Why does she, on her deathbed suddenly want Jane when she wanted nothing to do with her for almost 10 years?

(16.) Pages 215-229

• Eliza is very plain, "puritanical". Georgiana was a "full-blown, very plump damsel" "stylish" (215).
• As there is no account whatsoever of Eliza being crude to Jane, maybe she wasn't bad like her siblings and her mother. She is dressed puritanically to indicate she had no wrong doing. Georgiana is dressed stylishly, she did help John find Jane the first time he really beat her.
• They are sizing her up. seeing what she's become. They don't want her to see their mother, even though Mrs. Reed really wants to see her. They are being selfish brats trying to keep their mother for themselves, and not giving their mother the satisfaction of seeing Jane one last time, although the reason as to why she wishes this is still unclear.
• They talk of Jane as if she is a third person, probably because Mrs. Reed is too ill to notice that she is actually talking to Jane. She told Jane that she wished she died with the fever at Lowood.
• She speaks of Jane as an infant as "it" "the thing" "the creature" (219). The truth comes out, she was jealous of Jane's mother because she was favored over her to Mr. Reed because she was his only sister.
• She thinks John is still alive, he gambles away all their money they are getting poor.
• Jane offers to draw her cousins, she gains Georgiana's acceptance, though she doesn't care for it. Georgiana only talks of herself, she's selfish.
• Mrs. Reed is sorry for not bringing up Jane as her own, and she gave Jane her uncle's letter. "and in the tenth breakout of all fire and violence" biblical allusion to the revelations. Mrs. Reed is refering to her own coming death and destruction.
• Mrs. Reed died. Neither Eliza nor Jane cried at all.

(17.) Pages 230-244

• Rochester is still getting married.
• two weeks go by and no marriage, nothing of the topic even mentioned."a rising and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the horizon"
• "put my old bachelor's neck into the sacred noose" refers to the sacrament of marriage as suicide. He is very reluctant to marry Blanche, and yet he doesn't see that he isn't supposed to marry her.
• risk, distress, vehemence, exluded, torn, for ever, necessity of departure, necessity of death.
• Jane thinks it is necessary to leave Rochester once he is married to Blanche. Adele wont need a governess with another woman there.She will be excluded from everything because Blanche has excluded her before, it will be just like living with the Reeds. Rochester doesn't like the idea of Jane leaving. He views his upcoming marriage as a risk and it gives him distress.