Jane Eyre (character)
| Jane Eyre | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Jane Eyre |
| Created by | Charlotte Brontë |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Janet |
| Aliases | Jane Elliott |
| Gender | woman |
| Occupation | Governess |
| Title | Miss Eyre / Mrs. Rochester |
| Family | Reverend Eyre (father, deceased) Jane Reed-Eyre (mother, deceased) |
| Spouse(s) | Edward Fairfax Rochester |
| Children | Adèle Varens (adopted daughter) Unnamed Son (bio. with Edward) |
| Relatives |
Mr.Reed (cousin) Georgiana Reed (cousin) St. John Eyre Rivers (cousin) Diana and Mary Rivers (cousins) John Eyre (paternal uncle) |
Mr.Reed
(maternal uncle, deceased)
Sarah Gibson-Reed
(aunt by marriage)
John Reed
(cousin, deceased)
Jane Eyre is the heroine of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name.
One morning when Jane is out for a walk, she meets a mysterious man when his horse slips and he falls – this is Mr. Rochester. Jane and Rochester are immediately interested in each other. She is fascinated by his rough, craggy, dark appearance as well as his abrupt, almost rude manners, which she thinks are easier to handle than polite flattery. He is very interesting in figuring out how Jane is herself, comparing her to an elf or sprite and admiring her unusual strength and stubbornness.
Rochester quickly learns that he can rely on Jane in a crisis – one evening, Jane finds Rochester asleep in his bed with all the curtains and bedclothes on fire, and she puts out the flames and rescues him. Jane and Rochester find that they can have interesting and in-depth conversations, and both fall steadily in love with each other. However, Rochester soon invited some of his acquaintances to Thornfield, including the beautiful Blanche Ingram. Rochester lets Blanche flirt with him constantly in front of Jane to make her jealous and encourages rumors that he’s engaged to Blanche.
During the week-long house party, a man named Richard Mason shows up, and Rochester seems afraid of him. At night, Mason sneaks up to the third floor and somehow gets stabbed and bitten. Rochester asks Jane to tend Richard Mason's wounds secretly while he fetches the doctor. The next morning before the guests find out what happened, Rochester sneaks Mason out of the house.
Before Jane can discover more about the mysterious situation, she gets a message that her Aunt Reed is very sick and is asking for her. Jane, forgiving Mrs. Reed for mistreating her when she was a child, goes back to take care of her dying aunt. When Jane returns to Thornfield, Blanche and her friends are gone, and Jane realizes how attached she is to Mr. Rochester. Although he lets her think for a little longer that he’s going to marry Blanche, eventually Rochester stops teasing Jane and proposes to her. She blissfully accepts.
On the day of Jane's wedding, during the church ceremony, two men show up claiming that Rochester is already married. Rochester admits that he is married to another woman, but tries to justify his attempt to marry Jane by taking them all to see his "wife." Mrs. Rochester is Bertha Mason, the "madwoman in the attic" who tried to burn Rochester to death in his bed, stabbed and bit her own brother (Richard Mason), and who’s been doing other creepy things at night. Rochester was tricked into marrying Bertha fifteen years ago in Jamaica by his father, who wanted him to marry for money and didn't tell him that insanity ran in Bertha’s family. Rochester tried to live with Bertha as husband and wife, but she was too horrible, so he locked her up at Thornfield with a nursemaid, Grace Poole. Meanwhile, he traveled around Europe for ten years trying to forget Bertha and keeping various mistresses. Adèle Varens (Jane's student) is the daughter of one of these mistresses, though she may not be Rochester’s daughter. Eventually he got tired of this lifestyle, came home to England, and fell in love with Jane.
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Wikipedia