{"id":167,"date":"2017-03-02T20:56:39","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T20:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/?p=167"},"modified":"2020-08-31T20:39:01","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T20:39:01","slug":"jane-eyre-and-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/2017\/03\/02\/jane-eyre-and-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"Jane Eyre and “Relations”"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the elements of\u00a0Charlotte Bronte’s\u00a0Jane Eye<\/span> that makes it so enjoyable to readers is the changing life\u00a0circumstances of the main character, Jane, herself. In the beginning of the novel she is so unhappy, and so alone, tortured by her cousin and hated by her aunt. What makes it worse is she has no idea why. She is a child, only 9 years old, and this hatred and sorrow has been her entire life experience. While locked up in the Red Room she\u00a0contemplates running away or even killing herself through not eating. Such\u00a0unhappiness completely defines the\u00a0character of Jane at the beginning of the novel.<\/p>\n

That\u00a0is why it is so satisfying to the reader to see the later contrast between Jane’s life at Thornfield Hall to that of her early experience. Such reader\u00a0satisfaction is especially heightened\u00a0after the passage in chapter 15. Jane contemplates\u00a0Mr. Rochester and how, “The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint; the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master:” (152). \u00a0This newfound joy and content is pleasing to the reader, but what is interesting in this phrase in particular is the use of the word “relation”. As we know, Jane’s only living relations were horrible to her, and thus her only experience with “relations” is a negative one. It is interesting that she would be using the word here in such a positive connotation, trying to express the comfort she feels\u00a0around Mr. Rochester. However, instead of being an\u00a0association\u00a0with blood relations, the use of this word could also be a subtle foreshadowing of\u00a0her potential future with Mr. Rochester. We know they have a romantic connection and perhaps she is alluding to becoming his actual relation through marriage, aka becoming his wife. This prospect, though pleasing to the reader, is one that could face many challenges from the outside world, but a challenge it will not face is his treatment of her because he already treats her almost like a relation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the elements of\u00a0Charlotte Bronte’s\u00a0Jane Eye that makes it so enjoyable to readers is the changing life\u00a0circumstances of the main character, Jane, herself. In the beginning of the novel she is so unhappy, and so alone, tortured by her cousin and hated by her aunt. What makes it worse is she has no idea … Continue reading Jane Eyre and “Relations”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138876,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2017","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}