It starts of with Jane on a cold autumn day she is alone while the three Reed children with Mrs. Reed where "clustered round their mama in the drawing-room" This immediately shows us that Jane is an outcast at Gateshead and is not included in the Reeds life, even though she is related to the and also living with them. This already shows the relationship between the characters and makes us feel sympathy towards Jane. We also see why this is "me, she had dispensed from joining the group" So just form the opening few paragraphs we see that Jane is being isolated from the group and keeping her "at a distance".
We then find out the reason for her being left out, it is simply because she is different to the family Mrs Reed would her to act like "something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were" however this is completely contradictory as she is "natural", as she is being herself and to her that is natural. She does not act in the way that Mrs Reed wants her to act, like a "happy little child", when trying to do this she is being un-natural and in doing this actually disobeying what Mrs reed wants her to do.We then see how she is constantly being accused of one thing or the other "what does Bessie say I have done" she is then told off for simply asking a question as Mrs reed believes that "there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. " She would prefer for Jane to be seen and not heard ad voice no opinions or questions. We then see her form her own little world inside the small breakfast room as she sat in the window seat and enclosing her self in with "the red moreen curtain nearly closed".
In this she is able to forget what happens when the Reeds are about and have time away from them without them bothering her and making accusations against her. She is soon interrupted by John Reed saying "Boh! Madam Mope! " which is not a very pleasant name for a young boy to call a girl especially a relative, this shows that there is no bond between him and Jane "bad animal" Is also another phrase he uses to diminish her. We now see the real treatment of Jane by her three cousins.John who is the master of the house orders her around like a slave "say what do you want Master Reed" and "I want you to come here" this is not how a young "schoolboy of fourteen" would act to a relative. We now see a very vindictive act of violence as he orders Jane to "stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows".
This is so that In his next act will not cause any damage to the house but only to Jane as he hurled the book at Jane, he got her to stand away from anything that was breakable.As she fell she struck her head "against the door and cutting it. " This act by John Rees shows the ultimate low level of respect that he shows for her. She then explodes at John saying he is "like a murderer - like a slave-driver" This is her true and justified emotions finally coming out. However instead of John getting in trouble for throwing the book at her and causing an injury, it is her that apparently who was the one who attacked John "what a fury to fly at Master John! Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion! ".For doing nothing in comparison to what John read did she is sentenced to go to the red room.
The red room was a bedroom where Mr Reed died and "very seldom slept in" it is more of a sacred room. In here she is yet again treated like an animal as John reed refers to her as. "If you don't sit still, you must be tied down. This is not a very nice thing to try do, but she manages to get them to not tie her up.
The red room has a very eyrie image, in here she sees a ghostly image in the mirror "the strange little figure" she doesn't even realise her own reflection.It is this and her fuming rage, which leads her to start fitting. When she awakes she is back in the nursery where Mr Lloyd is looking her after. What is the most bizarre is the fact she feels secure when there is a stranger in the room with her. "I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room. " This is extremely disturbing, as she should if anything feel unsafe with a stranger.
This shows the severity of her mistreatment of her and unhappiness of the company of the Reed family. The only person that seems to give her any sympathy to her is Bessie if you could actually call it kindness, the problem with this is the fact it seems to Jane that she is being kind to her, however to the reader what Bessie actually does is not that nice at all. The thing is Jane is always being mistreated so the fact that Bessie shows the slightest bit of kindness it is seen by Jane as very kind as that is kind to her.Jane now lives in the hope that she may get to escape from Gateshead to a school, "however; days and weeks passed" without and mention of going to school. Then Jane finally loses her temperament with Mrs Reed when she overhears her talking to John about him leaving her alone and not associating with her.
"I don't choose that either you or your sisters should associate with her. "This makes a sudden urge in her to shout, "They are not fit to associate with me. She then uses the fact that Mr Reed and her mother and father will look down over them and see the way in which Mrs Reed treats her and will know "how you want me dead". The first thing we see is the use of pathetic fallacy, knowing Jane's lonely and sombre, this is just how the surroundings outside the house are being described by Jane "clouds so sombre and rain so penetrating" By using Penetrating it shows us how she sees here self as vulnerable and is easily penetrated.The use of red in the curtain shows her angriness that she feels that is being cooped up and held in by the fear she has towards the Reeds. When she is behind this curtain she notices the mist in the distance and all that is close to her "Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near, a scene of wet lawn" This use of near and far, symbolises her present which she knows what is coming, however the afar I the future that awaits here which at the moment is bleak and a bit hazy.
The red room yet again symbolising the anger and passions she feels that is locked up insider her.Everything around her is all red in the room and she is the odd thing out she is in the wrong place. This is exactly how she feels in amongst the Reed family; she is the weak link as she is not a part of the immediate family so she is treated very hostile and different just like she is at this time in the red room. When she wakes up form her time in the red room after becoming ill. She awakes unaware of wear she is, it seems like she is imprisoned from what she can see "and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick black bars.These images are all being enhanced by her feelings inside of herself she doesn't feel safe she is trapped by the Reed family.
She uses books to learn about the world around her as the Reeds keep her from learning more about the outside world so she only has the warped ideas of Mrs Reed, this is especially apparent when Mr Lloyd suggest finding the poor relatives she has so she can live with them rather than the Reeds, however she doesn't want this despite if they would be kind to her.I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind" she thinks that they will not accept her because of the type of people she has been brought up by and she is not even prepared "to purchase liberty at the price of caste" The warped view of hers that she has learnt of the Reed family makes her question the lower classes and it is this view alone which stops her from achieving freedom. During this novel we see the narration of Jane Eyre switch from adult Jane as she is at the present to the past Jane who is a child.We see a conflict between how she expresses herself as an adult to how she should do as a child.
We see this in the very first instances as she talks about how she was "conscious of my physical inferiority" these seem very un-childish thoughts for a ten year old. We see the thought of Jane as an adult writing in the past come out. . This also happens again when she says "of these death-white realms.
... That float dim through children's brains, but strangely impressive" she is narrating her adult feelings through the child Jane.During he time in the red room we see a child vs.
adult Jane as she is getting so worked up that she is scarring herself into thinking that when "a light gleamed on the wall" she believes it is a ghost. She gets so worked up she starts having a nervous breakdown, tat leads to her having some kind of fit. She then comes out of narration as young Jane to tell the reader at her present age she "can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by someone across the lawn" This shows a conflict between her child's perspective and her now more mature one.
