Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë (1847)
“The most radical Victorian novel — a penniless orphan who insists she has a self, a soul, and the right to refuse.”
Short Summary
Jane Eyre is an orphan raised by a cruel aunt, educated at a brutal charity school, and hired as governess at Thornfield Hall — where she falls in love with the brooding, brilliant Mr. Rochester. On their wedding day, she discovers he already has a wife: Bertha Mason, locked in the attic. Jane flees rather than compromise her principles, nearly starves, is rescued by the Rivers family, and inherits a fortune. St. John Rivers proposes a cold, duty-driven marriage. Jane refuses and returns to Rochester — now blinded and maimed in a fire set by Bertha. She proposes to him. They marry as equals.
Detailed Summary
Jane Eyre is narrated in retrospect by Jane herself — an orphan who begins her story in the red room at Gateshead, locked in punishment by her aunt Mrs. Reed. The red room where Jane's uncle died becomes her first Gothic space: a room of injustice, terror, and the first stirring of Jane's moral cons...