Jane Eyre is a young orphan being
raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel, wealthy aunt. A servant named Bessie
provides Jane with some of the few kindnesses she receives, telling
her stories and singing songs to her. One day, as punishment for
fighting with her bullying cousin John Reed, Jane’s aunt imprisons Jane
in the red-room, the room in which Jane’s Uncle Reed died. While
locked in, Jane, believing that she sees her uncle’s ghost, screams
and faints. She wakes to find herself in the care of Bessie and the
kindly apothecary Mr. Lloyd, who suggests to Mrs. Reed that Jane
be sent away to school. To Jane’s delight, Mrs. Reed concurs.
Once at the Lowood School, Jane finds that her life is
far from idyllic. The school’s headmaster is Mr. Brocklehurst, a
cruel, hypocritical, and abusive man. Brocklehurst preaches a doctrine
of poverty and privation to his students while using the school’s
funds to provide a wealthy and opulent lifestyle for his own family.
At Lowood, Jane befriends a young girl named Helen Burns, whose strong,
martyrlike attitude toward the school’s miseries is both helpful
and displeasing to Jane. A massive typhus epidemic sweeps Lowood,
and Helen dies of consumption. The epidemic also results in the
departure of Mr. Brocklehurst by attracting attention to the insalubrious
conditions at Lowood. After a group of more sympathetic gentlemen
takes Brocklehurst’s place, Jane’s life improves dramatically. She
spends eight more years at Lowood, six as a student and two as a
teacher.
After teaching for two years, Jane yearns for new experiences. She
accepts a governess position at a manor called Thornfield, where
she teaches a lively French girl named Adèle. The distinguished
housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax presides over the estate. Jane’s employer
at Thornfield is a dark, impassioned man named Rochester, with whom
Jane finds herself falling secretly in love. She saves Rochester
from a fire one night, which he claims was started by a drunken
servant named Grace Poole. But because Grace Poole continues to
work at Thornfield, Jane concludes that she has not been told the
entire story. Jane sinks into despondency when Rochester brings
home a beautiful but vicious woman named Blanche Ingram. Jane expects
Rochester to propose to Blanche. But Rochester instead proposes
to Jane, who accepts almost disbelievingly.
The wedding day arrives, and as Jane and Mr. Rochester
prepare to exchange their vows, the voice of Mr. Mason cries out
that Rochester already has a wife. Mason introduces himself as the
brother of that wife—a woman named Bertha. Mr. Mason testifies that
Bertha, whom Rochester married when he was a young man in Jamaica,
is still alive. Rochester does not deny Mason’s claims, but he explains that
Bertha has gone mad. He takes the wedding party back to Thornfield,
where they witness the insane Bertha Mason scurrying around on all
fours and growling like an animal. Rochester keeps Bertha hidden
on the third story of Thornfield and pays Grace Poole to keep his
wife under control. Bertha was the real cause of the mysterious
fire earlier in the story. Knowing that it is impossible for her to
be with Rochester, Jane flees Thornfield.
Penniless and hungry, Jane is forced to sleep outdoors
and beg for food. At last, three siblings who live in a manor alternatively
called Marsh End and Moor House take her in. Their names are Mary, Diana,
and St. John (pronounced “Sinjin”) Rivers, and Jane quickly becomes
friends with them. St. John is a clergyman, and he finds Jane a
job teaching at a charity school in Morton. He surprises her one
day by declaring that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her a
large fortune: 20,000 pounds. When
Jane asks how he received this news, he shocks her further by declaring
that her uncle was also his uncle: Jane and the Riverses are cousins.
Jane immediately decides to share her inheritance equally with her
three newfound relatives.
St. John decides to travel to India as a missionary, and
he urges Jane to accompany him—as his wife. Jane agrees to go to
India but refuses to marry her cousin because she does not love
him. St. John pressures her to reconsider, and she nearly gives
in. However, she realizes that she cannot abandon forever the man
she truly loves when one night she hears Rochester’s voice calling
her name over the moors. Jane immediately hurries back to Thornfield
and finds that it has been burned to the ground by Bertha Mason,
who lost her life in the fire. Rochester saved the servants but
lost his eyesight and one of his hands. Jane travels on to Rochester’s
new residence, Ferndean, where he lives with two servants named
John and Mary.
At Ferndean, Rochester and Jane rebuild their relationship
and soon marry. At the end of her story, Jane writes that she has
been married for ten blissful years and that she and Rochester enjoy
perfect equality in their life together. She says that after two
years of blindness, Rochester regained sight in one eye and was
able to behold their first son at his birth.
