Rochester, the Byronic[l] master of fictitious Threefold Hall. In its initialization of the action -” the focus is on the gradual unfolding of Cane’s moral and spiritual sensibility and all the events are colored by a heightened intensity that was previously the domain of poetry -” the novel revolutionized the art of fiction. Charlotte Front has been called the ‘first historian of the private consciousness’ and the literary ancestor Of writers like Joyce and Porous. 2] The novel contains elements of social criticism, with a strong sense of morality at its core, but is nonetheless a novel many consider ahead of its time given the individualistic hearted of Jane and the novel’s exploration of classicism, sexuality, religion, and proto-feminism. [3] Plot Introduction Jane Rye is a first-person narrative of the title character.
The novel goes through five distinct stages: Cane’s childhood at Gathered, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; her education at Elwood School, where she acquires friends and role models but also suffers privations and oppression; her time as the governess of Threefold Hall, where she falls in love with her Byronic employer, Edward Rochester; her time tit the Rivers family, during which her earnest but cold clergyman cousin, SST John Rivers, proposes to her; and the finale with her reunion with, and marriage to, her beloved Rochester.
During these sections the novel provides perspectives on a number of important social issues and ideas, many of which are critical of the status quo (see the Themes section below). Literary critic Jerome Beauty notes that the close first person perspective leaves the reader “too uncritically accepting of her worldview” and often leads reading and conversation about the novel towards supporting Jane, regardless of how regular her ideas or perspectives. [4] Jane Rye is divided into 38 chapters and most editions are at least 400 pages long.
The original publication was in three volumes, comprising chapters 1 to 15, 16 to 26, and 27 to 38; this was a common publishing format during the 1 9th century (see three-volume novel). Front dedicated the novel’s second edition to William Namespace Thacker. Cane’s Childhood Young Jane argues with her guardian Mrs… Reed of Gathered. Illustration by F. H. Townsend. The novel begins with the titular character Jane Rye living tit her maternal uncle’s family, the Reeds, as her uncle’s dying wish. The novel starts when Jane is ten years old and several years after her parents died of typhus.
Mr… Reed was the only one in the Reed family to be kind to Jane. Cane’s aunt Sarah Reed does not like her, treats her worse than a servant and discourages and, at times, forbids her children from associating with Jane. Mrs… Reed and her three children are abusive to Jane, both physically and emotionally. The servant Bessie proves to be Cane’s only ally in the household even though Bessie sometimes harshly scolds Jane. Excluded from he family activities, Jane is incredibly unhappy with only a doll and occasionally books in which to find solace.
One day, Jane is locked in the red room, where her uncle died, and panics after seeing visions of him. She is finally rescued when she is allowed to attend Elwood School for Girls, after the physician Mr… Lloyd convinces Mrs… Reed to send Jane away. Before Jane leaves, she confronts Mrs… Reed and declares that she’ll never call her “aunt” again, that Mrs… Reed and her daughters, Georgian, and Elise are deceitful and that she’d tell everyone at Elwood how cruelly Mrs… Reed treated her.
