Jane's Journey Through Suffering in Jane Erye

Jane's Journey Through Suffering in Jane Erye

In the book Jane Erye by Charolette Bronte, Jane encounters many different settings and people. Jane is put through horrible suffering and refuses to give her abusers the satisfaction of viewing her inner anguish. Jane accomplishes this through stoicism. This occurs many times in the book throughout Jane's life. Within Jane's life, she travels through her childhood home Gateshead Hall, Lowood School, and finally Edward Rochester's Thornfield. In each of these locations, Jane encounters obstacles which cause her suffering. And each time Jane maintains a stoic appearance, she gains these valuable necessities: strength, faith, knowledge, wealth, or independence. Each of these accumulate and combine to form her personality.

Jane's most powerful strength of stoicism is obtained while at her childhood home, Gateshead Hall. Jane is adopted at a young age by her cruel aunt Mrs. Reed. Mrs. Reed believes Jane is inferior to her own children and treats her with little respect and no love. She punishes Jane by locking her in a room when her own children tease Jane. Jane cries, but realizes it will do no good and attains the strength to stop. Through constant abuse similar to this, Jane becomes stoic. Jane's ordeal is symbolized while she reads a book entitled Bewick's History of British Birds. A passage from the book concerns a rock "standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray"

(3, Bronte).This rock, defying the stormy sea, symbolizes Jane's own endurance against the oppression brought by the Reed family. This experience causes Jane's strength and stoicism to flourish.

In the chapters concerning Jane's life at Lowood, Bronte displays a remorseful and intense mortification of Jane's vitality. Mr. Brocklehurst, the founder and headmaster of Lowood school has a grim and hypocritical view of Jane. He publicly labels her a liar and leaps at all advantages to make Jane's life worse. To escape from retched reality, she relies on her love for literature. This love guides her to a new friend, Helen Burns, who also enjoys literature. Miss Temple, the one teacher who is kind to Jane, teaches her to draw. Jane gains the knowledge of art and is able to see the world from a different point of view. Jane and Helen become best friends and rely on each other for comfort. Just when things begin to look bright for Jane, Helen dies of typhus and Miss Temple is scolded for being kindhearted to the students. Jane's basis for optimism is diminished and she turns to God for help. Although she has lost almost everything sacred to her, Jane endures and gains faith and a new knowledge for the arts.

When Jane's life entangles with that of Rochester's, the most traumatic turn of events occur. Jane becomes the governess of Thornfield, Rochester's house, and is to educate Adele. One night by the fire, Rochester best summarizes Jane's agonizing condition:

"You are cold because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is

in you. You are sick, because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest

given to man, keeps far away from you. You