Jane Eyre Gateshead

1. Jane Eyre Gateshead Grace, Abby, Marena, Rachel, Gib

2. Ch 1 • "The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group..." • "What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked. • "Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent." • first dialogue indicates her isolation and her inferiority in the household

3. [insert John Reed (cautiously) Ch 1] • "John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks." • "John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near." • Through physical harm and verbal abuse, he is a source of true terror to Jane. • John>everyone>Jane in Mrs. Reed's eyes

4. Jane's Tantrum • "Wicked and cruel boy!" I said. "You are like amurderer--you are like a slave-driver--you are like the Roman emperors!" • "I resisted all the way...The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather out of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths."

5. Inferiority • (Bessie) "You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse." • (Miss Abbot) "And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to them." • Orphaned child, taken in by step relatives • Set to her place, viewed as evil and ungrateful • (Miss Abbot) "Besides, God will punish her: He might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away."

6. The Red Room • "All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sister's proud indifference, all his mother's aversion, all the servant's partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned?" • "Oh aunt, have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it - let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if - ' 'Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:'...I was a precocious actress in her eyes: she sincerely looked to me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity" • If this book's purpose is to explain why Jane suffered then this is the first instance of Jane showing the reader her suffering and examining it herself.

7. Jane's first encounter with Mr. Broccolihurst • "...the grim face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital." • "Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite the character and disposition I could wish: should you admit her into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst fault, a tendency to deceit." • "Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart; I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?" • "'Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child,' said Mr. Brocklehurst; 'it is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the lake burning with fire and brimstone: she shall, however, be watched, Mrs. Reed; I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers."

8. Mr. Bratwurst Continued • Foreshadows the crippling accusation that troubles Jane at Lowood (deceit) • Introduction to Mr. Brocklehurst's cruelty • More false accusations directed at Jane, based on Mrs. Reed's word

9. Jane's confrontation of Mrs. Reed • "I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed...I am glad you are no relation of mine; I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty...People think you a good woman, but you are bad; hard-hearted. You are deceitful." (chapter 4) • In this confrontation we see the culmination of all of the pain Jane has felt in her life at Gateshead inflicted back on to Mrs. Reed. These are the words she leaves Mrs. Reed with until she comes back to her death bed. We see how jilted Jane has become because of her treatment and this sentiment does not change until she meets Helen at Lowood

10. Jane's deathbed conversation with Mrs. Reed • "Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,' I said at last; 'you have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God's and be at peace." • "Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?" I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now." • "Dear Mrs. Reed," said I, as I offered her the draught she required, "think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind. Forgive me for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine years have passed since that day." • This passage is in stark contrast to Jane’s attitude and “disposition” earlier in the book at Gateshead. She has grown up into much a more humble and modest young woman than the proud child she used to be. She also has forgiven her Aunt and still wants her love which shows a great level of maturity on her part. She is completely self-aware and acknowledges her weaknesses from the past and present.