Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte Quotes

Volume 2, Chapter 10. A dream version of Bertha takes Jane's veil. Shows that they are mirrors.

"...she took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and turned to the mirror." Volume 2, Chapter 10

Grace Poole, Chapter 17. Shows how the confinement of one woman can affect others, and all women as a whole.

"...there she sat and served...as companionless as a prisoner in her dungeon." Chapter 17

Chapter 12, Jane is annoyed with society and the position of women. Rigid restraint.

"...they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation." Chapter 12

Chapter 2, Jane in the Red Room. Angel wings.

"A sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings: something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated...I uttered a wild, involuntary cry..." Chapter 1

Chapter 34, Why Jane cannot marry St.John. Fire of nature continually low

"But as his wife - at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked - forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low." Chapter 34

Volume 1, Chapter 11, Mrs Fairfax is happy to have company of her own class

"I am so glad you are come; it will be quite pleasant living here now with a companion (....) you see they are only servants and one can't converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at a distance for fear of losing one's authority."

Chapter 2, Dead men. Jane trusts in the patriarchy and ruling/power of men.

"I began to remember what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes." Chapter 1

Chapter 14, Jane tells Rochester he is not above her

"I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have—your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience."

Volume 3, Chapter 1, Mr. Rochester describes his wife as being unequal to him because she is dissimilar to him. If you substituted the word wife here for niece it would remind you of Jane's aunt's excuses for not getting along with Jane. Here we are shown Mr. Rochester's view of a woman, as a man, deeming her totally alien and other simply because that is his opinion. Jane then sees her as something almost monstrous.

"I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger." Volume 3, Chapter 1

Aparna Srivastava - Jane Eyre as a female gothic novel, Inquiries Journal

"It is through this female gothic language that Bronte creates a heroine whose autobiographical mode of writing is used to trace a story of female rebellion and search for identity."

Chapter 3, Jane hates poverty

"Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the world only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation"

Volume 3 Chapter 3, Jane tells Hannah poverty is nothing to be ashamed of.

"Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime."

One of the final passages, shows Jane's sacrifice of autonomy and the control her husband now has over her thoughts.

"To talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking." One of the final passages

Chapter 12, Jane is annoyed with society and the position of women. Calm women.

"Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel." Chapter 12

Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar - A dialogue of self and soul: plain Jane's progress. Bertha's keeper, Grace Poole.

"Women in Jane's world, acting as agents for men, may be the keepers of other women."

Chapter 35, Jane discovers her long lost cousins.

"You three, then are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows from the same source?"

Volume 2 Chapter 2. Jane tells herself she is below Rochester.

"keep to your caste; and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised."

Chapter 25, Sultan and slave

'he smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a sultan might, in a blissful and fond moment bestow on a slave his gems had enriched." Chapter 25