The Role of Childhood in Jane Eyre - Coursework Example

?Analyse the role of childhood in Jane Eyre. The novel Jane Eyre tells the story of a young woman from the age of about ten until her marriage in adult life to Mr Rochester. There are two contrasting views of childhood in the book, and they are the childhood of orphaned and impoverished Jane herself, along with the children in Lowood school on the one hand and the childhood of her cousins, the Reeds, and of her own pupil, Adele, on the other hand, who all come from an upper class background. The book explores the pros and cons of growing up in both of these social classes and this is one of the main themes of the novel. This paper considers the representation of working class childhood and then upper class childhood, and then compares the two, and then makes an overall assessment of the overall role of childhood in the novel. On the very first page it is made clear that the prevailing upper class view of childhood is one of repression and dominance, since Jane finds herself in a new family, but not of the same status as the original children in that family. The mother, Mrs Reed makes it clear that Jane is an outsider, because of her birth, and that she is inferior and must learn to submit to those who are in some indefinable way superior to her when she says: “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.” (Bronte: 1922, p. 1) The tone of this cold mother figure is that of criticism and command, making it quite clear that Jane does not deserve the privileges of upper class childhood, because she does not possess the ability to hide her own feelings, keep quiet, and submit to the will of adults. The other children in the family, and their nurse Bessie, conspire to treat her with contempt and, at times violence, but the blame for any conflict always falls upon Jane. Appalled by the unjustness of it all, Jane’s instinct to use her reason against this “unupportable oppression” (Bronte: 1922, p. 9) is what saves her from being completely overcome. This shows a child who has developed a strong sense of right and wrong, and a firm determination to endure the hardships of childhood so that she can escape into a time where she can make her own decisions. There is a long tradition in European literature of works about childhood, and they often take the form of the Bildungsroman which is a German term meaning a novel of education. Kern defines this genre as follows: “The central feature of the Bildungsroman is the protagonist’s progress of psychological and moral growing and developing from childhood until finally maturity. The central figure has a good look at certain fields in life and works out his relation to them until he finally achieves true self-knowledge and is in accord with the world and himself.” (Kern: 2007, p. 4) The purpose of childhood in this genre is to provide a starting point for this journey of self-discovery. Jane’s unhappiness in her adoptive family is soon replaced by another kind of institutionalized unhappiness at the dreadful boarding school called Lowood. Here all the proper and dutiful attitudes of female childhood are drummed into the girls. The language used by the first person narrator makes it seem like a prison, and the religiosity of the regime is linked again and again with the extreme cold: “Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set out cold, we arrived at church colder … “ (Bronte: 1922, p. 55) Bronte stresses the cold and the poverty partly to emphasise the warmth and consoling power of human relationships. In the absence of parents, Jane finds inspiration in her admiration for Miss Temple, and in the absence of brothers and sisters, she finds affection for Helen Burns. Eyre shows a childhood that is filled with physical hardship and yet an inner core of humanity remains within the child Jane, allowing her to think beyond the present and envisage a future where she can determine her own fate. When leaving Lowood to take employment at Thornfield it is clear that this childhood has given her neither emotional strength nor confidence in her own abilities: “… a private fear had haunted me, that in thus acting for myself, and by my own guidance, I ran the risk of getting into some scrape.” (Bronte: 1922, p. 83) This is a child who cannot afford to make mistakes because there is no one to help her if she fails: “It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted.(Bronte: 1922, p. 89) In stark contrast to the self-possessed and determined child that is the young Jane Eyre, Adele Rochester appears as a spoilt and superficial being, who cares only for trinkets and clothes. This child speaks French, and possesses a number of talents which she is eager to show off to any observer: “ Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee; then folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera.” (Bronte: 1922, p. 97) The subject matter deals with a lady whose love is scorned, and the first person narrator Jane remarks wrily: “The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer, but I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was: at least I thought so.” (Eyre: 1922, pp. 97-98) What this passage shows is a distancing of the main character, Jane, from the upper class social norms that produced a false and coquettish child such as Adele. Adele accepts the messages that she is given, and grows up in the way that is set out by her class, while Jane resists her classification and always seeks to speak up and make her own decisions. Besides this class difference there is also an age difference. Kern points out that the narrative persona develops and helps to distinguish the child from the adult: “..it is important to remember that Charlotte Bronte uses two different types of 1st person narration. When Jane is a child the experiencing I is used, whereas later on, when Jane has grown up, and is looking back on her childhood, the narrating I is used.” (Kern: 2007, p. 11) The novel makes a social commentary on childrearing at the very end when it becomes clear that Jane rescues Adele, now at a strict school, and brings her into a school closer to her father, and Jane takes on the role of loving mother. This ending shows that childhood in the novel is a period of trial and testing, and that surviving this process produces mature human beings who are able to decide their own futures rather than live out the repressive destinies that an authoritarian society has tried to enforce upon them. References Bronte, C. 1922. Jane Eyre. London: Dent. Kern, C. 2007. The Realisation of Jane Eyre as a Bildungsroman. Munich: GRIN Verlag. Read More