Charlotte Bront: Jane Eyre autobiographic Bildungsroman,

feminine emancipation, the conflict between Passion and Reason

(Jane and Mr Rochester).

Jane Eyre is a Victorian novel written by Charlotte Bront, published under a male
pseudonym Currer Bellin order to avoid gender differentiations. The novel subtitle is An
Autobiography and we can extrapolate two meanings out of this: first that the novel represent
a fisrt person narration, Jane being the self-conscious narrator of her own story. She narrates
her story after ten years distance, by recalling the events that have marked his life, the
important stages from her childhood til adulthood . She uses the direct addressee to the reader
from time to time, in order to emphasize that they are reading an autobiography,
meaning truthful and authentic facts and such an example can be that from the beginning of
the last chapter, when Jane writes, Reader, I married him.'
The second meaning of the subtitle can be that there are certain similarities between the
events in the life of Charlotte and Jane so, some autobiographical elements can be recognized
throughout the novel. The death of Charlottes sisters at Cowan Bridge can can be likened
with the death of Janes best friend Helen Burns atLowood School, who also dies of
tuberculosis in Janes arms, also there are voices that say that LowoodSchool recalls of
Cowan Bridge where Charlotte was treated very poorly in her own childhood and it is usedas
a means of revenge. Also are there made similitudes between Charlottes brother Branwell,
who isbelieved to have slid into opium and alcohol addictions in the years preceding his
death and John Reeds addiction to alcoholism. Another similitude between Charlotte and
Jane can be that both choosed at some point to become a governess.
The novel is considered to be a bildungsroman, or a novel of formation because is
portrayed the process of maturation of a young orphan girl who becomes an independent
female and obtained the much-desired family who she lacked since childhood. According to
Suzanne Hader, "The term Bildungsroman denotes a novel of all-around self-development...
A Bildungsroman is, most generally, the story of a single individual's growth and
development within the context of a defined social order" (The Bildungsroman Genre").

TheGerman philosopher and sociologist Wilhelm Dilthey was the one that introduced the
term bildungsroman to the critical vocabulary in an 1870 biography of Friedrich
Schleiermacher and then popularized it with the success of his 1906 study Poetry and
Experience" (Boes 231)
A novel must fulfill certain features in order to be classified as a bildungsroman: the hero must
experience and pass some tests that help him in the maturation process, also must take certain
decisions meant to illustrate that there hasbeen a change in his/ her behavior and mentality and
also has to experience some forms of pain or loss in orderto be pulled into the journey of
designing his or her self-identity. The plot of Jane Eyre generally follows this form.Jane Eyres
process of maturation can be illustrated in five distinct stages each linked to a particular
place.The first stage is represented by Janes childhood at Gateshead, when she is presented as
an orphan, isolated and unloved child who is left in the care of the Reeds family who showed
a lack of compasion towards a child who starved for affection. She was often harshly punished
and treated with cruelty by his aunt and her cousins and always left without a sense of belonging,
always seeking for parental affection.
The second phase of her development is represented by her education at
the Lowood School where she passed the rest of her childhood and the beginning of her
adolescence. Despite of her expectations Jane was again treated unfairly and libelled by
Mr. Brocklehurst who was the schools headmaster, a cruel, hypocritical, and abusive man but
her indignation was released when she found support in the figure of her friend Helen Burns and
in the figure of a kind-hearted Miss Temple who was one of the few positive female models from
Jane's life. She experienced an important emotional transition when she no longer felt herself
like a wanderer and gained a sense of belonging through the care of Miss Temple and the support
of Helen. During that period she transitioned from a pupil to an instructor, a governess.
The third phase in her development is represented by her time as Adles governess
at Thornfield. Adle was a girl abandoned by her mother and cared for by Mr. Rochester, the
owner of Thornfield, so the girl was an orphan like Jane. At Thornfield Jane experienced the
most beautiful sentiment, that of falling in love that made her brave and mature and the
relationship with Mr. Rochester displayed the evolution of Jane from a child to a woman who

longs for more than familial love.When Rochester proposes to Jane she accepted, she believed
that they were intellectually and sentimentally equal, but then she had to face the strongest
emotional conflict between passion-love and reason-her proud and dignity which made her go
away. Jane has demonstrated that she had strong principles and did not give up in favor of her
feelings. She choose to keep her dignity and not being imprisoned by her elections because being
Rochesters wife(mistress) while he was married to another woman would have been an afront to
her principles and her dignity.
The next phase of her development is represented by the time passed with the Rivers family at
Morton and at Marsh End (also called Moor House). This phase also represented a sort of conflict
between ration andpassion because Jane was again forced to face a decision, St John
Rivers offered her the possibility of exercising her talents fully by proposing her
to accompany him in his journey to India. This proposal came also with a marriage proposal but
Jane realized that this would certainly mean another form of imprisonment for her because she
would have been forced to hide her true feelings and her passion and to give up on love for life
so she strongly refused St. John's proposal and decided to follow her heart.
The last phase is represented by her reunion and her marriage with Rochester at Ferndean after
she inherited some money from an uncle and became financially independent. Her maturation
process came to an end and she finally won that family and love that she needed since she was a
child . She became the mature woman who tells her own life story after ten years.
The conflict between passion and reason was expressed strongly by testing Jane several times .
Despite the fact that she had the opportunity to remain with Rochester, considering that he was
married prevented her to remainwith him even though she was sure of his love for her. Jane could
not break his dignity and principles, she could not accept to be considered his mistress and thus
inferior to him. However, she couldnt either accept the proposal of marrying a man whom she
didnt love and be sentenced to a life without love.

Gherman Andrada Maria, En/No, an III