Jane Eyre begins as the small, stubborn child nobody wants—plain, poor, unshielded. She learns early that survival depends on self-respect. At a harsh school that prizes obedience over comfort, she trains her temper into principle without losing the spark that lets her look an adult in the eye. When she leaves to become a governess, she carries with her a fierce sense of fairness and a quiet appetite for beauty—books, dusk skies, a kind word honestly meant.
Jane doesn’t want grandeur; she wants a life she can answer for. She loves deeply but asks love to meet her at eye level—without disguises and without bargaining away her conscience. She can be stubborn to the point of loneliness, yet that stubbornness is a kind of tenderness toward herself: the refusal to live untruly. She notices everything and judges carefully; cruelty makes her bristle, hypocrisy makes her retreat.
What makes Jane unforgettable is her voice. She addresses the reader like a confidante—sometimes wry, sometimes raw, always precise—inviting you to watch her think. Through her, the novel becomes the story of how a poor, “plain” woman builds a self large enough to live in: principled, imaginative, and, in all the ways that matter, modern.
There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.
fromJane EyrebyLife appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.
fromJane EyrebyI am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed.
fromJane EyrebyYou think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity.
fromJane EyrebyI care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.
fromJane EyrebyLaws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this.
fromJane EyrebyDo you think I am an automaton?—a machine without feelings? … Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart! … I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;—it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; … and we stood at God’s feet, equal,—as we are.
fromJane EyrebyI am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.
fromJane EyrebyIt is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
fromJane Eyreby