Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre loses her parents while still a baby and is raised by her aunt by marriage, Mrs. Reed, who took the girl in only because she promised her late husband, Jane's beloved uncle. At Gateshead, a big, cold house in the north of England, Jane is the dependent: she eats with the family when it suits them, gets beaten by her older cousin John, and is told she should be grateful for a roof over her head.

Anyone who grew up in a relative's house knows how this goes: a child who depends on other people's favors learns early to keep quiet. The book begins this way, with a ten-year-old girl, thin and bookish, who hides behind a curtain with a book of bird engravings and is found there and attacked by her cousin.

After Jane fights back against the attack, she is the one who gets punished, not her cousin. They lock her in the red room, the room where her uncle died, and, terrified, she thinks she sees his ghost and faints. It is one of the most remembered scenes in the book because it shows an adult injustice seen through the eyes of a child who has no way to defend herself.

Soon after, Jane tells her aunt to her face what she thinks of her: that she is cruel and unjust. Her aunt, frightened, decides to send her off to a charity boarding school. Jane leaves with a mix of victory and guilt that comes back again and again in the book: telling the truth has a price, but staying silent has another.

This little girl already carries the mark of the character she will be: she feels her own worth even when everyone tells her she has none.

Lowood School is run by Mr. Brocklehurst, a clergyman who preaches humility to the students while his own family lives in luxury. The girls are cold and poorly fed, and he thinks this is good for their souls. As soon as she arrives, he humiliates Jane in public, calling her a liar because of what her aunt told him.

There Jane makes two friendships that shape her: Helen Burns, a classmate who bears injustice with religious patience and teaches her not to live for revenge, and Miss Temple, a teacher who is gentle and firm. A typhus epidemic hits the school, and Helen, who was already sick with tuberculosis, dies. The scandal forces conditions to improve.

Jane stays at Lowood for eight years, six as a student and two as a teacher. When Miss Temple marries and leaves, she feels the chapter has ended and places an ad looking for another job.