di Tonia Mastromarino - Istituto Orazio Flacco di Castellaneta

1. Her life

2. Charlotte
Bronte
Was born in 1816
Studied at Cowan
Bridge
Studied at Roc
Head
Became governess
Studied languages
Opened a school
Died in 1855

3. WRITTEN IN
1847

4. Victorian Age

5. Shed lived
during the
Victorian Age

6. With Queen
Victoria ,
Britain was a
large empire

7. Age of the
railways

9. London

10. rich poor

13. In Victorian Age

20. Jane tells
her story

21. Jane
Eyre

22. Mrs
Reed
Jane ‘s
aunt

23. Jane’s cousin : John
Reed

30. Mr Rochester

32. Mr Rochester
and his friend
Blanche

39. A
BILDUNGSROMA
N like David
Copperfield

40.  Charlotte Bronte was born in the north of England, Thornton,in 1816.Her father
was a clergyman ,her mother died when she was young and she had four sisters
and one brother. They all loved read and write. They created a magical world
based on the stories that they read and invented. She was sent with her sisters
to a boarding school at Cowan Bridge (a model for Lowood School in Jane
Eyre). The bad, severe conditions at the school were responsible for the death
of her sisters. Then she went to an other school, she became a teacher in the
school and also worked in two families as a governess. She studied languages in
Brussels where she fell in love with Monsieur Heger that didn’t return her love
.Finally she opened her own school with her sister Emily. She wrote same
poems with her sisters and in 1847 she published Jane Eyre which was a great
success and become really famous. She published her work under male
pseudonym because people didn’t respect women writers and when people
realized that Jane was written by Charlotte accused her to be coarse, vulgar and
unfeminine. Her family life wasn’t happy because her sisters and her brother
died and her marriage was short–lived because she died after one year of a
illness connected with childbirth.

41.  Charlotte was born at a time of great change in Britain. She lived
through the reigns of four monarchs and the last of these was Queen
Victoria.During this time Britain was a rich and strong nation,a large
empire with great writers and artists.This was the age of the
railways,roads were dangerous and uncomfortable to travel on by horse
and carriage.People moved in big cities such as London to find
work.There were rich families but also poor people that had a hard
life.Because of poor living conditions there were diseases like
cholera.There were revolts against new machines too which deprived
people of their jobs.In this period marriage and church-going were very
important.Divorce was almost unknown.In Jane Eyre,Charlotte used
same of her experiences of life and love,she reflected the injustices of
her time.Orphan children had a terrible life in the schools such as
Lowood in Jane Eyre.

42.  In the Victorian Age schools were in bad
conditions,not all but most of them.There wasn’t
enough food and clothes.There was only water to
drink and a peace of bread to eat.Clothes weren’t
warm and the schools were cold , so easily children
became sick. Only rich children went to school or
they had a teacher at home but in 1891 there was a
law and also poor children went to school .

43.  Jane tells her story from her childhood,when she was ten.Her parents were dead and she lived with
her aunt,Mrs Reed,that was very rich.Her cousins and her aunt were very cruel with Jane and she
wasn’t happy there.One day her cousin,John Reed,hart Jane and the aunt closed her in a cold and dark
room and then they called the doctor.Jane told him what was happened and he decided to send her to
school.Lowood School was cold and not welcoming.All the girls from nine to twenty years wore ugly
brown dresses.The school was in bad conditions and many girls died;also Helen,the only Jane’s
friend.She became a teacher in the school and then decided to work as a governess and she went to
Thornfield Hall to be the teacher of Adèle,a child that the master of the house,Mr Rochester, had
adopted.Mr Rochester was very rich and the house was very big.He wasn’t often at home,he came
back sametimes and for Jane he was an intristing person.He had a beautiful friend,Blanche
Ingram,that wanted marry him for his richness.Jane was very sad for this marriage because she loved
Rochester but she discovered that he wanted marry her,not Blanche.During the marriage,Mr Mason
said that Rochester had a wife,his sister,Bertha.It was true but Bertha was mad and she stayed in the
attic of the house because she tried to kill Rochester.Jane decided to go away,it was impossible a
divorce in Victorian society,their marriage was impossible.She went in an other country where a
beautiful boy,St John River,and his sisters helped her.She discovered that they were their cousins and
that she was very rich because she recived a testament from her dead uncle.St John asked her to marry
him and go in mission in India but she loved Mr Rochester and decided to came back to
Thornfild.The house was burnt because Bertha had burnt the house and died there.Mr Rochester,to
save the people in the house became blind but he loved Jane and when she came back they married
and had two children.Finally after two years Rochester was able to see again with an eye!

44.  Jane Eyre is a BILDUNGSROMAN that means a novel of
formation and education. There is the spiritual and
psychological evolution of the characters from their childhood to
their adulthood,maturity. Also the novel “David Copperfield”of
Charles Dickens is a bildungsroman; both are autobiographical
novels. Charlotte and Dickens talk about their experiences and
they described their society.
After Charlotte,other writers wrote some novels like “Jane Eyre”
changing the end or the storyteller. There are some parallelism
with “Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte such as the subjects of
hate,death and love. The hate of Jane’s cousin and her aunt for
her,the death of Mrs Reed and Bertha and the love story between
Mr Rochester and Jane with a happy end.