Charlotte Brontë's story "Jane Eyre" traces the growth and development of a young orphaned girl. The story takes place in three main stages of her life, living with her aunt and cousins in Gateshead, going to school in Lowood and finally becoming a governess in Thornfield Manor. It is a 19th century novel and at the time when Brontë wrote the book, it was very unusual to have such a strong heroine as the central character of the story. For this piece of writing, I will be focusing on her years in Gateshead Hall, where Jane has to put up with her Aunt Reed and her cousins. Throughout this first section of the story Charlotte Brontë uses various methods and techniques to build up the reader's sympathy. She describes her childhood in Gateshead in great detail, to create sympathy for Jane with a wonderful use of description and convincing characteristics.
The use of first person narrative in the story allows the reader to feel a connection to Jane, to feel closer to her than anyone else in Gateshead Hall. This is because we are only told Jane's point of view on the events in the book, so we sympathize with her thoughts and feelings. The attention is completely focused on Jane and all of the events in Gateshead revolve around her. Because of the first person narrative, we become immediately familiar with Jane.
The language used to describe the weather reflects Jane's mood. When she is sitting in the drawing room, the weather outside seems to mirror her feelings with "ceaseless rain sweeping away before a long and lamentable blast." This highlights Jane's life, cold and sad like the "drear November day" and creates more sympathy for her.
It is not only the weather that reflects Jane's mood and thoughts, but also her imagination. When Jane is looking at the book, the images that are created in her head reflect how she feels, giving significance to "the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking." These images are all very gloomy. The "rock" that Jane pictures could possibly be how she sees herself, as an object that stands alone, while hardships and troubles surround her. It shows how strong and independent she feels she has to be. This creates further sympathy for Jane, as it shows she is obviously miserable.
Mrs Reed is an obvious influence on Jane's attitude and circumstances as her behaviour towards Jane is unjust and cruel. She resents Jane and sees her as a burden, whom she would love to be rid of. Mrs Reed is described as a "cold composed opponent", with, "eyes devoid of ruth", so she takes absolutely no pity on Jane. Even when she is locked in the red-room and cries to get out, Mrs Reed only sees her as a "precocious actress". Not only does Mrs Reed treat Jane with injustice and cruelty, but she also physically maltreats her.
The difference in her treatment of her own children and Jane adds to the sense of injustice enforced upon her niece. Jane tries her hardest to please Mrs Reed, but she is shunned by the whole family. Mrs Reed's own children do not show her any respect and are absolutely spoiled. Brontë creates more sympathy to Jane in this situation because in any incident involving her with the Reed children, Jane is always in the wrong, in Mrs Reed's eyes. After the Red-Room incident, Mrs Reed separates Jane from her own children more than ever before so she is forced to eat alone, sleep alone and play by herself in the nursery. Mrs Reed defines Jane to her children as "not worthy of notice" and demands they stay away from her. This increases the sense of isolation that she feels, so our sympathy for Jane increases.
However, a number of times in the book Jane is shown to enjoy being alone, as in the first few pages she fears "nothing but interruption, and that came too soon." From a young age she has felt lonely because her parents died so early in her life and the fact that she has been mistreated since she arrived in Gateshead hasn't helped this situation. Jane is also used to living in poverty, because, even though her Aunt is rich and her cousins can have anything they want, Jane has been rejected, alienated and deprived of "privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children." She is entirely dependant on her Aunt, so she has no defense against this ill-treatment. Jane is often reminded of this dependency, and even though she is used to it, she still finds it "painful and crushing". She is treated like an animal, as she is called names, such as, "rat…little toad…mad cat". All of these things indicate how Jane is made to feel as though the members of the Reed family, and even the servants, are her superiors, and that she is a nonentity.
