Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel about an orphan who becomes a governess and seeks love, moral integrity, and independence.
Jane Eyre (character): Jane Eyre is the novel’s orphaned protagonist, a governess who insists on moral and personal independence. Her decisions and first-person account shape the novel’s emotional and ethical stakes.
Bildungsroman: A Bildungsroman is a novel tracing a protagonist’s development from youth toward maturity and self-understanding. Jane’s journey from childhood deprivation to adult independence gives the novel this developmental structure.
Charlotte Brontë: Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist whose works include Jane Eyre, published in 1847. Her authorship shaped the novel’s voice, themes, and original publication under a male pseudonym.
Feminist literary criticism: Feminist literary criticism examines how literature represents gender, power, and women’s lives. Jane’s demand for equality makes the novel a touchstone for debates about women’s independence.
Wide Sargasso Sea: Wide Sargasso Sea is Jean Rhys’s 1966 novel imagining the life of Rochester’s first wife before her confinement in England. Rhys retells the story from the perspective Jane Eyre leaves largely unheard.
Edward Rochester: Edward Rochester is the wealthy, brooding master of Thornfield Hall and Jane’s employer and love interest. His concealed marriage turns Jane’s expected wedding into the novel’s central crisis.
Gothic fiction: Gothic fiction uses ominous settings, concealed histories, and threatening events to create fear and suspense. Thornfield’s locked rooms and unexplained sounds bring Gothic conventions into Jane’s domestic story.
Currer Bell: Currer Bell was the pen name Charlotte Brontë used when Jane Eyre was first published. The pseudonym concealed Brontë’s identity when the novel entered a literary world dominated by men.
Victorian governess: A Victorian governess was a woman employed to teach children in a private household, often occupying an uncertain class position. Jane’s employment makes her both educated and economically dependent, complicating her relationship with Rochester.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is Anne Brontë’s 1848 novel about a woman who leaves an abusive marriage to protect her son. Its heroine’s flight offers another Brontë-era account of women resisting marital power.