Concetti Chiave
- Charlotte Brontë's novels rebelled against Jane Austen's orderly world, exploring passion and violence.
- 'Jane Eyre' is a Bildungsroman that follows the orphan Jane from childhood to marriage, highlighting her emotional journey.
- The novel includes autobiographical elements, employing a first-person narrative to convey deep emotions.
- It combines the Bildungsroman genre with Gothic fiction, creating a mysterious and dark atmosphere.
- Bertha, a key character, symbolizes Jane's repressed side, illustrating their complementary nature.
Born in 1816 in North Yorkshire.
In 1835, Charlotte and her sister decided to publish their poems; they rebelled against Jane Austen's world of order and restraint.
Their romantic novels explored the extremes of passion and violence in a new way.
In particular, Charlotte with her Bildungroman 'Jane Eyre'(published in 1847), tells the story of the orphan Jane, from her childhood to maturity and ends with the typical reward given to heroines of the novel of formation: marriage.
After a terrible time, Jane starts a work as a governess to a young girl, the ward of Mr Ronchester, in Thornfield.
After some time, Ronchester proposes to her, Jane agrees, but just before the wedding, she finds out that he's already married, with a mad woman, Bertha,that is locked in the artic.
Jane decides to leave Ronchester and becomes a teacher in a small village, after a long time she discovers that Thornfield has burnt down and that Bertha is dead.
At this point, she returns in Thornfield and marries Ronchester.
The plot has many autobiographical elements, such as the use of the first person narrator, and the way of describing the events throw emotions.
The novel was a shock for some readers, because it went against the Puritanical tradition.
Jane Eyre mixes also elements of the Bildungsroman with several elements of Gothic fiction, Gothic is the mysterious atmosphere , the dark shades of description, and also the figure of Bertha, the woman surrounded by an aura of fear.
Bertha is like the second side of Jane, the repressed animal inside of her, so they are complementary, two faces of the same coin.