Jane Eyre- first impressions and chapter summaries

Chapter One:-

• Jane is living in a household were she is made to feel like an outsider ‘to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance’.
• She uses language to describe her surroundings and the events of others around her.
• Story opens up on a cold November’s winters day.
• Jane is an outcast and is separated and keep in her place by her abusive cousin John Reed and his sisters Eliza and Georgiana.
• Jane’s mother is dead, and her father has orphaned her or died, and has left her to the aunt’s care (the sister of Jane’s mother).
• Jane is a ten-years old.
• Jane uses the households library of books as her escape, this is where she uses her imagination to run wild in books about far away places.
• John abuses and starts a fight with Jane in the library after her failing to answer mamma for a while.
• John is four years older than Jane (fourteen).
• This all happens to the unknowing of Mrs.Reed.
• After Jane has had a book thrown at her head, drawing blood, full of passion and anger Jane fights back, the two cousins scuffle, and once Mrs. Reed bursts into the room, Jane immediately receives the punishment for John’s doings. She is then hauled upstairs by the servants and Mrs. Reed (mamma), to the ‘red room’- which is the frightening chamber in which this room had held her Uncle Reed last breath. this is Jane’s punishment.

Chapter Tw0:-

• Two servants Miss Abbott and Bessie Lee, escort Jane to the red-room, with Jane resisting them with all her might. Ending in a scuffle.
• Once locked in the room, Jane catches a glimpse of her figure in the mirror, and she is shocked by her appearance, and she begins to reflect on the events that have led her to such a state. She reflects upon her kind Uncle Reed brining her to Gateshead after her own parents’ death, and she recalls his dying command that his wife promised to raise Jane ‘as one of her own’. Jane is then struck with the impression that her Uncle Reed’s ghost presence is in the room, and she imagines that he has come to take revenge upon his wife for breaking her promise.
• Jane cries out in terror, but her aunt believes that she is just trying to escape her punishment, and she ignores her pleas. Jane faints of exhaustion and fear.

Chapter Three:-

• Once Jane wakes, Jane finds herself once again in her own bedroom, in the care of Mr. Lloyd. Bessie is also present, and she as the examine is underway expresses her disapproval of her mistress’s treatment of Jane.
• Jane remains in bed the following day, and Bessie sings her a song.
• Mr. Lloyd speaks with Jane about her life at Gateshead, and he suggests to Jane’s aunt that the girl be sent away to school, where she might find happiness, she is cautiously excited at the possibility of leaving Gateshead.
• After Jane’s reflections in the red-room, Jane learns more of her history when she over hears a conversation between Bessie and Miss Abbott. Jane’s mother was member of the wealthy Reed family, which strongly disapproved of Jane’s father, a clergyman. When they married, Jane’s wealthy maternal grandfather wrote his daughter out of his will. Not long after Jane was born, and Jane’s parents died from typhus which Jane’s father contracted while caring for the poor.

Chapter Four:-

• About two months have passed, and Jane has been enduring even crueller treatment from her aunt and cousins whilst anxiously waiting for the arrangements to be made for her schooling.
• Once Jane is finally told she may attend the girls’ school Lowood, and she is introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst, the stern-faced man who runs the school.
• Mr. Brocklehurst asks questions to Jane about religion, and he reacts abruptly when she declares that she finds the psalms uninteresting.
• Jane’s aunt warns Mr. Brocklehurst that the girl also has a likelihood for lying, a piece of information that Mr. Brocklehurst says he intends to publicize to Jane’s teachers upon her arrival.
• When Mr. Brocklehurst leaves, Jane is so hurt by her aunt’s accusation that she cannot stop herself from defending herself to her aunt. Mrs. Reed, for once seems to show defeat. Shortly after, Bessie tells Jane that she prefers to the Reed children, before Jane leaves for school, Bessie tells her stories and sings her lovely songs.

My impressions on these earlier chapters, Jane Eyre explores and challenges of the social class for the nineteenth-century, Victorian era. Themes of social class, gender relations, and injustice are dominated throughout these chapters. Jane Eyre begins her story as an orphan raised by a wealthy and cultivated family, and this is considered unusual in their social standings, this motivates much of the novel’s internal tension and conflict. Jane’s education and lifestyle are considered those of the upper class, but she has no money. As a penniless orphan forced to live on the charity of others, Jane is a kind of second-class citizen. In some ways she is below even the servants, who certainly have no obligation to treat her respectfully. The tensions between the household soon emerge in the very first chapter of the novel, when Jane suffers teasing and punishment at the hands of John Reed and his hateful mother. Jane’s banishment to the red-room exemplifies her inferior position with regard to the rest of the members of the Reed household.

Chapter Five:-

• Four days after meeting Mr.Brocklehurst, Jane boards the coach and travels alone to Lowood. When she arrives at the school, the day is dark and rainy, and she is led through a grim building that will be her new home.
• The following day, Jane is introduced to her classmates and learns her daily routine, which keeps the girls occupied from before dawn until dinner.
• Miss Temple, is the superintendent of the school, and is very kind, whilst one of Jane’s teachers Miss Scatcherd is unpleasant, and is particularly harsh in her treatment of a young student named Helen Burns.
• Jane and Helen become friends, and Jane learns from Helen that Lowood is a charity school maintained for female orphans, which means that the Reeds have paid nothing to put her there.
• Jane also learns that Mr. Brocklehurst oversees every aspect of its operation; and even Miss Temple must answer to him.

Chapter Six:-

• On Jane’s second morning at Lowood, the girls are unable to wash, as the water is frozen.
• Jane quickly learns that life at the school is harsh. They are underfed, overworked, and forced to sit still during endless sermons.
• She takes comfort in her new friendship with Helen, who impress Jane with her expansive knowledge and her ability to patiently endure even the cruelest treatment from Miss. Scatcherd.
• Helen tells Jane that she practices a doctrine of Christian endurance, which means loving her enemies and accepting. Jane disagrees strongly with such a meek tolerance of injustice, but Helen takes nothing of Jane’s arguments.
• Helen is self-critical only because she sometimes fails to live up to her standards, as she believes that she is a poor student and pulls herself up on herself for daydreaming about her home and family when she should be concentrating on her studies.

Chapter Seven:-

• For most of Jane’s first month at Lowood, Mr. Brocklehurst spends his time away from the school. When her returns, Jane becomes quite nervous because she remembers his promise to her aunt.
• When Jane accidentally drops her feelings on Mr.Brocklehurst’s presence, he is furious and tells her she is careless. He orders Jane to stand on a stool while he tells the school that she is a liar, and he forbids the other students to speak to her for the rest of the day.
• Helen makes Jane’s day of humiliation endurable, by providing her friend with silent consultation she secretly smiles at Jane every time she passes by.

Chapter Eight:-

• Finally at five o’clock, the students leave and Jane collapses to the floor; deeply ashamed she is certain that her reputation at Lowood has been sent plummeting down-hill, but Helen assures her that most of the girls felt more pity towards Jane.
• Jane tells Miss. Temple that she is not a liar, and relates to the story of her tormented childhood at Gateshead.
• Miss. Temple seems to believe Jane and writes to Mr. Lloyd requesting confirmation of Jane’s account of events.
• Miss. Temple offers Jane and Helen tea and seed cake.
• When Mr. Lloyd’s letter arrives, this proves Jane’s story, and Miss. Temple public declares to the whole school that Jane is to be innocent.
• Relieved Jane devotes herself to her studies, and she excels at drawing and makes progress in French.

Chapter Nine:-

•  In the spring, life at Lowood briefly seems happier, but the damp forest that surrounds the school, makes a breeding-ground for typhus, and in the warm temperatures, more than half the girls fall ill with the disease.
• Jane remains healthy and spends her time playing outdoors with a new friend, Mary Ann Wilson.
• Helen is sick, but not with typhus Jane learns the horrific news that her friend is dying of consumption.
• One evening Jane sneaks into Miss Temple’s room to see Helen one last time. Helen promises Jane that she feels little pain and is happy to be leaving the world’s suffering behind. Jane takes Helen into her arms, and the girls fall asleep.
• During the night, Helen dies.

Chapter Ten:-

• After Mr. Brocklehurst’s treatment of the girls at Lowood is found to be one of the causes of the typhus out burst, a new group of overseers is brought in to run the school.
• Conditions of the school and treatment of the girls improve dramatically, and Jane excels in her studies for the next six years.
• After spending two more years at Lowood as a teacher, Jane decides she is ready for a change, partly because Miss. Temple gets married and leaves the school. She advertises in search of a job as a governess and accepts a position at a manor called Thornfield.
• Before leaving, Jane receives a visit from Bessie, who tells who tells her what has happened at Gateshead since Jane departed. – Georgina attempted to run away in secret with a man named Lord Edwin Vere, but Eliza foiled the plan by revealing it to Mrs. Reed. John had fallen into a life of dissolution.
• Bessie also tells Jane that her father’s brother, John Eyre appeared at Gateshead seven years ago, looking for Jane; but he did not have the time to travel to Lowoord and went away to Madeira in search of wealth.
• Jane and Bessie part ways, Bessie returning to Gateshead, and JAne leaving for new life at Thornfield.

My impressions of these chapters details Jane’s experiences at Lowood, from her first day at the school to her final one some nine years later. Jane’s early years at Lowood prove to be a period of cruel treatment once again, as she endures harsh conditions, cruel teachers, and triumph of Mr. Brocklehurst punishments and humiliation efforts towards Jane. The harsh conditions she experiences as a student at Lowood show us that, despite Jane’s intelligence, talent, and self-assurance, she is merely a burden in the eyes of society, because she is poor. The most important contexts elements in this section are the contrasts of religious thoughts being represented by Mr. Brocklehurst and Helen Burns. Mr. Brocklehurst is a religious hypocrite, supporting his own luxuriously wealthy family at the expense of the Lowood students and using his “piety” as an instrument of power over the lower-class girls at Lowood. He claims that he is purging his students of pride by subjecting them to various privations and humiliations: for example, he orders that the naturally curly hair of one of Jane’s classmates be cut so as to lie straight.

Chapter Eleven:-

• Jane’s driver is late picking her up from the station, causing her to arrive late at Thronfield – nighttime. Although she cannot tell much of the house from the shadows, she finds the interior ‘cosy and agreeable’.
• Mrs. Fairfax an elderly woman is waiting for Jane, and it turns out that Mrs. Fairfax is not as Jane had assumed from their meeting, but she is not the owner of Thornfield but is the housekeeper.
• Thornfield’s owner, Mr. Rockchester, travels regularly and leaves much of the households management to Mrs. Fairfax.
• Jane learns that she will be tutoring Adele, an eight-year-old French girl, whose mother was a singer and dancer.
• Mrs. Fairfax, also tells Jane about Rockchester, saying that he is a man whose family has a history of extreme and violent behaviour. With that Jane suddenly hears strange, eerie laughter echoing through the house, and Mrs. Fairfax summons someone named Grace, who she orders to make less noise and to ‘remember directions’. When Grace  leaves Mrs. Fairfax explains that she is a rather unbalanced and unpredictable seamstress works in the house.

Chapter Twelve:-

• Jane finds her life at Thornfield pleasant and comfortable.
• Adele proves to be an intelligent and energetic student, though she is spoiled and at time resists authority.
• Jane is frequently restless and collects her thought whilst pacing Thornfileds’ top-story corridor.
• On an evening a few months after her arrival at Thornfield, Jane is alone watching the moon rise when she sees from a distance a horse approaching. It reminds her of the story Bessie had once told her of a spirit called a Gytrash, which disguises itself as a mule, dog or horse. But oddly enough a dog appears aswell as a horse, with a rider.
• As the horse and rider pass her, it slips on a patch of ice, and its rider tumbles to the ground.
• Jane rushes to help the rider to his feet and introduces herself.
• She observes his dark face, stern features, and a heavy brow. He is not quite middle-aged.
• Upon returning to Thornfield, Jane goes to find Mrs. Fairfax, and finds her in her room and she sees the same dog, Pilot resting on the rug.
• A servant answers Jane’s questions, explaining that the dog belongs to Mr. Rockchester, who has just returned home with a sprained ankle, having fallen from his horse.

Chapter Thirteen:-

• The day following his arrival, Mr. Rochester invites Jane and Adele to have tea with him. He is abrupt and rather cold toward both of them, although he seems charmed by Jane’s drawings, which he asks to see.
• When Jane mentions to Mrs. Fairfax that she finds Rochester “changeful and abrupt,” Mrs. Fairfax suggests that his mannerisms are the result of a difficult personal history. Rochester was something of a family outcast, and when his father died, his older brother inherited Thornfield. Rochester has been Thornfield’s owner for nine years, since the death of his brother.

Chapter Fourteen:-

• Jane sees little of Rochester during his first days at Thornfield. One night, however, in his “after-dinner mood,” Rochester sends for Jane and Adele. He gives Adele the present she has been anxiously awaiting, and while Adele plays, Rochester is uncharacteristically chatty with Jane.
• When Rochester asks Jane whether she thinks him handsome, she answers “no” without thinking, and from Rochester’s voluble reaction Jane concludes that he is slightly drunk.
• Jane feeling awkward, especially because Rockchester goes on to argue that her relationship to him is not one of servitude. Their conversation turns to the concepts of sin, forgiveness, and redemption. When Adele mentions her mother, Jane is interested, and Rochester promises to explain more about the situation on a future occasion.

Chapter Fifteen:-

• A while later, Rochester fulfills his promise to Jane to tell her about his and Adele’s pasts. He had a long affair with Adele’s mother, the French singer and dancer named Celine Varens. When he discovered that Celine was engaged in relations with another man, Rochester ended the relationship. Rochester has always denied Celine’s claim that Adele is his daughter, nothing of the child looks like him. So when Celine abandoned her daughter, Rochester brought Adele to England so that she would be properly cared for.
• Jane lies awake consulting to herself about the strange insights she has gained into her employer’s past. She hears what sound like fingers brushing against the walls, and an eerie laugh soon fills from the hallway. She hears a door opening and hurries out of her room to see smoke coming from Rochester’s door. Jane dashes into his room and finds his bed curtains ablaze. Jane pours water over the blaze, saving Rochester’s life. Strangely, Rochester’s reaction to the fire is to visit the third floor of the house.
• When he returns, he says mysteriously, “I have found it all out, it is just as I thought.”He inquires whether Jane has ever heard the eerie laughter before, and she answers that she has heard Grace Poole laugh in the same way. “Just so. Grace Poole—you have guessed it,” Rochester confirms. He thanks Jane for saving his life and cautions her to tell no one about the details of the night’s events. He sleeps on the library sofa for the remainder of the night.

Chapter Sixteen:-

• The next morning, Jane is shocked to learn that the near tragedy of the night before has caused no scandal. The servants believe Rochester to have fallen asleep with a lit candle by his bed, and even Grace Poole shows no sign of guilt or remorse. Jane cannot imagine why an attempted murderer is allowed to continue working at Thornfield.
• She realizes that she is beginning to have feelings for Rochester and is disappointed that he will be away from Thornfield for several days. He has left to attend a party where he will be in the company of Blanche Ingram, a beautiful lady.
• Jane scolds herself for being disappointed by the news, and she resolves to restrain her flights of imaginative fancy by comparing her own portrait to one she has drawn of Blanche Ingram, she noted how much plainer she is than the beautiful Blanche.

My impressions of these chapters were that they marked the third phase of Jane’s life, in which she begins her career as a governess and travels to Thornfield, where the principal incidents of her story take place. By linking Jane’s stages of development to the various institutions or geographic locations with which she is involved (Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield, Moor House, and Ferndean).

Chapter Seventeen:-

• Rockchester has been gone for a week , and Jane is disheartened to learn that he may choose to depart for continental Europe without returning to Thornfield—according to Mrs. Fairfax, he could be gone for more than a year. A week later, however, Mrs. Fairfax receives word that Rochester will arrive in three days with a large group of guests.
• Whilst waiting for Rochester’s arrival,  Jane continues to be amazed by the apparently normal relations the strange, self–isolated Grace Poole enjoys with the rest of the staff. Jane also overhears a conversation in which a few of the servants discuss Grace’s high pay, and Jane is certain that she doesn’t know the entire truth about Grace Poole’s role at Thornfield.
• Rochester arrives at last, accompanied by a party of elegant guests. Jane is forced to join the group but spends the evening watching them from a window seat. Blanche Ingram and her mother are among the party’s members, and they treat Jane with true cruelty.
• Jane tries to leave the party, but Rochester stops her. He grudgingly allows her to go when he sees the tears appearing in her eyes. He informs her that she must come into the drawing-room every evening during his guests’ stay at Thornfield.
• As the two-part, Rochester nearly lets slip more than he intends. “Good-night, my—”he says, before biting his lip.

Chapter Eighteen:-

• The guests stay at Thornfield for several days. Rochester and Blanche compete as a team at charades. From watching their interaction, Jane believes that they will be married soon though they do not seem to love one another.
• Blanche would be marrying Rochester for his wealth, and he for her beauty and her social position.
• One day, a strange man named Mr. Mason arrives at Thornfield. Jane dislikes him at once because of his vacant eyes and his slowness, but she learns from him that Rochester once lived in the West Indies, as he himself has done.
• One evening, a gypsy woman comes to Thornfield to tell the guests’ fortunes. Blanche Ingram goes first, and when she returns from her talk with the gypsy woman she looks fairly disappointed.

Chapter Nineteen:-

• Jane goes in to the library to have her fortune read, and after overcoming her disbelief, she finds herself entranced by the old woman’s speech. The gypsy woman seems to know a great deal about Jane and tells her that she is very close to happiness.
• She also says that she told Blanche Ingram that Rochester was not as wealthy as he seemed, thereby accounting for Blanche’s sudden change in mood.
• As the woman reads Jane’s fortune, her voice slowly deepens, and Jane realizes that the gypsy is Rochester in disguise.
• Jane reproaches Rochester for tricking her and remembers thinking that Grace Poole might have been the gypsy.
• When Rochester learns that Mr. Mason has arrived, he looks troubled.

Chapter Twenty:-

• The same night, Jane is startled by a sudden cry for help. She hurries into the hallway, where Rochester assures everyone that a servant has merely had a nightmare.
• After everyone returns to bed, Rochester knocks on Jane’s door. He tells her that he can use her help and asks whether she is afraid of blood. He leads her to the third story of the house and shows her Mr. Mason, who has been stabbed in the arm. Rochester asks Jane to stanch the wound and then leaves, ordering Mason and Jane not to speak to one another.
• In the silence, Jane gazes at the image of the apostles and Christ’s crucifixion that is painted on the cabinet across from her. Rochester returns with a surgeon, and as the men tend to Mason’s wounds, Rochester sends Jane to find a potion downstairs. He gives some of it to Mason.
• Once Mason is gone, Jane and Rochester stroll in the orchard, and Rochester tells Jane a hypothetical story about a young man who commits a “capital error”in a foreign country and proceeds to lead a life in an effort to “obtain relief.” The young man then hopes to redeem himself and live morally with a wife, but convention prevents him from doing so. He asks whether the young man would be justified in “overleaping an obstacle of custom.” Jane’s reply is that such a man should look to God for his redemption, not to another person. Rochester—who obviously has been describing his own situation—asks Jane to reassure him that marrying Blanche would bring him salvation. He then hurries away before she has a chance to answer.

Chapter Twenty-One:-

• Jane has heard that it is a bad to dream of children, and now she has dreams on seven consecutive nights involving babies.
• She learns that her cousin John Reed has committed suicide, and that her aunt, Mrs. Reed, has suffered a stroke and is nearing death.
• Jane goes to Gateshead, where she is reunited with Bessie. She also sees her cousins Eliza and Georgiana.
• Eliza is plain and plans to enter a convent, while Georgiana is as beautiful as ever.
• Ever since Eliza ruined Georgiana’s hopes of eloping with a young man, the two sisters have not gotten along.
• Jane tries to patch things up with Mrs. Reed, but the old woman is still full of hostility toward her late husband’s favourite.
• One day, Mrs. Reed gives Jane a letter from her father’s brother, John Eyre. He declares that he wishes to adopt Jane and to share her his fortune. The letter is three years old; out of torment and hatred, Mrs. Reed did not forward it to Jane when she received it. In spite of her aunt’s behavior, Jane tries once more to smooth relations with the dying woman. But Mrs. Reed refuses, and, at midnight, she dies.

My impressions of these chapters was that it seems like once again Jane, forced to sit in torment and this is displayed in the drawing-room during Rochester’s party, when she must endure Blanche Ingram’s comments to her mother about the nature of governesses—“half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous, and all incubi.” By this stage of the story, the novel has begun to focus increasingly on the potential relationship between Jane and Rochester. Blanche’s presence, which threatens the possibility of a union between the two, adds tension to the plot.

Chapter Twenty-Two:-

• Jane remains at Gateshead for a month because Georgiana dreads being left alone with Eliza, with whom she does not get along.
• Eventually, Georgiana goes to London to live with her uncle, and Eliza joins a convent in France. Jane tells us that Eliza eventually becomes the Mother Superior of her convent, while Georgiana marries a wealthy man.
• At Gateshead, Jane receives a letter from Mrs. Fairfax, which says that Rochester’s guests have departed and that Rochester has gone to London to buy a new carriage—a sure sign of his intention to marry Blanche.
• As Jane travels toward Thornfield, she anxiously anticipates seeing Rochester again, and yet she worries about what will become of her after his marriage. To her surprise, as she walks from the station at Millcote, Jane finds Rochester.
• When he asks her why she has stayed away from Thornfield so long, she replies, still a bit bewildered, “I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.”Rochester asks Jane whether she has heard about his new carriage, and he tells her: “You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don’t think it will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly.” After a few more words together, Jane surprises herself by expressing the happiness she feels in Rochester’s presence: “I am strangely glad to get back again to you; and wherever you are is my home—my only home.” Back at the manor, Mrs. Fairfax, Adele, and the servants greet Jane warmly.

Chapter Twenty-Three:-

• After a blissful two weeks, Jane encounters Rochester in the gardens. He invites her to walk with him, and Jane, caught off guard, accepts. Rochester shares with her that he has finally decided to marry Blanche Ingram and tells Jane that he knows of an available governess position in Ireland that she could take.
• Jane expresses her distress at the great distance that separates Ireland from Thornfield. The two seat themselves on a bench at the foot of the chestnut tree, and Rochester says: “we will sit there in peace to-night, though we should never more be destined to sit there together.” He tells Jane that he feels as though they are connected by a “cord of communion.”Jane sobs—“for I could repress what I endured no longer,” she tells us, “I was obliged to yield.” Jane confesses her love for Rochester, and to her surprise, he asks her to be his wife.
• Jane suspects that he is teasing her, but he convinces her otherwise by admitting that he only brought up marrying Blanche in order for  Jane to show jealousy. Convinced Jane accepts his proposal.
• A storm breaks, and the newly engaged couple hurries indoors through the rain. Rochester helps Jane out of her wet coat, and he seizes the opportunity to kiss her.
• Jane looks up to see Mrs. Fairfax watching, astonished. That night, a bolt of lightning splits the same chestnut tree under which Rochester and Jane had been sitting that evening.

Chapter Twenty-Four:-

• The preparations for Jane and Rochester’s wedding do not run smoothly. Mrs. Fairfax treats Jane coldly because she doesn’t realize that Jane was already engaged to Rochester when she allowed him to kiss her. But even after she learns the truth, Mrs. Fairfax maintains her disapproval of the marriage.
• Jane feels unsettled, almost fearful, when Rochester calls her by what will soon be her name, Jane Rochester. Jane explains that everything feels impossibly ideal, like a fairy-tale or a daydream. Rochester certainly tries to turn Jane into a Cinderella-like figure: he tells her he will dress her in jewels and clothes and accessories for her new social station, at which point Jane becomes terrified and self-protective.
• Jane has a feeling that the wedding will not happen, and she decides to write her uncle, John Eyre, who is in Madeira. Jane reasons that if John Eyre were to make her his heir, her inheritance might put her on more equal footing with Rochester, which would make her feel less uncomfortable about the marriage.

Chapter Twenty-Five:-

• The night before her wedding, Jane waits for Rochester, who has left Thornfield for the evening. She grows restless and takes a walk in the orchard, where she sees the now-split chestnut tree.
• When Rochester arrives, Jane tells him about strange events that have occurred in his absence. The preceding evening, Jane’s wedding dress arrived, and underneath it was an expensive veil—Rochester’s wedding gift to Jane.
• In the night, Jane had a strange dream, in which a little child cried in her arms as Jane tried to make her way toward Rochester on a long, winding road.
• Rochester dismisses the dream as insignificant, but then she tells him about a second dream. This time, Jane loses her balance and the child falls from her knee.
• The dream was so disturbing that it caused Jane wake up from her sleep, and she as she woke she heard  “a form” rustling in her closet. It turned out to be a strange, savage-looking woman, who took Jane’s veil and tore it in two. Rochester tells her that the woman must have been Grace Poole and that what she experienced was really “half-dream, half-reality.”
• He tells her that he will give her a full explanation of events after they have been married for one year and one day. Jane sleeps with Adele for the evening and cries because she will soon have to leave the sleeping girl.

My impressions of these chapters was that after Jane’s stay at Gateshead, Jane comes to understand fully what Rochester and Thornfield mean to her. Having been acutely reminded of the objection and cruelty she suffered during her childhood, Jane now realizes how different her life has become, how much she has gained and how much she has grown. In Rochester she has found someone she truly cares for—someone who, despite periodic shows of brusqueness, nevertheless continues to admire Jane and care for her tenderly. Moreover, Rochester gives her a true sense of belonging, something she has always lacked. As she tells him, “wherever you are is my home—my only home.” Although Rochester’s declaration of love and marriage proposal makes Jane exceedingly happy, she is also second guessing and in doubt about her marriage. Her feelings of dread may be a part of her subconscious of Rochester’s dark and horrible secret, the eerie laughter she has heard, the mysterious fire from which she rescued Rochester, the strange figure who tears Jane’s wedding veil, and other smaller clues may have led Jane to make some subconscious conclusions about what she will only find out only later.

Chapter Twenty-Six:-

• Sophie helps Jane dress for the wedding, and Rochester and Jane walk to the church. Jane notes a pair of strangers reading the headstones in the churchyard cemetery.
• When Jane and Rochester enter the church, the two strangers are also present. When the priest asks if anyone objects to the ceremony, one of the strangers answers: “The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment.”Rochester attempts to proceed with the ceremony, but the stranger explains that Rochester is already married—his wife is a Creole woman whom Rochester wed fifteen years earlier in Jamaica.
• The speaker explains that he is a solicitor from London, and he introduces himself as Mr. Briggs.  He produces a signed letter from Richard Mason proving that Rochester is married to Mason’s sister, Bertha. Mr. Mason himself then steps forward to contribute to the story.
• After a moment of fury, Rochester admits that his wife is alive and that in marrying Jane he would have been taking a second wife. No one in the community knows of his wife because she is mad, and Rochester keeps her locked away under the care of Grace Poole. But, he promises them all, Jane is completely ignorant of Bertha’s existence.
• He orders the crowd to come to Thornfield to see her, so that they may understand what impelled him to his present course of action.
• At Thornfield, the group climbs to the third story. Rochester points out the room where Bertha bit and stabbed her brother, and then he lifts a curtain to uncover a second door. Inside the hidden room is Bertha Mason, under the care of Grace Poole.
• Bertha attempts to strangle Rochester, who reminds his audience, “this is the sole conjugal embrace I am ever to know.”Jane leaves the room with Mason and Briggs, who tells her that he learned of her intent to marry Jane via a letter from Jane’s uncle, John Eyre, to Mason. It turns out that the two men knew each other, and Mason had stopped in Madeira on his way back to Jamaica when John received Jane’s letter.
• Approaching death, John asked Mason to hurry to England to save his niece. After the wedding crowd disperses, Jane locks herself in her room and plunges into an inexpressible grief.
• She thinks about the almost calm manner in which the morning’s events unfolded and how it seems utterly stupid to the these events have an effect on the rest of her life. She prays to God to be with her.

Chapter Twenty-Seven:-

• After falling asleep for a short while, Jane awakes to the realization that she must leave Thornfield. When she steps out of her room, she finds Rochester waiting on a chair.
• Rochester’s assures that he never meant to wound her, and to his pleas of forgiveness, Jane is silent, although she forgives him on the spot. Jane suddenly feels faint, and Rochester carries her to the library to revive her. He then offers her a new proposal—to leave England with him for the South of France, where they will live together as husband and wife. Jane refuses, explaining that no matter how Rochester chooses to view the situation, she will never be more than a mistress to him while Bertha is alive.
• Jane is left confused, and later that night she dream, in which her mother tells her to flee temptation. She grabs her purse, sneaks down the stairs, and leaves Thornfield.

Chapter Twenty-Eight:-

• Riding in a coach, Jane quickly exhausts her meager money supply and is forced to sleep outdoors. She spends much of the night in prayer, and the following day she begs for food or a job in the nearby town. No one helps her, except for one farmer who is willing to give her a slice of bread.
• After another day, Jane sees a light shining from across the moors. Following it, she comes to a house. Through the window, Jane sees two young women studying German while their servant knits.
• From their conversation Jane learns that the servant is named Hannah and that the graceful young women are Diana and Mary. The three women are waiting for someone named St. John.
• Jane knocks on the door, but Hannah refuses to let her in. Collapsing on the doorstep in anguish and weakness.
• They ask her some questions, and she gives them a false name: “Jane Elliott.”

My impressions of these chapters was that Jane is enduring her most difficult trials in this section of the book: she resolves to leave Rochester although it pains her deeply, and she is forced to sleep outdoors and go hungry on the moors in her flight from Thornfield. However, this section is also where Jane proves to herself her endurance, her strength of principle, and her ability to forge new friendships. As she tells herself before leaving Thornfield, “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unstained I am, the more I will respect myself.” Ultimately this self-interest will make her relationships with others, including her eventual marriage, all the more meaningful and rewarding. Jane’s departure from Thornfield is perhaps the most important decision she makes in the novel. In Rochester she found the love for which she had always yearned, and Thornfield was the first real home she ever knew. In fleeing them, Jane leaves a part of herself behind. But living with Rochester as his mistress would require a self-compromise that Jane is not willing to make. Even before she learns of Bertha’s existence, Jane senses that in marrying Rochester she risks cementing herself into a position of inequality. She fears that Rochester would objectify her and that by “marrying above her station” she would come to the relationship already “in debt” to him. Now Jane sees more clearly than ever that a relationship with Rochester would mean the loss of her self-respect, and of her control over her life. Jane cannot bring herself to do what is morally wrong, simply out of weakness of will and emotional needs.

Chapter Twenty-Nine:-

• After she is taken in by the Rivers siblings, Jane spends three days recuperating in bed.
• On the fourth day, she feels well again and follows the smell of baking bread into the kitchen, where she finds Hannah. Jane criticizes Hannah for judging her unfairly when she asked for help, and Hannah apologizes.
• Hannah tells the story of Mr. Rivers, the siblings’ father, who lost most of the family fortune in a bad business deal. In turn, Diana and Mary were forced to work as governesses—they are only at Marsh End (or Moor House) now because their father died three weeks ago.
• Jane then relates some of her own story and admits that Jane Elliott is not her real name. St. John promises to find her a job.

Chapter Thirty:-

• Jane befriends Diana and Mary, who admire her drawings and give her books to read. St. John, on the other hand, remains distant and cold, although he is never unkind.
• After a month, Diana and Mary must return to their posts as governesses. St. John has found a position for Jane, running a charity school for girls in the town of Morton. Jane accepts, but St. John presumes that she will soon leave the school out of restlessness, perhaps because he himself is quite restless.
• His sisters suspect he will soon leave England for a missionary post overseas.
• St. John tells his sisters that their Uncle John has died and left them nothing, because all his money went to another, unknown, relative.
• Jane learns that it was Uncle John who led Mr. Rivers into his disastrous business deal.

Chapter Thirty-One:-

• At Morton, the wealthy heiress Rosamond Oliver provides Jane with a cottage in which to live. Jane begins teaching, but to her own regret, she finds the work degrading and disappointing.
• While on a visit to Jane, St. John reveals that he, too, used to feel that he had made the wrong career choice, until one day he heard God’s call. Now he plans to become a missionary.
• The beautiful Rosamond Oliver then appears, interrupting St. John and Jane’s conversation. From their interaction, Jane believes that Rosamond and St. John are in love.

Chapter Thirty-Two:-

• Jane’s students become more familiar and endeared to her, and Jane becomes quite popular among them.
• At night, though, she has troubling nightmares that involve Rochester.
• Jane continues to pay attention to the relationship between St. John and Rosamond, who often visits the school when she knows St. John will be there.
• Rosamond asks Jane to draw her portrait, and as she is working on it one day, St. John pays her a visit. He gives her a new book of poetry and looks at the drawing.
• She offers to draw him a duplicate, and then boldly declares that he ought to marry Rosamond.
• St. John admits that he loves her and is tempted by her beauty, but he explains that he refuses to allow worldly affection to interfere with his holy duties. The flirtatious, silly, and shallow Rosamond would make a terrible wife for a missionary.
• Suddenly, St. John notices something on the edge of Jane’s paper and tears off a tiny piece—Jane is not certain why. With a peculiar look on his face, he hurries from the room.

My impressions from these chapters was that here Jane develops a new sense of belonging, and proves herself capable of finding like-minded companions with whom she is not romantically involved with. The fact that Diana and Mary Rivers are also governesses puts them on an equal footing with Jane. Although Jane left Thornfield convinced that she had made the right decision, she harbored uncertainty as to whether she would ever find a sense of belonging without sacrificing her moral standings. Jane’s stay at Marsh End proves to her that she is not doomed to be forever alienated from the world, that a balance between community and autonomy can be achieved. Now, as an integrated member of the Rivers household, Jane realizes that one may give and accept love from others in equal exchange.

Chapter Thirty-Three:-

• On a snowy night, Jane sits reading the book St.John gave her when St. John appears at the door.
• He Appears troubled, he tells Jane the story of an orphan girl who became the governess at Thornfield Hall, then disappeared after nearly marrying Edward Rochester: this runaway governess’s name is Jane Eyre. Until this point, Jane has been cautious not to reveal her past and has given the Rivers a false name.
• He says that he has received a letter from a solicitor named Mr. Briggs intimating that it is extremely important that this Jane Eyre be found. Jane is only interested in whether Mr. Briggs has sent news of Rochester, but St. John says that Rochester’s well-being is not at issue: Jane Eyre must be found because her uncle, John Eyre, has died, leaving her the vast fortune of 20,000 pounds.
• Jane reveals herself to be Jane Eyre, knowing that St. John has guessed already. She asks him how he knew. He shows her the scrap of paper he tore from her drawing the previous day: it is her signature.
• She then asks why Mr. Briggs would have sent him a letter about her at all. St. John explains that though he did not realize it before, he is her cousin: her Uncle John was his Uncle John, and his name is St. John Eyre Rivers.
• Jane is overjoyed to have found a family at long last, and she decides to divide her inheritance between her cousins and herself evenly, so that they each will inherit 5,000 pounds.

Chapter Thirty-Four:-

• Jane closes her school for Christmas and spends a happy time with her newfound cousins at Moor House. Diana and Mary are delighted with the improvements Jane has made at the school, but St. John seems colder and more distant than ever.
• He tells Jane that Rosamond is engaged to a rich man named Mr. Granby.
• St.John asks her to go to India with him to be a missionary—and to be his wife. She agrees to go to India as a missionary but says that she will not be his wife because they are not in love. St. John harshly insists that she marry him, declaring that to refuse his proposal is the same as to deny the Christian faith. He abruptly leaves the room.

Chapter Thirty-Five:-

• During the following week, St. John continues to pressure Jane to marry him. She resists as kindly as she can, but her kindness only makes him insist more bitterly and unyielding that she accompany him to India as his wife.
• Diana tells Jane that she would be a fool to go to India with St. John, who considers her merely a tool to aid his great cause.
• After dinner, St. John prays for Jane, and she is overcome with awe at his powers of speech and his influence. She almost feels compelled to marry him, but at that moment she hears what she thinks is Rochester’s voice, calling her name as if from a great distance.

My impressions of these chapters was that the household that has initially been for Jane merely a community of social equality is now revealed to be a true family. More importantly, St. John emerges as a crucial figure, providing Jane with a powerful and dangerous alternative to Rochester. All of these experiences prepare the ground for Jane to return to Rochester: having come to know her own strength, having learned that she is no longer alone in the world, having come into her own inheritance, and having received a competing marriage proposal, Jane can now enter into marriage without feeling herself beholden to her husband.

Chapter Thirty-Six:-

• She finds a note from St. John urging her to resist temptation, but nevertheless she boards a coach to Thornfield. She travels to the manor, anxious to see Rochester and reflecting on the ways in which her life has changed in the single year since she left.
• Jane learns that Bertha Mason set the house ablaze several months earlier. Rochester saved his servants and tried to save his wife, but she flung herself from the roof as the fire raged around her. In the fire, Rochester lost a hand and went blind.
• He has taken up residence in a house called Ferndean, located deep in the forest, with John and Mary, two elderly servants.

Chapter Thirty-Seven:-

• Jane goes to Ferndean.
• Jane carries a tray to Rochester, who is unable to see her. When he realizes that Jane is in the room with him, he thinks she must be a ghost or spirit speaking to him. When he catches her hand, he takes her in his arms, and she promises never to leave him.
• The next morning they walk through the woods, and Jane tells Rochester about her experiences the previous year. She has to assure him that she is not in love with St. John. He asks her again to marry him, and she says yes—they are now free from the specter of Bertha Mason.
• Rochester tells Jane that a few nights earlier, in a moment of desperation, he called out her name and thought he heard her answer.

Chapter Thirty-Eight:-

• Jane and Rochester marry with no witnesses other than the parson and the church clerk.
• Jane writes to her cousins with the news. St. John never acknowledges what has happened, but Mary and Diana write back with their good wishes.
• Jane visits Adèle at her school, and finds her unhappy. Remembering her own childhood experience, Jane moves Adèle to a more another school.
• Jane writes that she is narrating her story after ten years of marriage to Rochester, which she describes as inexpressibly blissful. They live as equals, and she helps him to cope with his blindness. After two years, Rochester begins to regain his vision in one eye, and when their first child—a boy—is born, Rochester is able to see the baby.

My impressions of these chapters was that Jane’s melodramatic discovery of the ruined Thornfield and her recounting of the story of Bertha Mason’s mad and fiery death lead to the novel’s last, brief stage at Ferndean, during which Jane and Rochester are able to marry at last, which I believe is Janes’ version of her happily ever after.