1. by Charlotte Bronte Background Information
Jane Eyre by
Charlotte Bronte
Background Information

2. Bronte Info
Published in 1847, Jane Eyre brought almost instant fame to its obscure author, the daughter of a clergyman in a small mill town in northern England.
**See Authors in Depth for more background info on the Brontes.**

3. Gothic Romantic Genre Poe was also part of the Gothic genre.
This style includes:
terror (both psychological and physical), supernatural elements, ghosts, haunted houses, death, decay, madness (especially mad women), and secrets
stock situations such as mystery, horror, and the classic medieval castle setting; many of the incidents border on (and cross over into) melodrama.

4. Melodrama Sentimental drama marked by extravagant theatricality,
subordination of character development to plot,
and focus on sensational incidents.

5. Melodrama It ends with virtue triumphing over vice.
It usually has an improbable plot that features such stock characters as
the noble hero,
the long-suffering heroine, and
the hard-hearted villain, and
It ends with virtue triumphing over vice.

6. Bildungsroman
A kind of novel that follows the development of the hero or heroine from childhood or adolescence into adulthood, through a troubled quest for identity.
The term (‘formation novel’) comes from Germany, where Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–6) set the pattern for later Bildungsromane.
Many outstanding novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries follow this pattern of personal growth: Dickens's David Copperfield and Great Expectations are examples.

7. Themes
The following themes appear in this novel, and should be applied to and discussed in your presentation if they appear in your chapter.
It is intrinsic to your presentation that you identify and discuss these themes so that you demonstrate a close reading and firm understanding of your chapter.

8. Morality There are two types of morality expressed in this novel:
Puritanism
strictness and austerity especially in matters of religion or conduct
Libertinism
a person who is unrestrained by convention or morality; specifically : one leading a dissolute life
It’s important to note that Jane rejects both of these extremes, and instead creates her own morality.

9. Religion
Religion is shown in this novel through the actions of characters.
Throughout the novel, Jane endeavors to attain an equilibrium between religious duty and earthly happiness.
Ultimately, religion serves to curb her immoderate passions but does not repress her true self.

10. Social Class
Jane's ambiguous social position -- a penniless yet learned orphan from a good family -- leads her, and by extension, Bronte, to criticize discrimination based on class.
Nevertheless, Charlotte Brontë possesses certain class prejudices herself, as is made clear when Jane has to remind herself that her unsophisticated village pupils at Morton "are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy."

11. Gender Relations
A particularly important theme in the novel is patriarchalism and Jane's efforts to assert her own identity within a male-dominated society.
Patriarchy: social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly: control by men of a disproportionately large share of power

12. Gender Relations
Through Jane, Brontë refutes Victorian stereotypes about women, articulating what was for her time a radical feminist philosophy.