chapter 28-35

Don't really like this part of the book, it’s far too coincidental and unrealistic, so am going to do the whole section in one go, to save me having to spent ages dwelling on each individual chapterJane has fled Thornfield and caught a coach to a far off place where Mr Rochester would not know anyone. Penniless and alone, Jane walks across moors, looking for civilisation, eating bilberries and anything else she can find. Soon she is hungry and ready to give up, but hears a church bell, and follows the sound to a little hamlet. Here she enters a cake shop, which the intention of swapping her gloves for food, but she is ashamed and instead asks for a seat, and inquires about any employment that was on offer. Being told there was none, she wanders from house to house, asking for employment, but to no avail. She eventually reaches the Parsonage, where she hoped to find help. However, the parson in question was not at home, and so Jane went away again, still hungry and tired. Eventually she ends up by a house, after wandering the moors begging for food. She observes the two women inside, the knocks on the door and asks for food and shelter for the night (it's raining by this point). The housekeeper declines and Jane curls up on the doorstep, ready to give up and die, when a man appears and takes her into the house. Jane, not sure if Rochester is looking for her, gives a false name to the group (Jane Elliot) and then falls asleep. Jane gets to know the three siblings a lot better, and soon they are good friends. Soon however, it gets to the point where Diana and Mary must move away, and become governesses for other people, and Moor house was to be boarded up till they came back. As Jane would be lacking a house to live, and is still jobless, St John offers her the position of mistress of a girls school in the village. Jane takes the job and moves into the cottage that comes with it. Just before the two sisters leave, a letter arrives, telling St John and his sisters that their Uncle John in Madeira (rings any bells?) is dead, and has left all his money to an unnamed relation. The next day Mary and Diana leave. Time goes by, and Jane teaches at the school, and observes St John’s interest in Rosemund. Jane starts to learn German, and carries on with her life, having little discussions with St John about him and Rosemund, with her trying to act as a matchmaker. However, St John starts to act strange, and tears a bit of paper off some of her work, almost without her noticing, and giving no explanation. Later on that day, St John pays a visit to Jane, and starts to describe the story of a girl named Jane Eyre’s childhood, and comments on how similar it is to Jane Elliot’s (Jane’s alias). St John then produces the piece of paper he had run off with, a scrap of paper with Jane’s name on it. Jane believes that he knows of her because of Mr Rochester’s searching’s, but what has actually happened is that Mr Briggs, the solicitor of the late Uncle John (the man that broke off Jane and Rochester’s wedding), is looking for Jane as she had been left £20,000 but her late uncle. Jane is then curious of why Mr Briggs wrote to St John about this, and finds out that St John, Mary and Diana are all Jane’s cousins! Jane decides to split the money between the four of them, as they deserve an equal share, and that solves that. Later on, at Christmas, it come to light that Rosemund is to be married, and St John asks Jane to stop learning German and start learning Hindustani (Urdu). Later, he and Jane go for a walk, and St John invites Jane to come and be a missionary with him, as his wife. Jane consents to go as his sister, but he refuses, and they argue. They talk again a few days later, with Jane making the same decision. They go to carry on arguing the point, but Jane hears Rochester’s cry on the wind, and she makes ready to return to him.

Themes

Most of the themes are mentioned here, Isolation for when Jane is out wandering the moors all alone, and she feels even god has forsaken her, being turned away at every doorstep, social status, as Jane has gone from almost becoming an equal to Mr Rochester to a beggar, then back up to being an independent woman with a small fortune, all in about half a year! Religion is also a major theme in this part of Jane’s life, as St John is a devout Christian, and therefore God is mentioned a lot. St John is yet another type of Christian in this book, being a missionary and an evangelist, intending to spread Gods word all across India. The theme of Love is also brought up, as St John loves Rosemund, who gets married to somebody else, and so he therefore asks Jane to marry him and accompany him to India. Jane isn’t very happy about this, as she knows that St John does not love her in that way, and because of that it would be a fake marriage, which is what she ran away from in the first place. Jane has also found a family, something she seems to have longed for throughout the book, being an orphan and having been effectively thrown out of Gateshead.

Characters

St John Rivers (pronounced Sin john) is the pastor of a nearby church, and Jane’s saviour when she first turns up at the cottage. He seems a stern person, upright and moral to the end. His sole goal is to go to India and become a missionary of God, and he wishes Jane to go with him. He’s not very good at taking no for an answer, and beats around the bush a lot, taking the long way round to explain things, and sometimes using big words where they are not all together necessary. He is in love with Rosemund, but he does not think she would make a good missionaries wife, so he asks for Jane's hand in marriage instead.

Diana and Mary Rivers, two sisters who do everything the same, so there is not much point them having a separate bullet point. They are both intelligent, teaching each other German, and are both governesses for richer families that need their children to be educated. They are both quite good looking, but there is never any mention of a husband for either of them, which is slightly odd. They are kind and caring, if not slightly subdued, and Jane is lucky to have these two as cousins.

Rosemund Oliver is the daughter of the wealthiest man in the village, and the love interest of St John. She seems quite a nice person, having furnished Jane’s cottage, and she occasionally helps out at Jane’s little school. It is not said for certain that Rosemund knows of St John’s interest in her, but I would have thought it would be quite obvious. For all we know she may have liked St John back, but as he didn’t think her suitable, we shall never find out.PlacesWe are now in Morton, a little village on the moors. It is quite small, but it has a needle factory, run by Mr Oliver, and two schools, one for the girls and one for the boys. Jane first appears here begging for food, and not much description is given, the people seem kind, but that’s about it. However, when Jane starts to live there, the reader gets a better impression of the actual place. It seems a friendly little place, with everyone knowing each other, and scenic places to walk. Jane’s cottage in particular sounds lovely, is a little sparse, with its whitewashed walls and tidy interior.

Narrative voice

Jane seems very desperate whilst out begging, with good reason; she had no money, food or shelter, all of which are kind of essential. However, she starts to become more routine as she gets used to her life in Morton, and seems quite well settled in. She is still as curious as ever about her surroundings, and there is still a lot of description, but this lessens as Jane starts to just see the same things over and over.

Response

As I said earlier, I don’t really like this stage of Jane’s life, as it’s all far too unrealistic. Jane just happens to collapse at the doorstep of her cousins, who just happen to get a letter about the dear Uncle John, who just happens to have left Jane £20,000, give us some credit! I think another reason I don’t like this section is that it is boring, for the last part of Jane’s life loads has happened, and all of a sudden she is stuck being a school teacher leading a pretty uneventful life. I also found St John’s desire to marry Jane, even after he knew she was his cousin, slightly wrong. I know that it’s not illegal or considered incest or anything, but it just doesn’t seem right to me.