text:
Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is the only novel by the English author Emily Brontë, initially published in 1847 under her pen name "Ellis Bell". It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with the Earnshaws' foster son, Heathcliff. The novel was influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction.

Wuthering Heights is now widely considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English, but contemporaneous reviews were polarised. It was controversial for its depictions of mental and physical cruelty, including domestic abuse, and for its challenges to Victorian morality, religion, and the class system.

Wuthering Heights was accepted by publisher Thomas Newby along with Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey before the success of their sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, but they were published later. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited a second edition of Wuthering Heights, which was published in 1850. It has inspired an array of adaptations across several media, including English singer-songwriter Kate Bush's song of the same name.

Opening
In 1801, Mr Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange in Yorkshire, pays a visit to his landlord, Heathcliff, at his remote moorland farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. There he meets a reserved young woman (later identified as Cathy Linton), Joseph, a cantankerous servant, and Hareton, an uneducated young man who speaks like a servant. Everyone is sullen and inhospitable. Snowed in for the night, Lockwood reads the diary of the former inhabitant of his room, Catherine Earnshaw, and has a nightmare in which a ghostly Catherine begs to enter through the window. Awakened by Lockwood's fearful yells, Heathcliff is troubled.

Lockwood later returns to Thrushcross Grange in heavy snow, falls ill from the cold and becomes bedridden. While he recovers, Lockwood's housekeeper Ellen "Nelly" Dean tells him the story of the strange family.

Nelly's tale
Thirty years earlier, the Earnshaws live at Wuthering Heights with their two children, Hindley and Catherine, and a servant—Nelly herself. Returning from a trip to Liverpool, Earnshaw brings home a young orphan whom he names Heathcliff. Earnshaw treats the boy as his favourite. His own children he neglects, especially after his wife dies. Hindley beats Heathcliff, who gradually becomes close friends with Catherine.

Hindley departs for university, returning as the new master of Wuthering Heights on the death of his father three years later. He and his new wife Frances allow Heathcliff to stay, but only as a servant.

Children Edgar Linton and his sister Isabella live nearby at Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff and Catherine spy on them. When Catherine is attacked by their dog, the Lintons take her in, but send Heathcliff home. The Lintons visit, and Hindley and Edgar make fun of Heathcliff; a fight ensues. Heathcliff is locked in the attic and vows revenge.

Frances dies after giving birth to a son, Hareton. Two years later, Catherine becomes engaged to Edgar. She confesses to Nelly that she loves Heathcliff, and will try to help him, but feels she cannot marry him because of his low social status. Nelly warns her against the plan. Heathcliff overhears part of the conversation and, misunderstanding Catherine's heart, flees the household. Catherine falls ill, distraught.

Three years after his departure, with Edgar and Catherine having married in the meantime, Heathcliff unexpectedly returns, now a wealthy gentleman. He encourages Isabella's infatuation with him as a means of revenge on Catherine. Enraged by Heathcliff's constant presence at Thrushcross Grange, Edgar cuts off contact. Catherine responds by locking herself in her room and refusing food; pregnant with Edgar's child, she never fully recovers. At Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff gambles with Hindley, who mortgages the property to him to pay his debts. Heathcliff elopes with Isabella, but the relationship fails and they soon return.

When Heathcliff discovers that Catherine is dying, he visits her in secret. She dies shortly after giving birth to a daughter, Cathy, and Heathcliff rages, calling on her ghost to haunt him for as long as he lives. Isabella flees south where she gives birth to Heathcliff's son, Linton. Hindley dies six months later, leaving Heathcliff as master of Wuthering Heights.

Twelve years later, after Isabella's death, the still-sickly Linton is brought back to live with his uncle Edgar at the Grange, but Heathcliff insists that his son must instead live with him. Cathy and Linton (respectively at the Grange and Wuthering Heights) gradually develop a relationship. Heathcliff schemes to ensure that they marry in order to ensure his claim to Thrushcross Grange, and on Edgar's death demands that the couple move in with him. He becomes increasingly wild and reveals that on the night Catherine died he dug up her grave, and ever since has been plagued by her ghost. When Linton dies, Cathy has no option but to remain at Wuthering Heights.

Having reached the present day, Nelly's tale concludes.

Ending
Lockwood grows tired of the moors and moves away. Eight months later he returns for a visit, and Nelly, now the housekeeper at Wuthering Heights, tells him what has happened since he left.

Heathcliff gave up his opposition to Cathy and Hareton's union. He declined physically and started seeing visions of the dead Catherine; he avoided the young couple, saying that he could not bear to see Catherine's eyes, which they both shared, looking at him. He eventually stopped eating, and some days later was found dead in Catherine's old room.

Cathy has been teaching the still-uneducated Hareton to read. They plan to marry and move to the Grange, accompanied by Nelly, with Joseph being left to take care of Wuthering Heights. Nelly reports that the locals have seen the ghosts of Catherine and Heathcliff wandering abroad together. Lockwood seeks out the graves of Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff, and is convinced that all three are finally at peace.

Characters

 * Heathcliff: A foundling from Liverpool, who is taken by Earnshaw to Wuthering Heights, where he is reluctantly cared for by the family and spoiled by his adoptive father. He and Mr. Earnshaw's daughter, Catherine, grow close, and their love is the central theme of the first volume. His revenge against the man she chooses to marry and its consequences are the central theme of the second volume. Heathcliff has been considered a Byronic hero, but critics have pointed out that he reinvents himself at various points, making his character hard to fit into any single type. He has an ambiguous position in society, and his lack of status is underlined by the fact that "Heathcliff" is both his given name and his surname. The character of Heathcliff may have been inspired by Branwell Brontë. An alcoholic and an opium addict, he would have indeed terrorised Emily and her sister Charlotte during frequent crises of delirium tremens that affected him a few years before his death. Even though Heathcliff has no alcohol or drug problems, the influence of Branwell's character is likely; although the same could be said, perhaps more appropriately, of Hindley Earnshaw and Linton Heathcliff.
 * Catherine Earnshaw: First introduced to the reader after her death, through Lockwood's discovery of her diary and carvings. The description of her life is confined almost entirely to the first volume. She seems unsure whether she is, or wants to become, more like Heathcliff, or aspires to be more like Edgar. Some critics have argued that her decision to marry Edgar Linton is allegorically a rejection of nature and a surrender to culture, a choice with unfortunate, fateful consequences for all the other characters. She dies hours after giving birth to her daughter.
 * Edgar Linton: Introduced as a child in the Linton family, he resides at Thrushcross Grange. Edgar's style and manners are in sharp contrast to those of Heathcliff, who instantly dislikes him, and of Catherine, who is drawn to him. Catherine marries him instead of Heathcliff because of his higher social status, with disastrous results to all characters in the story. He dotes on his wife and later his daughter.
 * Ellen (Nelly) Dean: The main narrator of the novel, Nelly is a servant to three generations of the Earnshaws and two of the Linton family. Humbly born, she regards herself nevertheless as Hindley's foster-sister (they are the same age and her mother is his nurse). She lives and works among the rough inhabitants of Wuthering Heights but is well-read, and she also experiences the more genteel manners of Thrushcross Grange. She is referred to as Ellen, her given name, to show respect, and as Nelly among those close to her. Critics have discussed how far her actions as an apparent bystander affect the other characters and how much her narrative can be relied on. In "The Villain in Wuthering Heights" (1958) James Hafley argues that Nelly seems to be the moral centre of the novel only because of the instability and violence of the world she describes. In his view, she is the true villain of the novel, as she drives the majority of the conflicts, and Lockwood's faith in her story is a sign of his innocence.
 * Isabella Linton: Edgar's sister. She views Heathcliff romantically, despite Catherine's warnings, and becomes an unwitting participant in his plot for revenge against Edgar. Heathcliff marries her but treats her abusively. While pregnant, she escapes to London and gives birth to a son, Linton. She entrusts her son to her brother Edgar when she dies.
 * Hindley Earnshaw: Catherine's elder brother, Hindley, despises Heathcliff immediately and bullies him throughout their childhood before his father sends him away to college. Hindley returns with his wife, Frances, after Mr Earnshaw dies. He is more mature, but his hatred of Heathcliff remains the same. After Frances's death, Hindley reverts to destructive behaviour, neglects his son, and ruins the Earnshaw family by drinking and gambling to excess. Heathcliff beats Hindley up at one point after Hindley fails in his attempt to kill Heathcliff with a pistol. He dies less than a year after Catherine and leaves his son with nothing.
 * Hareton Earnshaw: The son of Hindley and Frances, raised at first by Nelly but soon by Heathcliff. Joseph works to instill a sense of pride in the Earnshaw heritage (even though Hareton will not inherit Earnshaw property, because Hindley has mortgaged it to Heathcliff). Heathcliff, in contrast, teaches him vulgarities as a way of avenging himself on Hindley. Hareton speaks with an accent similar to Joseph's, and occupies a position similar to that of a servant at Wuthering Heights, unaware that he has been done out of his inheritance. He can only read his name. In appearance, he reminds Heathcliff of his aunt, Catherine.
 * Catherine "Cathy" Linton: The daughter of Catherine and Edgar Linton, a spirited and strong-willed girl unaware of her parents' history. Edgar is very protective of her and as a result, she is eager to discover what lies beyond the confines of the Grange. Although one of the more sympathetic characters of the novel, she is also somewhat snobbish towards Hareton and his lack of education. She is forced to marry Linton Heathcliff, but after he dies she falls in love with Hareton and they marry.
 * Linton Heathcliff: The son of Heathcliff and Isabella. A weak child, his early years are spent with his mother in the south of England. He learns of his father's identity and existence only after his mother dies when he is twelve. In his selfishness and capacity for cruelty he resembles Heathcliff; physically, he resembles his mother. He marries Cathy Linton because his father, who terrifies him, directs him to do so, and soon after he dies from a wasting illness associated with tuberculosis.
 * Joseph: A servant at Wuthering Heights for 60 years who is a rigid, self-righteous Christian but lacks any trace of genuine kindness or humanity. He hates nearly everyone in the novel. The Yorkshire dialect that Joseph speaks was the subject of a 1970 book by the linguist K.M. Petyt, who argued that Emily Brontë recorded the dialect of Haworth accurately.
 * Mr Lockwood: The first narrator, he rents Thrushcross Grange to escape society, but in the end, decides society is preferable. He narrates the book until Chapter 4, when the main narrator, Nelly, picks up the tale.
 * Frances: Hindley's ailing wife and mother of Hareton Earnshaw. She is described as somewhat silly and is obviously from a humble family. Frances dies not long after the birth of her son.
 * Mr and Mrs Earnshaw: Catherine's and Hindley's father, Mr Earnshaw is the master of Wuthering Heights at the beginning of Nelly's story and is described as an irascible but loving and kind-hearted man. He favours his adopted son, Heathcliff, which causes trouble in the family. In contrast, his wife mistrusts Heathcliff from their first encounter.
 * Mr and Mrs Linton: Edgar's and Isabella's parents, they bring up their children to be well-behaved and sophisticated. Mr Linton also serves as the magistrate of Gimmerton, as his son does in later years.
 * Dr Kenneth: The longtime doctor of Gimmerton and a friend of Hindley's who is present at the cases of illness during the novel. Although not much of his character is known, he seems to be a rough but honest person.
 * Zillah: A servant to Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights during the period following Catherine's death. Although she is kind to Lockwood, she doesn't like or help Cathy at Wuthering Heights because of Cathy's arrogance and Heathcliff's instructions.
 * Mr Green: Edgar's corruptible lawyer who should have changed Edgar's will to prevent Heathcliff from gaining Thrushcross Grange. Instead, Green changes sides and helps Heathcliff to inherit the Grange as his property.

1847 edition
The original text as published by Thomas Cautley Newby in 1847 is available online in two parts. The novel was first published together with Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey in a three-volume format: Wuthering Heights filled the first two volumes and Agnes Grey made up the third.

1850 edition
In 1850 Charlotte Brontë edited the original text for the second edition of Wuthering Heights and also provided it with her foreword. She addressed the faulty punctuation and orthography but also diluted Joseph's thick Yorkshire dialect. Writing to her publisher, W. S. Williams, she said that "It seems to me advisable to modify the orthography of the old servant Joseph's speeches; for though, as it stands, it exactly renders the Yorkshire dialect to a Yorkshire ear, yet I am sure Southerns must find it unintelligible; and thus one of the most graphic characters in the book is lost on them." Irene Wiltshire, in an essay on dialect and speech, examines some of the changes Charlotte made.

Contemporary reviews
Early reviews of Wuthering Heights were mixed. Most critics recognised the power and imagination of the novel, but were baffled by the storyline, and objected to the savagery and selfishness of the characters. In 1847, when the background of an author was given great importance in literary criticism, many critics were intrigued by the authorship of the Bell novels.

The Atlas review called it a "strange, inartistic story", but commented that every chapter seems to contain a "sort of rugged power."

Graham's Lady Magazine wrote: "How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors".

The American Whig Review wrote: "Respecting a book so original as this, and written with so much power of imagination, it is natural that there should be many opinions. Indeed, its power is so predominant that it is not easy after a hasty reading to analyze one's impressions so as to speak of its merits and demerits with confidence. We have been taken and carried through a new region, a melancholy waste, with here and there patches of beauty; have been brought in contact with fierce passions, with extremes of love and hate, and with sorrow that none but those who have suffered can understand. This has not been accomplished with ease, but with an ill-mannered contempt for the decencies of language, and in a style which might resemble that of a Yorkshire farmer who should have endeavored to eradicate his provincialism by taking lessons of a London footman. We have had many sad bruises and tumbles in our journey, yet it was interesting, and at length we are safely arrived at a happy conclusion.'"

Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper wrote: "Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book,—baffling all regular criticism; yet, it is impossible to begin and not finish it; and quite as impossible to lay it aside afterwards and say nothing about. In Wuthering Heights the reader is shocked, disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and vengeance, and anon come passages of powerful testimony to the supreme power of love – even over demons in the human form. The women in the book are of a strange fiendish-angelic nature, tantalising, and terrible, and the men are indescribable out of the book itself. ... We strongly recommend all our readers who love novelty to get this story, for we can promise them that they never have read anything like it before. It is very puzzling and very interesting ...."

The Examiner wrote: "This is a strange book. It is not without evidences of considerable power: but, as a whole, it is wild, confused, disjointed, and improbable; and the people who make up the drama, which is tragic enough in its consequences, are savages ruder than those who lived before the days of Homer."

The Literary World wrote: "In the whole story not a single trait of character is elicited which can command our admiration, not one of the fine feelings of our nature seems to have formed a part in the composition of its principal actors. In spite of the disgusting coarsness of much of the dialogue, and the improbabilities of much of the plot, we are spellbound."

The English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti admired the book, writing in 1854 that it was "the first novel I've read for an age, and the best (as regards power and sound style) for two ages, except Sidonia", but, in the same letter, he also referred to it as "a fiend of a book – an incredible monster ... The action is laid in hell, – only it seems places and people have English names there".

Twentieth century
Until late in the 19th century "Jane Eyre was regarded as the best of the Brontë sisters' novels". This view began to change in the 1880s with the publication of A. Mary F. Robinson's biography of Emily in 1883.

Modernist novelist Virginia Woolf affirmed the greatness of Wuthering Heights in 1925: "Wuthering Heights is a more difficult book to understand than Jane Eyre, because Emily was a greater poet than Charlotte.... She looked out upon a world cleft into gigantic disorder and felt within her the power to unite it in a book. That gigantic ambition is to be felt throughout the novel... It is this suggestion of power underlying the apparitions of human nature and lifting them up into the presence of greatness that gives the book its huge stature among other novels."

Similarly, Woolf's contemporary John Cowper Powys referred in 1916 to Emily Brontë's "tremendous vision".

In 1926 Charles Percy Sanger's work on the chronology of Wuthering Heights "affirmed Emily's literary craft and meticulous planning of the novel and disproved Charlotte's presentation of her sister as an unconscious artist who 'did not know what she had done'." However, for a later critic, Albert J. Guerard, "it is a splendid, imperfect novel which Brontë loses control over occasionally".

Still, in 1934, Lord David Cecil, writing in Early Victorian Novelists, commented "that Emily Brontë was not properly appreciated; even her admirers saw her as an 'unequal genius'," and in 1948 F. R. Leavis excluded Wuthering Heights from the great tradition of the English novel because it was "a 'kind of sport'—an anomaly with 'some influence of an essentially undetectable kind.'"

Twenty-first century
Writing in The Guardian in 2003 writer and editor Robert McCrum placed Wuthering Heights in his list of 100 greatest novels of all time. And in 2015 he placed it in his list of 100 best novels written in English. He said that "Wuthering Heights releases extraordinary new energies in the novel, renews its potential, and almost reinvents the genre. The scope and drift of its imagination, its passionate exploration of a fatal yet regenerative love affair, and its brilliant manipulation of time and space put it in a league of its own."

Writing for BBC Culture in 2015 author and book reviewer Jane Ciabattari polled 82 book critics from outside the UK and presented Wuthering Heights as number 7 in the resulting list of 100 greatest British novels.

In 2018 Penguin presented a list of 100 must-read classic books and placed Wuthering Heights at number 71, saying: "Widely considered a staple of Gothic fiction and the English literary canon, this book has gone on to inspire many generations of writers – and will continue to do so".

Writing in The Independent journalist and author Ceri Radford and news presenter, journalist, and TV producer Chris Harvey included Wuthering Heights in a list of the 40 best books to read during lockdown. Harvey said that "It's impossible to imagine this novel ever provoking quiet slumbers; Emily Brontë's vision of nature blazes with poetry".

Setting
Novelist John Cowper Powys notes the importance of the setting: "By that singular and forlorn scenery—the scenery of the Yorkshire moors round her home—[Emily Brontë] was, however, in the more flexible portion of her curious nature inveterately influenced. She does not precisely describe this scenery—not at any length... but it sank so deeply into her that whatever she wrote was affected by it and bears its desolate and imaginative imprint."

Likewise Virginia Woolf suggests the importance of the Yorkshire landscape of Haworth to the poetic vision of both Emily and Charlotte Brontë: "[Who] if they choose to write in prose, [were] intolerant of its restrictions. Hence it is that both Emily and Charlotte are always invoking the help of nature. They both feel the need of some more powerful symbol of the vast and slumbering passions in human nature than words or actions can convey. They seized those aspects of the earth which were most akin to what they themselves felt or imputed to their characters, and so their storms, their moors, their lovely spaces of summer weather are not ornaments applied to decorate a dull page or display the writer's powers of observation—they carry on the emotion and light up the meaning of the book."

Wuthering Heights is an old house high on the Pennine moorland of West Yorkshire. The first description is provided by Lockwood, the new tenant of the nearby Thrushcross Grange:

"Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling, 'wuthering' being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed. One may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house, and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun."

Lord David Cecil in Early Victorian Novelists (1934) drew attention to the contrast between the two main settings in Wuthering Heights: "We have Wuthering Heights, the land of storm; high on the barren moorland, naked to the shock of the elements, the natural home of the Earnshaw family, fiery, untamed children of the storm. On the other hand, sheltered in the leafy valley below, stands Thrushcross Grange, the appropriate home of the children of calm, the gentle, passive, timid Lintons."

Walter Allen, in The English Novel (1954), likewise "spoke of the two houses in the novel as symbolising 'two opposed principles which... ultimately compose a harmony'". However, David Daiches, "in the 1965 Penguin English Library edition referred to Cecil's interpretation as being 'persuasively argued' though not fully acceptable". The entry on Wuthering Heights in the 2002 Oxford Companion to English Literature, states that "the ending of the novel points to a union of 'the two contrasting worlds and moral orders represented by the Heights and the Grange'".

Inspiration for locations
There is no evidence that either Thrushcross Grange or Wuthering Heights is based on an actual building, but various locations have been speculated as inspirations. Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse in an isolated area near the Haworth Parsonage, was suggested as the model for Wuthering Heights by Ellen Nussey, a friend of Charlotte Brontë. However, its structure does not match that of the farmhouse described in the novel. High Sunderland Hall, near Law Hill, Halifax where Emily worked briefly as a governess in 1838, now demolished, has also been suggested as a model for Wuthering Heights. However, it is too grand for a farmhouse.

Ponden Hall is famous for reputedly being the inspiration for Thrushcross Grange, since Brontë was a frequent visitor. However, it does not match the description given in the novel and is closer in size and appearance to the farmhouse of Wuthering Heights. The Brontë biographer Winifred Gerin believed that Ponden Hall was the original of Wildfell Hall, the old mansion in Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Helen Smart, while noting that Thrushcross Grange has "traditionally been associated with... Ponden Hall, Stanbury, near Haworth", sees Shibden Hall, Northowram, in Halifax parish, as more likely, referring to Hilda Marsden's article "The Scenic Background of Wuthering Heights".

Point of view
Most of the novel is the story told by housekeeper Nelly Dean to Lockwood, though the novel uses several narrators (in fact, five or six) to place the story in perspective, or in a variety of perspectives. Emily Brontë uses this frame story technique to narrate most of the story. Thus, for example, Lockwood, the first narrator of the story, tells the story of Nelly, who herself tells the story of another character. The use of a character like Nelly Dean is a literary device, a well-known convention taken from the Gothic novel, the function of which is to portray the events in a more mysterious and exciting manner.

Thus, the point of view comes from:

"... a combination of two speakers who outline the events of the plot within the framework of a story within a story. The frame story is that of Lockwood, who informs us of his meeting with the strange and mysterious 'family' living in almost total isolation in the stony uncultivated land of northern England. The inner story is that of Nelly Dean, who transmits to Lockwood the history of the two families during the last two generations. Nelly Dean examines the events retrospectively and attempts to report them as an objective eyewitness to Lockwood."

Critics have questioned the reliability of the two main narrators. The author has been described as sarcastic toward Lockwood, who fancies himself a world-weary romantic but comes across as an effete snob, and there are subtler hints that Nelly's perspective is influenced by her own biases.

The narrative in addition includes an excerpt from Catherine Earnshaw's old diary, and short sections narrated by Heathcliff, Isabella, and another servant.

Influences
Brontë possessed an exceptional education of classical culture for a woman of the time. She was familiar with Greek tragedies and was a good Latinist. In addition she was especially influenced by the poets John Milton and William Shakespeare. There are echoes of Shakespeare's King Lear and Romeo and Juliet in Wuthering Heights.

Another major source of information for the Brontës was the periodicals that their father read, the Leeds Intelligencer and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Blackwood's Magazine provided knowledge of world affairs and was a source of material for the Brontës' early writing. Emily Brontë was probably aware of the debate on evolution. This debate had been launched in 1844 by Robert Chambers. It raised questions of divine providence and the violence which underlies the universe and relationships between living things.

Romanticism was also a major influence, which included the Gothic novel, the novels of Walter Scott and the poetry of Byron. The Brontës' fiction is seen by some feminist critics as prime examples of Female Gothic. It explores the domestic entrapment and subjection of women to patriarchal authority, and the attempts to subvert and escape such restriction. Emily Brontë's Cathy Earnshaw and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre are both examples of female protagonists in such a role.

According to Juliet Barker, Walter Scott's novel Rob Roy (1817) had a significant influence on Wuthering Heights, which, though "regarded as the archetypal Yorkshire novel... owed as much, if not more, to Walter Scott's Border country". Rob Roy is set "in the wilds of Northumberland, among the uncouth and quarrelsome squirearchical Osbaldistones", while Cathy Earnshaw "has strong similarities with Diana Vernon, who is equally out of place among her boorish relations".

From 1833 Charlotte and Branwell's Angrian tales began to feature Byronic heroes. Such heroes had a strong sexual magnetism and passionate spirit, and demonstrated arrogance and black-heartedness. The Brontës had discovered Byron in an article in Blackwood's Magazine from August 1825. Byron had died the previous year. Byron became synonymous with the prohibited and audacious.

Romance tradition
Emily Brontë wrote in the romance tradition of the novel. Walter Scott defined this as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents". Scott distinguished the romance from the novel, where (as he saw it) "events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society". Scott describes romance as a "kindred term" to novel. However, romances such as Wuthering Heights and Scott's own historical romances and Herman Melville's Moby Dick are often referred to as novels. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo, en roman". This sort of romance is different from the genre fiction love romance or romance novel, with its "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending". Emily Brontë's approach to the novel form was influenced by the gothic novel.

Gothic novel
Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764) is usually considered the first gothic novel. Walpole's declared aim was to combine elements of the medieval romance, which he deemed too fanciful, and the modern novel, which he considered to be too confined to strict realism.

More recently Ellen Moers, in Literary Women, developed a feminist theory that connects female writers such as Emily Brontë with gothic fiction. Catherine Earnshaw has been identified by some critics as a type of gothic demon because she "shape-shifts" in order to marry Edgar Linton, assuming a domesticity that is contrary to her true nature. It has also been suggested that Catherine's relationship with Heathcliff conforms to the "dynamics of the Gothic romance, in that the woman falls prey to the more or less demonic instincts of her lover, suffers from the violence of his feelings, and at the end is entangled by his thwarted passion". See also the discussion of the daemonic below, under "Religion".

At one point in the novel Heathcliff is thought a vampire. It has been suggested that both he and Catherine are in fact meant to be seen as vampire-like personalities.

Morality
Some early Victorian reviewers complained about how Wuthering Heights dealt with violence and immorality. One called it "a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors".

Brontë was supposedly unaware of "the limits on polite expression" expected of Victorian novelists. Her characters use vulgar language, "cursing and swearing". Though the daughter of a curate, Brontë shows little respect for religion in the novel; the only strongly religious character in Wuthering Heights is Joseph, who is usually seen as satirizing "the joyless version of Methodism that the Brontë children were exposed to through their Aunt Branwell". A major influence on how Brontë depicts amoral characters was the stories her father Patrick Brontë told, about "the doings" of people around Haworth that his parishioners told him, "stories which 'made one shiver and shrink from hearing' (Charlotte's friend Ellen Nussey reported)", which were "full of grim humour" and violence, stories Emily Brontë took "as a truth".

Shortly after Emily Brontë's death G.H. Lewes wrote in Leader Magazine:

"Curious enough is to read Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and remember that the writers were two retiring, solitary, consumptive girls! Books, coarse even for men, coarse in language and coarse in conception, the coarseness apparently of violence and uncultivated men – turn out to be the productions of two girls living almost alone, filling their loneliness with quiet studies, and writing their books from a sense of duty, hating the pictures they drew, yet drawing them with austere conscientiousness! There is matter here for the moralist or critic to speculate on."

Religion
Emily Brontë attended church regularly and came from a religious family. Emily "never as far as we know, wrote anything which overtly criticised conventional religion. But she also has the reputation of being a rebel and iconoclast, driven by a spirit more pagan than orthodox Christian." Derek Traversi, for example, sees in Wuthering Heights "a thirst for religious experience, 'which is not Christian'. It is this spirit which moves Catherine to exclaim, 'surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here? (Ch. IX).

Thomas John Winnifrith, author of The Brontes and Their Background: Romance and Reality (Macmillan, 1977), argues that the allusions to Heaven and Hell are more than metaphors, and have a religious significance, because "for Heathcliff, the loss of Catherine is literally Hell... 'existence after losing her would be Hell' (Ch. xiv, p. 117)." Likewise, in the final scene between them, Heathcliff writhes "in the torments of Hell (XV)".

Daemonic
The eminent German Lutheran theologian and philosopher Rudolph Otto, author of The Idea of the Holy, saw in Wuthering Heights "a supreme example of 'the daemonic' in literature". Otto links the "daemonic" with "a genuine religious experience". Lisa Wang argues that in both Wuthering Heights, and in her poetry, Emily Brontë concentrates on "the non-conceptual", or what Rudolf Otto has called 'the non-rational' aspect of religion... the primal nature of religious experience over and above its doctrinal formulations". This corresponds with the dictionary meaning: "of or relating to an inner or attendant spirit, esp. as a source of creative inspiration or genius". This meaning was important to the Romantic movement.

However, the word daemon can also mean "a demon or devil", and that is equally relevant to Heathcliff, whom Peter McInerney describes as "a Satanic Don Juan". Heathcliff is also "dark-skinned", "as dark almost as if it came from the devil". Likewise Charlotte Brontë described him "'a man's shape animated by demon life – a Ghoul – an Afreet'". In Arabian mythology an "afreet", or ifrit, is a powerful jinn or demon. However, John Bowen believes that "this is too simple a view", because the novel presents an alternative explanation of Heathcliff's cruel and sadistic behaviour; that is, that he has suffered terribly: "is an orphan;... is brutalised by Hindley;... relegated to the status of a servant; Catherine marries Edgar".

Love
One 2007 British poll presented Wuthering Heights as the greatest love story of all time. However, "some of the novel's admirers consider it not a love story at all but an exploration of evil and abuse". Helen Small sees Wuthering Heights as being both "one of the greatest love stories in the English language" and at the same time one of the "most brutal revenge narratives". Some critics suggest that reading Wuthering Heights as a love story not only "romanticizes abusive men and toxic relationships but goes against Brontë's clear intent". Moreover, while a "passionate, doomed, death-transcending relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw Linton forms the core of the novel", Wuthering Heights:

"... consistently subverts the romantic narrative. Our first encounter with Heathcliff shows him to be a nasty bully. Later, Brontë puts in Heathcliff's mouth an explicit warning not to turn him into a Byronic hero: After... Isabella elop[es] with him, he sneers that she did so 'under a delusion... picturing in me a hero of romance'."

"I am Heathcliff" is a frequently quoted phrase from the novel, and "the idea of... perfect unity between the self and the other is age-old", so that Catherine says that she loves Heathcliff "because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" (Chapter IX). Likewise Lord David Cecil suggests that "the deepest attachments are based on characters' similarity or affinity", However Simone de Beauvoir, in her famous feminist work The Second Sex (1949), suggests that when Catherine says "I am Heathcliff": "her own world collapse(s) in contingence, for she really lives in his." Beauvoir sees this as "the fatal mirage of the ideal of romantic love... transcendence... in the superior male who is perceived as free".

Despite all the passion between Catherine and Heathcliff, critics have from early on drawn attention to the absence of sex. In 1850 the poet and critic Sydney Dobell suggests that "we dare not doubt [Catherine's] purity", and the Victorian poet Swinburne concurs, referring to their "passionate and ardent chastity". More recently Terry Eagleton suggests their relationship is sexless, "because the two, unknown to themselves, are half-siblings, with an unconscious fear of incest".

Childhood
Childhood is a central theme of Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë "understands that 'The Child is 'Father of the Man' (Wordsworth, 'My heart leaps up', 1. 7)". Wordsworth, following philosophers of education, such as Rousseau, explored ideas about the way childhood shaped personality. One outcome of this was the German bildungsroman, or "novel of education", such as Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860), and Dickens's Great Expectations (1861). Bronte's characters "are heavily influenced by their childhood experiences", though she is less optimistic than her contemporaries that suffering can lead to "change and renewal".

Class and money
Lockwood arrives at Thrushcross Grange in 1801, a time when, according to Q.D. Leavis, "the old rough farming culture, based on a naturally patriarchal family life, was to be challenged, tamed and routed by social and cultural changes". At this date the Industrial Revolution was well under way, and was by 1847 a dominant force in much of England, and especially in West Yorkshire. This caused a disruption in "the traditional relationship of social classes" with an expanding upwardly mobile middle-class, which created "a new standard for defining a gentleman", and challenged the traditional criteria of breeding and family and the more recent criterion of character.

Marxist critic Arnold Kettle sees Wuthering Heights "as a symbolic representation of the class system of 19th-century England", with its concerns "with property-ownership, the attraction of social comforts", marriage, education, religion, and social status. Driven by a pathological hatred Heathcliff uses against his enemies "their own weapons of money and arranged marriages", as well as "the classic methods of the ruling class, expropriation and property deals".

Later, another Marxist, Terry Eagleton, in Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontës (London: McMillan, 1975), further explores the power relationships between "the landed gentry and aristocracy, the traditional power-holders, and the capitalist, industrial middle classes". Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire was especially affected by changes to society and its class structure "because of the concentration of large estates and industrial centers" there.

Race
There has been debate about Heathcliff's race or ethnicity. He is described as a "dark-skinned gypsy" and "a little Lascar", a 19th-century term for Indian sailors; Mr Earnshaw calls him "as dark almost as if it came from the devil", and Nelly Dean speculates fancifully regarding his origins thus: "Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen?" Caryl Phillips suggests that Heathcliff may have been an escaped slave, noting the similarities between the way Heathcliff is treated and the way slaves were treated at the time: he is referred to as "it", his name "served him" as both his "Christian and surname", and Mr Earnshaw is referred to as "his owner". Maja-Lisa von Sneidern states that "Heathcliff's racial otherness cannot be a matter of dispute; Brontë makes that explicit", further noting that "by 1804 Liverpool merchants were responsible for more than eighty-four percent of the British transatlantic slave trade." Michael Stewart sees Heathcliff's race as "ambiguous" and argues that Emily Brontë "deliberately gives us this missing hole in the narrative".

Storm and calm
Various critics have explored the various contrast between Thrushcross Grange and the Wuthering Heights farmhouse and their inhabitants. Lord David Cecil argued for "cosmic forces as the central impetus and controlling force in the novel" and suggested that there is a unifying structure underlying Wuthering Heights: "two spiritual principles: the principle of the storm,... and the principle of calm", which he further argued were not, "in spite of their apparent opposition", in conflict. Dorothy van Ghent, however, refers to "a tension between two kinds of reality" in the novel: "civilized manners" and "natural energies".

Film and TV
The earliest known film adaptation of Wuthering Heights was filmed in England in 1920 and was directed by A. V. Bramble. It is unknown if any prints still exist. The most famous is 1939's Wuthering Heights, starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon and directed by William Wyler. This acclaimed adaptation, like many others, eliminated the second generation's story (young Cathy, Linton and Hareton) and is rather inaccurate as a literary adaptation. It won the 1939 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film and was nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for Best Picture.

Nigel Kneale's script was produced for BBC Television twice, firstly in 1953, starring Richard Todd as Heathcliff and Yvonne Mitchell as Cathy. Broadcast live, no recordings of the production are known to exist. The second adaptation using Kneale's script was in 1962, starring Claire Bloom as Catherine and Keith Michell as Heathcliff. This production does exist with the BFI, but has been withheld from public viewing. Kneale's script was also adapted for Australian television in 1959 during a time when original drama productions in the country were rare. Broadcast live from Sydney, the performance was telerecorded, although it is unknown if this kinescope still exists.

In 1958, an adaptation aired on CBS television as part of the series DuPont Show of the Month starring Rosemary Harris as Cathy and Richard Burton as Heathcliff. The BBC produced a four-part television dramatisation in 1967 starring Ian McShane and Angela Scoular.

Les Hauts de Hurlevent is a French mini-series in six 26-minute episodes, in black and white, created and directed by Jean-Paul Carrère based on the novel, and broadcast between 1964 and 1968 on the first ORTF channel.

The 1970 film with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff is the first colour version of the novel. It has gained acceptance over the years although it was initially poorly received. The character of Hindley is portrayed much more sympathetically, and his story-arc is altered. It also subtly suggests that Heathcliff may be Cathy's illegitimate half-brother.

In 1978, the BBC produced a five-part TV serialisation of the book starring Ken Hutchinson, Kay Adshead and John Duttine, with music by Carl Davis; it is considered one of the most faithful adaptations of Emily Brontë's story.

There is also a 1985 French film adaptation, Hurlevent by Jacques Rivette, and a 1988 Japanese film adaptation by Yoshishige Yoshida.

The 1992 film Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche is notable for including the oft-omitted second generation story of the children of Cathy, Hindley and Heathcliff.

More recent film or TV adaptations include ITV's 2009 two-part drama series starring Tom Hardy, Charlotte Riley, Sarah Lancashire, and Andrew Lincoln, and the 2011 film starring Kaya Scodelario and James Howson and directed by Andrea Arnold.

Adaptations which place the story in a new setting include the 1954 adaptation, retitled Abismos de Pasion, directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel and set in Catholic Mexico, with Heathcliff and Cathy renamed Alejandro and Catalina. In Buñuel's version Heathcliff/Alejandro claims to have become rich by making a deal with Satan. The New York Times reviewed a re-release of this film as "an almost magical example of how an artist of genius can take someone else's classic work and shape it to fit his own temperament without really violating it," noting that the film was thoroughly Spanish and Catholic in its tone while still highly faithful to Brontë. Yoshishige Yoshida's 1988 adaptation also has a transposed setting, this time to medieval Japan. In Yoshida's version, the Heathcliff character, Onimaru, is raised in a nearby community of priests who worship a local fire god. Filipino director Carlos Siguion-Reyna made a film adaptation titled Hihintayin Kita sa Langit (1991). The screenplay was written by Raquel Villavicencio and produced by Armida Siguion-Reyna. It starred Richard Gomez as Gabriel (Heathcliff) and Dawn Zulueta as Carmina (Catherine). It became a Filipino film classic.

In 2003, MTV produced a poorly reviewed version set in a modern California high school.

Wuthering High, a 2015 TV Movie shown on Lifetime, is set in Malibu, California.

The 1966 Indian film Dil Diya Dard Liya is based upon this novel. The film is directed by Abdul Rashid Kardar and Dilip Kumar. The film stars Dilip Kumar, Waheeda Rehman, Pran, Rehman, Shyama and Johnny Walker. The music is by Naushad. Although it did not fare as well as other movies of Dilip Kumar, it was well received by critics.

In 2022, Emma Mackey starred in a biopic of Emily Brontë in Emily. The film charts the life of Brontë and the inspiration she gained for writing Wuthering Heights living in the Yorkshire countryside.

Theatre
The novel has been adapted as operas composed by Bernard Herrmann, Carlisle Floyd, and Frédéric Chaslin (most cover only the first half of the book) and a musical by Bernard J. Taylor.

In 2021, Emma Rice directed a theatrical version which was shown online and at the Bristol Old Vic. This production was then put on at the National Theatre in 2022.

Literature
Mizumura Minae's A True Novel (2002) is inspired by Wuthering Heights and might be called an adaptation of the story in a post-World War II Japanese setting.

In Jane Urquhart's Changing Heaven, the novel Wuthering Heights, as well as the ghost of Emily Brontë, feature as prominent roles in the narrative.

In her 2019 novel, The West Indian, Valerie Browne Lester imagines an origin story for Heathcliff in 1760s Jamaica.

K-Ming Chang's 2021 chapbook Bone House was released by Bull City Press as part of their Inch series. The collection functions as a queer Taiwanese-American retelling of Wuthering Heights, in which an unnamed narrator moves into a butcher's mansion "with a life of its own."

Canadian author Hilary Scharper's ecogothic novel Perdita (2013) was deeply influenced by Wuthering Heights, namely in terms of the narrative role of powerful, cruel and desolate landscapes.

The poem "Wuthering" (2017) by Tanya Grae uses Wuthering Heights as an allegory.

Maryse Condé's Windward Heights (La migration des coeurs) (1995) is a reworking of Wuthering Heights set in Cuba and Guadeloupe at the turn of the 20th century, which Condé stated she intended as an homage to Brontë.

In 2011, a graphic novel version was published by Classical Comics. It was adapted by Scottish writer Sean Michael Wilson and hand painted by comic book veteran artist John M. Burns. This version, which stays close to the original novel, was shortlisted for the Stan Lee Excelsior Awards.

Music
Kate Bush's 1978 song "Wuthering Heights" is most likely the best-known creative work inspired by Brontë's story that is not properly an "adaptation". Bush wrote the song when she was 18 and chose it as the lead single from her debut album. It was primarily inspired by her viewing of the 1967 BBC adaptation. The song is sung from Catherine's point of view as she pleads at Heathcliff's window to be admitted. It uses quotations from Catherine, both in the chorus ("Let me in! I'm so cold!") and the verses, with Catherine admitting she had "bad dreams in the night". Critic Sheila Whiteley wrote that the ethereal quality of the vocal resonates with Cathy's dementia, and that Bush's high register has both "childlike qualities in its purity of tone" and an "underlying eroticism in its sinuous erotic contours". Singer Pat Benatar covered the song in 1980 on her "Crimes of Passion" album. Brazilian heavy metal band Angra released a version of Bush's song on its debut album Angels Cry in 1993. A 2018 cover of Bush's "Wuthering Heights" by Jimmy Urine adds electropunk elements.

Wind & Wuthering (1976) by English rock band Genesis alludes to the Brontë novel not only in the album's title but also in the titles of two of its tracks, "Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers..." and "...In That Quiet Earth". Both titles refer to the closing lines of the novel.

Songwriter Jim Steinman said that he wrote the 1989 song "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" "while under the influence of Wuthering Heights". He said that the song was "about being enslaved and obsessed by love" and compared it to "Heathcliff digging up Cathy's corpse and dancing with it in the cold moonlight".

The 2008 song "Cath..." by indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie was inspired by Wuthering Heights.

Editions

 * Introduction and notes by Ian Jack, Hilda Marsden, and Inga-Stina Ewbank.
 * Introduction and notes by Ian Jack, Hilda Marsden, and Inga-Stina Ewbank.

Journal articles

 * Maynard, John. "The Brontës and Religion", in The Cambridge Companion to the Brontës, edited by Glen, Heather. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 192–213.
 * McInerney, Peter (1980), "Satanic conceits in Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights", Nineteenth Century Contexts, 4:1, 1–15.
 * Rahman, Tahmina S. [https://web.archive.org/web/20040908000033/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/jurisprudence/jurisprudence-review/content/jr_rahman_2000.pdf "The Law of the Moors – A legal analysis of Wuthering Heights". UCL Jurisprudence Review. 2000
 * Tytler, Graeme, "The Role of Religion in Wuthering Heights". Brontë Studies, 32:1, (2007) pp. 41–45.
 * Tytler, Graeme, "The Role of Religion in Wuthering Heights". Brontë Studies, 32:1, (2007) pp. 41–45.

title: Wuthering Heights


text:
Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre (originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first American edition was published the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York. Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman that follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall.

The novel revolutionised prose fiction, being the first to focus on the moral and spiritual development of its protagonist through an intimate first-person narrative, where actions and events are coloured by a psychological intensity. Charlotte Brontë has been called the "first historian of the private consciousness" and the literary ancestor of writers such as Marcel Proust and James Joyce.

The book contains elements of social criticism with a strong sense of Christian morality at its core, and it is considered by many to be ahead of its time because of Jane's individualistic character and how the novel approaches the topics of class, sexuality, religion and feminism. Jane Eyre, along with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, is one of the most famous romance novels.

Plot
Jane Eyre is divided into 38 chapters. It was originally published in three volumes in the 19th century, consisting of chapters 1 to 15, 16 to 27, and 28 to 38.

The second edition was dedicated to William Makepeace Thackeray.

The novel is a first-person narrative from the perspective of the title character. Its setting is somewhere in the north of England, late in the reign of George III (1760–1820). It has five distinct stages: Jane's childhood at Gateshead Hall, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; her education at Lowood School, where she gains friends and role models but suffers privations and oppression; her time as governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her mysterious employer, Edward Fairfax Rochester; her time in the Moor House, during which her earnest but cold clergyman cousin, St John Rivers, proposes to her; and ultimately her reunion with, and marriage to, her beloved Rochester. Throughout these sections it provides perspectives on a number of important social issues and ideas, many of which are critical of the status quo.

The five stages of Jane's life are as follows:

Gateshead Hall
Jane Eyre, aged 10, lives at Gateshead Hall with her maternal uncle's family, the Reeds, as a result of her uncle's dying wish. Jane was orphaned several years earlier when her parents died of typhus. Jane's uncle, Mr Reed, was the only one in the Reed family who was kind to Jane. Jane's aunt, Sarah Reed, dislikes her and treats her as a burden. Mrs Reed also discourages her three children from associating with Jane. As a result Jane becomes defensive against her cruel judgement. The nursemaid, Bessie, proves to be Jane's only ally in the household, even though Bessie occasionally scolds Jane harshly. Excluded from the family activities, Jane lives an unhappy childhood. One day, as punishment for defending herself against the bullying of her 14-year-old cousin John, the Reeds' only son, Jane is locked in the red room in which her late uncle had died; there she faints from panic after she thinks she has seen his ghost. The red room is significant because it lays the grounds for the "ambiguous relationship between parents and children" which plays out in all of Jane's future relationships with male figures throughout the novel. She is subsequently attended to by the kindly apothecary, Mr Lloyd, to whom Jane reveals how unhappy she is living at Gateshead Hall. He recommends to Mrs Reed that Jane should be sent to school, an idea Mrs Reed happily supports.

Mrs Reed then enlists the aid of the harsh Mr Brocklehurst, the director of Lowood Institution, a charity school for girls, to enroll Jane. Mrs Reed cautions Mr Brocklehurst that Jane has a "tendency to deceit", which he interprets as Jane being a liar. Before Jane leaves, however, she confronts Mrs Reed and declares that she'll never call her "aunt" again. Jane also tells Mrs Reed and her daughters, Georgiana and Eliza, that they are the ones who are deceitful, and that she will tell everyone at Lowood how cruelly the Reeds treated her. Mrs Reed is hurt badly by these words but has neither the courage nor the tenacity to show it.

Lowood Institution
At Lowood Institution, a school for poor and orphaned girls, Jane soon finds that life is harsh. She attempts to fit in and befriends an older girl, Helen Burns. During a class session her new friend is criticised for her poor stance and dirty nails and receives a lashing as a result. Later Jane tells Helen that she could not have borne such public humiliation, but Helen philosophically tells her that it would be her duty to do so. Jane then tells Helen how badly she has been treated by Mrs Reed, but Helen tells her that she would be far happier if she did not bear grudges.

In due course Mr Brocklehurst visits the school. While Jane is trying to make herself look inconspicuous, she accidentally drops her slate, thereby drawing attention to herself. She is then forced to stand on a stool and is branded a sinner and a liar. Later Miss Temple, the caring superintendent, facilitates Jane's self-defence and publicly clears her of any wrongdoing. Helen and Miss Temple are Jane's two main role models who positively guide her development despite the harsh treatment she has received from many others.

The 80 pupils at Lowood are subjected to cold rooms, poor meals and thin clothing. Many students fall ill when a typhus epidemic strikes; Helen dies of consumption in Jane's arms. When Mr Brocklehurst's maltreatment of the pupils is discovered, several benefactors erect a new building and install a sympathetic management committee to moderate Mr Brocklehurst's harsh rule. Conditions at the school then improve dramatically.

Thornfield Hall
After six years as a pupil and two as a teacher at Lowood, Jane decides to leave in pursuit of a new life, growing bored with her life at Lowood. Her friend and confidante, Miss Temple, also leaves after getting married. Jane advertises her services as a governess in a newspaper. The housekeeper at Thornfield Hall, Alice Fairfax, replies to Jane's advertisement. Jane takes the position, teaching Adèle Varens, a young French girl.

One night, while Jane is carrying a letter to the post from Thornfield, a horseman and dog pass her. The horse slips on ice and throws the rider. Despite the rider's surliness, Jane helps him get back onto his horse. Later, back at Thornfield, she learns that this man is Edward Rochester, master of the house. Adèle was left in his care when her mother, a famous dancer, abandoned her. It is not immediately apparent whether Adèle is Rochester's daughter.

At Jane's first meeting with Mr Rochester he teases her, accusing her of bewitching his horse to make him fall. Jane stands up to his initially arrogant manner. Despite his strange behaviour, Mr Rochester and Jane soon come to enjoy each other's company and they spend many evenings together.

Odd things start to happen at the house, such as a strange laugh being heard, a mysterious fire in Mr Rochester's room (from which Jane saves Rochester by rousing him and throwing water on him) and an attack on a house-guest named Mr Mason.

After Jane saves Mr Rochester from the fire, he thanks her tenderly and emotionally, and that night Jane feels strange emotions of her own towards him. The next day, however, he leaves unexpectedly for a distant party and several days later returns with the whole party, including the beautiful and talented Blanche Ingram. Just as she realises that she is in love with Mr Rochester, Jane sees that he and Blanche favour each other and starts to feel jealous, particularly because she also sees that Blanche is snobbish and heartless.

Jane then receives word that Mrs Reed has suffered a stroke and is calling for her. Jane returns to Gateshead Hall and remains there for a month to tend to her dying aunt. Mrs Reed confesses to Jane that she wronged her, bringing forth a letter from Jane's paternal uncle, Mr John Eyre, in which he asks for her to live with him and be his heir. Mrs Reed admits to telling Mr Eyre that Jane had died of fever at Lowood. Soon afterward Mrs Reed dies, and Jane helps her cousins after the funeral before returning to Thornfield.

Back at Thornfield Jane broods over Mr Rochester's rumoured impending marriage to Blanche Ingram. However one midsummer evening Rochester baits Jane by saying how much he will miss her after getting married and how she will soon forget him. The normally self-controlled Jane reveals her feelings for him. To her surprise, Rochester reciprocates, having courted Blanche only to make Jane jealous, and proposes marriage. Jane is at first sceptical of his sincerity, before accepting his proposal. She then writes to her Uncle John, telling him of her happy news.

As she prepares for her wedding Jane's forebodings arise when a strange woman sneaks into her room one night and rips Jane's wedding veil in two. As with the previous mysterious events, Mr Rochester attributes the incident to Grace Poole, one of his servants. During the wedding ceremony, however, Mr Mason and a lawyer declare that Mr Rochester cannot marry because he is already married to Mr Mason's sister, Bertha. Mr Rochester admits this is true but explains that his father tricked him into the marriage for her money. Once they were united he discovered that she was rapidly descending into congenital madness, and so he eventually locked her away in Thornfield, hiring Grace Poole as a nurse to look after her. When Grace gets drunk, Rochester's wife escapes and causes the strange happenings at Thornfield.

It turns out that Jane's uncle, Mr John Eyre, is a friend of Mr Mason's and was visited by him soon after Mr Eyre received Jane's letter about her impending marriage. After the marriage ceremony is broken off, Mr Rochester asks Jane to go with him to the south of France and live with him as husband and wife, even though they cannot be married. Jane is tempted but realises that she will lose herself and her integrity if she allows her passion for a married man to consume her and she must stay true to her Christian values and beliefs. Refusing to go against her principles, and despite her love for Rochester, Jane leaves Thornfield Hall at dawn before anyone else is up.

Moor House
Jane travels as far from Thornfield Hall as she can using the little money she had previously saved. She accidentally leaves her bundle of possessions on the coach and is forced to sleep on the moor. She unsuccessfully attempts to trade her handkerchief and gloves for food. Exhausted and starving, she eventually makes her way to the home of Diana and Mary Rivers but is turned away by the housekeeper. She collapses on the doorstep, preparing for her death. Clergyman St John Rivers, Diana and Mary's brother, rescues her. After Jane regains her health, St John finds her a teaching position at a nearby village school. Jane becomes good friends with the sisters, but St John remains aloof.

The sisters leave for governess jobs, and St John becomes slightly closer to Jane. St John learns Jane's true identity and astounds her by telling her that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her his entire fortune of 20,000 pounds (equivalent to US $2.24 million in 2022 ). When Jane questions him further, St John reveals that John Eyre is also his and his sisters' uncle. They had once hoped for a share of the inheritance but were left virtually nothing. Jane, overjoyed by finding that she has living and friendly family members, insists on sharing the money equally with her cousins, and Diana and Mary come back to live at Moor House.

Proposals
Thinking that the pious and conscientious Jane will make a suitable missionary's wife, St John asks her to marry him and to go with him to India, not out of love, but out of duty. Jane initially accepts going to India but rejects the marriage proposal, suggesting they travel as brother and sister. As Jane's resolve against marriage to St John begins to weaken, she seems to hear Mr Rochester's voice calling her name. Jane then returns to Thornfield Hall to see if Rochester is all right, only to find blackened ruins. She learns that Rochester sent Mrs Fairfax into retirement and Adèle to school a few months following her departure. Shortly afterwards, his wife set the house on fire and died after jumping from the roof. While saving the servants and attempting to rescue his wife, Rochester lost a hand and his eyesight.

Jane reunites with Rochester, and he is overjoyed at her return, but fears that she will be repulsed by his condition. "Am I hideous, Jane?", he asks. "Very, sir; you always were, you know", she replies. Now a humbled man, Rochester vows to live a purer life, and reveals that he has intensely pined for Jane ever since she left. He had even called out her name in despair one night, the very call that she heard from Moor House, and heard her reply from miles away, signifying the connection between them. Jane asserts herself as a financially independent woman and assures him of her love, declaring that she will never leave him. Rochester proposes again, and they are married. They live blissfully together in an old house in the woods called Ferndean Manor. The couple stay in touch with Adèle as she grows up, as well as Diana and Mary, who each gain loving husbands of their own. St John moves to India to accomplish his missionary goals, but is implied to have fallen gravely ill there. Rochester regains sight in one eye two years after his and Jane's marriage, enabling him to see their newborn son.

Major characters
In order of first line of dialogue:

Introduced in first chapter

 * Jane Eyre: The novel's narrator and protagonist. Orphaned as a baby, Jane struggles through her nearly loveless childhood and becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall. Small and facially plain, Jane is passionate and strongly principled and values freedom and independence. She also has a strong conscience and is a determined Christian. She is ten at the beginning of the novel, and nineteen or twenty at the end of the main narrative. As the final chapter of the novel states that she has been married to Edward Rochester for ten years, she is approximately thirty at its completion.
 * Mrs Sarah Reed (née Gibson): Jane's maternal aunt by marriage, who reluctantly adopted Jane in accordance with her late husband's wishes. According to Mrs Reed, he pitied Jane and often cared for her more than for his own children. Mrs Reed's resentment leads her to abuse and neglect the girl. She lies to Mr Brocklehurst about Jane's tendency to lie, preparing him to be severe with Jane when she arrives at Brocklehurst's Lowood School.
 * John Reed: Jane's fourteen-year-old first cousin who bullies her incessantly and violently, sometimes in his mother's presence. Addicted to food and sweets, causing him ill health and bad complexion. John eventually ruins himself as an adult by drinking and gambling and is rumoured to have committed suicide.
 * Eliza Reed: Jane's thirteen-year-old first cousin. Envious of her more attractive younger sister and a slave to a rigid routine, she self-righteously devotes herself to religion. She leaves for a nunnery near Lisle (France) after her mother's death, determined to estrange herself from her sister.
 * Georgiana Reed: Jane's eleven-year-old first cousin. Although beautiful and indulged, she is insolent and spiteful. Her elder sister Eliza foils Georgiana's marriage to the wealthy Lord Edwin Vere when the couple is about to elope. Georgiana eventually marries a "wealthy worn-out man of fashion."
 * Bessie Lee: The nursemaid at Gateshead Hall. She often treats Jane kindly, telling her stories and singing her songs, but she has a quick temper. Later, she marries Robert Leaven with whom she has three children.
 * Miss Martha Abbot: Mrs Reed's maid at Gateshead Hall. She is unkind to Jane and tells Jane she has less right to be at Gateshead than a servant does.

Chapters 3–5

 * Mr Lloyd: A compassionate apothecary who recommends that Jane be sent to school. Later, he writes a letter to Miss Temple confirming Jane's account of her childhood and thereby clears Jane of Mrs Reed's charge of lying.
 * Mr Brocklehurst: The clergyman, director, and treasurer of Lowood School, whose maltreatment of the pupils is eventually exposed. A religious traditionalist, he advocates for his charges the most harsh, plain, and disciplined possible lifestyle, but, hypocritically, not for himself and his own family. His second daughter, Augusta, exclaimed, "Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all the girls at Lowood look… they looked at my dress and mama's, as if they had never seen a silk gown before."
 * Miss Maria Temple: The kind superintendent of Lowood School, who treats the pupils with respect and compassion. She helps clear Jane of Mr Brocklehurst's false accusation of deceit and cares for Helen in her last days. Eventually, she marries Reverend Naysmith.
 * Miss Scatcherd: A sour and strict teacher at Lowood. She constantly punishes Helen Burns for her untidiness but fails to see Helen's substantial good points.
 * Helen Burns: Jane's best friend at Lowood School. She refuses to hate those who abuse her, trusts in God, and prays for peace one day in heaven. She teaches Jane to trust Christianity and dies of consumption in Jane's arms. Elizabeth Gaskell, in her biography of the Brontë sisters, wrote that Helen Burns was 'an exact transcript' of Maria Brontë, who died of consumption at age 11.

Chapters 11–12

 * Mrs Alice Fairfax: The elderly, kind widow and the housekeeper of Thornfield Hall; distantly related to the Rochesters.
 * Adèle Varens: An excitable French child to whom Jane is a governess at Thornfield Hall. Adèle's mother was a dancer named Céline. She was Mr Rochester's mistress and claimed that Adèle was Mr Rochester's daughter, though he refuses to believe it due to Céline's unfaithfulness and Adèle's apparent lack of resemblance to him. Adèle seems to believe that her mother is dead (she tells Jane in chapter 11, "I lived long ago with mamma, but she is gone to the Holy Virgin"). Mr Rochester later tells Jane that Céline actually abandoned Adèle and "ran away to Italy with a musician or singer" (ch. 15). Adèle and Jane develop a strong liking for one another, and although Mr Rochester places Adèle in a strict school after Jane flees Thornfield Hall, Jane visits Adèle after her return and finds a better, less severe school for her. When Adèle is old enough to leave school, Jane describes her as "a pleasing and obliging companion—docile, good-tempered and well-principled", and considers her kindness to Adèle well repaid.
 * Grace Poole: "…a woman of between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face…" Mr Rochester pays her a very high salary to keep his mad wife, Bertha, hidden and quiet. Grace is often used as an explanation for odd happenings at the house such as strange laughter that was heard not long after Jane arrived. She has a weakness for drinking that occasionally allows Bertha to escape.
 * Edward Fairfax Rochester: The master of Thornfield Hall. A Byronic hero, he has a face "dark, strong, and stern." He married Bertha Mason years before the novel begins.
 * Leah: The housemaid at Thornfield Hall.

Chapters 17–21

 * Blanche Ingram: Young socialite whom Mr Rochester plans to marry. Though possessing great beauty and talent, she treats social inferiors, Jane in particular, with undisguised contempt. Mr Rochester exposes her and her mother's mercenary motivations when he puts out a rumour that he is far less wealthy than they imagine.
 * Richard Mason: An Englishman whose arrival at Thornfield Hall from the West Indies unsettles Mr Rochester. He is the brother of Rochester's first wife, the woman in the attic, and still cares for his sister's well-being. During the wedding ceremony of Jane and Mr Rochester, he exposes the bigamous nature of the marriage.
 * Robert Leaven: The coachman at Gateshead Hall, who brings Jane the news of the death of the dissolute John Reed, an event which has brought on Mrs Reed's stroke. He informs her of Mrs Reed's wish to see Jane before she dies.

Chapters 26–32

 * Bertha Antoinetta Mason: The first wife of Edward Rochester. After their wedding, her mental health began to deteriorate, and she is now violent and in a state of intense derangement, apparently unable to speak or go into society. Mr Rochester, who insists that he was tricked into the marriage by a family who knew Bertha was likely to develop this condition, has kept Bertha locked in the attic at Thornfield Hall for years. She is supervised and cared for by Grace Poole, whose drinking sometimes allows Bertha to escape. After Richard Mason stops Jane and Mr Rochester's wedding, Rochester finally introduces Jane to Bertha: "In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell… it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face." Eventually, Bertha sets fire to Thornfield Hall and throws herself to her death from the roof. Bertha is viewed as Jane's "double": Jane is pious and just, while Bertha is savage and animalistic. Though her race is never mentioned, it is sometimes conjectured that she was of mixed race. Rochester suggests that Bertha's parents wanted her to marry him, because he was of "good race", implying that she was not pure white, while he was. There are also references to her "dark" hair and "discoloured" and "black" face. A number of writers during the Victorian period suggested that madness could result from a racially "impure" lineage, compounded by growing up in a tropical West Indian climate.
 * Diana and Mary Rivers: Sisters in a remote moors house who take Jane in when she is hungry and friendless, having left Thornfield Hall without making any arrangements for herself. Financially poor but intellectually curious, the sisters are deeply engrossed in reading the evening Jane appears at their door. Eventually, they are revealed to be Jane's cousins. They want Jane to marry their stern clergyman brother so that he will stay in England rather than journey to India as a missionary. Diana marries naval Captain Fitzjames, and Mary marries clergyman Mr Wharton. The sisters remain close to Jane and visit her and Rochester every year.
 * Hannah: The kindly housekeeper at the Rivers home; "…comparable with the Brontës' well-loved servant, Tabitha Aykroyd."
 * St John Eyre Rivers: A handsome, though severe and serious, clergyman who befriends Jane and turns out to be her cousin. St John is thoroughly practical and suppresses all of his human passions and emotions, particularly his love for the beautiful and cheerful heiress Rosamond Oliver, in favour of good works. He wants Jane to marry him and serve as his assistant on his missionary journey to India. After Jane rejects his proposal, St John goes to India unmarried.
 * Rosamond Oliver: A beautiful, kindly, wealthy, but rather simple young woman, and the patron of the village school where Jane teaches. Rosamond is in love with St John, but he refuses to declare his love for her because she would not be suitable as a missionary's wife. She eventually becomes engaged to the respected and wealthy Mr Granby.
 * Mr Oliver: Rosamond Oliver's wealthy father, who owns a foundry and needle factory in the district. "…a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright flower near a hoary turret." He is a kind and charitable man, and he is fond of St John.

Context
The early sequences, in which Jane is sent to Lowood, a harsh boarding school, are derived from the author's own experiences. Helen Burns's death from tuberculosis (referred to as consumption) recalls the deaths of Charlotte Brontë's sisters, Elizabeth and Maria, who died of the disease in childhood as a result of the conditions at their school, the Clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge, near Tunstall, Lancashire. Mr Brocklehurst is based on Rev. William Carus Wilson (1791–1859), the Evangelical minister who ran the school. Additionally, John Reed's decline into alcoholism and dissolution recalls the life of Charlotte's brother Branwell, who became an opium and alcohol addict in the years preceding his death. Finally, like Jane, Charlotte became a governess. These facts were revealed to the public in The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857) by Charlotte's friend and fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell.

The Gothic manor of Thornfield Hall was probably inspired by North Lees Hall, near Hathersage in the Peak District in Derbyshire. This was visited by Charlotte Brontë and her friend Ellen Nussey in the summer of 1845, and is described by the latter in a letter dated 22 July 1845. It was the residence of the Eyre family, and its first owner, Agnes Ashurst, was reputedly confined as a lunatic in a padded second floor room. It has been suggested that the Wycoller Hall in Lancashire, close to Haworth, provided the setting for Ferndean Manor to which Mr Rochester retreats after the fire at Thornfield: there are similarities between the owner of Ferndean—Mr Rochester's father—and Henry Cunliffe, who inherited Wycoller in the 1770s and lived there until his death in 1818; one of Cunliffe's relatives was named Elizabeth Eyre (née Cunliffe). The sequence in which Mr Rochester's wife sets fire to the bed curtains was prepared in an August 1830 homemade publication of Brontë's The Young Men's Magazine, Number 2. Charlotte Brontë began composing Jane Eyre in Manchester, and she likely envisioned Manchester Cathedral churchyard as the burial place for Jane's parents and Manchester as the birthplace of Jane herself.

Adaptations and influence
The novel has been adapted into a number of other forms, including theatre, film, television, and at least two full-length operas. The novel has also been the subject of a number of significant rewritings and related interpretations, notably Jean Rhys's seminal 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea.

A famous line in the book is at the beginning of Chapter 38: "Reader, I married him." Many authors have used a variation of this line in their work. For example, Liane Moriarty discussed and used the line in her 2018 novel Nine Perfect Strangers.

The novel The French Dancer’s Bastard, by Emma Tennant, reimagines the back story of Adéle, exploring whether she was Rochester's love child and what her relationship with Jane Eyre is.

The book Reader, I Married Him: Stories inspired by Jane Eyre, a 2016 anthology of short stories, edited by Tracy Chevalier, was also inspired by this line. It was commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of Brontë's birth, and is published by The Borough Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.

The most recent film adaptation, Jane Eyre, was released in 2011, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, and starred Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre and Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester. The film, actors, and costume design team were nominated and won various awards from 2011–2012.

Contemporary reviews
Jane Eyre's initial reception contrasts starkly to its reputation today. In 1848, Elizabeth Rigby (later Elizabeth Eastlake), reviewing Jane Eyre in The Quarterly Review, found it "pre-eminently an anti-Christian composition," declaring: "We do not hesitate to say that the tone of mind and thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code human and divine abroad, and fostered Chartism and rebellion at home, is the same which has also written Jane Eyre."

An anonymous review in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction writes of "the extraordinary daring of the writer of Jane Eyre"; however, the review is mostly critical, summarising: "There is not a single natural character throughout the work. Everybody moves on stilts—the opinions are bad—the notions absurd. Religion is stabbed in the dark—our social distinctions attempted to be levelled, and all absurdly moral notions done away with."

There were some who felt more positive about the novel contemporaneously. George Henry Lewes said, "It reads like a page out of one's own life; and so do many other pages in the book." Another critic from the Atlas wrote, "It is full of youthful vigour, of freshness and originality, of nervous diction and concentrated interest ...It is a book to make the pulses gallop and the heart beat, and to fill the eyes with tears."

A review in The Era praised the novel, calling it "an extraordinary book", observing that "there is much to ponder over, rejoice over, and weep over, in its ably-written pages. Much of the heart laid bare, and the mind explored; much of greatness in affliction, and littleness in the ascendant; much of trial and temptation, of fortitude and resignation, of sound sense and Christianity—but no tameness."

The People's Journal compliments the novel's vigour, stating that "the reader never tires, never sleeps: the swell and tide of an affluent existence, an irresistible energy, bears him onward, from first to last. It is impossible to deny that the author possesses native power in an uncommon degree—showing itself now in rapid headlong recital, now in stern, fierce, daring dashes in portraiture—anon in subtle, startling mental anatomy—here in a grand illusion, there in an original metaphor—again in a wild gush of genuine poetry."

American publication The Nineteenth Century defended the novel against accusations of immorality, describing it as "a work which has produced a decided sensation in this country and in England... Jane Eyre has made its mark upon the age, and even palsied the talons of mercenary criticism. Yes, critics hired to abuse or panegyrize, at so much per line, have felt a throb of human feeling pervade their veins, at the perusal of Jane Eyre. This is extraordinary—almost preternatural—smacking strongly of the miraculous—and yet it is true... We have seen Jane Eyre put down, as a work of gross immorality, and its author described as the very incarnation of sensualism. To any one, who has read the work, this may look ridiculous, and yet it is true."

The Indicator, concerning speculation regarding the gender of the author, wrote, "We doubt not it will soon cease to be a secret; but on one assertion we are willing to risk our critical reputation—and that is, that no woman wrote it. This was our decided conviction at the first perusal, and a somewhat careful study of the work has strengthened it. No woman in all the annals of feminine celebrity ever wrote such a style, terse yet eloquent, and filled with energy bordering sometimes almost on rudeness: no woman ever conceived such masculine characters as those portrayed here."

Twentieth century
Literary critic Jerome Beaty believed the close first-person perspective leaves the reader "too uncritically accepting of her worldview", and often leads reading and conversation about the novel towards supporting Jane, regardless of how irregular her ideas or perspectives are.

In 2003, the novel was ranked number 10 in the BBC's survey The Big Read.

Romance
Before the Victorian era, Jane Austen wrote literary fiction that influenced later popular fiction, as did the work of the Brontë sisters produced in the 1840s. Brontë's love romance incorporates elements of both the gothic novel and Elizabethan drama, and "demonstrate[s] the flexibility of the romance novel form."

Gothic
The Gothic genre uses a combination of supernatural features, intense emotions, and a blend of reality and fantasy to create a dark, mysterious atmosphere and experience for characters and readers. Jane Eyre is a homodiegetic narrator, which allows her to exist both as a character and narrator in the story world, and her narration establishes an emotional connection and response for the reader. This intentional, narrative technique works in tandem with Gothic features and conventions. Jane and the reader are unaware of the cause behind the "demoniac laugh--low, suppressed, and deep" or "a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall," though the reason comes from Bertha Mason. The element of the unknown works in conjunction to the possibility of the supernatural. The intensity of emotions and reactions to Gothic conventions can solely exist in the protagonist's imagination. Instances that a protagonist interprets to be their imagination turns into reality. Jane's experience in the red room represents an aspect of Gothic conventions as Jane feels fear towards being punished in the red room because she believes and imagines that her dead uncle haunts the room.

The Gothic genre uses the Gothic double: a literary motif, which is described as the protagonist having a double, alter ego, or doppelgänger interpreted between Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason, where Bertha represents the other side of Jane and vice versa. The commonly used Gothic literary device, foreshadowing, creates an environment filled with tension, ominousity, and dread. After Jane agrees to marry Rochester, a horse-chestnut tree in an orchard is struck by lightning, splitting the tree in half. The lightning strike is ominous and foreshadows Jane and Rochester's separation.

The Gothic Genre in tandem with Murphy's the "New Woman Gothic" establishes an opportunity to go against the Romantic's concept that the antagonist is usually a villainous father. The Gothic genre allows there to be a complex consideration of who or what hinders Jane's happiness. The barriers Jane experiences, whether related to social class, societal and cultural norms, Bertha Mason, or Rochester, have antagonistic elements.

Bildungsroman
The Bildungsroman representation in Jane Eyre uses romantic elements that emphasizes the journey of one pursuing the discoveration of one's identity and knowledge. Jane Eyre desires the thrill and action that comes from being an active individual in society, and she refuses to allow the concept of gender and class to hinder her.

The Bildungsroman was primarily viewed through the male life progression, but feminist scholars worked to counteract the male norm of bildungsroman by including the female development. Experiences that deem a female narrative to be bildungsroman would be the female protagonist discovering how to manage living in a restricting society. The novel's setting exists in English society of the early 19th century, and with that time setting comes specific restrictions women dealt with during that time—such as, the law of coverture, lack of rights, and restricted expectations placed on women. Jane Eyre does not specifically and directly deal with the restrictions of, for example coverture, but her character does exist in a society where coverture exists, which inadvertently impacts social and cultural norms and expectations. Progression in the bildungsroman does not necessarily occur in a linear, binary line. Many narratives that implement the bildungsroman does so through the protagonist's maturity development, which is represented through the protagonist's experiences from childhood to adulthood, such progression exists well in conjunction with the novel's narrative technique set as an autobiography. Temporally, the beginning of the novel begins with Jane at age ten and ends with Jane at age thirty, but Jane's maturity development goes beyond her age. For example, Jane's emotional intelligence grows through her friendship with Helen Burns as Jane experiences and processes the loss of her friendship with Helen.

Many times, the 19th century female bildungsroman can be interpreted that the heroine's growth of self and education comes in the prospective context of marriage, especially when, in the context of 19th century womanhood, a wife experiences new knowledge in the private sphere of her role. Jane develops knowledge and experience regarding a romantic journey before her almost marriage to Mr. Rochester, a physical, spiritual, and financial knowledge during her time with St. John, and lastly, with her marriage with Mr. Rochester at the end of the novel. Jane's search of excitement and understanding life goes beyond her romantic journey. In the text, Jane's childhood beliefs about religion, as seen in her interactions with Mr. Brocklehurt, shifts considerably in comparison to her friendship with Helen in Lowood as a child and in her martial and missionary reject to St. John as an adult woman.

Race
Throughout the novel there are frequent themes relating to ideas of ethnicity (specifically that of Bertha), which are a reflection of the society that the novel is set within. Mr Rochester claims to have been forced to take on a "mad" Creole wife, a woman who grew up in the West Indies, and who is thought to be of mixed-race descent. In the analysis of several scholars, Bertha plays the role of the racialised "other" through the shared belief that she chose to follow in the footsteps of her parents. Her alcoholism and apparent mental instability cast her as someone who is incapable of restraining herself, almost forced to submit to the different vices she is a victim of. Many writers of the period believed that one could develop mental instability or mental illnesses simply based on their race.

This means that those who were born of ethnicities associated with a darker complexion, or those who were not fully of European descent, were believed to be more mentally unstable than their white European counterparts were. According to American scholar Susan Meyer, in writing Jane Eyre Brontë was responding to the "seemingly inevitable" analogy in 19th-century European texts which "[compared] white women with blacks in order to degrade both groups and assert the need for white male control". Bertha serves as an example of both the multiracial population and of a 'clean' European, as she is seemingly able to pass as a white woman for the most part, but also is hinted towards being of an 'impure' race since she does not come from a purely white or European lineage. The title that she is given by others of being a Creole woman leaves her a stranger where she is not black but is also not considered to be white enough to fit into higher society.

Unlike Bertha, Jane Eyre is thought of as being sound of mind before the reader is able to fully understand the character, simply because she is described as having a complexion that is pale and she has grown up in a European society rather than in an "animalistic" setting like Bertha. Jane is favoured heavily from the start of her interactions with Rochester, simply because like Rochester himself, she is deemed to be of a superior ethnic group than that of his first wife. While she still experiences some forms of repression throughout her life (the events of the Lowood Institution) none of them are as heavily taxing on her as that which is experienced by Bertha. Both women go through acts of suppression on behalf of the men in their lives, yet Jane is looked at with favour because of her supposed "beauty" that can be found in the colour of her skin. While both are characterised as falling outside of the normal feminine standards of this time, Jane is thought of as superior to Bertha because she demands respect and is able to use her talents as a governess, whereas Bertha is seen as a creature to be confined in the attic away from "polite" society.

Scholars have also noted the novel's overt references and allusions to slavery, arguably its North American iteration.

Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys intended her critically acclaimed novel Wide Sargasso Sea as an account of the woman whom Rochester married and kept in his attic. The book won the notable WH Smith Literary Award in 1967. Rhys explores themes of dominance and dependence, especially in marriage, depicting the mutually painful relationship between a privileged English man and a Creole woman from Dominica made powerless on being duped and coerced by him and others. Both the man and the woman enter marriage under mistaken assumptions about the other partner. Her female lead marries Mr Rochester and deteriorates in England as "The Madwoman in the Attic". Rhys portrays this woman from a quite different perspective from the one in Jane Eyre.

Feminism
The idea of the equality of men and women emerged more strongly in the Victorian period in Britain, after works by earlier writers, such as Mary Wollstonecraft. R. B. Martin described Jane Eyre as the first major feminist novel, "although there is not a hint in the book of any desire for political, legal, educational, or even intellectual equality between the sexes." This is illustrated in chapter 23, when Jane responds to Rochester's callous and indirect proposal:

"Do you think I am an automaton? a machine without feelings?...Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart...I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;—it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,—as we are."

The novel "acted as a catalyst" to feminist criticism with the publication by S. Gilbert and S. Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic (1979), the title of which alludes to Rochester's wife. The Brontës' fictions were cited by feminist critic Ellen Moers as prime examples of Female Gothic, exploring woman's entrapment within domestic space and subjection to patriarchal authority, and the transgressive and dangerous attempts to subvert and escape such restriction. Both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre explore this theme.

Social class
Throughout the novel, Jane undergoes various social class transitions, in response to her life's varying situations. As a child, she mixes with middle class people through the Reed family, though Jane is not at the same level of social class as the rest of the Reed family. While at Lowood, she experiences the life of children whose guardians can afford the school fees of "fifteen pounds per year" but nonetheless are "charity children" "because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching", living in poor conditions, and later working there as an adult as a teacher on a salary of fifteen pounds. She has an opportunity to be a private governess, and in so doing double her salary, but her governess position makes her aware of her ambiguous social position as a governess to a child with a wealthy guardian. After Jane leaves Thornfield Hall, she is stripped of her class identity as she travels across the moors and arrives at Moor House. But Jane receives an inheritance which she shares with her new-found family, and this offers a different form of independence.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Jane Eyre