Jane Eyre/Characters

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Characters of the novel Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Averted. Jane is neither unaware of nor willing to tolerate Mr. Rochester's faults, although she does think she can change him.
• Bookworm
• Calling the Old Man Out: She gets to call her old aunt out at least once.
• Cinderella Circumstances
• Deadpan Snarker : "I had green eyes reader, but for him they were newly dyed I suppose."
• I Just Want to Have Friends: As a child. She even tells Helen that she'd willingly get kicked by a horse if it would make Helen love her.
• Loved I Not Honor More
• Mama Bear: Towards Adèle.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Subversion. Rochester sees Jane as this, but Jane strongly disagrees.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: She's the Masculine Girl to Rochester's Feminine Boy, having much more moral strength, self-worth, and practicality, which are considered to be traditional masculine traits (especially during the Victorian Age).
• May-December Romance: Jane is eighteen. Rochester is old enough to be her father.
• Orphan's Ordeal
• Plain Jane: Arguably the Trope Namer, although it's hinted that she's more attractive than she gives herself credit for.
• Plucky Girl
• Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Had one with Helen Burns. It ended...tragically.
• Second Love: To Rochester.
• Spirited Young Lady
• Unexpected Inheritance: She ends up inheriting a large fortune from her paternal uncle, whom she never met in person.
• The Unfavorite
• Well Done Daughter Girl: When she goes back to visit Mrs. Reed.

Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester

• Anti-Hero
• Arranged Marriage: To Bertha Mason.
• The Atoner
• Badass Baritone: He has a very fine singing voice.
• Break the Haughty
• Byronic Hero
• Deadpan Snarker
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?
• Gold Digger: Married Bertha for her money, and also for her renowned beauty.
• Looking for Love In All the Wrong Places: Céline is simply the only mistress Rochester names. He tells Jane there have been other women, but none of them were what he wanted in a long-tern relationship.
• Manipulative Bastard: He plays many strange tricks on Jane to make her jealous and to keep her from finding out about Bertha.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: He's the Feminine Boy to Jane's Masculine Girl, being motivated and controlled by his emotions while Jane has a more practical, down-to-earth approach to solving problems.
• May-December Romance: With Jane.
• Tall, Dark and Snarky
• Unexplained Recovery: Eventually recovers from the fire at Thornfield, which Bertha caused.
• The Unfavorite: So Rochester claims. He had an older brother, who his father liked more. Certainly, his father did refuse to split the inheritance.

Mrs. Sarah Reed

• Abusive Parent: To Jane
• Break the Haughty
• Doting Parent: To her own children. They do not thank her for it. Especially John.
• Jerkass
• Karmic Death
• Kick the Dog: Concealing Jane's existence from her existing relatives.
• Parental Substitute: A very, very poor one to Jane.
• Rich Bitch
• Wicked Stepmother: She's Jane's aunt, but it still applies.
• Widow Woman

John Reed

• The Bully
• Driven to Suicide
• Fat Bastard
• Handsome Devil: When meeting up with an older Jane, Bessie describes his grown-up self as this. He's handsome and tall, but treats everyone like shit and makes Mrs. Reed suffer with his horrible behavior.
• Jerkass
• Karmic Death
• Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up
• Spoiled Brat
• Threw My Bike on the Roof
• Ungrateful Bastard: Never had any love for the mother that gave him anything he wanted.

Georgiana Reed

• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: With Eliza, at least when they're older.
• The Hedonist
• Ojou
• She Is All Grown Up: She becomes quite a beauty and manages to marry well from it.
• Spoiled Brat

Eliza Reed

• Creature of Habit
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry
• Heel Face Turn: In how she treats Jane after growing up. They aren't friends, but she does admit they are equals, and says good-bye sincerely.
• Proper Lady
• The Spock

Bessie Lee

• Brutal Honesty
• Maid
• Only Sane Woman
• Happily Married: She's this when she and Jane reunite after eight years.
• Parental Substitute: She's a much better mother figure for Jane than Mrs.Reed, and Jane always remembered her fondly after leaving the Reed home.
• Team Mom: The nanny at the Reed's home, and among the few that treated Jane more or less well.

Mr. Brocklehurst

• Corrupt Church: Corrupt churchman
• Hiding Behind Religion / The Fundamentalist: it's unclear exactly how much of his own cant he believes, but he preaches it loud and clear.
• Holier Than Thou
• Hypocrite: In how he provides for his family, as opposed to how he provides for the girls at Lowood. Bites him in the ass badly later.
• Jerkass
• Sinister Minister

Maria Temple

• Cool Big Sis: To Jane and Helen.
• Cool Teacher
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness
• Names to Trust Immediately
• Nice Girl
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The headmistress of a practically Spartan school, Miss Temple is nevertheless kind to the girls and insists that they be given decent food, and enough food at that, despite Mr. Brocklehurst's idea of an adequate budget.

Helen Burns

• Dead Little Sister
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: To Jane.
• Ill Girl
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness
• Incurable Cough of Death
• Killed Off for Real
• Kill the Cutie
• Onee-Sama
• Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: With Jane.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth

Mrs. Alice Fairfax

• Apron Matron
• Cool Old Lady
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Jane.
• Stepford Smiler: Mrs. Fairfax is always pleasant, despite the implications that she knows, and disapproves, of her master's behavior. Even when she talks to Jane about the marriage proposal, it is in the spirit of a friendly warning and nothing more, despite her alarm.

Adèle Varens

• Deliberately Cute Child
• Missing Mom
• Morality Pet: To Rochester.
• Parental Abandonment: She believes her mother has died, but Rochester seems to imply that her mother just dumped her and ran off.
• Spoiled Sweet

Blanche Ingram

• Alpha Bitch
• Child-Hater: She has no patience for Adèle and is making plans to pack her off to boarding school almost immediately after setting foot in Rochester's home.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: To Rochester.
• Curtains Match the Window: She's "as dark as a Spaniard" with brown hair and eyes.
• Gold Digger
• Identical Stranger: Turns out she looks just like Rochester's wife, Bertha Mason.
• Jerkass
• Rich Bitch: Oh yes.

Grace Poole

• The Caretaker: to Bertha Rochester.
• Lady Drunk: It's implied that she really enjoys her whiskey.
• Maid
• Red Herring: For a long time Jane believes her to be the "ghost" of Thornfield.

Bertha Antonietta Mason aka Bertha Rochester)

• Arranged Marriage: To Rochester. Let's just say they weren't a great match.
• Criminal Doppelganger: Bertha and Blanche look a lot alike, so much so that Rochester even says Bertha was a beauty in the style of Blanche Ingram.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Bertha was quite the drinker when she was younger.
• In the Blood
• Jerkass: It's implied that she was this even before she went insane.
• Karmic Death
• Laughing Mad
• Madwoman in the Attic: The Trope Namer, as the trope was originally named after her.
• Primal Stance
• Pyromaniac
• Really Gets Around: Her promiscuity was just the first of her problems.

Richard Mason

• Big Brother Instinct: Saves his sister's honour by stopping the wedding of Rochester to Jane, which would have been illegal as Bertha is still alive.
• Chick Magnet: Rochester's female guests take quite a shine to him.
• Extreme Doormat: Is one to Rochester.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: To be fair, it was probably quite a painful wound, but he was ready to give up and die after Bertha attacks him.
• Uncanny Valley: Jane describes him as being right out of it:

"...I like his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as being, at the same time, unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such as I never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly...".

St. John Eyre Rivers

• Big Brother Instinct: To Diana and Mary. He's also this to Jane, although he later gets other ideas...
• Bishonen: Jane describes him as being basically one.
• Dying Alone: It's mentioned at the end that he died alone as a missionary in India. Pass the tissues...
• The Fundamentalist: St. John is just as hardcore religious as Brocklehurst, only he is entirely sincere about it. He believes he must be a missionary and that to do less is to ignore God's plans for him. He goes so far as to accuse Jane of refusing God by refusing to marry him.
• Knight Templar
• Long-Lost Relative.
• The Missionary
• Promotion to Parent
• Tin Man

Diana and Mary Rivers

• Cool Big Sis: Both become loving (adoptive) siblings to Jane.
• Long-Lost Relative
• Nice Girls
• Sibling Team

Rosamond Oliver

• Beauty Equals Goodness
• Daddy's Girl
• Dogged Nice Girl: To St. John.
• Spoiled Sweet

Mr. John Eyre

• Bus Crash: Jane, as well as the readers, never get to meet him. He dies and leaves his fortune to Jane.
• The Ghost
• Long-Lost Relative: To Jane.
• Self-Made Man