Jane Eyre: Difference between revisions

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* [[Adaptational Attractiveness]]: Both main characters are supposed to be unattractive, but most adaptations don't even make a stab at [[Hollywood Homely]]. It could be justified depending on your reading of the original story. Rochester might be considered more ugly than he is because he's old, while Jane might be overly critical of her own appearance.

* [[Alpha Bitch]]: Blanche Ingram.

* [[Anguished Declaration of Love]]: Jane has one of these moments when Rochester is supposedly about to ship her off to Ireland.

* [[Anti-Hero]]: Rochester

* [[Arranged Marriage]]: {{spoiler|Rochester and Bertha the Madwoman.}}

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{{quote|''My daughter, flee temptation!''

Mother, I will. }}

* [[Did You Think I Can't Feel?]]: Rochester deliberately provokes Jane into this: constantly gushing about his upcoming marriage to this woman who is not suited to him, and he knows it and Jane knows it, but Jane has no power to speak up because she's a governess, and in no way equal to Rochester's apparent intended. Jane takes this to awesome levels.

* [[Divided for Publication]]: It takes the Victorian three-volume novel format where the story was split into three sections. In the 19th century, the business model was to use the first volume to get people interested in the second and third parts, and thus extract more money per story.

* [[Drama Bomb]]: {{spoiler|Jane and Mr. Rochester's wedding, take one.}}

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* [[The Hedonist]]: Georgiana Reed.

* [[I Am What I Am]]: From Jane, after walking away from her best (and only) friend in the world: "''I'' care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself."

* [[I Just Want to Have Friends]]: Jane is so desperate for love and affection that she tells Helen Burns she'd happily let herself be kicked in the chest by a horse if it meant Helen and the Headmistress would care for her. Helen then shushes Jane and tells her to put more faith in God than in human companions.

* [[I Should Write a Book About This]]: Not actually said, but the book's subtitle is "An Autobiography." Jane addresses the reader several times.

* [[Incurable Cough of Death]]: {{spoiler|What Helen Burns dies of.}}

** Otherwise known as tuberculosis (or consumption in Victorian times), a particularly gruesome way to die in pre-antibiotic days, as your lungs slowly fill with fluid and you literally drown.

* [[In the Blood]]: {{spoiler|Bertha's insanity is implied to run in the family.}}

* [[Insane Equals Violent]]: {{spoiler|Bertha, oh so much}}.

* [[Jesus Saves]]: The culmination of Mr. Rochester's redemption is that he prays to God once more, with sincerity and humility.

* [[Karmic Death]]:

** {{spoiler|Bertha.}}

** Also {{spoiler|John Reed and Mrs. Reed.}}

* [[Kick the Dog]]: The Hon. Miss Blanche Ingram, in addition to all her snubs against Jane, truly puts herself on the despicable list by the spiteful and mocking way she treats Adèle, Mr. Rochester's ward.

* [[Kick the Son of a Bitch]]: Because Blanche is after money and position and because she is extremely rude to Jane, Rochester's callous treatment of Blanche's hopes for marriage [[Old Maid|at the age of twenty-five]] are not lingered on long.

* [[Kissing Cousins]]: {{spoiler|St. John proposes to his first cousin Jane that they get married and become missionaries in India. At the time, marriage between first cousins was not considered incestuous. John is handsome, but neither he nor Jane find each other desirable in the least.}}

* [[Laughing Mad]]: {{spoiler|Bertha.}}

* [[~~Loved~~ I ~~Not~~ ~~Honor More~~]]: Jane refusing to be Mr. Rochester's mistress if she can't become his wife.

* [[Duty First, Love Second]]: Jane refusing to be Mr. Rochester's mistress if she can't become his wife.

* [[Love Redeems]]: Subverted. Rochester thinks that loving Jane will make up for the minor matter of {{spoiler|the inconvenient wife in the attic.}} As he quickly finds out, it doesn't.

** Played straight in that it is Rochester's love for Jane that turns him away from the [[Looking for Love In All the Wrong Places|dissipation]] of his [[Mysterious Past]].

* [[Luke, I Am Your Father]]: {{spoiler|Jane, We are your cousins! Who knew?}}

** Inverted with Rochester and Adèle, since he's stuck with her but doesn't acknowledge paternity (and Jane can't see any resemblance).

* {{spoiler|[[Madwoman in the Attic]]: Formerly [[Trope Namer|named]] [[Bertha in The Attic]].}}

* [[Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe]]: Rochester doubts, with good reason, whether Adèle is his child.

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* [[Missing Mom]]: Céline Varens, Adèle's mother.

* [[The Missionary]]: St. John aspires to be this. {{spoiler|Jane doesn't.}}

* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: Mr. Brocklehurst, based on William Carus Wilson. Carus Wilson ran Cowan Bridge, the inspiration for Lowood.

** The descriptions were so perfect that Charlotte was pleased to report she'd overheard people talking about ''Jane Eyre'' as having "Mr. Wilson" and "the Clergy Daughters School."

* [[One-Gender School]]: Lowood Academy - all girl, "charity" (meaning everything is funded by donations) boarding school.

* [[Operation: Jealousy]]: Rochester's "engagement" with Blanche. (Although it could be said that it was a real attempt at marriage that was broken up only when {{spoiler|Mason arrived from the West Indies}}, and Rochester lied when telling Jane it was an attempt to make her jealous.)

** Jane later returns the favor by telling Rochester all about St. John, and telling Rochester that they shall be together... as friends. As a patient and nursemaid.

* [[Orphan's Ordeal]]: Jane.

* [[Parental Abandonment]]: Jane's parents are both dead before the beginning of the book.

* [[Parental Substitute]]: Bessie is the closest to a mother Jane has ever known.

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* [[Primal Stance]]: {{spoiler|Rochester's first wife, described as "it" when Jane lays eyes on her.}}

* [[Pyromaniac]]: {{spoiler|Mr. Rochester's first wife}} She tries to light Mr. Rochester's room on fire and later burns down all of Thornfield Hall, {{spoiler|[[Hoist by His Own Petard|resulting in her own death and]] [[Suddenly-Suitable Suitor|enabling Jane to marry Mr. Rochester.]]}}

* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: [[Names to Trust Immediately|Miss Temple]] at Lowood School.

* [[Regency England]]: ''Jane Eyre'' is meant to be the fictional memoir of a woman looking back at her youth; the main action is set in about 1810. In addition to the mention of Walter Scott's 1808 novel ''Marmion'' as a recently published book and the frequent mentions of politics more appropriate to Georgian than Victorian times, Jane's travels lead her to a coach house in an [[Expy]] of Leeds where a portrait of the Prince Regent is displayed prominently. Not only had the Prince Regent (or King George IV) been dead for almost twenty years by 1847, the coach houses had been closed for over fifteen years. Had ''Jane Eyre'' been set any time after 1835 or so, Jane would have taken a train, and the station would have held a portrait of Queen Victoria.

* [[Rescue Romance]]: Mr. Rochester falls in love with Jane after she saves him from the fire.

* [[Rich Bitch]]: Miss Blanche Ingram, if you please. Aside from the obvious problems of her personality seen on the page, her lack of luck in marriage hints that she's not terribly popular. She is rich, beautiful, and accomplished, and yet has somehow been out in [[Old Maid|society for seven years and still isn't married]]?

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* [[Second Love]]: True for Rochester, as long as you don't think about Blanche. Or Céline.

* [[Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace]]: Jane goes so far as to lampshade the absurdity of the phrase, declaring to the reader that no one ever really pipes up. [[Tempting Fate|Little does she know...]]

* [[Spirited Young Lady]]: Jane sometimes looks like a [[Proper Lady|proper schoolgirl or governess]], but she's got a sharp tongue.

* [[The Spock]]: Eliza Reed, by the the time we come back to her. Better that than what her sister became...

* [[Spoiled Brat]]: All of the young Reeds, really, but John Reed takes the cake.