Thursday, August 13, 2015

How does Jane get along with Mary and Diana?

In Charlotte Brontë's classic novel Jane Eyre, the titular character Jane eventually runs away from Mr. Rochester after she finds out that he is already married to a woman named Bertha and has been keeping this woman trapped in the attic of Thornfield for years. After a few days of living as a homeless beggar, she is taken in by a trio of siblings: Mary, Diana, and St. John Rivers. We eventually find out that these three are, coincidentally, Jane's cousins.
Unlike the cousins she grew up with, Jane gets along very well with Mary and Diana. As Jane herself says near the beginning of chapter 30:

I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced.

Jane finds a "pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles" in her newfound friendship with the Rivers sisters. All three women are teachers who value reading, art, and education, and share a "fascination" of the beauty of the moors. Furthermore, Mary and Diana are kind and supportive of Jane, who has just gone through a very traumatic period of her life.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Summarize the major research findings of "Toward an experimental ecology of human development."

Based on findings of prior research, the author, Bronfenbrenner proposes that methods for natural observation research have been applied in ...