Education, Rebellion, and Morality: Jane Eyre V-X
- tabbysbookboxes
- Apr 29
- 3 min read
Warning: If you haven’t read Chapters 5-10 of Jane Eyre, this article will spoil plot points. I recommend you read the first four chapters and then come back here. All page numbers are from the edition of Jane Eyre sold in my Jane Eyre Book Box.
Education for children was an ongoing battle during much of the Victorian era. In 1844, the British Parliament passed a law requiring child factory workers to attend school. By 1880, school was required for all children, and by 1891, education was free. This rapidly changing landscape of education meant that school was not standardized as it is today. Every school had very different expectations of what children should learn and how best to teach them.
Charlotte Brontë was born in 1816 and attended school at the beginning of the Victorian fight for education, so she was very familiar with how education had changed during her life. The chapters Jane Eyre spends in Lowood school are, arguably, the chapters that are most influenced by Charlotte Brontë’s real-life experience at a school for parsons’ daughters called Cowan Bridge School. Many of the characters were also based on real-life people Brontë encountered there. Mr. Brocklehurst, for example, so closely resembled the manager of Cowan Bridge School, William Carus Wilson, that Wilson considered suing Brontë for defamation.
Cowan Bridge School was unique in its curriculum, much like the fictional Lowood School. William Carus Wilson and the other founders of the school believed in the value of women’s education beyond simply needlework, music, and art, which were standard in a woman’s education at the time. Cowan Bridge School also emphasized the importance of grammar, arithmetic, history, geography, and writing. In the fictional Lowood School, Jane’s access to wider educational vistas excites her. We can assume something similar happened with Charlotte Brontë, although we cannot know for certain.
The death of Helen Burns was also likely taken from Charlotte Brontë’s real experience. Brontë attended Cowan Bridge school with three of her sisters, Maria, Elizabeth, and Emily (who would go on to write Wuthering Heights). Tuberculosis, then known as consumption, was a common threat, especially at crowded institutions like Cowan Bridge School. Both Maria and Elizabeth contracted tuberculosis and were sent home, only to die shortly after. After Maria’s death, both Charlotte and Emily went home to their father. They never returned to Cowan Bridge School.
As a reader, the more interesting thing is not the similarities between the Lowood and Cowan Bridge schools. Instead, I am interested in what education—which was rare at the time and at that level—enabled Jane Eyre to do. How does her time at Lowood school shape her? Lowood school and the education Jane receives there enable her to find her voice and gain confidence in her abilities, qualities that become very important in later chapters. She discovers, for example, that her desire to be loved might not constitute the whole of her existence. Through an embarrassing experience with Mr. Brocklehurst and the patient friendship of Helen, Jane learns the immense value of self-love.
Mr. Brocklehurst’s cruelty towards all the girls unifies them, and for the first time, Jane understands what it means to find strength in a community. After Mr. Brocklehurst calls Jane a liar and forces her to stand on a stool alone for half an hour, Jane is humiliated. She sinks from the stool and weeps. She ardently expresses her “wish to die” (81). But then Helen comes in, with a striking revelation: Jane is not nearly as alone as she feels. And even if everyone did hate Jane, Helen explains, “while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends” (82). This is the beginning of Jane’s fierce independence that becomes such a defining feature of her personality later in the book. While she may not be willing to hear the advice of Helen Burns now, be patient, and you’ll see the way Jane becomes the master of herself.
Interested in learning more about Jane's life before Lowood? Check out this post for information on Jane's early years at Gateshead Hall.
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