Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Written as an autobiography, Jane Eyre tells her story growing up an unwanted orphan in the Reed household, fending for herself at Lowood School, and working as a governess to the ward of the mysterious Edward Rochester. This Gothic romance changed the way authors use first-person narration to develop characters and along with Pride and Prejudice is one of literature’s most famous romance novels.
Major thematic elements: religion, social class, home, belonging, autonomy, love
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IB Literature and IB Language and Literature Connections
Place of publication: United Kingdom
Language: English
Era: 19th Century
Genre: Fiction
Author: Female
Readers, writers and texts | Time and space | Intertextuality: Connecting texts
Identity | Culture | Creativity | Communication
Perspective | Transformation | Representation
Full text, basic summaries, and overviews
Jane Eyre | Full text
Resource 1: printable PDF of Jane Eyre. For best results, set to print 2 pages per sheet. Resource 2: full text from Project Gutenberg.
Resource 1 | Resource 2
Jane Eyre | Audiobook
Resource 1: full text with audio via Lit2Go, broken into chapters. Resource 2: Jane Eyre podcast on Spotify, also broken into chapters. Resource 3: audiobooks via Librivox. Librivox has collaborative, solo, and dramatic reading options.
Resource 1 | Resource 2 | Resource 3
Jane Eyre Study Guide | Spark Notes
This guide includes full and chapter summaries, character list, literary devices, quick quizzes and more.
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Jane Eyre Study Guide | Course Hero
Course Hero’s study guide includes a great infographic, timeline, character map and more. Guide is also available on YouTube.
Read more | Playlist on YouTube
Reader, it’s Jane Eyre - Crash Course Literature 207 | YouTube | 13:11
This video includes Brontë’s childhood, plot summary, definition and explanation of the term ‘bildungsroman,’ themes, and meanings.
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Jane Eyre | Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s article includes plot summaries, a detailed character list separated by chapters, context, reception, and more.
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About the author
Charlotte Brontë biography | Poetry Foundation
This comprehensive biography includes Brontë’s work as a poet as well as fiction writer.
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Overlooked No More: Charlotte Brontë, Novelist Known for ‘Jane Eyre’ | The New York Times | Susan Dominus | Posthumous Obituary
This obituary was written as part of The New York Times’s series Overlooked, a series of obituaries for remarkable people who died after 1851 and whose deaths were not reported in The Times.
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Sorry, but Jane Eyre Isn’t the Romance You Want It to Be | JSTOR Daily | Erin Blakemore | February 2019
This article is about Charlotte Brontë, particularly the way her life intersected with Jane Eyre’s.
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Jane Eyre: mixing the familiar and the fantastic | British Library | John Bowen | 2014
This article with video looks at how “as a child and as a young teacher, Charlotte Brontë moved effortlessly between ordinary and imaginary worlds. Professor John Bowen explores how this dual existence made its way into her novel Jane Eyre.
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Jane Eyre and the 19th-century woman | British Library | Sally Shuttleworth | May 2014
In this article with video, “Professor Sally Shuttleworth explores how Charlotte Brontë challenges 19th-century conceptions of appropriate female behaviour through the creation of a heroine who works, demands respect and combines self-control with passion and rebellion.
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What did Charlotte Brontë actually look like? | YouTube | The University of Sheffield | 2:50
In this video, the most famous portrait of Charlotte Brontë is discussed, along with the reasons why it may not be an accurate rendering of her appearance.
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What did Charlotte Bronte Look Like? The Famous Author of Jane Eyre as a Modern Day Woman | YouTube | Royalty Now Studios | 4:33
In this video, Royalty Now “uses photo-compositing and digital drawing techniques to achieve a more photo-realistic” image of Charlotte Brontë.
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Articles, essays, and videos about Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is prickly, judgmental, and totally unlikable. I love her. | Vox | Constance Grady | April 2016
This article discusses Jane’s self-image, her self-respect, and her relationship to Bertha Mason.
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Jane Eyre - content warnings are as old as the novel itself | The Conversation | Jo Waugh | January 2022
This short article examines the novel’s initial and occasionally contemporary, objections to the novel.
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British Library | Assorted Articles
British Library has published a variety of articles related to Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre. We’ve listed some of our favorites below.
Fair copy manuscript of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre | The figure of Bertha Mason
Fairytale and realism in Jane Eyre | The figure of the governess
Jane Eyre and the rebellious child | The imperial Gothic | The origins of the Gothic
Jane Eyre: Why We Keep Reading It (Feat. Princess Weekes) | It’s Lit | YouTube | Storied | 17:41
Produced by PBS, this video examines why people today continue to connect to Jane Eyre.
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“Eccentrick Murmurs”: Noise, Voice, and Unreliable Narration in Jane Eyre | Project Muse | Kevin Stevens | May 2018
In this essay, Stevens proposes that “authors sometimes deploy noise to mark a narrative disturbance, a fracture in a narrator’s seemingly harmonious and coherent story, and [supports] this claim with a case study of Jane Eyre.
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Jane Eyre’s Quest for Truth and Identity | The Oswald Review | Christina J. Inge | 1999
This essay examines what Inge refers to as the “central struggle of the work...Jane’s struggle to make her voice heard and to express the truth of her own experience.”
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“Reader” in Jane Eyre | University of Tennessee | Siruo Li | Masters Thesis
”This thesis is designed to show the development of feminist power of Jane Eyre, the heroine of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, by examining how her reader is addressed in the totality of the novel.
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The Cold Victorian Childhood: Close Passage Analysis of Jane Eyre | Chunyang Ding | October 2013
This essay analyzes a passage from the beginning of chapter 7. In it, the author argues that “Jane’s narration of the bitter cold, elongated by the passage of time, is an allegory for not only the physical, but the emotional mistreatment of orphan children within a classist Victorian society.”
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Introducing Jane Eyre: An Unlikely Victorian Heroine | EDSITEment! | NEH.gov
Activities in this lesson focus on identifying the ideal Victorian woman, looking at what made Jane Eyre a controversial heroine, comparing Jane Eyre to other Victorian literary heroines, examining Jane’s declaration of independence, and mapping character social classes.
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Prompts: Jane Eyre (1848) | British Literature Survey | CalPoly.edu
This page has nearly 40 essay prompts for working with Jane Eyre.
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The Reader’s Guide to Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre”
This website is very interesting to explore. In addition to standard reader’s guide material: summary, timeline, etc., it has five pages for each of the five locations in the novel. On each page, an image of what that location (Thornfield Hall, for example) might have looked like, a list of characters that appear in that location, and best of all: quotes from the novel that describe those characters. There’s also a page of translations for the French that Adèle speaks and links to other interesting Jane Eyre-related sites.
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Lesson plans and other teaching resources
Jane Eyre and the Advent of First-Person Narratives | The Great American Read | PBS |
This video discusses how Jane Eyre changed the use of first-person narratives. It would pair well with a close-reading activity with a passage from the novel.
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A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classics Edition of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre | Signet Classics
This guide includes background information, character list and synopsis, during and after reading activities, and more.
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12th Grade Summer 2016 Assignment | Dwight School English Department
Three tasks are outlined in this document: annotation of motifs and imagery in the novel, the creation of a reader-response journal, and an essay.
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Reading Points for Jane Eyre | San José State University | Harris
This page outlines five general points of discussion and understanding for the novel, and chapter discussion points, which identifies questions or topics students should watch for as they read each chapter.
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Viewer, She Marries Him: Comparing ‘Jane Eyre’ in Literature and Film | The New York Times | Shannon Doyne and Holly Epstein Ojalvo | 2011
This lesson has several activities and options for comparing the novel with its adaptations.
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Jane Eyre Unit Plan
An entire unit is available on this website, from rational and plan outline to assignments and assessments.
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Shopping List
Texts and other resources you may find helpful.
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Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics)
Paperback on Amazon.comJane Eyre (Vintage Classics)
Paperback on Amazon.com
Jane Eyre: The Graphic Novel
Paperback on Amazon.com
The Life of Charlotte Brontë (Penguin Classics)
Paperback on Amazon.com
Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart
Hardcover on Amazon.comMasterpiece Theatre: Jane Eyre
DVD on Amazon.com
Jane Eyre (2011)
DVD on Amazon.com
Jane Eyre (1996)
DVD on Amazon.comBack to Browse by Title | Browse by Author
