Setting: Jane Eyre
19th Century Rural England:
Gateshed Lowood Institute Thornfield/Millcote The Moors Moor House/Morton Ferndean The setting is in a near constant state of stark and cold. In an indistinguishable location marked only by the fact that it is rural and "South of London" the setting of the story morphs to fit Jane as she moves through her life. |
Each location presented in the book can be seen as vital stages in Jane's life, from her childhood home of Gateshead, until she is forced to a new location by the Red Room incident (a new era in her life). Lowood is a darker time in her life, a "low" time in her life it could be said, in which matures in the face of unfairness. Her next era is one of love and hope, in which Jane finds mystery and allure in her life at Thornfield. This changes when she is banished to the Moor House, where our main character meets family she previously wasn't aware she even had. As her experiences in the world collect, as does her list of locations grow. She rests between civilizations in the murky grey Moors. The Moors are wild and free. A natural escape that Jane has always had some connection to (be it the gardens of the houses, or the plains and paths of the villages) and will always cherish and pine for.
Jane travels to Ferndean and with her new knowledge of the world's workings, falls into a deeper love than that which she harbored at Thornfield, and so at Ferndean the final stage of experience in her life begins. These locations throughout Jane's life are reflections of her experiences and her life, the freedom and wildness of the Moors is her inner wandering soul, the dank Lowood is a depressed and murky construction of Jane being accepted, however cruelly, by her peers. These places are not just milestones in Jane's life, but manifestations of the events that formed Jane. |
"Well has Solomon said: – 'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.' I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations, for Gateshead and its daily luxuries." - Jane Eyre, Bronte