Jane Eyre Characters

If Jane had her way, she would probably tell us that she doesn’t have any character to speak of; she’s happy just to be Mr. Rochester’s "plain, Quakerish governess," an orphan-tur...

Mr. Rochester is stern-featured, heavy-browed, craggy-faced, rude, abrupt, horny, twice Jane’s age, always on the edge of violence, likes to order people around, keeps his wife locked in the...

Bertha Mason: is she an abused wife, or just "the madwoman in the attic"? Bertha’s family heritage is complex and puts her in a difficult position. She’s half-Creole and half-English, raised in...

The first thing to explain about St. John Rivers is how to pronounce his first name, "St. John." It’s not "Saint John," although of course that’s what it means; it’s pronounced "S...

Jane’s aunt-by-marriage is a selfish, hard-hearted woman who spoils her three horrible children, John, Eliza, and Georgiana, and hates her niece. Mrs. Reed’s dislike of Jane is only inc...

Helen is Jane’s pious best friend at Lowood Institute. Helen is extremely intelligent, calm, and caring, but her most important aspect is her devout religious faith. If Jane Eyre were an alle...

The ultimate hypocrite, Mr. Brocklehurst is the supervisor of a boarding school for orphaned girls, Lowood Institute, which was founded by one of his relatives. Mr. Brocklehurst gets his kicks in l...

Miss Temple, the teacher in charge of Lowood Institute, is the only person able to protect the girls at the school from the cruelty of Mr. Brocklehurst. Miss Temple gains Jane’s loyalty forev...

Jane’s cousin John Reed is a good-for-nothing wastrel. As a child, he’s a bully, pushing Jane around, reminding her of her poverty, and trying to keep her from enjoying herself in any w...

In childhood, Jane’s cousin Eliza is just another nasty member of the Reed family; as an adult, she becomes more and more prim, proper, and repressed as she jealously watches all the boys flo...

Georgiana Reed, sister of Eliza and John, daughter of Mrs. Reed, and cousin to Jane Eyre, is completely different from her sister. A plump, lovely blonde, Georgiana has plenty of admirers and roman...

Bessie is Jane’s childhood nursemaid; she’s not exactly perfect, because she has a hot temper and behaves pretty inconsistently to Jane (sometimes bringing her treats, sometimes punishi...

Blanche Ingram is, let’s be honest, not a nice girl. The daughter of one of Rochester’s distant neighbors, Blanche gets interested in him because of his fortune and because she thinks a...

Adèle is Jane’s pupil at Thornfield, a little French girl just under ten years old, the daughter of Céline Varens, an opera dancer who was Rochester’s mistress. Mostly, Ad...

Grace Poole, a stout, middle-aged, red-haired seamstress who works as a servant at Thornfield Hall, is secretly the nursemaid and prison guard for the insane Bertha Mason. Jane keeps assuming that...

St. John’s sisters and Jane’s cousins, Diana and Mary Rivers are gentle, compassionate, educated young women who take to Jane immediately. Mary doesn’t have much personality, but...

Rosamond Oliver is the beautiful young woman that St. John is not-so-secretly in love with, but won’t allow himself to marry because she wouldn’t make a good missionary wife. We suspect...