How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Volume.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times past; of countries far away: of secrets of nature discovered or guessed at: they spoke of books: how many they had read! What stores of knowledge they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with French names and French authors: but my amazement reached its climax when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin her father had taught her, and taking a book from a shelf, bade her read and construe a page of Virgil; and Helen obeyed, my organ of Veneration expanding at every sounding line. (1.8.52)
At this moment, Jane develops a love of knowledge and learning that has something to do with the sparkling conversation going on between Miss Temple and Helen Burns, but a lot more to do with the way that she idolizes the two of them. Just like a girl watching her idols today, Jane wants to be what they are—but instead of having fashion mavens like Tyra Banks for idols, she has a schoolteacher and a pious little girl. But the main impulse is the same—Jane basically hero-worships both of them and everything they do.
Quote #5
Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing. I learned the first two tenses of the verb Être, and sketched my first cottage…on the same day. That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white break and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings: I feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark; all the work of my own hands… (1.8.59)
When Jane starts fantasizing about homework instead of food, we get a tiny bit nervous about her. Still, we’re glad that she’s found something to sustain her through the long, cold, hungry nights at Lowood.
Quote #6
I had had no communication by letter or message with the outer world: school-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and antipathies: such was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough: I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty… (1.10.9)
Some people get sick of things slowly and stuff builds up forever; other people wake up one day and need to change their whole lives. Obviously, Jane is the second type of person. It’s pretty amazing, though, that she realizes there’s more to life than studying—after all, education was her ticket out of Gateshead and her way of earning approval from her closest friends and teachers.
Where do you think Jane got the idea that education is only a part of her life, and not the whole of it? Why does she get sick of Lowood and long to get out in the world, besides simple wanderlust?