Quote 1
"He is not to them what he is to me," I thought: "he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;—I am sure he is,—I feel akin to him,—I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. […] I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:—and yet, while I breathe and think I must love him." (2.2.85)
Seeing Rochester among his high-class houseguests, Jane realizes that he has more in common with her than he does with them. Despite Jane’s and Rochester’s different class backgrounds, their master-servant relationship, and the strict gender roles of Victorian society, Jane can tell that they share something intangible—but she doubts that they can overcome all the social obstacles keeping them apart. This isn’t the first time Jane has felt affection for someone—but it may be the first time she’s felt like somebody else.
Quote 2
"Oh, sir!—never mind jewels! I don’t like to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would rather not have them."
"I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the circlet on your forehead,—which it will become: for nature, at least, has stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will clasp the bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like fingers with rings."
"No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things, and in another strain. Don’t address me as if I were a beauty; I am your plain, Quakerish governess."
"You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my heart,—delicate and aërial."
"Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir,—or you are sneering. For God’s sake don’t be ironical!" (2.9.19-23)
Famous passage alert: Jane’s self-description as a "plain, Quakerish governess" is one of the most important and most frequently quoted lines in the novel. Her insistence that this plain exterior is an expression of who she really is, and that jewels and fancy gowns aren’t right for her, is interesting on a lot of levels.
Is this just Jane’s low self-esteem cropping up again? Or is it a moral stance—Jane’s way of telling Rochester that she’s not his mistress and that she’s going to look respectable, not all tarted up with his finery? How do we read this moment knowing that another person who insisted on plainness at all cost —Mr. Brocklehurst—was a complete hypocrite? Surely Jane’s not a hypocrite? So when is it okay to insist on being dressed humbly and modestly, and when is it overreacting?
Quote 3
"A new servitude! There is something in that," I soliloquized (mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud). "I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of fact. Any one may serve: I have served here eight years; now all I want is to serve elsewhere." (1.10.13)
Jane’s keeping it real here: she knows that she can’t just up and leave Lowood and be the Queen of England tomorrow. (Besides, that job is taken, and Victoria’s not going anywhere.) Instead of wanting complete freedom from all responsibilities, she just wants new responsibilities. She’s accepted that she’s just a peon, and all she’s asking for is a change of scenery. So her new job really isn’t any kind of class or status change—just a transfer.
Quote 4
"I am so glad you are come; it will quite pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in winter time, one feels dreary quite alone, in the best quarters. I say alone—Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can’t converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one’s authority." (1.11.42)
Mrs. Fairfax is glad to have Jane at Thornfield because they’ll be able to socialize together. Later in this chapter, we’ll learn that Mrs. Fairfax is the housekeeper and household manager for Thornfield; as such, she is above the regular servants but below the master of the house, and there’s hardly anyone she can talk to without compromising her position.
It’s a little bit like being a camp counselor: you’re living with the people you’re in charge of, but you can’t start hanging out with them or they won’t do what you say anymore. You can only hang out with the other camp counselors.
Quote 5
"You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him: so don’t make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your order: keep to your caste; and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised." (2.2.2)
Here Jane’s trying to sort out her relationship to Rochester, and it’s a lot harder because she’s developed several different relationships to him that aren’t entirely compatible. She’s reminding herself that (1) she’s his employee, (2) she’s lower-class than he is, and (3) he hasn’t necessarily shown a serious romantic interest in her.
But that highly rational assessment really doesn’t cover the instant connection they made in the forest on their first meeting, when he leaned on her shoulder to limp back to his horse and she began taking care of him.
Quote 6
"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."
"A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world—from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I’d touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!—but I’d as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh." (2.7.21-22)
As usual Rochester is exaggerating quite a bit, but his suggestion that Jane is able to move between different worlds in a strange and uncanny way seems just about right. After all, Gateshead, Lowood, and Thornfield have practically been different planets.
(An ignis fatuus, or "false fire," is a little light you see in the distance when you’re lost in a swamp, but it turns out to be swamp gas on fire or something like that instead of a lamp in a cottage that could lead you to safety. Ironically, later in the novel, Jane finds Moor House by following a light that she thinks is an ignis fatuus, but it turns out to be a lamp in a cottage.)
Quote 7
"If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again. […] I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved." (1.6.50, 52)
Here Jane is responding to Helen Burns, who argues that you should "return good for evil," "turn the other cheek," "love your enemies," and all that sort of good Christian forgiveness stuff.
Jane (remember she’s only ten at this point) can’t quite agree with this; she doesn’t see any reason to "bless them that curse you," because then they’ll get away with it! Jane’s childhood ideas of justice are strict and exact—more like the Old Testament "eye for an eye" laws of retaliation than Helen’s New Testament charity. It’ll be interesting to see whether Jane’s ideas change over time and, if so, exactly how.
Quote 8
Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked, "What am I to do?"
But the answer my mind gave—"Leave Thornfield at once"—was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester’s bride is the least part of my woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it."
But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony. (3.1.1-5)
Jane’s moment of great ethical crisis turns (in her mind, at least) into an allegorical scene in which Conscience and Passion start brawling, and Conscience is the bully. It’s interesting that Jane knows immediately and certainly what is morally right in this situation—what’s difficult isn’t to know what she has to do, but to make herself do it.
Quote 9
"It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell."
"Did you see her face?"
"Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass."
"And how were they?"
"Fearful and ghastly to me—oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured face—it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!"
"Ghosts are usually pale, Jane."
"This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes. Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?"
"You may."
"Of the foul German spectre—the Vampyre." (2.10.73-81)
If we subtract Jane’s ignorance and fear from this weird description, we figure out that Bertha has a dark-colored face, large lips, and black eyebrows. A little later in the novel, we learn that Bertha’s mother was Creole, which means that she had a multiracial background. So Jane is using a supernatural creature, the vampire, as a metaphor to describe a woman of color.
By depicting Bertha’s features in monstrous, supernatural terms, Jane characterizes herself as "afraid of the batlike undead" instead of "afraid of racial difference." Yeah, that’s the way to deal with your fear of the unknown: turn it into something from a horror movie. (For a reading of what’s going on with the horror-movie stuff here, see the discussion of Quote #9 in "The Supernatural" section.)
Quote 10
"Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you; and wherever you are is my home,—my only home." (2.7.34)
Given the way Jane doesn’t seem to connect to places, but to people and the way they do or don’t allow her to be herself, it’s not surprising that her "home" is established in terms of companionship.