Jane Eyre Family Quotes

John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh on my bones shrunk when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence – more frequently, however, behind her back.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 1. The author creates a lot of sympathy for unwanted orphan Jane in the descriptions of bullying and abuse she is subjected to by cousin John Reed. She is meant to be in the care of her aunt Mrs. Reed who promised her dying husband that she would bring her up like one of her own children. But Aunt Reed doesn’t intervene to stop the abuse.

You have no business to take our books; you are a dependant, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and ear the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense. Now, I’ll teach you to rummage my book-shelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 1. As Jane takes refuge from her cruel aunt and cousins in a book on British birds, John Reed tells her that she has no business taking the family books. He torments her for being of a social lower class. He says that she is only in the house on account of his mother Mrs. Reed’s charity. John, himself a child of 14, is obviously parroting his mother’s words when he calls Jane a “dependant.” The upper class Reed family isolate Jane and treat her as an outcast because she is poor. John uses his position as sole male heir to harass Jane, pointing out that he effectively owns everything at Gateshead, as he will inherit it in a few years.

“And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to them.”
“What we tell you is for your good,” added Bessie, in no harsh voice, “you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will send you away, I am sure.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 2. Miss Abbot and Bessie scold Jane and lecture her that she must not consider herself as an equal to the other children while living with the Reed family. They are rich and she is poor, she is told. Jane experiences no sense of belonging in the upper class home and is made feel a burden to Mrs. Reed, who will send her away if she doesn’t behave, she is warned.

I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot’s communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus fever…that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 3. Jane recalls the first time she learned anything about her family and heard the tragic story of her parents. They went against society’s class expectations when her poor clergyman father married her mother, who came from a higher class family. This resulted in them being off by family and friends and they died of typhus, leaving Jane an orphan.

We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the delicate fare she liberally supplied.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 8. Miss Temple invites Jane and Helen to her room and treats them to slices of seed-cake and tea, bringing Jane much comfort after her public humiliation by Brocklehurst. The importance of the new bond of friendship and affection between the head teacher and her two young students is underlined by metaphors comparing the fare they feast on to ambrosia and nectar, the food and drink of the Greek gods. Orphan Jane has discovered a new and loving surrogate family at Lowood.

During these eight years my life was uniform, but not unhappy, because it was not inactive…Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent of the seminary; to her instruction I owed the best art of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and latterly, companion…From the day she left I was no longer the same; with her was gone every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 10. Jane reflects on the eight years she spends at Lowood, six as a student and two as a teacher. During that time she is sustained by the friendship and guidence of Miss Temple, who is like a mother to her. While Miss Temple is there, Lowood is like home to Jane. But from the day Miss Temple leaves, Jane no longer experiences that sense of belonging at the school.

The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint; the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt, at times, as if he were my relation, rather than my master; yet he was imperious sometimes still, but I did not mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified, did I become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred. My thin-crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 15. Jane says this about Rochester after listening to him give an account of his past. Their relationship is growing and they are clearly falling for one another. Jane feels happy and better physically and mentally when she is with Rochester. To her he feels more like a relation than her employer. This passage suggests that orphan Jane’s true happiness lies is in finding that one thing she has been searching for in her life: family.

“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 know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract: I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then, repeat continually that we are forever sundered: – and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 17. Jane has retreated to a corner to observe Rochester and his party of upper-class houseguests. She believes that he has more in common with her than he has with them. Despite their difference in rank and wealth, she feels a kinship with Rochester. However, she doubts that the social class barriers dividing them can be overcome. Yet at the same time she feels that her blossoming love for Rochester cannot be stopped.

Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person’s strength: if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. Eliza Reed says this to her sister Georgiana. Jane’s two cousins have grown up into two very different kinds of people since she last saw them as children. Eliza is tall, stern, repressed and religious. Georgiana is buxum, beautiful, lazy and vain. The sisters despise each other and are very unpleasant people.

Take one day; share it into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five minutes, – include all; do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid regularity. The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment: you have had to seek no one’s company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. The prim and uptight Eliza Reed gives some life advice to her frivolous sister Georgiana, whom she despises. It’s the last piece of advice that she will give to her, Eliza says. After her mother’s death Eliza is planning to enter a convent. The sisters don’t get along with one another.

After my mother’s death, I wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is carried to the vault in Gateshead Church, you and I will be as separate as if we had never known each other. You need not think that because we chanced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me down by even the feeblest claim: I can tell you this – if the whole human race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we two stood alone on the earth, I would leave you in the old world, and betake myself to the new.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. The Reed family is disintegrating. As Mrs. Reed lies in bed dying, Eliza tells her sister Georgiana how much she despises her. She says that she would rather die than be with Georgiana.

Everybody knows you are the most selfish, heartless creature in existence: and I know your spiteful hatred towards me.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. Georgiana Reed responds to her sister Eliza’s tirade against her. She calls Eliza heartless and spiteful, accusing her of sabotaging Georgiana’s plans to marry Lord Edwin Vere out of jealousy. “You could not bear me to be raised above you, to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare not show your face,” Georgiana tells her.

Providence has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. Jane reads a letter from her Uncle John who wished to adopt her as his child after his successful enterprise in Madeira, Portugal. The letter was sent three years earlier to Mrs. Reed, but she concealed it from Jane. It foreshadows that Jane will come into a substantial inheritance.

Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane – the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear, as if an animal that I had struck or pushed has looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man’s voice.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. Mrs. Reed makes a deathbed confession to Jane. When John Eyre wrote to Mrs. Reed three years earlier about his wish to adopt his niece Jane, this news was kept from Jane by Mrs. Reed. She admits doing this because she hated how Jane treated her as a child and didn’t want to lift her to prosperity. The unforgiving Mrs. Reed wrote to Jane’s uncle to say that Jane had died of typhoid at Lowood.

She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water and drawn breath, she went on thus: – “I tell you I could not forget it, and I took my revenge; for you to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead…You were born, I think, to be my torment; my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 21. The dying Mrs. Reed admits to taking out her revenge on the orphan child Jane by sabotaging her adoption by her financially secure uncle. Rather than see Jane move to a life of comfort, Mrs. Reed told her uncle that Jane was dead, thus denying the one thing Jane wanted in life – family. Mrs. Reed never forgave Jane for the way she turned on her as a child.

Feeling…clamoured wildly. “Oh comply!” it said, “Think of his misery, think of his danger – look at his state when left alone…soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?”
Still indomitable was the reply – “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God, sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad – as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour, stringent are they; inviolate they shall be…They have a worth – so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane – quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot!”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 27. Jane is almost persuaded to give in to love and desire and remain with Rochester. Her mind and heart are in turmoil and conflict over the battle between what is right and wrong. Rochester, who is legally married to Bertha Mason, wants her to stay. Jane feels tested, admitting that her veins are metaphorically “running fire” with passion for Rochester. She also longs for a real family and sense of belonging – “Who in the world cares for you?” she asks herself. But she believes strongly that she would lose her self-respect if she were to agree to be Rochester’s mistress. In the end Jane’s moral principles win the internal debate that is raging in her head. She decides to abide by God’s law and leave Thornfield, even if that means being “solitary,” “friendless” and “unsustained.”

That night I never thought to sleep…I was transported in thought to the scenes of childhood; I dreamt that I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that the night was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The light that long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall…I lifted my head to look; the roof resolved to clouds…the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever. I watched her come…as though some word of doom were to be written on her disk…then, not a moon, but a white human form, shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 27. On the night after the day of Jane’s canceled marriage, she is troubled by dark supernatural dreams. She has a vision of being in the red room at Gateshead and she remembers all the fear of being imprisoned there. She looks up at the ceiling and it turns to clouds. Using a nature simile, she describes how there is a gleam like the moon gives to vapors she is about to divide. This foreshadows her parting with Mr. Rochester. The moon appears, it bursts through the cloud and is transformed into a white human form – that of her late mother with a message for Jane.

“My daughter, flee temptation.”
“Mother, I will.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 27. Jane dreams of her dead mother, transformed from the moon, whispering in her heart to flee temptation and do what is morally right. She promises that she will. The dream comes after the cancelation of her wedding, when Rochester is found to be already legally married to the madwoman in the attic. Gathering her modest belongings, Jane sneaks out of Thornfield and steals away. Jane’s mother died of typhus when she was a young girl.

I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star twinkled just above the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. To-night, at least, I would be her guest, as I was her child: my mother would lodge me without money and without price.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 27. Jane’s relationship with the natural world is explored here. After her flight from Thornfield, Jane finds herself on the heath at nightfall and finds nature kind and nurturing. Even when alone and at her most desolate, Jane relies on nature to take care of her and make her feel loved – it is now her home and family.

I had found a brother: one I could be proud of, – one I could love; and two sisters whose qualities were such that, when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine affection and admiration. The two girls on whom, kneeling down on the wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House kitchen, I had gazed…were my near kinswomen, and the young and stately gentleman who had found me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation. Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed! – wealth to the heart! – a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing…not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 33. Jane speaks of her joy of discovering a family and home at last. She has learned that the Rivers family are her blood relatives and cousins. While she has inherited a fortune from her uncle, finding a brother and sisters like St. John, Diana and Mary means more to her than wealth. Using metaphor and simile, Jane speaks of discovering a “mine” of pure affections, not like the “ponderous gift of gold” of her inheritance.

I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending stars; – every one lighted me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit. They were under a yoke; – I could free them: they were scattered; – I could reunite them: the independence, the affluence, which was mine, might be theirs too…Now the wealth did not weigh on me: now it was not a mere bequest of coin, – it was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 33. A big-hearted woman, Jane is extraordinarily generous and quite unique for a wealthy woman of her era. She decides to share her “ponderous gift of gold” – her inheritance – with her new-found family. Her cousins St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers had cared for her and shown her love, saving her life. She could now help free the Rivers from their “yoke,” having herself known what it is to struggle in life. She hopes that money will make them financially independent, allowing them to live together without working.

“And you,” I interrupted, “cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers or sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to admit me and own me, are you?”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 33. This passage emphasizes the importance of a sense of home and family to Jane, who as a child did not have the benefit of a loving family. She is speaking here to St. John about her joy in finding a family with him and his sisters Diana and Mary. She desires to share her twenty thousand pounds legacy with the family that saved her and live with them at Moor House.

I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your companion – to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 37. During the heartbreakingly joyful reunion between Jane and the blind and disfigured Rochester, Jane offers him lifelong companionship and friendship. She wants to take care of him and be at his side. While Jane is a financially independent woman now and the equal of Rochester, she still calls him “master” and offers to take on a role of subservience as his nurse and housekeeper. Jane wants to serve the now helpless Rochester with her love.

Reader, I married him.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 38. The opening sentence of this final chapter is probably the most famous line in Jane Eyre, and one of the most famous lines in English literature. Jane tells us that she has wed Mr. Rochester. A climactic moment, it is also Jane’s most rebelliously defiant moment. She doesn’t say: Reader, he married me. Instead she asserts her gender equality with: Reader, I married him. It is a happy ending for the ultimate love story, a masterpiece of passion and heartbreak, fairytale and gothic horror, tumultuous romance, anger and final peace and contentment. But it is no conventional ending. Thornfield is reduced to ashes. Rochester’s wife has fallen to her death from the roof of the burning house. Rochester is blind and has lost a hand. But out of the ashes of tragedy and torment, the once homeless orphan Jane has found home, family and love with her flawed Byronic hero.

I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 38. Now ten years married to Rochester, this is Jane’s affirmation of their interdependence. She makes the comment in one of the novel’s final passages, where we learn that she has achieved her happily-ever-after ending. It comes through female empowerment, equality and the love she has always desired. She and Rochester are bonded together by love, we are told. After marrying him as an equal and becoming his carer, she has arrived at the ultimate happiness. Jane’s comment contains a Biblical allusion to Genesis 2:22, in which Adam responds when the Lord presents him with Eve: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” This underlines how pure and spiritual the love between Rochester and Jane is. Here is the full passage from which Jane’s quote is taken: “I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest – blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward’s society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character – perfect concord is the result.”
Close