Chapter Four

Hello all,
Sorry it took me so long to get to chapter four. This week has been crazy busy, and I've been distracted. Okay, here goes nothing:
At the end of chapter three, we learn that there is a strong potential for Jane to get sent away to school. Some children may find this to be a frightening prospect, but Jane is thrilled. It is because of this hope for change that Jane has that she is able to fully recover from her awful experience in the red-room. Jane states that she can sense a change coming.
Perhaps because of the change she knows is coming, Jane becomes more and more flippant with Mrs. Reed. And Mrs. Reed treats Jane worse than ever. She forces Jane to eat alone, sleep alone, and stay away from everyone in the house except for Bessie. Mrs. Reed even goes so far as to instruct her children to stay away from Jane.
At one point, John goes to try and tease Jane some more, but Jane makes as if to punch him in the nose, and John runs away, frightened.
For just about any other child, being treated this way by supposed family would crush them. HOwever, Jane is positively fine with being ignored in this manner, for it is preferable to how she was treated before.

• The fact that Jane prefers to be ignored by her family is quite sad. How must it feel to prefer such a thing over human interaction?

Jane and Mrs. Reed fight more than ever now. Jane continually reminds Mrs. Reed of her promise to Mr. Reed on his deathbed to treat Jane with kindness and love, and Mrs. Reed is ever more disturbed by Jane's comments. After one particularly flippant remark, Mrs. Reed slapped Jane across the face.

• Any other child would burst into tears at this point, yet Jane does not do so, at least in front of Mrs. Reed. Just how much abuse would a child have to suffer, whether physically, mentally, or both, to not cry when they were hit?
• What would happen in this day and age if someone were to treat a child this poorly?

We soon learn that Mrs. Reed keeps Jane from participating in the holiday festivities. I know that, for me, had I ever been kept out of something like this, I would be extremely disappointed, and very angry. Yet Jane is not. She says that she doesn't like to go into company, for she is persistently ignored by everyone around her.

• What kind of influence must Mrs. Reed have on her friends and associates to convince every single one of them to ignore Jane all of the time?

Something I found very interesting was the attachment Jane had to her doll. While it is perfectly normal for every young child to have such an attachment to something, Jane found it ridiculous. But she still couldn't help loving her doll.

• Does every young child find their attachment to their toy or doll as ridiculous as Jane did?

We soon learn (well, the knowledge is reaffirmed, anyway) that Jane prefers Bessie to everyone else in the household, simply because she was rude to Jane fewer times than everyone else. Soon after Jane's experience in the red-room, Bessie adopts Jane as a helper in the nursery. Jane finds some measure of enjoyment in the help she gives to Bessie.

• Most children hate cleaning things up. Yet Jane enjoyed it. It is presumable that she enjoyed it because it was the only activity she was allowed to do, and because it gave her more excuses not to be around Mrs. Reed and her cousins. How deprived must a child be to prefer cleaning over playing?

Soon, Jane is called into the drawing room to meet a man. Mr. Brocklehurst is the head of Lowood School for Girls. He came to the estate to "interview" Jane, and to decide whether she should come to school there. When Mrs. Reed claims that Jane is deceitful, Mr. Brocklehurst begins to question Jane about some rather peculiar things. First he asks her where the wicked go after they die, then he asks her what hell is like, and finally he asks her if she wants to go there. Of course Jane replies that she does not, and when Mr. Brocklehurst asks Jane what she can do to avoid it from now on, she has no reply.

• Does Jane really believe the lies that Mrs. Reed tells her about her character? Does she really believe she will go to hell when she dies?

I find this to be an extremely odd conversation to have when interviewing a child for a school. Next, Mr. Brocklehurst asks Jane if she reads from her bible. Jane says yes, she does, and then proceeds to list nine books that she really enjoys reading in the bible. That is impressive, to me, for a ten-year-old to enjoy the bible that much. Yet it is not enough for Mr. Brocklehurst. He inquires if she enjoys Psalms, and when Jane says no, that they "are not interesting"¹  Mr. Brocklehurst says that that is a sign of a wicked child and that she has to pray for a softened heart. I find this ridiculous, and so did Jane. Still, she doesn't say anything aloud to Mr. Brocklehurst, who continues on about how wonderful his son is because he loves to read out of Psalms.
Well, Jane is accepted to Lowood School, and Mr. Brocklehurst departs. When Mrs. Reed tries to send Jane away, Jane doesn't leave, and instead confronts her about all of the wretched things she told Mr. Brocklehurst about her. Mrs. Reed becomes frightened at Jane's accusations, and attempts to make her think that everything she did was for Jane's own good. But Jane doesn't buy it. Eventually, Mrs. Reed leaves the room, and Jane is left to do whatever suits her fancy.
So Jane wanders around outside. When Bessie comes to find her for lunch, after initially trying to scold Jane, they both end up declaring that they are more fond of each other than of anyone else in the house.  In fact, Bessie says that when her mother was visiting the previous week, they agreed that they wouldn't wish for any child to be in the position Jane was in, nor to be treated the way Jane was constantly treated. This made Jane very happy to know she wasn't the only one that thought Mrs. Reed treated her poorly. The rest of the afternoon passes in "peace and harmony"². Jane states that "even for me, life had it's gleams of sunshine."³
I find that I am thrilled that Jane has found some measure of peace where she is at, even if she is leaving for school in the next day or two. And so ends chapter four. It was a long one. But it was full of wonderful information, and quite a few answers to previous questions I have posed. Stay tuned for chapter five!


Footnotes:
1. Jane Eyre, Chapter Four, page 32, middle of the page.
2. Jane Eyre, Chapter Four, page 40, final paragraph.
3. Jane Eyre, Chapter Four, page 40, last sentence of chapter.