Introduction

The orphan Jane Eyre lives with her aunt, who treats her cruelly, and is sent to a harsh charity school, where she spends eight years. As a young woman she becomes governess to the ward of Mr Rochester at Thornfield Hall. Rochester, gloomy and strange, is drawn deeply to this plain, lowly but inwardly independent and strong young woman, and they fall in love. 'Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?... our spirits are equal!' At the very wedding a terrible secret is revealed: Rochester is already married, and his mad wife is kept locked in the attic of the hall. Jane resolutely leaves, wanders the moors and is taken in by the clergyman St John Rivers and his sisters. When St John asks her to marry him and go with him as a missionary to India, she seems to hear Rochester calling her... Told in the first person, the novel creates a heroine who demands equality and dignity.