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INTRODUCTION
Children, books and education We can draw a number of parallels between events in the novel and Charlotte Brontë’s personal experiences of education – as a young reader, school pupil, governess and teacher. The young Jane in Gateshead escapes into books, as Charlotte herself did after her mother died. In Chapter 3, Jane begs the Reeds’ maid Bessie ‘to fetch Gulliver’s Travels from the library’, explaining to the reader that this is a book she has ‘again and again perused with delight’ (p.20). Brontë’s novel reflects her own and her family’s love of reading, and provides insights into some of the books that must have seized the imaginations of young Victorians. It is significant that Charlotte’s father actively encouraged his daughters to read just as widely and ambitiously as his son; many girls at this time would have been less fortunate. After the death of their mother, Charlotte and three of her sisters were sent to a school in Lancashire. Charlotte believed the unsanitary conditions there directly contributed to the deaths of her sisters Maria and Elizabeth. Charlotte’s description of Lowood school in Jane Eyre, particularly the spread of typhus and the tragic death of Helen Burns, was inspired by this painful personal experience. Charlotte also drew on some of the humiliations of working as a governess in Jane Eyre, for example in Chapter 17 when Rochester’s guests recount how they teased their governesses and tutors. Charlotte also taught in Brussels, where she developed passionate feelings for the married headmaster of the school, an intense experience that found expression in several of her published works, including Jane Eyre.3 The novel also has much to say about the purpose of education and the methods of educators. We can compare Mr Brocklehurst of Lowood school, who wishes to drive out sin through punishment and hardship, with Jane’s own more gentle concern as a governess and schoolmistress for her vii
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