Jane Eyre — who's who

An orphan, raised by an aunt who despises her. The novel is her autobiography from ten to thirty. Plain, small, poor, intelligent, fiercely articulate. She tells the truth about anger, pride, and love in a way no Victorian heroine before her had been allowed to. She refuses to be Rochester's mistress, refuses to be St. John's missionary wife, and returns to Rochester only when she has her own money and he has nothing left to bribe her with. One of the most distinctive narrators in English fiction.

Jane's aunt by marriage, who took Jane in after her mother died and treated her as a parasite ever afterward. She locks ten-year-old Jane in the red-room — the room where her uncle died — until she has a fit. Years later, she lies to a potential benefactor in Madeira, telling him that Jane is dead, out of pure spite. Jane confronts her twice: at ten in a moment of explosive defiance, and again on her deathbed, where Jane chooses not to take revenge. The second confrontation is one of the great scenes in the novel.

Mrs. Reed's son, fourteen when the novel opens — large, dull, cruel, his mother's favorite. He throws a book at Jane's head in Chapter 1, the act that triggers her first open rebellion. The novel later reports, briefly, that he grew up dissolute and died young, ruining his mother in the process. The book does not enjoy his fall; it simply records it.

The Reeds' young nursemaid. Capable of harshness but capable also of kindness; the only person at Gateshead who is sometimes warm to Jane. Sings her songs, brings her food after the red-room. Visits Jane years later at Lowood and again before Jane leaves for Thornfield, by which time she is married and has children. She is, in effect, the only piece of Gateshead Jane keeps.

An older girl at Lowood. Stoic, principled, devout, dying of consumption almost from the moment Jane meets her. Endures floggings for blots in her copybook with a Christian patience that bewilders Jane. Teaches Jane that some injustices have to be borne rather than answered, and that resentment is itself a kind of bondage. Dies in the same bed as Jane, holding her hand, in one of the most quoted scenes in Victorian fiction. Helen is based on Charlotte Brontë's older sister Maria, who died of tuberculosis at eleven.

The proprietor of Lowood. Preaches mortification of the flesh to half-starved girls while his wife and daughters arrive in velvet and ostrich plumes. Humiliates Jane on a stool in front of the assembled school as a "liar." Based on the Reverend William Carus Wilson of the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, where Charlotte's older sisters Maria and Elizabeth contracted the tuberculosis that killed them. The novel's most direct portrait of institutional Christianity used as a cover for vanity.

The young, intelligent superintendent of Lowood. Quietly defies Brocklehurst by feeding the girls bread and cheese after a ruined breakfast and inviting Jane to tea. Believes Jane's account of her treatment by the Reeds and writes to Mr. Lloyd to verify it; on his confirmation, publicly clears Jane of Brocklehurst's slander. Marries a clergyman in Chapter 10 and leaves; her departure is what makes Jane finally restless to leave Lowood herself.

Dark, restless, ironic, twenty years older than Jane and heir to an estate he never wanted. Was tricked at twenty-three into marrying Bertha Mason in Jamaica for her thirty thousand pounds; she was already showing signs of the hereditary madness her family had concealed. Has kept her locked in the third story of Thornfield for ten years under a paid keeper, traveling Europe taking mistresses while pretending to have no wife. Falls in love with Jane partly because she refuses to flatter him and partly because she sees through him. Proposes, dresses her in jewels she does not want, and almost commits bigamy at the altar. By the end he has been blinded and maimed in the fire that burned Thornfield down.

Rochester's first wife: a Creole heiress from Spanish Town, Jamaica, whom he married at twenty-three. Described by the novel as mad and violent, with hereditary madness in her family. Locked for ten years in the third story of Thornfield under the keeper Grace Poole, escaping occasionally to set fires, to bite her brother Mason, to rip Jane's wedding veil in two on the eve of the wedding. The source of the novel's gothic atmosphere and its deepest moral problem. Sets the fire that burns Thornfield down and leaps to her death from the roof. Never given her own voice. Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea would, a century later, attempt to give it back.

A small French girl, about eight when Jane arrives, the daughter of a Parisian opera dancer named Céline Varens, who claimed Rochester was the father. Rochester is skeptical of the paternity but has taken her in after her mother's death because no one else would. Bright, vain, affectionate, fond of dresses. Jane is fond of her. After Thornfield burns Jane finds her at a strict school, removes her, and sends her somewhere kinder; the last chapter reports she grew up well.

The kindly elderly housekeeper of Thornfield. A distant relation of Rochester's by marriage. Decent, conventional, fond of Jane, somewhat frightened of her master. Knows there is something on the third floor but, like the rest of the household, has been told nothing about it. Disapproves quietly of the engagement when it is announced; the disapproval is, the reader will learn, prescient. Retires after Thornfield burns, on a pension Rochester provides.

A taciturn middle-aged woman employed by Rochester at high wages to guard Bertha. The strange laughter the household hears on the third floor is Bertha's; the household has been told it is Grace's. She drinks too much gin, occasionally; on those nights, Bertha gets out. The novel is careful to keep her presence unexplained until the wedding-day reveal makes everything visible at once.

A tall, dark, handsome heiress whose family Rochester invites to Thornfield for a long house party. Brilliant in society, contemptuous of governesses, openly mercenary. Rochester pretends to be courting her in order to provoke Jane; when his fortune is rumored to be smaller than expected, Blanche drops him. The novel uses her as the foil that lets Jane's own value become visible — including, crucially, to Rochester.

Bertha's brother, a Creole gentleman from Spanish Town. Arrives at Thornfield in the middle of the house party. Visits Bertha on the third floor in the night and is bitten and stabbed by her; Jane nurses him through the dark hours under Rochester's instruction not to speak. Returns at the wedding with a solicitor to halt the ceremony — the only person in the world capable of stopping Rochester's bigamy. Rochester half-respects him for it.

The clergyman of Morton, who finds Jane near death on the moors and turns out, by extraordinary coincidence, to be her unknown cousin. Beautiful, glacial, consumed by a missionary calling to India. Proposes to Jane on the explicit grounds that she would be useful to his work; frankly admits he does not love her. Frames her hesitation as a refusal of God. The novel's most frightening suitor — not because he is a villain, but because his demands come wrapped in scripture and self-discipline. Jane comes within an inch of accepting him. Dies a missionary in India in the novel's last paragraph, in a letter Jane reproduces with affection.

One of St. John's two sisters at Moor House — the elder, the warmer, the most intellectual of the three. Reads German with Jane in the parlor. Becomes, with Mary, the first real female friendship of Jane's adult life. The novel reports she eventually marries a naval officer of distinction and lives near London.

St. John's other sister, gentler than Diana, equally intelligent. Together they form the household at Moor House that takes Jane in. The novel reports she eventually marries a clergyman, an old friend of her brother's, "of the highest worth."

The beautiful daughter of the wealthiest family in Morton, in love with St. John. He loves her too — Jane catches him admitting it — but refuses her on the grounds that she will not suit a missionary's life. He is, the novel suggests, both right about this and wrong to use the rightness as a justification for his colder choice. Rosamond marries someone else and disappears from the story.