Lowood discussion guide - English with Mrs. Cotton

Jane Eyre Discussion GuideLowood

What questions do you have about the Lowood chapters?

Leaving Gateshead

✤ Jane leaves Gateshead at 5 a.m. on October 19th

✤ No, you do not need to remember the date

✤ What is important is that Bronte is now being specific with details like this, which adds an air of realism to a novel which is often gothic/romantic

✤ Realism allows for social commentary on education, women, and religious hypocrisy

✤ Where do readers see such commentary in these chapters?

Traveling to School

✤ Who sees Jane off?

✤ What is Jane’s final interaction with Mrs. Reed like?

✤ Rain, wind, and darkness shows Jane’s internal tumult as she first sees Lowood

Early Impressions of Lowood

✤ Unflattering because it is based on the school where two of Bronte’s sisters died of tuberculosis

✤ Challenges

✤ Psychological - little comfort, little privacy

✤ Physical - hunger, cold

✤ Mental - difficult lessons

Meals = Communion✤ In literature, readers learn a lot about

relationships between characters when they eat together.

✤ Typically, we choose to eat with people we enjoy. We go to great lengths to provide good food and conversation for those we love.

✤ With this in mind, what do you make of meals at Lowood?

✤ Oatmeal

✤ Lunch of bread and cheese

✤ Small portions

Meet Miss Temple

✤ What is Jane’s opinion of Miss Temple? What is yours?

✤ “She has to answer to Mr. Brocklehurst for all she does” (42).

✤ The patriarchs have the power.

✤ What does Helen reveal about Miss Temple?

✤ What values does Miss Temple work to teach the girls? Is this helpful?

Meet Helen Burns✤ In what ways is she different from

Jane?

✤ Based on Bronte’s older sister Maria, she “burns” with religious fervor

✤ The favored form of punishment at Lowood is public humiliation

✤ Theme of trial and punishment

✤ If you were Jane, how would you feel about your first day at school?

Lowood: Day Two

✤ Jane joins the fourth class

✤ Helen is berated by Miss Scatcherd

✤ Is this fair? Explain.

✤ Jane is very sensitive to injustice because of her experiences at Gateshead.

✤ She can’t stand Helen’s suffering.

✤ The weather is, of course, dreadful.

I’ve got my philosophy…✤ How does Jane’s philosophy compare

to Helen’s?

✤ Jane says, “When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should - so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again” (48).

✤ Helen replies, “Love your enemies; bless those that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you…life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity” (49).

Impressions of Lowood

✤ This is supposed to be a benevolent, Christian school. Is it?

✤ Who is to blame for the way in which the school is run?

✤ Why do you think they are so hard on the girls?

✤ Is this better or worse than Gateshead?

What questions do you have about ch. 7-8?

Lowood: The First Quarter

✤ What challenges does Jane face during her first quarter at school?

✤ And you thought walking up from soph lot was bad!

✤ Fire (controlled, intentional fire) typically represents safety, protection, and comfort. Is that the case here?

✤ Does Jane find any comfort in the trips to Brocklebridge Church?

✤ Why does Jane live in fear of Mr. Brocklehurst’s arrival?

Enter Mr. Brocklehurst

✤ Critical of outside appearance and spending

✤ Examples?

✤ What does he think of the “unnecessary” lunch of bread and cheese? Do the girls typically get a lunch? Is he concerned for the girls’ souls or his pocketbook?

✤ Can Miss Temple stand up for herself and the girls?

✤ Class and gender ideology silence her. As a worker and a Victorian woman, she has no voice with which to challenge him.

✤ In Sarah Stickney Ellis’ The Daughter of England, she wrote that the proper Victorian woman was to “be content to be inferior to men in mental power in the same proportion that you are inferior in bodily strength.”

Mr. Brocklehurst the hypocrite

✤ “Julia’s hair curls naturally” (54).

✤ What is his reaction?

✤ Mr. Brocklehurst’s family then enters. How does their clothing and hair compare to his expectations for the pupils of Lowood?

Don’t drop the slate!

✤ Jane’s innocent mistake leads to her greatest fear.

✤ What does Mr. Brocklehurst reveal about Jane?

✤ How does this compare to the portrait Jane gave of her time at Gateshead? Who do we believe?

✤ What comforts Jane as she stands on her “pedestal of infamy”?

Helen’s comfort

✤ How does Jane change when the others can’t see?

✤ People need to feel accepted, approved of, and appreciated. How can we tell that these things are important for Jane? Has she ever had them?

✤ “Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god…the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared” (58).

✤ Female solidarity in the face of patriarchal repression

✤ Helen and Miss Temple support Jane here

Morality and Religion

✤ Jane’s interest in morality and religion develops at Lowood because of her conversations with Helen

✤ “I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love…” (59).

✤ “Jane! You think too much of the love of human beings…God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crowns with a full reward” (59).

✤ Bronte will continue to debate human and divine love throughout the novel

✤ What do you think? Is either extreme reasonable?

Miss Temple’s love✤ Miss Temple nourishes Helen and

Jane by providing the material comforts they so often lack

✤ Meals as communion - how does this compare with the other meals at Lowood? What does that suggest about the girls’ relationship with Miss Temple?

✤ She is especially concerned for Helen’s health.

✤ How is Helen different with Miss Temple?

Analyzing Miss Temple

✤ Miss Temple is often characterized by practical action driven by kindness. Examples?

✤ As her name implies, she provides a sanctuary for her pupils and is someone Jane comes to worship.

✤ Would have been recognized by Bronte’s contemporaries as the domesticated moral stereotype of womanhood

✤ Read “The Angel in the House” by Coventry Patmore

✤ Is she primarily a positive or negative influence on her students?

Spring!

✤ Optimistic tone reflected in the coming spring that transforms the school

✤ “Sunny day…pleasant and genial…grenness grew…freshening daily” (64). The weather parallels Jane’s feelings. How is she doing now?

✤ Nature is not entirely benign. The heat also helps typhus spread through the school

Typhus Fever

✤ How does this illness change the rules?

✤ Does Mr. Brocklehurst visit?

✤ Is Mary Ann Wilson the same sort of friend as Helen?

✤ What is wrong with Helen? What is foreshadowed when the nurse tells Jane, “She’ll not be here long”?

✤ Lowood is based on Cowan Bridge School, attended by Bronte and three of her sisters. Two of her sisters died of diseases contracted at the school, one of whom was Maria, the prototype for Helen Burns.

Saying goodbye

✤ Where is Helen staying?

✤ Jane doesn’t want to believe her friend is truly dying.

✤ Is Helen afraid?

✤ What does Helen say to try and comfort Jane? Why is Helen the one doing the comforting?

✤ Helen dies in the night and the type of femininity she represents fades as a model for Jane.

✤ Helen escapes Lowood only through death. This doesn’t seem like a good option to Jane.

Jumping forward 8 years

✤ At the beginning of chapter 10, Jane reminds us that she is manipulating her story. She briefly explains the events of 8 years of her life.

✤ What changes took place at Lowood as a result of the illnesses suffered by the girls? What happened to Mr. Brocklehurst?

✤ What roles did Miss Temple play in Jane’s life?

✤ Jane learns from her teacher, but the things she learns are somewhat impermanent. When Miss Temple leaves Lowood, Jane’s mind “puts off all it had borrowed from Miss Temple” (72).

Searching for a new servitude

✤ Ultimately, Jane rejects the domesticated womanhood represented by Miss Temple.

✤ She goes to her window (symbolism?) and utters a prayer for liberty, finishing with “grant me at least a new servitude” (72).

✤ Sadly, her social position precludes liberty. A different environment is all she can really hope for.

✤ How does Jane work to change her circumstances? Is this a different girl from the one who entered Lowood 8 years ago?

Dreaming of Thornfield✤ Why does the week between visits to the

post office feel so long for Jane?

✤ “The circumstance was satisfactory” (75).

✤ Jane is still practical. She doesn’t expect perfection, but is hoping for something a little better than Lowood.

✤ Remember that many of the names in this novel are symbolic. Do you have high hopes for a place called Thornfield?

✤ What are her next steps?

✤ Have you ever left a job? It can be a difficult thing to do. Examples?

Bessie!

✤ Why does Bessie come to see Jane?

✤ What news does she share?

✤ When Bessie asks about Jane’s talents, Jane plays the piano and paints. These skills are wonderful, but likely not practical for a job apart from teaching.

✤ As readers, we should note the narrow limits of female education.

✤ Jane hates teaching. She spent years in school. Is she qualified to do anything else? Is that fair?

✤ Their parting at the end of the chapter reminds us of each stage in Jane’s journey.

Recap

✤ In what ways has Jane changed as a result of her time at Lowood?

✤ Is she a better person because of her experiences?

✤ Should she have gone to Lowood, or would her life have been better if she had stayed at Gateshead?

✤ What do you predict Jane will think of her position of governess at Thornfield? Is she likely to find happiness there?