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Charlotte Bronte was born in 1816, in Thornton, Yorkshire, the third of Patrick and Maria Bronte’s six children. Charlotte’s clergyman father became in office at Haworth in 1020, a year before for mother died. In 1824, all the girls with the exception of the youngest Anne were sent to a boarding school for clergymen’s daughters. The treatment there was so rigorous that is probably caused the early deaths of the two elder sisters. Charlotte and Emily returned to Haworth, and in collaboration with their only brother, Branwell, and sister, Anne, entered upon an intensive life. After some additional schooling, the Bronte sisters tried for ten years to make their living as governesses. Finding the occupation hateful, they decided to set up their own school. To prepare themselves, Charlotte and Emily set off for Brussels to learn French and German. There Charlotte fell in love with Professor Heger. Back at Haworth in 1845, Charlotte and her sisters published a volume of poems in 1846; two copies were sold. But they were stimulated to attempt novels. Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey found publishers, but Charlotte’s offering was returned with the suggestion she try again. The manuscript of her next novel, Jane Eyre, was accepted overnight and became an immediate success. Through this novel, Charlotte Bronte blooms the character of Jane Eyre reflecting events Bronte’s own life. Charlotte Bronte profoundly describes the characters of this novel, the setting in which these characters live, and the tone that is portrayed. Bronte exposes irony through the plot of the novel, which will now be expressed. Jane Eyre is not only the given name of the novel, but also the name of the main character in the novel. Jane Eyre is first looked at as an unfortunate kin to Mrs. Reed who considers Jane of poorer quality than herself. “‘And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to them’” (Bronte 15). Jane Eyre is a small and plain, a rather mousy-looking young woman who will never be transformed into a beauty and has no interest in trying to become one.
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