Minor Characters in Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre :: Jane Eyre Essays

The Minor Characters of Jane Eyre           All the boor characters who appear in the novel, Jane Eyre atomic number 18 only sketched in, so to speak. They are vapid non developed in the way that the primaeval three characters are developed. All of them are conventional behave and speak conventionally, and do not develop at all. They are set merely as foils for the central characters, and they tend to be extremes or stereotypes, behaving very predictably and not move us with any unexpected reaction.   Some of the nonaged characters who parallel aspects of Janes character, same female horse tabernacle and Helen Burns, are idealised - made to seem saint-like. others, who limit with Jane, like Georgiana Reed and Blanche Ingram, are grotesque in order to emphasise the difference between them and her.They become, in effect, symbolic and their excesses or virtues sharpen the telephone line with Jane.   Georgiana and Eliza Reed are de scribed by JE as feeling without public opinion(Georgiana) and Judgement without feeling (Eliza) - both are drawn by CB to try the results of each type of excessive behaviour. JE herself has to fight to pre set the balance in HER character between Judgement and feeling - the Reed sisters therefore interpret an indicator as to what happens if the balance goes wrong.   Blanche Ingram is a woman without scruples or morality - haughty and proud - very beautiful and priveleged - she is nevertheless school and  intellectually inferior. She is a warning shadow to JE, who is soon to be go about with the temptation to give in to her passions and embrace the  shallow life of a courtesan, when Rochester pleads with her to go to the  continent with him after the wedding. The more virtuous minor characters serve the same function, standing as  moral or religious beacons to which Jane may aspire, but may not ever  reach.   Maria Temple - the charitable schoolteac her is both an example  and a warning. She can and does serve as a role-model for Jane, but she  is also a powerless young-bearing(prenominal) - having to answer for her independence to a  wrathful Mr Brocklehurst, and having no real countenance when he is on the  premises. Her position is servile and inferior and she submits to it. JE  later go away break this pattern at Thornfield, in her dealings with her  employer, but ironically her habit of submissiveness is gained as a  direct result of association with Maria Temple.