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  • Essay / Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre: A Reconsideration

    In Lowood, much of Jane's character will be based on concepts of (in)visibility as well as the power of the gaze. Speaking of Miss Temple, Jane Eyre says that Miss Temple's "language" had: "something which chastened the pleasure of those who looked at her" (Ch., p. 69). Unlike most of Jane's visibility, Miss Temple's is a positive visibility that pleases the viewer's eyes. Arguably this is because Jane loves this teacher and is more likely blinded by her love and admiration for Miss Temple. However, there is a sense of pleasantness associated with the character of Miss Temple. Such statements might be truer in the case of Jane who goes on to say: “The refreshing meals, the bright fire...they shone in the brilliant hue of her cheek. (p. 70) After Miss Temple leaves Jane, who has now "lost" her mother "instead" and until now has never left Lowood, is "awakened" by what she calls "a another discovery” (p 81): I had undergone a process of transformation that my mind had entirely delayed; he had borrowed from Miss Temple…. My world had been Lowood for some years, my experience was of its rules and systems; now I remember that the real world is vast... (81) Miss Temple's invisibility presented an opportunity; for Jane's mental eye to transgress from the visible (Lowood with all that that meant to Jane) to the invisible (or what she calls the "real world") which, at this precise moment, at least, is invisible to her because he is beyond the real world. walls of this institution. It is this unthought-invisible that shapes Jane's character in the next chapters of the novel. It also determines her power of gaze: it is the way in which she looks and feels the world around her. Jane's new romantic self becomes a corollary to her interest in exploring the unseen that lies beyond the borders of Lowood. The new transformed self is also reflected in Jane's forgiveness of her aunt Sarah Reed when she later visits her. I saw her in a black dress…. From the Town (85) I looked, I saw a woman dressed like a well-dressed servant (86) After Miss Temple leaves Lowood, Jane begins to think ambitiously about what lies beyond from the boundaries of Lowood School.: