自己実現のひとつの姿 --ジェーン・エアの生き方をめぐって--

Abstract

Jane Eyre (1847) is a novel by Charlotte Bronte, in which the heroine, Jane Eyre, reviews her life from the age of ten to that of twenty and writes about her experiences during that period. Jane, as a little girl, lacks anything that would protect her, that is, property, kind parents and what is called girlish beauty. This report examines Jane's self-realization and how she achieves it through her journey through her five homes, that is, Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield, Moor House and Ferndean. At Gateshead, Jane is maltreated by the Reeds because she is a dependent. Even Abbot, a servant, has not compassion for her loneliness, for Jane is not a pretty child. Her reason cries, 'Unjust!--unjust!' At Lowood Institution, which is a charity-school, though the supply of food is scanty and clothing is insufficient to protect children from severe cold, Jane toils hard; she rises to be the first girl in the first class; then she is invested with the office of teacher. She would not exchange Lowood with all its privations for Gateshead and its daily luxuries. Jane's third home is Thornfield where she, as a governess, meets her master, Edward Rochester. Although he belongs to the gentry, he comes to love Jane as his equal and she responds. In spite of this, an impediment to their marriage is revealed: Rochester has a prior wife hidden away. At Moor House, where the Rivers live, Jane was found in the doorway, faint with hunger and fatigue. Jane stayed for ten months as a teacher of a village school, while she is found to be the heiress to the property of John Eyre, her only uncle, who has just died, and also to be cousin to St. John Rivers and his sisters. She leaves for the fifth home, Ferndean, where she finds that Bertha, Rochester's wife, died throwing herself from the roof onto the pavement. She has become independent and has relatives and money. More than that, she married Rochester who is her life as well as she is his. In this way, she has fulfilled herself.