Lowood's role in creating the Jane Eyre we all know and love

You probably have fond memories of your early to mid-childhood education. Maybe not middle school, but that was partially your own fault. When I think of elementary and middle school, I think of long recesses, pizza day, and those drawings girls would do of one another’s names. As I read about Jane’s experiences at Lowood, my mind wondered to nostalgic memories of good ol’ Holy Rosary, not that there were many similarities between my school and hers. Christian schools appear to have changed quite a bit since the 1820’s, as has education in general. Jane is clearly the recipient of cruel treatment at Lowood, but the school arguably plays the greatest role in shaping her character.

Jane enjoyed Lowood and its inhabitants, certainly more so than those at Gateshead. In particular, she developed an attraction for Helen Burns and Miss Temple. Throughout the novel Jane grows into something of a clone (too soon?) of Miss Temple, though more cynical and less compassionate. After Jane’s confession that she found Adele to be untalented, I found it difficult to imagine her showing the same compassion Miss Temple showed to the dying Helen Burns. Despite differences in personality, Jane still exhibits the same skill and learnedness she so admired in Miss Temple when she first arrived at Lowood as a young girl. Bessie is delighted to find Jane more talented than Georgiana and Mrs Reed, and Mr. Rochester finds Jane intellectually stimulating enough to decidedly ignore rigid social boundaries. Jane becomes the ideal Lowood woman, though with a much fierier temper than Brocklehurst would approve of.

Although Jane’s rebelliousness was born at Gateshead, it took a new shape at Lowood. Jane developed an intolerance for injustice to others while developing a friendship with Helen Burns. Madame Pierrot’s unjust criticism and punishment of Helen ignited fury in Jane. Jane’s uneasiness with Helen’s treatment was the first instance of Jane getting angry over the treatment of someone else. At Gateshead, Jane learned to stand up for herself and push back against oppressors. At Lowood, Jane applies the same rebellious passions to the mistreatment of others.

Jane’s talents relative to Georgiana and Adele may cause one to wonder whether charity school could have done wonders for the 1820’s aristocratic elite. Lowood was unambiguously stricter and more demanding than Adele’s education, and even more so than John Reed’s (though any handicap was his mother’s fault for enabling bad behavior). If Jane had grown up in Gateshead as one of Mrs Reed’s own, it is hard to imagine her growing up to become the sophisticated, well-educated woman she does, even with her independent streak. She may have turned out as uninspiring as Georgiana, though it seems much more likely for her to have taken the route of Eliza. The other characters in the novel show how immensely Jane benefitted from her time at Lowood, and it may be safe to say that the novel’s aristocratic characters would have benefitted from foregoing private tutoring (so long as they could persevere through tuberculosis and consumption of course).