it is known to us,even though living at gateshead,in such a beautiful house with the reeds, jane eyre`s childhood wasn`t filled with happiness. jane eyre`s uncle reed had taken her to his house when her parents both died.on her uncle`s death bed he had made his wife,anut reed, promise to look after jane eyre like her own children,but she didn`t keeping her promise.people thought mrs reed was a good woman,becasure they didn`t know how she hate jane and are cruel to her.mrs reed`s attitude made the others change their view to jane.her cousins did not love her even bullied and punished her all the time.the servant bessie is the only person who was kind to her.
jane has spent most of her childhood in gateshead,no other than this special experience shaped her personality of brave and strong to challenge her new life.
at lowood,she was both excited and nervous about the new place she had see and the new people she had meet.life at lowood wasn`t good at the beginning.people there must believed in hard work,plain food,simple clothes and no luxury of any kind.so most of them were offish except miss temple,the headmistress of lowood school.
jane has made a friend here,the first really friend——helen burns.the girl was smart and kind-hearted but was hated by her teacher miss scatcherd and always be punished because of her “untidy and careless”.jane was so angry about that,on the contrary,helen told her:“life is too short to continue hating anyone for a long time.we all have faults,but the time will come soon when we die,when our wickedness will pass away with our bodies,leaving only the pure flame of the spirit.that`s why i never think of revenge,i never consider life unfair.i live in calm,looking forward to the end. ”
that is true,her life was too short!when jane felt she was accepted,learned to like school and set to work to learn as much as she could,make as many friends as possible,helen`s illness was much more serious than jane first thought,she had got a tuber culosis.one morning miss temple found jane asleep with helen burns dead in her arms.helen have a great effect on jane,she teached jane how to learn to love,forgive and do as the bible tells:“sometimes you have to put up with some hard things in life even if other people hurt us.”
jane stayed for eight years in lowood,for the last two as a teacher.she was busy and happy all that time,however,suddenly she realized she had never known any other world apart from lowood or gateshead.she wanted freedom,decided to change her life or at least a new master to serve.so she advertised in a newspaper for a job as a governess and then came to thornfield.