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Jane Eyre key quotes: every quotation analysed

36 quotations from Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë), each with its speaker and scene, what the words are doing, the techniques at work and how to use it in a AQA GCSE English Literature essay. By character: Jane Eyre (12), Edward Fairfax Rochester (6), St John Rivers (6), Bertha Mason (6), Mrs Reed (6). Indexed by theme below.

A quotation is worth marks only when it is exact and doing work. Jane Eyre is examined on 8702 Paper 1, Section B — The 19th-century novel (closed book; a printed extract, then the novel as a whole), and what scores is the analysis. Every entry here gives the analysis first: read the quotation, then the line on what it is doing, then close the page and say it back. The character studies linked from each section carry the readings and essay arguments the quotations serve; the Grade 9 Notes hold the whole text.

By theme

Independence and equality (14) · Love and passion (12) · Religion and conscience (9) · The Gothic and the supernatural (7) · Class and the governess (1)

Jane Eyre — 12 quotations

Jane Eyre: character analysis, readings and essay arguments →

“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”

Jane (narrator) · Chapter 1

What it is doing. The novel opens with Jane confined and unable to go out.

Techniques. Opening line

In an essay. Open any essay on confinement and escape.

Themes: Independence and equality

“Wicked and cruel boy!”

Jane (to John Reed) · Chapter 1

What it is doing. Her first outburst against her bullying cousin.

Techniques. Exclamation

In an essay. Show her rebellion beginning in childhood.

Themes: Independence and equality

“Unjust!—unjust!”

Jane (narrator, recalling her reason) · Chapter 2

What it is doing. Her reason protests against her punishment in the red-room.

Techniques. Repetition

In an essay. Make justice the root of her independence.

Themes: Independence and equality

“Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely, and must turn”

Jane (narrator) · Chapter 4

What it is doing. She must speak back to Mrs Reed after years of injustice.

Techniques. Inversion · Metaphor

In an essay. Show self-assertion as a natural need.

Themes: Independence and equality

“I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer”

Jane (narrator) · Chapter 10

What it is doing. Her longing to leave Lowood for a wider life.

Techniques. Tricolon · Repetition

In an essay. Show freedom as a bodily need.

Themes: Independence and equality

“women feel just as men feel”

Jane (narrator) · Chapter 12

What it is doing. Women need action and purpose as much as men do.

Techniques. Argument

In an essay. Central evidence for the novel's view of women.

Themes: Independence and equality

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?”

Jane (to Rochester) · Chapter 23

What it is doing. She claims equality of soul despite her status.

Techniques. Rhetorical question · List

In an essay. Central evidence for equality in love.

Themes: Independence and equality · Love and passion

“I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart!”

Jane (to Rochester) · Chapter 23

What it is doing. She is his equal in feeling and spirit.

Techniques. Parallelism

In an essay. Pair with 'poor, obscure, plain, and little'.

Themes: Love and passion

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me”

Jane (to Rochester) · Chapter 23

What it is doing. She refuses to be treated as a caged creature.

Techniques. Metaphor

In an essay. Link to the bird imagery from Chapter 1.

Themes: Independence and equality

“I care for myself.”

Jane · Chapter 27

What it is doing. She chooses self-respect over love on Rochester's terms.

Techniques. Short declarative

In an essay. Show her decision to leave Thornfield.

Themes: Independence and equality · Religion and conscience

“I scorn your idea of love”

Jane (to St John) · Chapter 34

What it is doing. She refuses a marriage of duty without love.

Techniques. Defiance

In an essay. Show her second refusal, of law without love.

Themes: Love and passion · Religion and conscience

“Reader, I married him.”

Jane (narrator) · Chapter 38

What it is doing. Jane announces her marriage, as its active subject.

Techniques. Direct address · Active voice

In an essay. Conclude any essay on her independence.

Themes: Love and passion · Independence and equality

Edward Fairfax Rochester — 6 quotations

Edward Fairfax Rochester: character analysis, readings and essay arguments →

“Do you think me handsome?”

Rochester (to Jane) · Chapter 14

What it is doing. He tests her honesty, and she refuses to flatter.

Techniques. Question

In an essay. Show frankness as the basis of their bond.

Themes: Love and passion

“as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs”

Rochester (to Jane) · Chapter 23

What it is doing. He feels their bond as a physical cord.

Techniques. Metaphor

In an essay. Show love as physical and mutual.

Themes: Love and passion

“my equal is here, and my likeness”

Rochester (to Jane) · Chapter 23

What it is doing. He proposes, calling her his equal.

Techniques. Dramatic irony

In an essay. Use alongside the split chestnut tree.

Themes: Love and passion · Independence and equality

“That is my wife”

Rochester · Chapter 26

What it is doing. He reveals Bertha to the wedding party.

Techniques. Revelation

In an essay. Mark the collapse of the wedding.

Themes: The Gothic and the supernatural

“Jane! Jane! Jane!”

Rochester's voice · Chapter 35

What it is doing. His call that Jane hears across the distance.

Techniques. Repetition · Supernatural

In an essay. Discuss love that reaches beyond reason and distance.

Themes: Love and passion · The Gothic and the supernatural

“I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard”

Rochester (to Jane) · Chapter 37

What it is doing. He sees himself as ruined after the fire.

Techniques. Symbol

In an essay. Link the proposal to the ending.

Themes: Love and passion

St John Rivers — 6 quotations

St John Rivers: character analysis, readings and essay arguments →

“Reason, and not feeling, is my guide”

St John (to Jane) · Chapter 32

What it is doing. He governs himself by reason and duty alone.

Techniques. Antithesis

In an essay. Set him against Jane's feeling.

Themes: Religion and conscience

“God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife”

St John (to Jane) · Chapter 34

What it is doing. He claims God's authority for his proposal.

Techniques. Appeal to authority

In an essay. Show religious pressure on Jane.

Themes: Religion and conscience

“You are formed for labour, not for love.”

St John (to Jane) · Chapter 34

What it is doing. He offers marriage without love.

Techniques. Antithesis · Alliteration

In an essay. Central evidence for law without love.

Themes: Religion and conscience · Love and passion

“I scorn your idea of love”

Jane (to St John) · Chapter 34

What it is doing. Jane rejects the love he offers.

Techniques. Direct speech

In an essay. Show her refusal of duty disguised as love.

Themes: Love and passion

“Surely I come quickly!”

St John (letter, quoting scripture) · Chapter 38

What it is doing. He expects death in India and welcomes it.

Techniques. Biblical quotation

In an essay. Discuss why the novel ends with St John.

Themes: Religion and conscience

“Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!”

St John (letter) · Chapter 38

What it is doing. The novel's last words belong to his faith.

Techniques. Ending · Prayer

In an essay. Weigh how the novel honours his faith.

Themes: Religion and conscience

Bertha Mason — 6 quotations

Bertha Mason: character analysis, readings and essay arguments →

“It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless.”

Jane (narrator) · Chapter 11

What it is doing. Bertha is first known only as an unexplained sound.

Techniques. Tricolon of adjectives

In an essay. Open an essay on Gothic suspense.

Themes: The Gothic and the supernatural

“the foul German spectre—the Vampyre”

Jane (to Rochester) · Chapter 25

What it is doing. Jane describes the figure who tore her veil.

Techniques. Gothic allusion

In an essay. Show Bertha framed as a monster.

Themes: The Gothic and the supernatural

“What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell”

Jane (narrator) · Chapter 26

What it is doing. Bertha described as barely human when revealed.

Techniques. Antithesis · Dehumanisation

In an essay. Discuss how the novel denies her humanity.

Themes: The Gothic and the supernatural

“it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal”

Jane (narrator) · Chapter 26

What it is doing. Bertha described through animal imagery.

Techniques. Animal imagery · Simile

In an essay. Name the dehumanising language honestly.

Themes: The Gothic and the supernatural

“That is my wife”

Rochester · Chapter 26

What it is doing. Her identity revealed, in the possessive.

Techniques. Possessive

In an essay. Discuss her as wife and prisoner.

Themes: Love and passion

“Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family”

Rochester · Chapter 26

What it is doing. Rochester explains her in terms of inherited madness.

Techniques. Justification

In an essay. Question whose account of her we are given.

Themes: The Gothic and the supernatural

Mrs Reed — 6 quotations

Mrs Reed: character analysis, readings and essay arguments →

“Unjust!—unjust!”

Jane (narrator, recalling her reason) · Chapter 2

What it is doing. The child's protest against Mrs Reed's punishment.

Techniques. Repetition

In an essay. Show the injustice of Gateshead.

Themes: Independence and equality

“you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep”

Miss Abbot (to Jane) · Chapter 2

What it is doing. Jane's lowly place in Mrs Reed's household.

Techniques. Class marker

In an essay. Show Jane's dependence at Gateshead.

Themes: Class and the governess

“I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you”

Jane (to Mrs Reed) · Chapter 4

What it is doing. Jane turns the charge of deceit back on her aunt.

Techniques. Antithesis

In an essay. Show Jane's first act of self-assertion.

Themes: Independence and equality

“Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely, and must turn”

Jane (narrator) · Chapter 4

What it is doing. The pressure Mrs Reed has put on her.

Techniques. Metaphor

In an essay. Show Mrs Reed as the oppressor Jane resists.

Themes: Independence and equality

“this girl is—a liar!”

Mr Brocklehurst (of Jane) · Chapter 7

What it is doing. Mrs Reed's accusation repeated publicly at Lowood.

Techniques. Public shaming

In an essay. Show how Mrs Reed's lie follows Jane.

Themes: Religion and conscience

“I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now”

Mrs Reed (to Jane) · Chapter 21

What it is doing. Her deathbed confession about the promise and the letter.

Techniques. Confession

In an essay. Show guilt that never becomes reconciliation or love.

Themes: Religion and conscience

The quotations by theme

Think you know them?

Knowing a quotation is the start. On Incandio a character or theme counts as mastered only once you have taught it back and defended your reading of it against Charlotte Brontë — the two things a quotation list cannot ask of you.

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