Jane Eyre, chapters 5-10

Chapters 5 to 10 are leading us through the all Jane’s experience at Lowood. We can see about nine years of her life with so many events.
She is introduced to the school as a liar by Mr Brocklehurst, then declared to be innocent by Miss Temple. She is experiencing a hard times because of her friend’s Helen illness and death. She is doing her best at school as well and coming back to Lowood as a teacher.
The theme which is well presented is religion. We can see Mr Brocklehurst who may be seen as a religious hypocrite – he wants to show everyone that he is more religious than the others, he puts himself above the others but the only thing he cares about is his wealthy family and making sure that everyone can see him above themselves. Helen embodies the Christian ideas of love and forgiveness. She does not preach and show her religiousness to the others, she just believes. She may be sure about what will happened after the death and she is not afraid of that. Although any of the form satisfied Jane, the contrast between them is pretty well presented. The way Bronte writes about the religion makes me think ‘Ok, so what I believe in? Where I am in all of these issues?’
In this section, again, we can distinguish a very wide range of emotions. We can get into Jane’s mind when she was named a liar, we can feel what she feels. In my opinion there’s no point in giving the reader a detailed description of a place. It is enough to make the reader imagine where the character is. Writing about emotions gets you involved in what is going on in the situation. It gives you a possibility to think, to compare the behaviour, to compare the emotions. We are all humans but we feel and behave in so many different ways. While reading, we can even judge whether the character has done something in a good or bad way, we can think what we would do, we can see what leads to that behaviour. But still, it is only the fiction J And now I am surprised to say that we came back to the question we started with – what makes a good literature? And still there is no straight answer. We – or rather the author – have to put all these elements together and see if it works. If you are impressed – it does.