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Charlotte's life becomes part of Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bront lived most of her years confined to Haworth Parsonage.
Considering this limited knowledge of the world, it is not surprising that the plot
of her first published novel, Jane Eyre, contains many elements taken from her
own life.
It is clear that Charlotte Bront drew on her personal identity and experiences
to create the character of Jane.
Jane Eyre's childhood seems to have the highest number of similarities with
Charlotte's:
Family
Jane's father was "a poor clergyman" as Charlotte's father.
Jane's parents both died when she was a baby; whereas only Charlotte's
mother died, specifically when Charlotte was five years old.
Elizabeth Branwell, Mrs. Bront's sister, took care for the six Bront children.
She is said to have been a severe woman, who raised the children as her duty
but never enjoyed it. Jane is raised by her Aunt Reed, wife of Mr. Reed, who
was the brother of Jane's mother. He asks Mrs. Reed to promise to look after
Jane and she actually says that she had no choice but to keep the creature.
There are some coincidences during adulthood as well; Jane returns to
Gateshead in order to visit Mrs. Reed's, due to her illness. Charlotte and Emily
Bront came back home from school in Brussels when their aunt fell ill.
However, Aunt Branwell died before the Bront sisters arrived.
School
Although the conditions at Lowood in the novel seem to be really extreme,
the school reflects Charlotte's own experience at Cowan Bridge.
Cowan Bridge is described as a charity school for daughters of poor
clergyman. Their parents only paid a small sum anually and the rest was raised
by subscription. In this way the girls were supposed to receive a proper English
education. The Lowood school depicted in Jane Eyre is also partly a charity-

school, as Helen Burns tells Jane. However, instead of being a school for
clergyman's daughters, as was Cowan Bridge, Lowood is a school for orphans.
The conditions at Lowood are also strongly supported by Charlotte's
memories of Cowan Bridge. They slept in long, narrow, unheated dormitories
and ate food so badly cooked as to be almost inedible. All her life Charlotte
remembered, with loathing, the burnt oatmeal, the stews with lumps of rancid fat
and the sour rice pudding. Only after dinner she had a decent meal, bread and
coffee, but after devouring it, she was still hungry.
Mr. Brocklehurst, the headmaster of Lowood, owes his character to
Reverend William Carus Wilson, who ran Cowan Bridge. He thought that
children should be put through hardships in order to make them into
"responsible, God-fearing adults".
Sisters
In honour of the elder Bront sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, who fell ill at
Cowan Bridge and died immediately after returning home, Charlotte created the
character of Helen Burns.
This character is said to be an exact copy of Maria Bront. Maria is described
by people who knew her as being superior in mind to any of her fellows and
lonely amongst them; yet she was in constant disgrace with her teachers and
an object of merciless dislike to one of them, who is depicted as "Miss
Scatcherd" in Jane Eyre. The real-life Miss Scatcherd, a woman named Miss
Andrews, appears to have been the instigator of the harsh punishment Maria
suffered. None of the Bront girls complained about their treatment, perhaps
because Maria persuaded her younger sisters to endure their treatment in
silence.
Like Maria Bront, Helen is depicted as being intelligent and isolated; Jane's
first introduction to Helen is during an outdoor recess, where Helen is shunning
the company of other children in order to read. Despite Miss Scatcherd's
treatment of her, Helen refuses to criticise her, saying instead that she deserved
to be punished for her faults. Helen admonishes Jane's temper and desire to
fight back. Given that the character of Helen Burns is acknowledged to be a

faithful representation of Maria Bront, it can only be assumed that this was
indeed Maria's view of their situation at Cowan Bridge.
The fever that is described in Jane Eyre is also based on events at Cowan
Bridge. The girls at Cowan Bridge, like the girls of Lowood, were vulnerable to
the fever, most likely typhoid. By the time the seriousness of her condition was
understood, the constant hunger and cold had consumed Maria, and she died
shortly after returning home, followed by Elizabeth. The fever is reproduced in
the pages of Jane Eyre. Helen dies of consumption almost neglected by the
authorities at Lowood. Both Jane and Charlotte blame the impact of the fever on
the conditions at school.
Although the strongest parallels between Charlotte Bront's life and Jane
Eyre occur in childhood, the similarities continue throughout the rest of the
novel:
Appearance
Charlotte created Jane after her own image. She used to tell her sisters that
she would make a heroine as plain and as small as herself, who shall be as
interesting as any of theirs. Elizabeth Gaskell describes Charlotte in her
biography as having a grave serious composure, and her features as being
plain, large, and ill set. Likewise, Jane is described by Rochester as quaint,
quiet, grave, and simple, while her cousin St. John calls her not at all
handsome. Jane takes on not only Charlotte's thoughts and memories, but her
appearance as well.
Jobs
Jane's choices of work also reflect Charlotte Bront's own experiences with
what work implied in the Victorian world for women. Besides marriage or
remaining a dependent of the family, the only option available to women was
teaching. As a result, even though she disliked children, Charlotte worked as a
teacher, at Miss Wooler's school at Roe Head and at the Pensionnat Heger, as
a governess twice, each time for a period of only months, and attempted to
open a school at Haworth Parsonage with her sisters.

Jane finds the same sorts of work: first as a teacher at Lowood after finishing
her studies, then as a governess for Mr. Rochester, and finally as the teacher of
a little school for farmers' daughters at Whitcross.
Brother
When Jane is summoned to attend the deathbed of her aunt, she learns of
the disgraceful life that her cousin John Reed has led, up until his recent
suicide. The last three years of his life, young Mr. Reed spent his time drinking,
gambling, wasting the family fortune.
Although Charlotte could not have known that her own brother would die after
three years of misconduct, probably watching Branwell's disintegration
contributed to the fate of her character John Reed. Her brother died one year
after Jane Eyre was published. He was an alcoholic and opium addict.
Love
The relationship between Jane and her employer, Mr. Rochester, may have
also been suggested by events in Charlotte's own life. During her stay in
Brussels, Charlotte apparently fell in love with M. Heger, who was first her
teacher, and then her employer, as she accepted a teaching position at the
school at the end of her studies there.
The basis for her feelings for M. Heger was apparently intellectual. This
situation distanced her from his wife and eventually made her unwelcome in
their home or at their school. Charlotte wrote to M. Heger for some time after
her return home in a passionate tone. She always talked about her departure
with great pain.
Her secret love led to the creation of her first novel, The Professor, but
influenced Jane Eyre as well. Jane continually describes Mr. Rocheste as being
dark or black, much like Charlotte's description of M. Heger's physiognomy.
Despite Rochester's appearance, however, Jane falls in love, and is soon
engaged to be married to him, until she finds out that he is already married to
an insane woman he keeps locked up in the attic.

Jane decides she must leave Rochester. Jane's grief at leaving reflects the
distress Charlotte suffered after leaving M. Heger. The happy ending of Jane
Eyre is perhaps the expression of her fantasies regarding M. Heger.
Charlotte turned down proposals from three different men, two of them before
ever meeting M. Heger. The first man to propose to Charlotte was Reverend
Henry Nussey, the brother of one of her closest friends, Ellen. Henry Nussey
dreamed of being a missionary and had chosen Charlotte because he thought
her appropriate for a missionary's wife. Charlotte refused, feeling that she was
not suitable to be the wife Henry wanted, and not wishing to marry without love.
Charlotte wrote: "I had a kindly leaning towards him, because he is an amiable
and well-disposed man. Yet I had not, and could not have, that intense
attachment which would make me willing to die for him; and if I ever marry, it
must be that light of adoration that I will regard my husband".
Jane must also overcome such a proposal, from her cousin, St. John, a
clergyman who also wants to be a missionary. St. John asks Jane to
accompany him to India as his wife, saying, "You are formed for labour, not for
love I claim you - not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign's service". Jane
imagines her fate as St. John's wife: "always restrained, and always checked forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low". Just as St. John proposes
to Jane with a purpose that mirrors Henry Nussey's, Jane refuses him for
almost the reasons that Charlotte refused Henry. Having confirmed her
inalienable right to make her own choice of a husband, Jane returns to
Rochester, a fantasy ending comparing it with Charlotte's own experiences.
Charlotte finally married Arthur Bell Nichols, a curate who made her happy,
although he did not share her intellectual interests. She died in pregnancy and
much of her previous work was published posthumously.