Jane Eyre is an orphan being raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel aunt. A servant named Bessie provides Jane with some of the few
kindnesses she receives, telling her stories and singing to her. One day,
as punishment for fighting with her cousin John Reed, Jane's aunt
imprisons Jane in the red-room, the room in which Jane's Uncle Reed died. While
locked in, Jane, believing that she sees her uncle's ghost, screams and faints.
She wakes in the care of Bessie and the kindly Mr.
Lloyd, who suggests to Mrs. Reed that Jane be sent away to school. To Jane's
delight, Mrs. Reed agrees.
Once at Lowood School, Jane finds that life is far from what she expected. The
school's headmaster is Mr. Brocklehurst, a hypocritical and abusive man. Brocklehurst
teaches the girls only of poverty and deprivation while
using the school's funds to provide a wealthy lifestyle for his own
family. At Lowood, Jane befriends a young girl named Helen Burns, whose strong,
martyr like attitude toward the school's miseries is both helpful and
displeasing to Jane. A typhus epidemic sweeps Lowood, and Helen dies of
consumption. The epidemic also results in the departure of Mr. Brocklehurst by
attracting attention to the conditions at Lowood. After a group of
more sympathetic gentlemen takes Brocklehurst's place, Jane's life improves. She spends eight more years at Lowood, six as a student and two as
a teacher.
After teaching for two years, Jane yearns for new experiences. She accepts a
governess position at a manor called Thornfield, where she teaches a lively
French girl named Adèle. The housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax presides
over the estate. Jane's employer at Thornfield is a dark, impassioned man named
Rochester, with whom Jane finds herself falling secretly in love. She saves
Rochester from a fire one night, which he claims was started by a drunken
servant named Grace Poole. But because Grace Poole continues to work at
Thornfield, Jane concludes that she has not been told the entire story. Jane
sinks into despondency when Rochester brings home a beautiful but vicious woman
named Blanche Ingram. Jane expects Rochester to propose to Blanche. But
Rochester instead proposes to Jane, who accepts almost disbelievingly.
The wedding day arrives, and as Jane and Mr. Rochester prepare to exchange their
vows, Mr. Mason cries out that Rochester already has a wife. Mason
introduces himself as the brother of that wife—a woman named Bertha. Mr. Mason
testifies that Bertha, whom Rochester married when he was a young man in
Jamaica, is still alive. Rochester does not deny Mason's claims, but he explains
that Bertha has gone mad. He takes the wedding party back to Thornfield, where
they witness the insane Bertha Mason scurrying around on all fours and growling
like an animal. Rochester keeps Bertha hidden on the third story of Thornfield
and pays Grace Poole to keep her under control. Bertha was the real cause
of the mysterious fire earlier in the story. Knowing that it is impossible for
her to be with Rochester, Jane flees Thornfield.
Penniless and hungry, Jane is forced to sleep outdoors and beg for food. At
last, three siblings who live in a manor alternatively called Marsh End and Moor
House take her in. Their names are Mary, Diana, and St. John (pronounced "Sinjin")
Rivers, and Jane quickly becomes friends with them. St. John is a clergyman, and
he finds Jane a job teaching at a school in Morton. He surprises her one
day by declaring that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her a large
fortune: 20,000 pounds. When Jane asks how he received this news, he shocks her
further by declaring that her uncle was also his uncle: Jane and the Riverses
are cousins. Jane immediately decides to share her inheritance with her
newfound relatives.
St. John decides to travel to India as a missionary, and he urges Jane to
accompany him—as his wife. Jane agrees to go to India, but refuses to marry her
cousin because she does not love him. St. John pressures her to reconsider, and
she nearly gives in. However, she realizes that she cannot abandon the
man she truly loves when one night she hears Rochester's voice calling her name
over the moors. Jane immediately hurries back to Thornfield and finds that it
has been burned to the ground by Bertha Mason, who lost her life in the fire.
Rochester saved the servants but lost his eyesight and one of his hands. Jane
travels on to Rochester's new residence, Ferndean, where he lives with two
servants named John and Mary.
At Ferndean, Rochester and Jane rebuild their relationship and soon marry. At
the end of her story, Jane writes that she has been married for ten blissful
years and that she and Rochester enjoy perfect equality in their life together.
She says that after two years of blindness, Rochester regained sight in one eye
and was able to behold their first son at his birth.