“The main source of Jane Eyre’s interest is the story of immense human endurance”
How far do you agree with this statement (Explore the methods which Charlotte Bronte uses to present the idea of human endurance)

Jane as narrator certainly shares with the reader a story of immense human endurance. We see this throughout the whole novel.
Early example of such are in the Gateshead section of the novel where Jane endures a lack /absence of love. She is forced to endure physical and verbal cruelty though the actions of the cousin John Reed. Who taunts her about her social class and lack of money, ‘You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mamma says; you have no money; your father left you none; you out to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us..’
Jane endures physical cruelty when John flung the book at Jane, striking her on the head.

Through the red room we are able to see the symbolism of Jane’s entrapment, isolation and desire to break free.
There is also an element of foreshadowing and imagery emphasises on how isolated Jane is from the rest of her peers “dark and haunted chamber”
Even at Lowood this is a recurring theme of the unjust and sufferable nature of her childhood.
The endurance from the Red Room is a symbol of her isolation from compassion during her childhood.
Through the repeated use of this symbol we see how Jane is imprisoned by her own treatment.
Following Jane’s escape from the Red Room we see that she when she is “then happy” with Edward the door on the Red Room almost closes but never fully, because her isolation never truly perishes.
The plot of Jane Eyre follows the form of a Bildungsroman, which is a novel that tells the story of a child’s maturation and focuses on the emotions and experiences that accompany and incite his or her growth to adulthood. In Jane Eyre, there are five distinct stages of development, each linked to a particular place: Jane’s childhood at Gateshead, her education at the Lowood School, her time as Adèle’s governess at Thornfield, her time with the Rivers family at Morton and at Moor House, and her reunion with and marriage to Rochester. From these experiences, most if not all of which include elements of immense endurance by Jane.
Jane becomes the mature woman who narrates the novel retrospectively.

"His is the sternness of the warrior GreatHeart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon." (521)
Charlotte Bronte is alluding to "The Pilgrims Progress" by John Bunyan. The second part of this book's hero was GreatHeart, a servant to an interpreter on a pilgrimage to the Celestial City. He shows his bravery by protecting his pilgrims from monsters and Apollyon, who is a dragon like angle of Hell. Apollyon has the literal meaning of destroyer. The second part of "The Pilgrims Progress" has women go on the pilgrimage which could be why Bronte chose to compare St. John to Greatheart. St. John is stern and ambitious like Greatheart, and therefore too controlling to have taken Jane with him on his pilgrimage, because Jane is the leader of her own pilgrimage to Ferndean. Jane is an independent that does not allow a man such as St. John decide her future and what is best for her. This shows us as the reader the endurance and determination of Jane as the novel progresses.
Jane endures a great deal of emotional coldness, in the early sections of the novel, particularly in the Gateshead section we see coldness from her cousins and her Aunt Reed.
Mrs Reed is frequently associated with ice, for instance;
Mrs Reeds ‘eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly’ on Jane (44).
Throughout Jane’s time at Gateshead she suffered immense endurance of emotional coldness, however when she then went to Lowood she had to endure physical coldness due to the conditions in which the girls were kept; “The water in the pitchers were frozen” (63)
In 1824 both Charlotte & Emily attended the clergy daughter’s school at Cowan Bridge for 10 months. The recollection of childhood at this school forms the model of Lowood institution which Jane attended for eight years in the novel Jane Eyre.
Jane is sent away by Mrs Reed to Lowood institution a boarding school for orphaned girls where the next battle of education us containment would occur. At Lowood which was surrounded with walls so high as to exclude every glimpse of prospect’ Jane receives a scholastic education but is very much contained by strict discipline and lifestyle as well as harshness of Mrs Scatchrd and the proprietor Mr Brockelhurst.

The physical cold and hunger at Lowood is a hint at a deeper cold and hunger within Jane. “The cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within.” (58)
Although the novel was very well received, it was not without its share of critics. One of which was Elizabeth Rigby in The Tory Quarterly Review. Far from empathising with the story of immense human endurance illustrated through the character of Jane Eyre, Rigby perceived Jane Eyre and her creator to be the voice of revolutionary social protest.
To conclude, throughout Jane Eyre’s journey we as the reader can see the immense human endurance in which Jane had to endure. From her times at Gateshead, enduring emotional coldness to Lowood where she had to endure physical coldness. Then as the novel progresses further to her times with Mr Rochester and St John immense endurance is highly evident.

An ss essay