Jane Eyre: Notes to Chapters 6-10

Jane Eyre: Notes to Chapters 6-10
In this section, Jane lives and grows up at Lowood School. After the first day,
recounted in Chapter 5, she finds her place. She has a bad moment when Mr.
Brocklehurst shows up and denounces her as a liar to the school. Her friendship with
Helen Burns grows, and she venerates, as she says, Miss Temple. There is a typhus
epidemic. During it, Helen dies of tuberculosis. In Chapter 10, Jane, now 18,
advertises for a position as a governess, and receives a positive answer.
Chapter 6
“Fourth class” Apparently the numbering proceeds backwards—from the fourth
class she will go on to the third (55).
“Learn by heart”: Memorize word for word (55).
Animadversion: Just means “remark.” Same root as “advertisement” and the verb
“advert,” which we will see later in the book (55).
&c.: Etc. (55-6)
“Tonnage … poundage … ship-money” Kinds of taxes. The point is that this was a
fairly technical and dull history lesson (56).
Slattern: Messy, untidy girl or woman (56).
Meed: Reward (58).
Chapter 7
Quarter: Three months (62).
Unwonted: Unaccustomed. If something is “unwonted,” it has not been usual in your
earlier life. This is quite a frequent expression in this book (62).
Chilblains: Burning and reddening of the skin of the hands and feet that comes from
the cold. The condition is made worse by bad food (62).
Invalid: A person who is permanently or chronically sick (62).
Moeity: half (63).
“Enactment of the part of Eutychus”: Eutychus was a young man who collapsed
during a sermon of the Apostle Paul (Acts 20:9-12). He fell out of a window and
apparently died, but Paul brought him to life again (63).
Vicious: Here, full of vice (64).
“Coming Man”: Apparently the Antichrist, the evil man who will come at the end of
days, before the Second Coming of Christ. This is in the Book of Revelations, one of
Jane’s favourites (64).

“Sufferings of the primitive Christians”: Early Christians were the vicitms of
persecution by Roman authorities. Most famously, they were fed to lions in front of
Roman crowds (65).
Hearth:
http://riannanworld.typepad.com/my_weblog/images/hearth.JPG
Perhaps it is not by accident that we’ve just heard about the little girls unable to get
near the fire (65).
“Conform to the world so openly”: This is a special religious sense of the word
“world.” What is truly Christian is “not of this world” (66).
Excrescence: Excessive growth, overflow, abnormal increase. Also, recalls
“excrement” (66).
“Cup and platter”: Another reference to the Bible. “And the Lord said unto him,
Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your
inward part is full of ravening and wickedness” (Luke 11:39). The Pharisees were
Jews of a sect often accused of hypocrisy in the New Testament. There is complex
irony here: The reference seems to accuse the girls of hypocrisy, but it is hard to see
their resentment as “ravening and wickedness.” At the same time, the expression
reflects the hypocrisy she sees in Mr. Brocklehurst (66).
“My treacherous slate” Personification. Jane feels like the slate is alive, and has
done something to hurt her (67).
“The Rubicon was passed”: At one point in his life, Julius Caesar was the ruler of an
area called Gaul, and the Roman Senate forbade him to enter Italy. When he crossed
the Rubicon river into Italy, it was the point of no return. We still use this expression
(68).
“Brahma … Juggernaut” Hindu gods, here used as examples of evil paganism (68).
“the troubled pool of Bethesda”: This reference to the Bible (John 5) doesn’t seem
to serve any purpose but to give Mr. Brocklehurst the chance to look holy (68).

Lineaments: shape of a face (69).
“Such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet”: This is a reference to the
old idea that everything on this earth, and up to the Moon, is imperfect. What is
beyond is God’s domain, and is perfect. By this time, though, telescopes had been
invented, and people knew that there were spots on the surfaces of all planets. Later
we will see the expression sublunary, meaning all that is imperfect on this earth (69).
Chapter 8
“Approbation”: Approval (70).
“Ardent”: From a Latin word meaning “burning” (71).
“Alloy”: A mixture of metals. Here, by a metaphor, tranquillity is alloyed with
sadness. Similarly, unalloyed happiness (71).
“gall and wormwood”: Gall is a bitter liquid inside your gut (produced by your
gallbladder), and wormwood, a bitter plant substance sometimes used as medicine.
The phrase is again biblical, representing the bitterness that God would bring down on
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the Israelites if they turned to worhipping idols (72).