On one page a rock stands alone, battered by a winter sea. It symbolizes Jane’s isolation. Ten-year-old Jane is an unwanted child. Her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, resents being saddled with her care and treats her harshly. Jane is just a little girl, but she stands up for herself and for the truth. She speaks out when she is punished unfairly, in a way that bothers her aunt’s conscience: “My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mamma; they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead.” Mrs. Reed solves the problem of this “passionate” child by sending her away to school. Jane will spend the next nine years at Lowood Institution, as both pupil and teacher. In describing Lowood, Charlotte Brontë brought to life the Clergy Daughters’ School. The Reverend Mr. Brocklehurst, the headmaster, is another William Carus Wilson, “a black pillar” of a man with a grim face “like a carved mask.” Brocklehurst uses religion to justify mistreating the girls.
