Jane Eyre & AO2

Form, structure and language - is often considered to be the hardest Assessment Objective to cover in A level essays. In fact, all three of these in Jane Eyre contribute to the development of themes, characters and plot, so they should be form an integral part of any discussion of these. Integrating points about form, structure and language into other discussions is a better way of including them than constructing a paragraph specifically to address AO2. Here are some ideas about ways it can be tied in:

A paragraph about Jane...

Brontë uses extended passages of direct speech to tell Jane’s story. In some ways this acts as protection against Jane’s later knowledge intruding on her younger self. As a device it enables characters to speak for themselves; it enables the reader to see, for example, Rochester’s feelings about Jane when she herself cannot. Apart from her initial introduction of the Reeds, we do not usually rely on Jane’s assessment of anyone, instead being given the opportunity to judge for ourselves from their actions.

Many passages in the book...

Jane Eyre is set firmly in northern England, in five separate locations. The Reed house at Gateshead, Lowood School, Thornfield Hall, Moor House (the Rivers’ house) and Ferndean Manor, which is Rochester’s smaller, more rural home. Mary, Rochester’s housekeeper at Ferndean, gives Brontë the chance to demonstrate that her control of the Yorkshire dialect is as strong as Emily’s, who used it in so extensively in Wuthering Heights: ‘she’s noan faâl, and varry good-natured.’ The dialect emphasises the more rural and remote...

The plot has been constructed by Brontë in order to allow her to create not only an absorbing and suspenseful narrative, but also, of course, to allow her to explore several themes in interesting and often persuasive ways.

Love

Love is a strong theme throughout the novel, which is essentially a romance; it is also the aspect of the novel which is quintessentially Romantic, with a capital ‘R’, in that the love which Rochester and Jane share is an extreme emotion. Both of them confess to overpowering feelings which cloud their judgement,...

Jane Eyre

Brontë constructs the character of Jane as having been left as an orphan after her parents’ death through typhoid; Jane is initially brought up by her mother’s (dead) brother’s wife, along with their children. Her paternal family are apparently ‘poor’, and she does not know anything of them, until her aunt – on her deathbed – reveals a letter from her father’s elder brother, who has made his fortune, but who has no children to whom to leave it. Later she discovers the Rivers family – the children of her father’s...

Brontë’s choice of creating a novel narrated by a ‘first person autobiography’ narrator of Jane Eyre and ostensibly edited by ‘Currer Bell’ is a conceit that serves to heighten the identification between author and protagonist – and which adds effectively to the authenticity and authority of the narrator.

The character of Jane narrates her life with the knowledge that she herself would possess at the time, if she were a real woman, rather than foreshadowing the dramatic narrative or giving any hint of future events. The form is...

Jane Eyre was published in 1847 and was the first of Charlotte Brontë’s novels; it was written in the same year as her sister, Emily Brontë’s, only novel, Wuthering Heights.

Charlotte (born 1816), together with Emily and Anne, lived at Haworth Parsonage, in North Yorkshire, where between them, they created complicated make-believe worlds as children before growing up to write.

Their mother died when Charlotte was just five, and when she was only 9, she found herself the eldest child, looking after the family, including her brother and...

Jane Eyre Overview of Specifications & Assessment Objectives.pdf

1. ­Overview of Specifications & Assessment Objectives

2. Context

3. Form

4. Characters

5. Themes

6. Setting

7. Language

8. Writing about Jane Eyre

Associated Resources

• Part 1 - AWONI Teaching Guide.doc
• Part 2 - AWONI Annotated Guide.doc
• Part 3 - AWONI Teaching Guide.doc

Why you might like to teach this text!

A Woman of No Importance is a wonderful text to teach and your students will enjoy studying it.

It is short, it has an absorbing and convincing plot and its themes are easily recognised, interestingly explored and persuasively presented.

On top of this, Wilde is a fine and witty dramatist who uses his chosen form in fascinating ways not only, at the level of plot, to entertain but...

Although analysing a text at the level of narrative is a direct requirement of some English Literature courses, such as AQA’s LITB1, it is an analytical technique that can be quite generally applied across many texts – even non-fictional and media texts.

Associated Resources

A Guide to Teaching Othello

Click on the link below to download this resource.

Othello Guide Part 2 EnglishEdu.doc

Othello Guide Part 2 EnglishEdu.docx

Associated Resources

How to improve grades when writing for Othello

This EnglishEdu guide on Shakespeare’s popular A Level play, Othello, aims to supplement rather than replace other readily available Internet and printed material for the teaching of the play.

The guide explores the issues, themes and characters in the play that are particularly relevant to the current (2010) A Level Literature specifications. To add to the usefulness, and with an eye to the central AO requirement of close textual analysis of form, structure and...

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This guide explores how to analyse narrative viewpoint in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

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The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to analyse a text closely in terms of narrative viewpoint is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully...

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This guide explores how to analyse the genre of novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Genre: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (gothic); Hamlet by William Shakespeare (tragedy); As You Like It by William Shakespeare (pastoral)

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This guide explores how to help students analyse the context of novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow them access to the highest grades.

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The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to analyse a text closely in terms of context is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully chosen...

Introduction

The thirteenth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse the symbolism in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Symbolism: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully chosen...

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The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using...

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An analysis at a level like this is capable of revealing the kind of subtle insights that allow students access to the highest grades.

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Introduction to the Literary ‘Frameworks’ Guides

At EnglishEdu our wish is always to try to help you, the often stressed and overworked English teacher, with something that you will feel is both very useful and – where possible – very different from what might be found elsewhere, either on the Internet or in print.

All of the guides, schemes of work and classroom materials on EnglishEdu have been written and produced by experienced and well-respected English teachers.

The guides are based on their best experience of teaching...

Introduction

The ninth in the Englishedu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature, this guide explores and exemplifies an important requirement of many A-level English Literature teaching units, that students show how their own interpretation of a literary text is informed by their understanding that other possible interpretations exist, i.e. ‘alternative interpretations’.

‘Alternative Interpretations’: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in...

Introduction

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Irony: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using...

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The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed...

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The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully chosen...

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The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is...

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The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse...

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The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a...

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Introduction

At EnglishEdu our aim is to help the overworked English teacher (including this writer!) with something that you will feel is both very useful and – where possible – very different from what might be found elsewhere, either on the Internet or in print.

All of the guides, schemes of work and classroom materials on Englishedu have been produced by experienced and well-respected English teachers. The guides are based on their best experience of teaching particular units of work.

This new guide is something a little unusual....