Cash and class: How does wealth affect 'coming of age' in Jane Eyre

Abstract

Jane Eyre was written in August 1847 by Charlotte Bronte. It is classed as a Bildungsroman novel. This means that it focuses on the ‘coming of age’ of the character Jane Eyre who the book is named after. Jane Eyre starts off life as an orphan and is incredibly poor, the story follows her life growing up until she eventually gets married to the wealthy Mr Rochester and in turn becomes an adult and ‘comes of age’. The purpose of this study is to discuss and discover to what extent Jane Eyres financial situation and her class affected her coming of age. I will be analysing the text and therefore Janes life. I will look at her development as a person at each stage of her life I.e. when she is an orphan .I will look from a Marxist perspective to discover which trials and tribulations Jane faced due to her poverty and in addition which aspects of her growing up were not affected by her finances.