Throughout Jane Eyre, the reader sees Jane mature from an rambunctious eight year old to a sophisticated eighteen year old. When Jane was young, living at Gateshead with her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her cousins, she was seen as less than even a servant. She fought with John Reed when he brutally abused her and was punished by Mrs. Reed because she refused to believe her children could do anything wrong. Mrs. Reed's husband, Jane's uncle, promised to take care of Jane when her father died and when he passed away, Jane became his wife's responsibility. Jane was supposed to be treated as one of Mrs. Reed's own children though she was treated as a member of a lower class and always threatened with being sent to a poor-house if she continued to misbehave. Jane admits, "I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night" (Brontë 22). However, Jane didn't hate Mrs. Reed for her childhood being miserable because she believed the Mrs. Reed didn't realize how much she despised Jane; she couldn't love Jane the same way she loved John, Eliza and Georgiana. Jane even took some responsibility for that because she knew she didn't love them either, so how could they love her? Jane tried her best to please them but never could and whenever there was a dispute between her and her cousins, she was blamed yet Georgiana could practically get away with murder because she was so beautiful and Jane was an outcast. Reed and the servants would be up in arms with anything Jane did wrong but continued to fawn over Georgiana.
At Lowood, Jane meets Helen Burns who is passive, soft-spoken, placid but mature and strong whereas Jane is intransigent, adamant, headstrong, stubborn and challenges authority. Helen accepts correction from her teachers as constructive criticism but Jane wants to defy the teacher and stand up for herself. Jane says, "When we are struck at without reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should - so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again" (Brontë 68). Helen chooses to be the bigger person but Jane wants to fight fire with fire and teach those who crossed her in the past to never cross her again. She learns from Helen to forgive instead of dwell on those who wronged her.
Later when Jane is working for Mr. Rochester in Thornfield as a governess for his daughter Adèle. At a dinner party, she meets Blanche Ingram who seems to be the future wife of Mr. Rochester, her mother and her taunt Jane by bickering about how awful governesses are and how much Blanche hated hers. Although Jane has feelings for Rochester, she doesn't stoop to Blanche's level and behave rudely toward her; Jane instead accepts that her and Rochester don't have a chance together because of society's standards yet Blanche does because she's of a higher class. Jane is aware that Rochester is not interested in Blanche because she just recites what she has been told unlike Jane, who actually has her own opinions and a quick mind that makes Rochester so interested in Jane to tryto talk to her.
Jane receives word that Mrs. Reed is on her deathbed following a stroke and returned to Gateshead and gets a letter from John Eyre that he sent years before but Reed didn't forward to Jane out of bitterness and antipathy. Jane wants to clear the air and move on from the hostility as Reed is about to die and Jane really does believe that Mrs. Reed did all she could to raise Jane, yet Reed refuses to and dies later that night. Jane asked why she was never given the letter from John Eyre and Mrs. Reed told her, "I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me" (Brontë 268). Mrs. Reed was old but immature; Jane was young but wise. From the outside, Reed’s life might have looked better but she was still a miserable person. Similar to Blanche and her mother, Reed was raised "better" and considered to be in a higher class than Jane, regardless Jane is the bigger person.
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