This week I would like you to read an extract from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. This is a Victorian story and is set in England. However, you will find that the girl in the story has some things in common with Cassie on the day of her trip to Strawberry. This homework does not involve any writing - just reading and thinking - but you will not be able to complete the lesson on Monday if you have not done this task.Jane is an orphan who lives with her aunt and cousins but she is not really treated like one of the family. In this extract the ten-year-old Jane has just been called out from her reading seat by her cousin John.
Read the extract below. What do you think about the way she is treated?
I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being
dragged forth by the said John.
"What do you want?" I asked, with awkward diffidence.
"Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed?'" was the answer. "I want you
to come here;" and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by
a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.
John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older
than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a
dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage,
heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at
table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye
and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his
mama had taken him home for a month or two, "on account of his
delicate health." Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do
very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home;
but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined
rather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness was owing to
over-application and, perhaps, to pining after home.
John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an
antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times
in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every
nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank
when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the
terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either
his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend
their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was
blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard
him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence,
more frequently, however, behind her back.
Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some
three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could
without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while
dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of
him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in
my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and
strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back
a step or two from his chair.
"That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since," said
he, "and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for
the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"
Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to
it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow
the insult.
"What were you doing behind the curtain?" he asked.
"I was reading."
"Show the book."
I returned to the window and fetched it thence.
"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama
says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to
beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat
the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense. Now,
I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they ARE mine; all
the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by
the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows."
I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw
him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I
instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough,
however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my
head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was
sharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.
"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said. "You are like a murderer--you are
like a slave-driver--you are like the Roman emperors!"
I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of
Nero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I
never thought thus to have declared aloud.
"What! what!" he cried. "Did she say that to me? Did you hear her,
Eliza and Georgiana? Won't I tell mama? but first--"
He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder:
he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant,
a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down
my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these
sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received him
in frantic sort. I don't very well know what I did with my hands,
but he called me "Rat! Rat!" and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near
him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone
upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her
maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words -
"Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!"
"Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!"
Then Mrs. Reed subjoined -
"Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there." Four hands
were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.
