With Charlotte Brontë’s father being a clergyman and member of the Church, Charlotte Brontë, as well as her sisters have been in constant contact with religion throughout their whole lives. Even though her father gave Charlotte relative freedom in developing her own ideas and beliefs, religion was an important factor in Charlotte Brontë’s life nevertheless. Through Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë expresses several issues of Victorian Britain, such as gender equality or the class system but religion is a reoccurring and omnipresent subject in Jane Eyre. Throughout the whole novel Jane is confronted with religious characters such as Mr Brocklehurst, Helen Burns and St. John Rivers. Those characters all represent three vastly different variations of Christian faith in the Victorian Era. Over the course of Jane’s journey, she struggles with her own Christian faith in God and beliefs as well as with the approaches to religion the characters Mr Brocklehurst, Helen Burns and St. John Rivers have chosen.
Mr Brocklehurst
Jane’s first encounter with one of the strongly religious characters takes place in her aunt’s house. Jane meets Mr Brocklehurst, the master Lowood school, where she will be studying and eventually become a teacher later in the novel. During her first interaction with him Mr Brocklehurst promptly asks Jane “Do you read your Bible?” (Brontë 72) and other questions about Jane’s faith. Brocklehurst immediately tells Jane that she must have “a wicked heart” (Brontë 72) since