Jane Eyre - Themes test questions - AQA

Read the extract from Jane Eyre and answer questions 1-4 below.

Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he ever noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike. In his last illness, he had it brought continually to his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep that creature. I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak.

1

How does Mrs Reed refer to Jane as a baby? What words does she use?

2

What does Mrs Reed's language suggest about her feelings towards Jane as a baby?

3

Which words in the passage show Mr Reed's feelings towards Jane?

4

Mrs Reed is jealous of Jane. Why is she jealous of Jane in this extract?

Read the following extract and answer questions 5-7 below.

My father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.

5

What does the quotation 'considered the match beneath her' mean?

6

What had Jane's mother done that had irritated her father, Jane's grandfather?

7

What does it mean when it says 'cut her off without a shilling?'

Read the following extract from Jane Eyre and answer questions 8-10 below.

It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be proud of, - one who I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were such, that, when I knew them as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine affection and admiration.

8

Why is Jane excited about the prospect of having a family?

9

How does Jane feel when she discovers she has family?

10

How does this extract link in with the theme of personal discovery?