Week 5: Late submission

“Say, “what do you want, Master Reed,”’ was the answer."

As I read Jane Eyre, her position in the Reed household was confusing for me, to say the least. In the quote mentioned above, her cousin John is treating her like a servant, asking her to call him master and do his bidding. Jane questions her position as a servant to which Mrs. Reed responds “you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep.”

Jane, however, doesn't accept this position in the hierarchy of the household. Her questioning Mrs. Reed is one instance of that. Another instance is when she warns Mrs. Reed that “My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think.” Jane has a sense of entitlement on the house, she feels that she’s being treated unfairly and hence, does not ascribe to her servant entity that the Reeds actively try to imprint on her.

"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."

Jane’s sense of entitlement, of course, has a lot to do with Mr. Reed. 

“I could not remember him; but I knew that he was my own uncle--my mother's brother--that he had taken me when a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children.”

Despite not knowing him personally, Jane still felt a sense of attachment to her uncle. The use of the phrase “my own uncle” highlights her connection whereas when it comes to Mrs. Reed, she uses words such as “strange” and “alien” to define their relationship. It is interesting to note that even though her uncle passed away before she could really get to know him and it was Mrs. Reed who was in charge of the household, the power of the patriarch still flourished and Jane ascribed to the position her uncle had defined for her, that of his own family, ignoring how the Reeds saw her, as a burden and “less than a servant”.