Essential Question 10

Rewrite a 5-10 sentence passage from Jane Eyre in third person. How does this change the characters, the plot, and your interpretation of the novel?

"And Jane was placed at the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose. They were only separated by a yard, and she caught a glimpse of a spread of shot orange, purple silk pelisses, and a cloud of silvery plumage that extended and waved below her" (62).

The changing of this selection from first person to third person obscures its meaning very much. This account seems less personal, as the original first person perspective made Mr. Brocklehurst seem all the more dominating and Jane even more insignificant. This translation into third person changes the emotion behind the original passage to a point that there is little to no emotion. The plot would be quite different if in third person. The events would be told from a bystander's perspective, an bystanders could obscure the truth of something that happened or they could miss something important. If the rest of the book were written in third person, it would be seemingly devoid of meaning. The novel Jane Eyre was one meant to trace a small girl's development, and in the third person, the book would be more of a tedious biography rather than an autobiography rich with the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, Jane.