Summary
Analysis
Jane quickly becomes friends with Mary and Diana. They share books and conversation, Jane teaches them drawing, and they all enjoy the hardy natural landscape. A month passes in this way, but then Mary and Diana must leave for their jobs as governesses in wealthy households. The Rivers sisters tell Jane that they suspect that St. John will also leave, maybe forever, to become a missionary.
Jane finds kinship and love with Mary and Diana, as she once did with Helen and Ms. Temple. They share an emotional and intellectual bond. The Rivers sisters mirror Jane in their educations, missing parents, and governess jobs.
Quiz
Test Yourself
St. John, unlike his sisters, remains pensive and distant at home. Jane visits his church and hears him preach a stern sermon that leaves her feeling sad. In conversation, the two of them realize that they both feel restless but in different ways.
Like Jane, St. John is restless for a "new servitude." But he seems to serve out of a cold religious passion that does not allow for any human feelings.
Literary Devices
Quiz
Test Yourself
St. John offers Jane a position running a small school for the poor children of his parish in Morton. The pay and lodgings are meager, but Jane is glad for the job's independence, so she accepts.
The teaching job fits Jane's personality: independent, modest, and respectable. Jane can nurture virtues, not empty social conventions, in her students.
Quiz
Test Yourself
Soon after, a letter arrives informing St. John, Mary, and Diana that their wealthy uncle John has just died and left them nothing, with his fortune going to an unknown "other relation." They tell Jane that it was their uncle who led their father into his disastrous business failure.
The uncle turns out to be Jane's uncle, too—John Eyre. As his heir, Jane will have the opportunity to reconcile the families and repay the Rivers's charity.
Quiz
Test Yourself
Get the entire Jane Eyre LitChart as a printable PDF.