IB Lit and Lang Blog 4: Can't bury these tales: The Canterbury Tales and Jane Eyre

Question 5: Analyze the author’s use of irony in describing Mr. Brocklehurst’s family in the second passage. How does the author contrast this description with Mr. Brocklehurst’s lecture to Miss Temple to provide social commentary on perceptions of class during this time? 

Near  the beginning of the passage, Mr. Brocklehurst is characterized as rich and stuck up by describing the fancy clothes that he wears as he arrives at the school and scolds the teachers. He scolds Miss Temple for allowing two girls, who were invited to go have tea elsewhere, to get another clean set of clothes after they already got their single weekly clothes. Immediately this is ironic because of how he dresses and how he expects the young girls to dress. He is fully clothed, head to toe, in fancy clothes that aren't thin to the point that he'll freeze. The girls are given thin clothes, and have to walk through the snow in shoes that don't match the occasion. Additionally, Mr. Brocklehurst points out that one of the girls, Julia Severn, has curled hair, further commenting on the girls appearance, meanwhile he is constantly going against his own teachings. He is an extreme hypocrite, even going so far as making all the girls shave their heads the next day because Julia's hair is naturally curly.

To add to the irony, his family is dressed as lavishly as he is. They walk in on him shortly after his speech about how the girls must not be in leisure and must do everything "modestly," but they are also going against his sayings. In Jane Eyre, Mr. Brocklehurst says "You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying." But, a couple paragraphs later, his family walks into the room dressed in "velvet, silk, and furs." They even go so far as to ransack the other girls' rooms for any items they shouldn't have. That is extreme hypocrisy.

This all plays into the social commentary the author is trying to make. Charlotte Brontë depicts Mr. Brocklehurst and Co. as upper class. They are clearly upper class because of the fancy and luxurious clothes they wear, as well as the authority they demand while talking to the teachers and workers at the school. A big point she is trying to make is that the upper class is constantly hammering down on the classes below them. They keep them in check, not letting them rise up. In the text, the upper class, Mr. Brocklehurst, makes sure none of the girls look or resemble anything that would count as individuality. He keeps them in check, making sure none of them would rise up above where he considers them to be. Another point she makes is that the upper class is continuously preaching things and making the lower classes do what they say, but they don't follow it themselves. They are hypocrites, who constantly belittle the common folk around them.