This definitions covers Key Terms for This Topic within Theme: Social Class & Religion for GCSE English Literature. Revise Theme: Social Class & Religion in Jane Eyre for GCSE English Literature with 12 exam-style questions and 14 flashcards. This topic shows up very often in GCSE exams, so students should be able to explain it clearly, not just recognise the term. It is section 7 of 13 in this topic. Make sure you can use the exact wording confidently, because definition marks are often lost through vague language.
📖 Key Terms for This Topic
- Calvinist / Calvinism
- A strand of Protestant Christianity that emphasises predestination — God has already decided who is saved — and strict personal discipline. St John Rivers embodies Calvinist values: duty, self-denial, emotional suppression in service of a divine mission.
- Evangelicalism
- A Protestant movement emphasising personal conversion, Bible authority, and active moral reform. Mr Brocklehurst uses evangelical language (mortifying the flesh, saving souls) as a cover for class management at Lowood.
- Bildungsroman
- A coming-of-age novel charting a character's moral and psychological development from youth to maturity. Jane Eyre is a key example — Jane's trajectory is from powerless orphan to independent woman whose choices are guided by conscience, not social position.
- Governess
- An educated woman employed to teach children of wealthy families, occupying an ambiguous social position — above the servants but below the family, paid but not equal. Brontë uses Jane's governess status to expose the class system's treatment of educated but economically vulnerable women.
- Pathos
- A technique that evokes pity or sympathy in the reader. Brontë uses pathos in the red room scene and at Lowood to position the reader as Jane's ally against institutional authority from the novel's opening pages.
- Polemic
- Writing that argues strongly for a particular position, often against prevailing opinion. The Preface's declaration "Conventionality is not morality" is Brontë's most explicitly polemical moment — she is announcing her novel's argument directly.
Practice questions for Theme: Social Class & Religion
In the Lowood scenes, what does Brontë show about Brocklehurst's daughters that exposes his hypocrisy?
How does Brontë present Brocklehurst's religion as a tool of class control? Write 2-3 sentences.
Quick recall flashcards
I am an independent woman now.
<div class="fc-quotation-meta"><span>Jane Eyre</span><span>Chapter 37</span><span>Class · Independence · Inheritance · Free Choice</span></div><p><strong>What it shows:</strong> Brontë's simplest and most direct statement of what the inheritance achieves. The first-person declaration — 'I am' not 'I will be' — presents independence as an immediate fact, not an aspiration. 'Independent' carries both economic and moral weight: Jane is no longer beholden to any employer, relative, or social superior. She can choose Rochester freely.</p><div class="fc-quotation-significance"><strong>Significance</strong>Brontë structures the reunion so that economic necessity plays no part in Jane's return. This is an authorial decision — Brontë could have had Jane return from poverty. Instead she returns from equality. The inheritance is not a fairy-tale reward for virtue but a structural device that makes Jane's choice morally unambiguous: she returns because she loves Rochester and because her conscience tells her it is right, not because she has no other option.</div><div class="fc-quotation-deployment"><strong>Use in essays on</strong>class dissolution; Jane's independence; how Brontë structures the reunion to make Jane's choice free; the relationship between economic independence and moral autonomy</div>
What is Calvinism, and how does it shape St John Rivers?
Calvinism is a strand of Protestant Christianity (named after theologian John Calvin) that teaches predestination — God has already decided who will be saved — and that personal discipline and work are signs of God's favour rather than its cause. This shapes St John in two ways: first, he believes his missionary calling is God-given and therefore overrides personal preference (including love); second, he regards emotional feeling as irrelevant or even suspect — a distraction from duty. Brontë uses St John to critique this model: a religion that evacuates warmth from human relationships does moral harm even when it serves genuine good ends.