Plot Summary
Chapter XXI opens with Jane reflecting on presentiments, sympathies, and signs. She has been dreaming of an infant every night for a week—a superstition Bessie once told her foretells trouble. The omen proves true when Robert Leaven, Bessie’s husband, arrives at Thornfield with devastating news: Jane’s cousin John Reed has died, apparently by suicide, after ruining himself through gambling, debt, and dissipation. The shock has caused his mother, Mrs. Reed, to suffer a stroke, and on her sickbed she has been calling for Jane by name.
Jane seeks permission from Mr. Rochester to travel to Gateshead. Their conversation reveals the deepening bond between them: Rochester is reluctant to let her go, offers her money, and grows visibly unsettled when Jane raises the prospect of leaving Thornfield once he marries. After a charged farewell exchange, Jane departs early the next morning.
At Gateshead, Jane finds that her cousins Eliza and Georgiana Reed have changed dramatically. Eliza has become ascetic and rigidly disciplined, devoting herself to religious routine, while Georgiana is plump, vain, and consumed by memories of her social season in London. Neither sister shows real concern for their dying mother. Jane wins their trust through her drawing skill and patient listening.
When Jane finally reaches Mrs. Reed’s bedside, the dying woman reveals two wrongs she committed against Jane. First, she broke her promise to her husband to raise Jane as her own child. Second—and more consequentially—she concealed a letter from John Eyre of Madeira, Jane’s paternal uncle, who three years earlier wrote wishing to adopt Jane and make her his heir. Mrs. Reed had replied telling him Jane was dead. Despite this betrayal, Jane offers her aunt full forgiveness and even asks for a kiss. Mrs. Reed refuses all reconciliation and dies that night, unchanged in her hatred.
Character Development
This chapter measures how profoundly Jane has matured since leaving Gateshead nine years earlier. Where the child once raged at her aunt and vowed never to call her “aunt” again, the adult Jane breaks that vow willingly, offers forgiveness without being asked, and remains composed in the face of rejection. Her emotional growth is underscored by her indifference to the Reed sisters’ slights—she has experienced deeper feelings at Thornfield and can no longer be wounded by their condescension.
Rochester’s behavior during the leave-taking scene reveals his attachment: he resists Jane’s departure, tries to bind her with money and promises, and lingers awkwardly at the door seeking more than a formal farewell. His jealousy and possessiveness foreshadow the intensity of his eventual proposal.
Mrs. Reed’s deathbed confession exposes a woman incapable of change. Even facing eternity, she clings to resentment and cannot accept Jane’s offered love, making her a cautionary figure about the spiritual cost of bitterness.
Themes and Motifs
Forgiveness versus resentment: The chapter’s moral center is Jane’s choice to forgive her aunt despite receiving no reciprocal grace. Mrs. Reed’s refusal contrasts sharply with Jane’s willingness, illustrating Brontë’s conviction that forgiveness liberates the giver even when rejected by the receiver.
Class, inheritance, and identity: John Eyre’s letter introduces the inheritance subplot that will reshape Jane’s life. Mrs. Reed’s suppression of it was motivated by class spite—she could not endure the poor dependent rising to prosperity.
Dreams and premonitions: The recurring dream of an infant fulfills the folk belief Bessie described, linking the supernatural to the domestic and foreshadowing further upheavals in Jane’s life.
Literary Devices
Foreshadowing: The infant dreams and the discussion of presentiments at the chapter’s opening prepare the reader for the bad news from Gateshead and, more broadly, for future disruptions.
Contrast and parallelism: Eliza and Georgiana are drawn as opposites—one austere, the other indulgent—yet both are rendered emotionally barren by the absence of genuine feeling. Jane’s narrator voice observes that “feeling without judgment is a washy draught” while “judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter.”
Symbolism: Jane’s unconscious sketch of Rochester’s face reveals her suppressed longing and serves as a visual emblem of where her heart truly lies while she is physically distant from Thornfield.
Pathetic fallacy: The “wet and windy afternoon” when Jane visits the neglected sickroom mirrors the emotional desolation surrounding Mrs. Reed’s death.