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Jane Eyre - Setting

In this GCSE English Literature quiz, you will explore how settings in Jane Eyre create mood, shape characters’ experiences and reflect themes such as isolation, freedom and belonging.

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Fascinating Fact:

Seasonal changes at Lowood, including the typhus outbreak in spring, connect the physical environment with suffering, reform, and gradual hope.

In GCSE English Literature, you are expected to explain how setting shapes meaning in a text. This Jane Eyre quiz focuses on places like Gateshead, Lowood and Thornfield, showing how Brontë uses weather, buildings and landscapes to echo Jane’s emotional journey.

Key Terms

Setting: The time and place where events happen, including buildings, weather and wider surroundings.
Gothic setting: A dark or mysterious place, often with old buildings and wild landscapes, used to create tension or fear.
Symbolic place: A location that stands for an idea, such as freedom, imprisonment, comfort or danger.

Frequently Asked Questions (Click to see answers)

How is setting used in Jane Eyre for GCSE English?

In Jane Eyre, each main setting reflects a stage in Jane’s life. Brontë uses houses, schools and landscapes to show her isolation, growth, moral choices and search for independence.

Why is Thornfield Hall an important setting in Jane Eyre?

Thornfield Hall is important because it combines romance and danger. Its hidden spaces, strange noises and dramatic storms create a Gothic atmosphere and mirror secrets in Rochester’s past.

How can I write about setting in a Jane Eyre exam question?

To write about setting, name the place, choose a short quotation about it, explain how the details create mood and link this to themes such as freedom, class or equality.

Try These Related Quizzes

1 .

"A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp; a metallic clatter, which effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong on the foreground, efface the aërial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon and blended clouds, where tint melts into tint." This scene forebodes the arrival of which character?

Mr Mason

St John Rivers

Bertha Mason

Mr Rochester

Mr Rochester is represented by the harsh, intruding sounds, while Jane is represented by the delicate watercolour imagery. Each character perceives the other as an otherworldly fairy tale creature

2 .

When is the novel set?

In the sixteenth century

In the nineteenth century

In the twentieth century

In the future

The dates of the novel are left unspecified. For example, although the day and month are given for Rochester's marriage to Bertha, the year is left blank. Details suggest, however, that the novel is set in a time closely contemporaneous to when it was written (the novel was published in 1847)

3 .

"The hills beyond Marsh-Glen sent the answer faintly back — "Where are you!" I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland loneliness and midnight hush. "Down superstition!" I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black yew at the gate." Jane somehow hears Rochester's voice calling her. This depiction of the midnight scene on the moors relies on what type of imagery?

Supernatural

Philosophical

Scientific

Medical

Jane orders superstition away, but cannot make rational sense of having heard Rochester's voice

4 .

Which of the following does NOT describe Lowood School as it is before Helen's death?

Cold

Cheerful

Strict

Damp

The strict regime, which allowed near-starvation of the pupils, was not helped by the school's low position in the damp and the fog of a forest dell. The episode of typhus is blamed on these conditions (although it is actually spread by lice, not "bad" air)

5 .

"The lawns, the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned void. The front was, as I had once seen it in a dream, but a shell-like wall, very high and very fragile looking, perforated with paneless windows: no roof, no battlements, no chimneys — all had crashed in." What is the overriding impression given of the fire-gutted Thornfield?

Emptiness

The building exudes a sense of destiny fulfilled

The building exudes an air of excitement

The building exudes an air of optimism

The imagery of emptiness includes language such as "void"

6 .

Which of the following is a quality shared by each of the separate settings in the novel?

Isolation

Beauty

Wildness

All of the above

Even Gateshead is a place where a walk outdoors would improve the day and Lowood is surprisingly beautiful for such an unpleasant institution. The settings of Jane Eyre are characterised by a certain isolation from civilisation and a beautiful and wild natural setting in which Jane enjoys spending time

7 .

"My home, then — when I at last find a home, — is a cottage: a little room with white-washed walls, and a sanded floor; containing four painted chairs and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and dishes, and a set of tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber of the same dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead, and chest of drawers; small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe." What effect is created by this list of the contents and qualities of Jane's new home?

Jane's home reminds her too much of Thornfield

Jane's home is plain and poor and leaves her feeling dissatisfied

Jane's new home is modest and provides just a little more than she needs

Jane's new home is luxurious

Jane has just a little more than she needs: her cupboard is slightly too big, she has enough dishes to have guests and enough chairs to seat them. At the same time she has very little, since it is possible to list everything so quickly

8 .

Jane Eyre is set in which country?

France

Belgium

England

Australia

More specifically, the novel is set in the north of England (Helen Burns, for example, comes from near the border with Scotland)

9 .

Where is the opening of the novel set?

Thornfield Hall

Lowood School

Moor House

Gateshead-hall

The novel opens on a "drear November day" when the rain prevents Jane from leaving the house for a walk

10 .

"About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candle-light gleamed from one curtained bow-window: all the rest were dark." This sentence depicts Jane's arrival where?

Gateshead

Lowood School

Thornfield Hall

Moor House

Besides the one hopeful sign of welcome represented by the candle, all about Thornfield is mysterious and Jane cannot yet imagine what life there will be like

You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - Jane Eyre

Author: Sheri Smith (PhD English Literature, English Teacher & Quiz Writer)