# Jane Eyre — Concepts

> Key concepts in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

- [Self-respect](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/jane_eyre_se/concepts/self-respect.md): Jane’s refusals — of humiliation, of becoming Rochester’s mistress, of St. John’s loveless mission — are the novel’s moral spine.
- [The search for belonging](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/jane_eyre_se/concepts/belonging.md): From the window-seat at Gateshead to Ferndean, Jane is looking for a home where she is wanted as an equal, not housed as a dependent.
- [Religion and hypocrisy](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/jane_eyre_se/concepts/religious-hypocrisy.md): Brocklehurst’s punitive piety and St. John’s icy vocation are set against Helen Burns’s sincere faith — Brontë is judging how religion is used, not faith itself.
- [Confinement and secrecy](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/jane_eyre_se/concepts/confinement.md): The red-room, Lowood’s discipline, and Bertha Mason locked at Thornfield are versions of the same problem: women contained so a household can keep its story.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/jane_eyre_se/concepts