Jane Eyre reads like an autobiography, a quality observed by its earliest critics; some of whom actually believed that it was a factual account of a person's life. Some of Jane's experiences do mirror those of the author, such as the scenes set in Lowood School in which Bronte drew on her own childhood experiences. Assessed from this standpoint, the novel could be viewed as a fictional autobiography, a genre which emerged in the 18th century, with Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (1722) being an early example. Charles Dickens's David Copperfield (1850) is another fictional autobiography, and a close contemporary of Jane Eyre.
The fictional autobiography has close parallels with the Bildungsroman, a genre concerned with the moral and spiritual development of the protagonist. Bildungsromanis a German word meaning "formation novel". Literary historians generally consider Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795-96) as being the first Bildungsromannovel. These types of narrative are generally written in the first person and feature a mature narrator recounting their life from childhood to adulthood by relating significant experiences to the reader. Bronte's novel utilizes this genre to effectively filter a young protagonist's experiences through the mature voice of an adult narrator. Charles Dickens employed a similar narrative device in Great Expectations (1860-61).
As a young adult Jane gains employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall. The vocation of governess was the subject of many 19th century novels and came to be regarded as a specific genre in its own right. Basically there were two types of governess novel, the 'romantic' and the 'providential', and both were generally rooted within the realist domestic mode. The first type chronicles how a governess's positive qualities are noticed by a gentleman and the novel concludes with their marriage. The second type follows the governess's moral development and acknowledgment of God's providence. Jane Eyre is arguably a combination of the two types, in that her attributes are recognized by Rochester, and the reader learns that she married him. However the narrative frequently illustrates how Jane is conscious of her own morality.
Social commentary is a persistent theme of Jane Eyre and Bronte utilizes the figure of the governess as a means to critique the attitudes of her time. On account of its ambiguity, the vocation of governess was a controversial position. Such women were educated to roughly the same level as their employers, yet they were wage earners similar to their household's servants. The awkwardness towards governesses is manifest in the character of Blanche Ingram, and her disdainful assessment of the profession. Bronte voices her contempt of this attitude through her narrator when Jane remarks on Blanche's superficial qualities.
Whereas the Bildungsroman and the governess novels are generally considered realist, the genre of the Gothic is decidedly non-realist. Right from the beginning of Jane Eyre, Bronte makes significant use of the Gothic. The heroine's detailing of the sinister and fantastical illustrations in Bewick's History of British Birds in the opening chapter and her subsequent imprisonment in the red-room at Gateshead Hall, where she believes she witnesses her late uncle's ghost, set the tone for the rest of the narrative, where the Gothic is never far away from the seemingly realist proceedings.
Incarceration was a common theme in Gothic fiction of the late 18th century, such as in the novels of Ann Radcliffe. It is also apparent with the character of Bertha Mason, who has been imprisoned in a remote chamber on the third floor of Thornfield Hall. When Jane first hears Bertha's unearthly laugh resounding round Thornfield's upper storey the narrative has taken a decisive step into the realms of the Gothic. Bertha is a distinctly Gothic creation: her preternatural laugh, late-night wanderings around Thornfield, and her attempts on the lives of her brother and Rochester, portray a character much removed from the familiar domesticity of realist fiction.
Bertha's presence at Thornfield also invokes an uncanny feel to the narrative. The uncanny is used to broadly describe an eerie atmosphere, although it more specifically refers to a sense of unease brought about by the presence of the unfamiliar within the familiar, or vice versa. In Jane Eyre, the presence of the mad wife could be regarded as the unfamiliar, residing within the familiarity of a family home. Other uncanny events also feature within the text, perhaps the most prominent being Jane and Rochester's strange telepathic link. This is evinced towards the end of the narrative, when they are both separated and Rochester calls to her and she psychically receives his message.
