Jane Eyre :: Literature Literary Papers

Jane Eyre In the time of Jane Eyre, an aristocratic gentlemans education did not end with secondary schooling. The final step in such an Englishmans education was to take a Grand while of Europe. Thomas Nugent, an influential travel writer, describes the Grand go as a custom so visibly tending to enrich the mind with knowledge, to amend the judgment, to remove the prejudices of education, to compose the outward manners, and in a word tune the complete gentleman (Buzard 98). Throughout the novel, Rochester makes countless references to his travels and conquests on Continental Europe. In order to fully understand his disposition and character, it is necessary to examine this common journey and its beneficial and in some cases detrimental effects on the young gentlemans life. A tour of the Grand Tour will explain the life altering properties of such a voyage. The Victorian Era brought about a great change in the favorable hierarchy in Bronts England. The economic windfall that fo llowed industrial capitalist economy created new wealth outside of land ownership and brought about the come on of the middle classes (8 Introduction). While this allowed more middle-class tourists from England to travel to Europe, due to cost, most restricted their journeys to capital of France and the Low Countries (Black 4-5). Only the truly rich could pay the entire itinerary of the Grand Tour. A common itinerary include Paris, Rome Venice, Florence, and Naples. Rome is recommended for those interested in viewing numerous glasses both entertaining and exciting or gruesome and passageetic (Hibbert 170). Everything from celebrations to executions were held everyday and most English travelers wouldnt leave without witnessing one or the other. Paris and Rome were considered the most important of destinations while the other cities of Italy ranked a close second. Still other cities, like Vienna, while important, were matters of personal preference, fashion, convenience, and the violation of external factors war, political disorder and disease (Black 5-6). These cities off the beaten path were also considerably more difficult to reach and because of this they were more expensive. The superior number of travelers began their journey in Paris before continuing southeastern to Italy (Black 8). Italy itself posed a difficulty in that reaching it required both crossing the Alps or taking a sea route, with a majority taking the Alps (Black 19-20). The difficulty of crossing the Alps was vastly overrated. In most situations, travelers were placed in stretcher-like chairs and carried over the mountain (Hibbert 97).