"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow

Jane Eyre, of all people, would have the right to complain about the situation into which life has thrust her. She is an orphan who has been thrown out by the very people who were entrusted to care for her. She is bumped from place to place, never feeling at home for a good part of her life. Much of this has to do not with the people who know her best, but with those that don’t know her at all. And yet, she understands prejudices. She accepts that people will judge her because of circumstances over which she has had little or no control, and does not fight this. Jane knows that she can do very little to change how people will perceive her, just as very little can be done to remove weeds that have grown in a stone pathway (as any landscaper or gardener knows).