Typhus
Typhus is the catastrophic infectious disease that ravages Lowood Institution in the spring following Jane Eyre's arrival, killing nearly half the pupils and exposing the lethal consequences of Mr. Brocklehurst's regime of neglect. The epidemic transforms the school into a hospital, breaks up all ordinary routines, and ultimately triggers a public inquiry that forces lasting reforms. For Jane, the typhus outbreak is the context in which she loses her closest friend, Helen Burns, to a different disease—consumption—and it marks the beginning of a gradual improvement in her own material conditions at Lowood.
Origins and Conditions That Breed the Epidemic
The typhus epidemic does not strike randomly; it is the direct result of the conditions Mr. Brocklehurst has created at Lowood. The institution is situated in a forest-dell that Jane describes as "the cradle of fog and fog-bred pestilence" . Semi-starvation and neglected colds have predisposed most of the pupils to receive infection, and when the spring quickens, the pestilence creeps into the Orphan Asylum, breathed through its crowded schoolroom and dormitory . At the height of the outbreak, forty-five out of the eighty girls lie ill at one time . The unhealthy nature of the site, the quantity and quality of the children's food, the brackish, fetid water used in its preparation, and the pupils' wretched clothing and accommodations are all later discovered to have contributed to the disaster .
Course of the Epidemic and Its Immediate Effects
As typhus takes hold, classes are broken up and rules relaxed. The few pupils who remain well are allowed almost unlimited license, because the medical attendant insists on the necessity of frequent exercise to keep them in health, and no one has leisure to watch or restrain them . Miss Temple's whole attention is absorbed by the patients; she lives in the sick-room, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours' rest at night . The teachers are fully occupied with packing up and making preparations for the departure of those girls fortunate enough to have friends able and willing to remove them from the seat of contagion. Many who are already smitten go home only to die; some die at the school and are buried quietly and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay . While disease becomes an inhabitant of Lowood and death its frequent visitor, while gloom and fear fill its walls and its rooms and passages steam with hospital smells, the bright May sun shines unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful woodland outside . The garden glows with flowers—hollyhocks, lilies, tulips, and roses—but these fragrant treasures are useless for most of the inmates, except to furnish now and then a handful of herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin .
Consequences and Reform
When the typhus fever has fulfilled its mission of devastation at Lowood, it gradually disappears, but not until its virulence and the number of its victims have drawn public attention to the school . Inquiry is made into the origin of the scourge, and by degrees various facts come out which excite public indignation in a high degree. The discovery produces a result mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst but beneficial to the institution . Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribe largely for the erection of a more convenient building in a better situation. New regulations are made; improvements in diet and clothing are introduced; the funds of the school are entrusted to the management of a committee . Mr. Brocklehurst, who from his wealth and family connections cannot be overlooked, still retains the post of treasurer, but he is aided in the discharge of his duties by gentlemen of more enlarged and sympathising minds, and his office of inspector is shared by those who know how to combine reason with strictness, comfort with economy, compassion with uprightness . The school, thus improved, becomes in time a truly useful and noble institution .
Significance for Jane Eyre
For Jane, the typhus epidemic is the context in which she loses Helen Burns, though Helen dies of consumption, not typhus. During the outbreak, Jane herself remains well and enjoys the unprecedented liberty and better food that come with the relaxation of rules . She rambles in the wood with her new friend Mary Ann Wilson, and the period marks a temporary reprieve from the harshest privations of Lowood. The epidemic also sets in motion the reforms that make the school a genuinely beneficial place, where Jane will spend eight more years—six as a pupil and two as a teacher—and to which she will later bear testimony as to its value and importance . The typhus outbreak thus functions as a turning point in the novel's social critique: it is the event that forces the exposure of systemic cruelty and makes possible the transformation of Lowood from a place of suffering into one of genuine education.
