In the bildungsroman ‘Jane Eyre, Bronte presents Jane’s search for happiness to a large extent. She does this through emphasising the themes of religion, family and love, all the while making comments on the corrupt religious authority and the restrictions social classes bring. Bronte presents Jane’s search for happiness through her search for faith as her faith allows her to stand true to herself in times of difficulty. Her belief is influenced through three main characters, Mr Brocklehurst, Helen and St John. Mr Brocklehurst brings a harsh and threatening version of religion early on in the novel, asking Jane ‘Do you know where the evil go?’ and emphasising it as a place of ‘fire and brimstone’. This description creates a semantic field of punishment and tribulation, emphasising the harshness of his version of religion. Bronte may have presented religion through him in this way as it positions the reader to ponder about the fairness of religious authority, and leads them to wonder if religious authority is always correct. As the reader finds out slightly later in the novel, Mr Brocklehurst is very corrupt, starving the girls on a diet of ‘burnt porridge’ and bread, as well as chastising one girl on her natural ‘curls’, whilst his own daughters and wife create artificial ones. This allows Bronte to present the idea that there is no one correct version of religion, and authority doesn’t make someone pious and noble . We especially see this through the introduction of Helen, who becomes a sister to Jane during her time at Lowood. Her influence is first seen when Jane is punished, and Helen passes by Jane, ‘a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit’ The juxtaposition in strength of a ‘hero’ and a ‘victim’ allows Jane to emphasise how much of a comfort Helen had given her, foreshadowing, the ongoing influence Helen would have on Jane including religion. Through becoming a sister to Jane, Helen was able to pass on a comforting and loving side of religion, which Jane had not experienced prior. This was especially shown through Helen’s death, where she presented God as a ‘loving parent’, saying ‘I shall escape great suffering…I am going to God.’ The modal verb ‘shall’ shows Helens firmness in her faith and in her belief that God is loving, which consequently reassured Jane and influenced her faith, allowing religion to be presented as a comfort rather than something scary. The final form of religion shown is through St John towards the end of the novel, who shows religion as a duty, shown by how he refuses to act on his love for Rosamund, but instead proposes to Jane and accepts his ‘calling’ as a missionary. This allowed Jane to see the importance of sticking to her morals, allowing her to realise that religion is more important than her happiness, even in times of difficulty, which prevented her from going back to Rochester and living a life of sin. Bronte also presents Jane’s search for happiness through her search for family. At the beginning of the novel. Jane is presented to be ‘at a discord at Gateshead’, not belonging with the servants, but also not belonging with the Reeds. Through this, Bronte positions the reader to observe the effects of social classes. In the Victorian Era, social classes were impossible rigid, with the high class being extremely rich and the low class being extremely poor. At the time, it was impossible to move social class, unless one came into money or if a woman married above her class. By showing Jane’s disparity in position compared to the Reeds the reader is able to gain a sense of the trials Jane faces throughout the novel as a governess. Throughout her time in the novel, we see Jane searching for family, from her sisterly bonds with Helen, to her almost motherly nature towards Adele and finally, her actually finding family at Marsh End in Mary, Diana and St John. We see this affect her search for happiness when she exclaims, ‘I had found a brother…and two sisters…This was wealth indeed!-wealth to the heart!’. The repetition of the noun ‘wealth’ helps Bronte to present to the reader Jane’s pure joy, with the repetition allowing Jane to confirm the revelation, highlighting her search for family as intertwined with her search for happiness. Finally, Bronte presents Jane’s search for happiness through the romance in her life. Throughout the novel, there are two main love interests throughout Jane’s life, Mr Rochester and St John, and we see their compatibility with Jane through the ‘fire’ and ‘ice’ motif. From the very beginning of the novel, we see Jane’s personality presented through the motif of fire, as a ‘picture of passion’. The plosive alliteration is symbolic of the amount of power Jane’s feelings have. Similarly we see Mr Rochester as fire, especially shown when he exclaims, ‘kindling in pure, powerful flame fuses you and me’. Here, there is vivid imagery of the ‘pure’ and ‘powerful’ fire, and similarly to Jane’s ‘picture of passion’ the plosive alliteration in Mr Rochester’s declaration helps present the power of his love for Jane.We also see this in the extract, where Rochester’s passion and love for Jane is shown when he says, ‘He loved me so truly he knew no reluctance.’The use of the negation ‘no’ emphasises that nothing could diminish his love for Jane, presenting his passion. However, St John is compared to ice, with ‘pale skin’ and describing himself as ‘cold’ with no ‘fervour infecting him’. The verb ‘infecting’ has a semantic field of disease and illness, presenting passion as an unwanted pathogen. Bronte may have used this motif to highlight to the reader the lack of compatibility between Jane and St John, therefore expressing Mr Rochester as Jane’s true love. This helps Bronte show that Jane could not have found happiness with St John as there is too large of a disparity between them. However, Jane’s search for happiness did not end when she found love; she also had to find her family and stay firm in her faith, showing that Jane’s search for happiness was not wholly reliant on her search for love, but would have been incomplete without it. This is especially shown through the extract when she says, ‘I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine’, which shows that she would not have been whole in her happiness if she had not found love for him, ‘as they are ‘ever together’. In conclusion, Bronte present’s Jane’s search for happiness to a large extent throughout this bildungsroman through her separate searches for religion, family and love. She emphasises the restrictions put in place through class distinctions and also comments on the corruption of religious authority, warning her readers that the should not assume that a religious leader is always right in their interpretation of religion, nor are they always truthful and pious, as shown by Mr Brocklehurst. She also emphasises that the completion of any one of Jane’s searches would not have resulted in her happiness; they had to be intertwined together as they form major parts of her life.