What is deserved

There is a very important lesson we've learned from Charlotte Brontë: good things happen to good people, and in the end they shall be rewarded; if someone is bad, then they will eventually get what they deserve. What better way to prove this than whilst reading Jane Eyre: the story of an orphaned little girl that suffers many hardships, but with enough hard work finds love and happiness later on in life? Although Jane is the ideal example that staying true to yourself and being a good person is in the end rewarding, characters Jane interacts with in the book also foreshadow this lesson. There were people that mistreated Jane at Lowood and Gateshead; there were also people that were kind to her at both of these places. We later see how both these types of people's lives turned out.
We all know how badly Jane was treated at Gateshead. Her cousins along with her aunt were very cruel to her. John Reed, her cousin, would torment her by throwing books at her, hitting her, telling her that she's worthless. Georgiana and Eliza, John's sisters, would treat her as if she were nothing, they mentally tortured her. Mrs. Reed, Jane's aunt by marriage, was negligent of Jane; Mrs. Reed, it seemed, held a lot of resentment towards Jane. Later, when Jane returns after 8 years to Gateshead, we see how the Reeds' lives have fallen apart. John was committed suicide, Eliza and Georgiana hate each other, and Mrs. Reed is on her deathbed. Eduardo's reaction was probably similar to ours. In his blog, Forgive and forget?, Eduardo writes:

“Dear aunt? How is she dear? When in her life did she ever treat you like a human being? How can you just forget all the pain?....I am so shocked at this reaction Jane had towards that evil woman. She never treated Jane with any type of love, why should Jane even recognize her as her aunt?”.

Eduardo is, of course, referring to the scene where Jane finally sees Mrs. Reed after such a long time and she calls her “dear aunt”. I had the same reaction; how could Jane forgive Mrs. Reed so easily? It is because Jane saw that the Reeds had suffered enough. What good would it do for Jane to treat them badly in the state they were in? They were cruel people when Jane was a child, and now they have received their punishment.
Jane endured the torture at Gateshead, and went on to study at Lowood Institute. This would have been a relief, but a very cruel man, Mr. Brocklehurst, made this experience miserable. Eric Volpe writes of one situation where Mr. Brocklehurst was especially mean to Jane. In his blog, Don't Listen to Them, Eric writes, “Mr. Brocklehurst publicly humiliates her by addressing to the entire student body that she is a liar and makes her stand on a stool for most of the day.” Mr. Brocklehurst not only treats Jane badly, though, he mistreats all of the girls at Lowood. He neglects to provide the girls with sufficient food, shelter, clothes, all the necessities they need to be healthy. Luckily, after some time Mr. Brocklehurst is relieved of his duties, and a new group of people oversee the care of the girls at Lowood. Though, to many this may not look like much, Mr. Brocklehurst got what was coming. How he looked towards others was very important to him, when he was exposed for being negligent towards these girls it really affected the way society looked at him.
The people that were cruel to Jane got their just desserts, but not only that; the ones that were kind to Jane, that were good people, also got what they deserved. While the Reeds mistreated Jane at Gateshead, Bessie was the only person that was friendly to Jane. Miss Temple was there to counteract Mr. Brocklehurst's cruelty with the small niceties she did for Jane. Both Bessie and Miss Temple were there for Jane, and both were in turn rewarded for this. Towards the end of Jane's time at Lowood, we learn that Miss Temple has found a nice clergyman and has gotten married. During the time that Jane was at Lowood Miss Temple was a mother figure to her, a friend to her, and a teacher. Miss Temple was an exemplary role model for Jane and after devoting much of her time to Lowood was rewarded with finding love. As Jane was leaving Lowood, she is reunited with Bessie and Bessie is now married to a good man and has a child now. Bessie was the only one that was kind to Jane at Gateshead, and for her kindness she was rewarded. She no longer had to suffer with the Reeds, she now had a loving family. Miss Temple and Bessie received what they deserved.
Forgive and forget: a motto by which Jane seems to go by. This seems hard for most of us to do. When someone hurts us, do we forgive right away? No; we will most likely seek revenge. At the very least, we will find ourselves with a feeling of resentment inside. So, why is it so easy for Jane to forgive Mrs. Reed, John Reed, Georgiana, Eliza, and Mr. Brocklehurst? She has seen how cruel they can be, how merciless they were, but when they were at low points in their lives, Jane was able to forgive them. Jane is not the kind of person that kicks someone when they're down. She knows that good things come to good people and bad people will get what they deserve.