In Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, Jane narrates her passage from abuse at Gateshead and privation at Lowood to work as a governess at Thornfield, where love for Rochester collides with the discovery of his existing marriage. She refuses both a compromised union and Saint John Rivers’s loveless proposal, returning only after inheritance gives her independence; the Gothic plot thus tests conscience, desire, class, religion, and self-command against one another.