How Does Bronte Evoke Sympathy for Jane Eyre in the Reader?

It is made abundantly clear in the beginning of the novel that Jane suffers from a deficiency of love, which is evidenced by the callous treatment she experiences at the hands of her only relations. Jane is ‘struck suddenly and strongly’ by her cousin John Reed; the sibilance highlights the violence of the deed against her younger, more vulnerable person and thus its overwhelming cruelty, a fact exacerbated by the fact that it is so commonplace she has become ‘accustomed to’ it. Brontë’s mention of her familiarity with such behaviour magnifies the empathy felt by the reader. So does the manner in which she is excluded by her aunt. Jane muses that Aunt Reed must consider her ‘an interloper, not of her race, and unconnected with her’: the technique of the tricolon repeatedly stresses the depth of ill-feeling harboured by her aunt against her, and the resulting presentation of Mrs Reed as a heartless woman insensitive to the needs of her parentless niece stimulates both indignation and sympathy. Heightening this interpretation of her is Jane’s description of herself as an ‘uncongenial alien’, indicating her awareness of her pitiful status as an outsider in the household, a status Mrs Reed takes pains to edify her about. Jane is informed that she must be ‘exclude[d]’ from ‘privileges’ which only ‘contented, happy little children’ possess; as well as directly confirming the policy of isolating her niece practiced by Mrs Reed, it conveys the unjustifiably low opinion of she possesses. The inherent unfairness of her view on Jane is further conveyed when she informs Brocklehurst that her niece has a ‘bad character and deceitful disposition’ – since Jane has done nothing to deserve an epithet consisting of such negative descriptors, one experiences pity for her misfortune. This opinion of her seems to be shared by other members of the household: Abbot refers to her as a ‘little toad’, a crushingly scathing label comparing her to a repulsive animal. The derisiveness of the description effectively conveys the level of contempt she is held in, and consequently underscores how she is unloved by everyone surrounding her; an unfortunate circumstance which creates intense sympathy in those reading the account of it.