Theme- Poverty

"Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the world only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation." -23-24

This is Jane's point of view on poverty when she is young. She says that poverty is a grim place to be because of the ragged clothed scanty food and other things.  She says that this is a down grade for her even though she had a horrible place to live. This shows how much poverty was looked down on by the upper class. These people in poverty were not treated equal at all. This is a persistent theme throughout the novel.