John Reed is the cousin of protagonist Jane Eyre and makes a small but intense appearance in the 2011 movie Jane Eyre. His siblings are Eliza and Georgiana, and his mother is Mrs. Reed (Jane’s aunt by marriage). He is favored by his mother over his cousin Jane Eyre. Although Jane resides with his family, his mother strongly dislikes her. Just as in Straw’s Introduction, we can see components of “social identity in its simplest form – stereotypification” (79.) John’s lives in a wealthy household in a male dominated regime. It is easy to stereotype John as being egotistical and disrespectful of women. Even when John expresses that he wishes for Jane to call him “Master Reed,” it shows his need to have superiority over her. John’s character can be classified as a villain in the way that he is cruel to Jane. At the beginning of the movie, he is upset that Jane has book. She is hiding behind the curtains from him while he prances around with a sword calling for her. He thinks that she is unworthy of reading a book. When he finds her with it, he uses the book to hit her in the face, causing her to bleed. After Jane reacts strongly, getting him on the ground and punching him repeatedly, John’s mother gets upset. We can see in this film the relationship between the actors that play John and Jane’s roles as feeding off each other’s reactions and actions. This allows the scene to become more believable. In this way it reins true that, “it is important for someone in an ensemble cast to act in the way the audience expects, and to make use of that expectation in their playing with (or off) other cast members” (Mathijis, 90). The reaction Jane has of both fear an aggression shows an unpleasant relationship between the two cousins. Mrs. Reed sees Jane as the problem, not John and she sends Jane away to school. Although this occurrence is only the beginning of the movie, this setting change caused by John and his mother, for Jane is a huge turning point for her character. John plays a role as a catalyst that with change Jane’s life forever. John and Jane no longer see each other in their lifetimes after this point. John does not make another appearance in this film; the remainder of his life story is shared by his mother on her death bed, to her niece Jane. As an adult, John develops poor habits. He moves away to London, begins gambling and ends up in debtor’s prison two times. Mrs. Reed says she paid his debts twice for but after this he continues to spend money poorly. Mrs. Reed cuts him off financially and shortly after he ends his own life by committing suicide.
Works Cited
Ernest Mathijs, Referential acting and the ensemble cast, Screen, Volume 52, Issue 1, Spring 2011, Pages 89–96, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjq063
Fukunaga, Cary, director. Jane Eyre. Universal Pictures, 2011.
Will Straw, Introduction, Screen, Volume 52, Issue 1, Spring 2011, Pages 78–81, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjq057
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