Sophie, the Maid, is a minor character in Jane Eyre (2011), and she makes other characters look better in terms of character depth. First of all, Jane Eyre was produced by Cary Fukunaga in 2011. The story is drawn from young Jane as an orphan until she lives at Thornfield as a governess of Adèle and marries the owner of Thornfield, Edward Rochester (Fukunaga, 2011). More specifically, Jane was raised by her aunt, Mrs. Reed, but they did not like each other (Fukunaga, 2011, 0:9:00). Jane was sent to the Lowood School and met Helen Burns, who was her best friend but died because of the illness (Fukunaga, 2011, 0:11:57-0:20:00). As the time passes, Jane starts to live in Thornfield as a governess of Adèle, who is the adopted daughter of Mr. Rochester (Fukunaga, 2011, 0:28:03). After few months, Jane finally meets Mr. Rochester, and they fell in love (Fukunaga, 2011, 1:20:40). However, Jane finds that Mr. Rochester already had a wife who was locked in one of the room in Thornfield (Fukunaga, 2011, 1:27:36). She gets depressed, leaves the Thornfield, and meets St. John Rivers (Fukunaga, 2011, 1:36:29). They find that they were relatives and John Eyre, Jane’s uncle, left his fortune for them (Fukunaga, 2011, 1:39:40). At the end of the movie, when Jane goes back to the Thornfield, but it was burned down, and Mr. Rochester went blind (Fukunaga, 2011, 1:48:14). However, they are still in love, so they get back together (Fukunaga, 2011, 1:53:47). Sophie is French personal caretaker of Adèle, and she first appears when Jane is introduced to Adèle as a governess (Fukunaga, 2011, 0:28:03). She feels isolated from the house because nobody speaks French in Thornfield, so her only connection is Adèle. In fact, Adèle said, “Sophie has been crying because no one understands us” (Fukunaga, 2011, 0:28:03). One of the reasons that the audience can see Sophie as a minor character is because she does not have much interaction with other characters except Adèle. Also, as Straw (2011) mentioned, “small players raise the question of social identity in its simplest form – stereotypification” (p. 79), and Sophie fits into this definition as she has little to no dialogue because of her French identity. Moreover, Sophie as a maid is an important minor character because hiring a maid signifies that Adèle was in a higher social class during that time period. Therefore, Sophie is a French maid who shows the simplest form of social identity, as Straw (2011) describes what a minor character is (p. 79), by not having many interactions with other characters and signifying Adèle’s social class.
References
Fukunaga, C. (Director). (2011). Jane Eyre [Film]. Ruby Films; Focus Features; BBC Films.
Straw, W. (2011). Screen. Oxford Academic, 52(1), 78–81. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjq057
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