The Irish Potato Famine, or the Great Famine, was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1849. According to Encyclopædia Brittanica, it is estimated that around one million Irish people died of starvation and epidemic disease, with an additional two million people emigrating from the island (Moykr). The cause of the famine was natural, due to a potato blight, which infected potato crops throughout Europe and also affected the European population outside of Ireland.

Echoes of the Great Famine exist within the text of Jane Eyre. During Jane's time at the Lowood Institute, Mr. Brocklehurst, director of the school, chastises Miss Temple for ordering the girls additional food after they are served burnt porridge. He tells her, "Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their mortal souls!" (Brontë 59). This sentiment echoes Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary in charge of the relief of Ireland in 1846, during the second year of the famine, when he decried, "the great evil with which we are to contend is not the physical evil of famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people!" (Schorn 350). As found within Susan Schorn's "Punish Her Body to Save Her Soul: Echoes of the Irish Famine in Jane Eyre," in The Journal of Narrative Technique, Schorn argues that the similarities between Brontë's character Brocklehurst and the very real Trevelyan are no coincidence. She states, "The connections between starvation, moral improvement, discipline, and nationality were familiar ones in Victorian England, and Brontë's use of this public, political sentiment in her novel--and of numerous other images borrowed from accounts of the Famine--is a complex and powerful narrative strategy (Schorn 350). It's interesting to make note of where Brontë's inspirations correlated with the real world. Of course, Brontë was no stranger to harsh conditions at an institutional school either, having endured and witnessed widespread death by disease at the Cowan Bridge School during her youth. 

Bibliography:

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre, edited by Deborah Lutz, New York, NY, 2016.

Schorn, Susan. “Punish Her Body to Save Her Soul: Echoes of the Irish Famine in ‘Jane Eyre.’” The Journal of Narrative Technique, vol. 28, no. 3, 1998, pp. 350–365. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30225502.

Moykr, Joel. “Great Famine.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 14 Jun. 2019. Web. 19 Sept. 2019.