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GCSE English Literature · key term
Strong emotion or desire, including love, anger and resentment; it can motivate resistance but also overwhelm judgment.
Used by AQA, Edexcel, OCR and Eduqas
Paper 1
Strong emotion or desire, which can include anger, romantic love, suffering or intense religious devotion.
Revise: Passion and reasonIn Jane Eyre, passion means more than romantic love. It includes Jane’s anger at injustice, her longing for affection and the intensity of religious devotion. Reason involves thinking and judging; conscience concerns right and wrong.
Paper 2
Use the printed extract as a starting point, then connect its presentation of passion and reason to relevant moments across the novel.
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In Jane Eyre, passion means powerful feeling: not just romantic love, but anger, grief and the desire to resist injustice. Reason allows Jane to weigh evidence and consequences. Conscience concerns moral rightness, rather than simply whether an action is sensible.
Paper 1
Strong emotion or desire, including anger, love and intense devotion. In Jane Eyre, passion can support self-assertion but can also threaten judgment.
Revise: Passion and reasonIn Jane Eyre, passion means more than romantic love. It includes Jane's anger at injustice, her longing for affection and the energy with which she defends herself. Reason allows her to weigh evidence and consequences; conscience asks whether an action is right.
Component 2
Strong emotion or desire, such as love, anger or longing, which can motivate a person but can also overwhelm their judgement.
Revise: Passion and reasonIn Jane Eyre, passion includes more than romantic love: it also means anger, desire, affection and the energy to resist injustice. Reason involves judging evidence and consequences; conscience involves judging right and wrong. These forces often disagree within Jane, but Brontë does not simply present feeling as bad and reason as good.
