Jane Eyre X -- chapter 10: DEPARTURE with a TAILWIND BLAST FROM THE PAST

Reading Questions

1. Mr. Brocklehurst: neglectful or dishonest?
2. The use of the word "inmate" in the third paragraph interests me.  By our modern connotation of the word, its usage here appears to further fulfill the dichotomy of tone thus far: good while being bad; bad while being good.  Since Bronte put pen to paper, has the connotation of the word changed? because etymologically speaking, it's simply this: inmate -- 1580s, "one allowed to live in a house rented by another" (usually for a consideration), from in "inside" + mate "companion." Sense of "one confined to an institution" is first attested 1834 (thanks, etymonline.com).
3. Could any man, no matter how noble, have been more than "almost worthy of such a wife" as Miss Temple?
4. How this chapter reminds me of my former employment!  Secret applications (though I expect my motivations for secrecy differed from Jane's) and only getting one response--if any! --to a submitted request.  Why isn't Jane telling anyone her ambition to get away?
5. Interesting that Jane is so optimistic upon the arrival and reading of the letter from Mrs. Fairfax, so much so that she brushes off the doubt of "getting into a scrape."  But as she proceeds to envision the woman and her possible situation in Thornfield, what risk does she run, anway?
6. For better or worse, the narration of this story has a heavily feminist tone (a common avenue, feminism, for literary analysis, by the way, and one which I haven't spent much time with).  It would be interesting to read as contrast one of the many novels from the same general period, also with female protagonists but written by men (The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins; Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser; Pamela, by Samuel Richardson; or Evelina, by Frances Burney, to name a few).
7. Was there evidence in the Gateshead chapters sufficient to justify Bessie's effusion here?  Also, is there any significance to the catchings-up of the Reeds' goings-on?  I expect that Jane, if anticipation of such knowledge had been possible, would have looked forward to news of the Reeds' general lack of grandness, yet what might she be learning of herself now instead?
8. The final mentioned detail of the conversation is another cliffhanger, the MIA uncle, and this potentially much more significant than the issue of the Helen's family and grave marker.  Any ideas or thoughts?
9. What is it about Miss Temple's departure that is the required catalyst to Jane's self-awareness?
10. Chapter 10 marks the end of the second chapter of her life, at least as we know it.  What do you think so far, especially compared to the end of chapter 5, when she left Gateshead?