Helen is a contrast character to Jane in the view of the world. Jane always stands against for what she believes is right even with adults; she talks back to them when she thinks it is not right. As Christian, Helen always accepts every bad treatment and forgives everyone. Regrettably, Helen dies of consumption in the school during the typhus spread in the school. .
For Antoinette, her father died since she was young. She lives with her mother and sickly brother. As Creole, the family was rejected by white people and black people in Jamaica, because of Antoinette mother beauty and she came from Martinique which is a French colony while Jamaica was an English colony. Therefore, throughout Antoinette life, she was hated by white aristocracies and their servants. Her mother always favors her younger brother than her, so Antoinette mostly spends her life alone. The family was hated by the Blacks, so she became an outsider since she was young and it is very terrible life growing up to be her. As we can see, one day she was followed by a young black girl who sing:.
"go away white cockroach, go away." .
The only friend that she has is Tia, the daughter of a servant. However, she tricks Antoinette to take the money and at last she turns against Antoinette by throwing a rock at Antoinette forehead during the house burned. Antoinette loses her brother when the black set her house on fire, which makes her mother went mad. Therefore, she directly lost her brother and her mother spiritually and physically at last. Antoinette then enrolls in a convent school in Spanish Town, which she got teased about her crazy mother in the school. Therefore, they both grew up with a little love from people surrounded them and they lose their family and their first friend. In School, everything not beautiful like they were expecting, but they find it as a safest place than any other places, as Antoinette says:.
"This convent was my refuge, a place of sunshine and of death where very early in the morning the clap of a wooden signal woke the nine of us who slept in the long dormitory.
