Why is Helen Burns such an important character in the early part of Jane Eyre?

It is important to remember that this excellent novel is an
example of a bildungsroman: a novel of education, where the central
character develops and matures and is shaped by the experiences they undergo and the people that
they meet. This becomes vital when we think of the impact of Helen Burns on the young Jane Eyre.
Helen is a character who symbolically represents one side of Jane's personality: the desire to be
passive, to remain emotionally unengaged and to withdraw from the world. Note how Helen herself
expresses her creed:

I
hold another creed; which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I
delight, and ot which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest--a mighty
home, not a terror and an
abyss.

Helen's understanding of life
is all about submission, as she does to the somewhat unjust punishments inflicted upon her by
Miss Scatcherd, among others. Note how difficult Jane finds this to understand and to cope with.
She rages against injustice, as she did against her aunt, and is baffled by Helen's ability to
take unjust punishment with such perfect equanimity. And yet in the novel Helen represents one
side of Jane's personality, with Mrs. Rochester representing the other. Both sides represent an
excess of these beliefs: Mrs. Rochester's character is one that has surrendered itself to the
emotions, whereas Helen's character is one that never allows itself to feel emotions at all. The
rest of the novel charts Jane's struggle to achieve a happy medium between these two
extremes.