Jane is a sarcastic, antisocial, alternative kind of girl who goes through life with her own set of rules. As Daria's best friend, she spends a good part of her time swapping color commentary back and forth with her regarding the various absurdities of life in high school. She shares with Daria a fondness for pizza, Sick Sad World, and ridicule of those who deserve it.

Most of the rest of Jane's time is spent creating art, usually painting, though she often works in sculpture as well. Her work is usually grotesque and dark in nature. She has indicated De Goya, Van Gogh, M.C. Escher, and Jackson Pollack as favorite artists of hers. For a time she was making decent money selling copies of great historical works through Gary's Gallery, but soon realized that working as a hack copyist was dulling her own style, and quit. Her other hobbies include running and listening to Mystic Spiral play at the Zon. She does not like blue M&Ms.  Her favorite song is the theme to "The Poseidon Adventure".

Little is known of her childhood. She was once a Girl Scout (and, unsurprisingly, did not enjoy the experience), and apparently had a great deal to do with raising her sister Summer's kids. It is also known that she spent many summers at communes with her parents (Amanda, Vincent) and their friends, making burlap sacks and doing composting among other activities.

Jane and her brother Trent have a solid and close relationship. The two of them don't seem to get along nearly as well with the rest of their family, but usually it's just the two of them anyway. Jane is well aware of Daria's crush on her brother Trent and occasionally makes subtle attempts to help the two of them get together.

Her luck with relationships outside of Daria or Trent has not been very good. She has dated several guys (Evan, Nathan) who turned out to be jerks, and on one occasion her steady boyfriend Tom kissed Daria. This caused a serious rift in their friendship that took months to heal. She was also once propositioned by another girl (Alison) but after a brief bout with self-doubt Jane rejected the idea of a lesbian relationship.

During the summer after Jane's breakup with Tom, she spent some time at an artist's colony. She had a lousy time and made only one friend, the aforementioned Alison, which didn't end well. The experience doubtless helped her repair her broken friendship with Daria.

Her school record is less than stellar, except in her art classes. Jane begins to grow sensitive about this as graduation looms near and she sees her fellow students, particularly Daria, getting set for college. She does have one significant plan regarding college - at 11:00 AM on move-in day, she intends to lose her virginity.

She once joined the track team, but quit after a short time. She also volunteered to decorate for a school dance, and repainted the gym over a period of two days as a tribute to the late Jackson Pollack. She experimented with conventionality for a brief time (an assignment by Mr. O'Neill to "fail at something") but realized after a while that she just wasn't a cheerleader. It is noteworthy that even during this time, she wore her three silver hoops in her left ear rather than more fashionable earrings.

Jane decides she wants to attend Boston Fine Arts College (BFAC) after high school, but becomes discouraged when she is rejected at two different in-state universities that don't even have art programs (perhaps she is discouraged with reason, as one of the schools that rejected her accepted Brittany). This, coupled with Trent's insistence that she shouldn't go to college, makes her give up on even applying to BFAC - until Daria convinces her to do so, and she is accepted. Jane is elated, but Trent is depressed as he thinks she might forget all about him when she goes up to school. Jane assures him that this won't happen.