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The role of the woman in literature
The role of the woman in literature
Gender roles in the Victorian era: men and women
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The development of Charlotte Bronte's character, Jane Eyre, becomes vital to her novel Jane Eyre, and the other characters in which she is involved. She is an intelligent, plain featured, honest young girl whose reaction to her situations brings more depth to her personality. She is forced to deal with oppression, discrimination, and at times poverty, which disrupt her strong will, dignity, and desire for freedom. At the beginning, Jane possesses a passion for pride and the idea of freedom and these characteristics, along with her integrity, are tested continuously throughout the novel by the many personalities with whom she encounters. Living in a male dominant world Jane is expected to remain obedient and docile and her passion sometimes keeps her from being able to do this. She is a rarity among obeying female characters and we see this throughout the book. Many other significant female characters, serve as foils to or models for Jane. They are comparable to Jane in both a political and psychological sense, illustrating her oppression and status in life or some aspect of her distinguishable personality. One of the first female personalities that Jane encounters is that of Maria Temple. Miss Temple is one of the first female adult characters who reach out to Jane. She is a kind, warm-hearted woman who works at Lowood, the boarding school for girls, as a teacher. "Miss. Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, with a controlling sense of awe..." She is compassionate and motherly to the orphan girls ... ... middle of paper ... ...d outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders." She is an example of what might have become of Jane if she hadn't been able to control her anger against life. She illustrates all of Jane's passionate personality traits taken out of balance. In the end, she dies trying to gain freedom from the life she needed to escape. Out of the female characters that are presented in Bronte's novel most serve a purpose in developing or contributing to Jane's character. Through these five women the evidence is obvious the Bronte used the other characters as models for Jane. Some possess qualities that Jane needed to avoid, some that she needed to learn. Some of the women were exaggerations of personality traits that Jane already possessed but were able to show the reader the outcome of such exceeding qualities.
We learn that Jane is a young girl who is a victim of emotional and
Jane Eyre is about a girl named Jane who struggles to find who she really is and with it what she really wants. “As a model for women readers in the Victorian period and throughout the twentieth century to follow, Jane Eyre encouraged them to make their own choices in living their lives, to develop respect for themselves, and to become individuals” (Markley). One of the reasons why this book gained merit was because of its striking presence within its time period. During the “Victorian Age” woman did not have much say in society, so this novel broke boundaries to societal norms that restricted woman from things they have today. “Brontë is able to enact this tension through her characters and thus show dramatically the journey of a woman striving for balance within her nature.
In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte uses characters as foils to show contrast to Jane and other minor and major characters. The entire book shows contrast, and it not only compares them to Jane but characters like Mr. Rochester. Charlotte Bronte also used foils to show complexity and diversity in many characters including Jane.
From an early age Jane is aware she is at a disadvantage, yet she learns how to break free from her entrapment by following her heart. Jane appears as not only the main character in the text, but also a female narrator. Being a female narrator suggests a strong independent woman, but Jane does not seem quite that.
The three events that mark Jane as an evolving dynamic character are when she is locked in the red room, self reflecting on her time at Gateshead, her friendship with Helen Burns at LoWood, her relationship with Mr. Rochester, and her last moments with a sick Mrs. Reed. Brought up as an orphan by her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, Jane is accustomed to her aunts vindictive comments and selfish tendencies. Left out of family gatherings, shoved and hit by her cousin, John Reed, and teased by her other cousins, Georgina and Eliza Reed, the reader almost cringes at the unfairness of it all. But even at the young age of ten, Jane knows the consequences of her actions if she were to speak out against any of them. At one point she wonders why she endures in silence for the pleasure of others. Why she is oppressed. "Always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned" (Bronte, 12). Jane’s life at Gateshead is not far from miserable. Not only is she bullied by her cousins and nagged by her aunt, but help from even Bessie, her nurse and sort of friend, seems out of her reach. In the red room scene Jane is drug by Ms. Ab...
A boy who likes to cause trouble and to run turned into an olympic runner. Just as he was about to break the record mile time and get a gold medal, suddenly a historic day turned his life into a day to day survival story at sea. It then changes forever when a Japanese plane brings him into a Japanese POW camp. The amazing man's name was Louie Zamperini and his amazing story is written and told by Laura Hillenbrand in the nonfiction novel Unbroken.
In the novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte uses Jane Eyre as her base to find out how a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with her responsibilities. . Mistreated abused and deprived of a normal childhood, Jane Eyre creates an enemy early in her childhood with her Aunt Mrs. Reed. Just as Mrs. Reeds life is coming to an end, she writes to Jane asking her for forgiveness, and one last visit from her.
In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jane encounters several characters during the stages of her life. Some of the characters appear in more than one stage of her life such as Mrs Reed, Bessie, and Rochester. There are other characters who are only there for her for a short period of time such as St John, Miss Temple, and Helen Burns. Although these characters are only in Jane’s life for a short time, they each have a great impact on Jane, especially Jane’s encounter with Helen at the Lowood Institution. Helen Burns makes a grave impact on Jane’s life, at Lowood and continuing on for the rest of her life.
Maria Temple - the charitable schoolteacher is both an example and a warning. She can and does serve as a role-model for Jane, but she is also a powerless female - having to answer for her independence to a wrathful Mr Brocklehurst, and having no real authority when he is on the premises. Her position is servile and inferior and she submits to it. JE later will break this pattern at Thornfield, in her dealings with her employer, but ironically her habit of submissiveness is gained as a direct result of association with Maria Temple.
Passion and reason, their opposition and eventual bringing together, serve as constant themes throughout the book. "Unjust!--unjust! Said my reason...How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in resurrection!" (Bronte, 17) Jane's passions are uncontrolled because she is not using reason. We see the dangers of nature and passion tempered by reason in the scene in which Rochester almost marries. Jane must get over her overwhelming passion for Mr. Rochester or Jane runs the risk of losing herself. In this case, passion nearly gains a victory over reason. Jane nearly loses her own personality in her overwhelming love. "Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition" (Bronte, 247). In other words, the individual must attain a balance between reason and passion, not be dominated by one or the other.
Bronte wrote Jane Eyre to emphasize her beliefs behind the purpose of women, and how society lacked to understand them as who they were created to be. The issue of lack of opportunity for women to engage in intellectual preparation and continuation is prevalent within the character of Jane. Expectation of women’s role was a social norm, with a lack of diversity or individuality. Bronte challenges this issue through the character of Jane, whom experiences a tug-of-war sensation between being herself, who she wants to be and should be, and what society wants her to be, and pushes her to be. Bronte was trying to explain that women have the same capability as men to be productive individuals of society, but they are held back from establishing their potential. The most unique understanding of Bronte’s challenge to society is the understanding that the characteristics and personality of Jane as a female is shamed and criticized, however these features are identical to those of a successful and representable man in
...ighting for acknowledgement in a society dominated by males. She, unlike her aunt, is not afraid to stand up to John, and is not bossed around by him. She is constantly fighting with him. Bronte uses this difference between Jane and the other women characters to create the picture in her reader’s mind, that women who display the behaviors of the classical Victorian female are bad, and that the women who show independence and individuality are good.
The construction of Jane Eyre as a seemingly flawless and strong character serves two purposes in the text. The primary purpose is to display the Victorian struggle for women against patriarchal dominance. The patriarchal systems of dominance and control within the Victorian society were the sole machinery that advanced the colonial interests of the male gender against the female gender. In Jane Eyre, the female gender is portrayed as particularly weak and lacking in the necessary strengths that are required to pursue their interests. Jane Eyre becomes a rebel within the system by articulating open and consistent defiance against the status quo. Her travails, challenges, successes and final triumph signify the determined shift by the author in portraying women as different beings other than the weak and fragile characters that were consistent with the Victorian meta-...
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is set in the mid nineteenth century, during the Victorian era where class and gender roles are clearly defined in the patriarchal society. The general ideology of the era expresses the idea that if gender categories were not maintained as binary oppositions, catastrophic chaos would likely ensue (Gill, 109). Throughout the novel, Jane is faced with the issue of oppression. The typical characteristics of an ideal female in Victorian society would include submissiveness, simple dress, low ambition, longing for a male love interest and passiveness. Bronte clearly shows her stance on this Victorian ideology as Jane often challenges those social institutions and changes her place in society, although she often settles for the status quo for certain periods of time. Jane plays the typical role of a Victorian woman through much of her life, but through subtle shifts in power Bronte challenges these Victorian norms by way of Jane’s education, unlikely rise in social status from teacher to governess and her relationship with a seemingly unattainable man.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre represents the role of women in the Victorian era by giving the reader an insight into the lives of women from all social classes. Jane Eyre therefore represents figures of the Victorian time yet the character of Jane Eyre, herself, can be seen as very unconventional for the Victorian society.