The Feminist and the Stereotype
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, published under her surname, Currer Bell, featured the character of Jane Eyre, an outspoken, independent, and unapologetic woman in a time where such a thing was mostly unheard of and socially unacceptable. In contrast, Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte falls into the trope of a socially ostracized and emotionally wounded male hero. When comparing the two, it becomes clear that Jane Eyre is the better protagonist. Firstly, Jane was revolutionary for her time, being an independent woman in the Victorian era, something which cannot be said for Heathcliff. Additionally, Jane undergoes character development and has a character arch which is not present in Heathcliff.
In doing so, she became one of the most prominent early feminist writers. Early on, Jane is characterized to be outspoken, this we can see in chapter four, when she confronts the aunt that has terrorized her by locking her up in the Red Room, “I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to visit you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty” (Bronte, 4. 40) This is the reader’s first real look at Jane’s character, initially showing how even as a little girl, she is unafraid to stand up to people when she knows they are in the wrong. For a woman to be this unapologetic and outspoken in the Victorian era would have been almost unheard of, making Jane Eyre a truly revolutionary character. Jane is also shown to be opinionated in chapter 12, “Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do … It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex” (12.129) and chapter 14, “I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me,
In the beginning of the novel, Jane is unhappy, unheard, and unappreciated. This can also be seen in the fact that she is reading a bird book in the first scene. Jane wishes to be like the birds in the book, so she can be free from her relatives who cause her immense emotional distress. When she finally has the opportunity to leave both Gateshead and Lowood, she begins to thrive and develop as a character. There is a strong correlation between the time she spends away from Gateshead and Lowood and her growth as a character. By the time her and Mr. Rochester begin interacting she is already a fairly confident young woman. This is shown when Jane makes it clear that she is primarily her own person before she is Rochester’s love interest. After she discovers he is already married to Bertha, she leaves to preserve her own character as opposed to degrading herself enough to become his mistress. Love him as she may, she loves herself more. This cannot be seen in Heathcliff, as he consistently sacrifices any opportunity to grow as a character for the opportunity to be with Catherine in any and every way. When Heathcliff returns to find Catherine has married Edgar, he is set on a path of vengeance, similar to that of a child in tantrum. While Heathcliff’s actions are understandable as a child who was abused and
The novel Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, is about Jane who is a strong, independent women who went from being an orphaned, isolated ten-year-old to excelling at school and becoming a governess.The character Blanche Ingram is intended to marry Edward Rochester, the man Jane loves. Throughout the first half of the novel Bronte uses Blanche Ingram as a foil to Jane, to reveal her true persona. This is evident firstly by appearance, where Blanche is described as beautiful and Jane plain, their different inner characters, the way they connect with Adele and finally how they express their feelings towards Edward Rochester.
Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, was published in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, in London. This year is exactly ten years into Queen Victoria’s sixty-four year reign of the British Empire. The Victorian Era was renowned for its patriarchal Society and definition by class. These two things provide vital background to the novel, as Jane suffers from both. Jane Eyre relates in some ways to Brontë’s own life, as its original title suggest, “Jane Eyre: An Autobiography”. Charlotte Brontë would have suffered from too, as a relatively poor woman. She would have been treated lowly within the community. In fact, the book itself was published under a pseudonym of Currer Bell, the initials taken from Brontë’s own name, due to the fact that a book published by a woman was seen as inferior, as they were deemed intellectually substandard to men. Emily Brontë, Charlotte’s sister, was also forced to publish her most famous novel, Wuthering Heights, under the nom de plume of Ellis Bell, again taking the initials of her name to form her own alias. The novel is a political touchstone to illustrate the period in which it was written, and also acts as a critique of the Victorian patriarchal society.
Jane Eyre has been acclaimed as one of the best gothic novels in the Victorian Era. With Bronte’s ability to make the pages come alive with mystery, tension, excitement, and a variety of other emotions. Readers are left with rich insight into the life of a strong female lead, Jane, who is obedient, impatient, and passionate as a child, but because of the emotional and physical abuse she endures, becomes brave, patient, and forgiving as an adult. She is a complex character overall but it is only because of the emotional and physical abuse she went through as a child that allowed her to become a dynamic character.
In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre there are many occasions in which there is motifs about division and bias relations. Money was a major division between people in the Victorian Era. Family made people rise in the standings with others, If your family was rich or well known, then you were going to be well known and well liked. There are many situations in which Jane is thought of as poor and worthless, as well as having no family.
During the Middle Ages, Jews were seen as the enemy by the Christians; they were thought of as the race that killed Christ. The Jewish people were oppressed during the Middle Ages mostly by Christians. Religion was taken very seriously in the past and for what the Christians believed the Jews were responsible for, they did not like them. Furthermore, the Jews were accused for causing the Black Plague by poisoning the wells. The Black Plague nearly whipped out one third of the world population. The Jews were also “accused of murdering Christian children in order to make matzoh for Passover” (Konop, Muller, & Risley). Moreover, the Jews were forced to live on a filthy island called Ghetto Nuova in Venice. In addition to all the oppressions, Jews were forced to follow many unfair laws. To start off, one regulation was made to force all Jews “to wear distinctive clothing,” (Alan), usually a yellow or a red hat and in some areas, they were required to wear a badge. In the Middle Ages, agriculture was the main way of generating money, and when the Jews were not allowed to own a Christian slave to assist them on their farms, there was no possible way for them to survive. Following, the Jewish were not permitted to take Christian pledges, “Thus, the only occupations available to them were those of artisans, traders, and money lenders,” (Konop, Muller, & Risley). Later in the Middle Ages, the relations between religions changed traumatically. For example, the type of anti-Semitism that existed in England during Shakespeare’s life was not as unreasonable as in the previous centuries. The Jews were now allowed to stay in the main city, even though the community that they were forced to stay in was now was one of “the strongest and wealthiest community in the Ghetto,” (Alan). All in all, sometimes religion and culture can blind us from the truth and some other times, it makes us hateful of others whom beliefs aren’t the same as ours.
The tone of Jane Eyre is direct, perhaps even blunt. There is no prissy little-girl sensibility, but a startlingly independent, even skeptical perspective. At the age of 10, the orphan Jane already sees through the hypocrisy of her self-righteous Christian elders. She tells her bullying Aunt Reed, "People think you a good woman, but you are bad; hard-hearted. You are deceitful!" and "I am glad you are no relative of mine; I will never call you aunt again so long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say that the very thought of you makes me sick." (In fact, when her aunt is elderly and dying, Jane does return to visit her, and forgives her. But that's far in the future.) With the logic of a mature philosopher, in fact rather like Friedrich Nietzsche to come, Jane protests the basic admonitions of Christianity as a schoolgirl: "I must resist those who ... persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel that it is deserved." And this bold declaration, which would have struck readers of 1847 (in fact, of 1947) as radical and "infeminine":
Jane Eyre's literary success of the time has been cheaply commercialized. In other words, Bronte's novel never got the appreciation it deserved, in the areas it deserved. Many 19th century critics merely assigned literary themes to their reviews to "get it over with". Critics commended Jane Eyre for everything from its themes to its form. However, their surface examinations amount to nothing without careful consideration of the deeper underlying background in Jane's life where their hasty principles originate. The widely discussed free will of Jane's, her strong individuality, and independence are segments of a greater scheme, her life. For example: Jane's childhood serves as the most important precedent for all of the self-realism although this purpose is widely disregarded. Even though "many have celebrated Bronte's carefully wrought description of her protagonist's first eighteen years for its vivid pathos, no one has as yet accorded this childhood its deserved weight in the novels ultimate resolution." (Ashe 1) Jane Eyre's genius develops in a series of internal reactions to external circumstances rather than shallow judgments about those internal happenings.
Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre may be superficially read as simply a sweet romance in which Jane ends up with the man of her dreams after overcoming many obstacles and challenges. But doing so misses the much deeper—richer—messages of Bronte's lasting masterpiece. A more thoughtful reading reveals this novel, especially its heroine Jane, challenging centuries-old gender roles which assume male supremacy, characterizing men as the dominant, more privileged gender, while women are oppressed into inferior and submissive roles. Of course this Victorian novel portrays the expected gender roles of both men and women in 19th century England, but Jane rises out of the patriarchy challenging the social roles assigned her with a personality marked by sass and self-assurance . Ms. Bronte, through Jane, ultimately demonstrates that women can live their lives on equal terms with—or independent of—men.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre focuses on the life of a young orphan named Jane Eyre. In the beginning of the novel Jane is living with her aunt, Mrs. Reed at Gateshead Hall, where she is treated horrible by not only Mrs. Reed, but her children as well. Later in the story Mrs. Reed takes to Jane to the Lowood Institution, a charity school run by the a man named Mr. Brocklehurst. While at Lowood, Jane meets Helen Burns, who befriends Jane and ends up helping her learn how to endure personal injustices and believe in God. When Jane is 18 she starts to advertise for a job as a private tutor. After doing so, Jane gets hired to be a governess to the young Adele Varens at Thornfield manor where she meets the love of her life Mr. Rochester, the master of Thornfield manor.
At the start of Jane Eyre, Jane is living with her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her family after being orphaned. Jane is bitterly unhappy there because she is constantly tormented by her cousins, John, Eliza, and Georgiana. After reading the entire book you realize that Jane was perfectly capable of dealing with that issue on her own, but what made it unbearable was that Mrs. Reed always sided with her children, and never admitted to herself that her offspring could ever do such things as they did to Jane. Therefore, Jane was always punished for what the other three children did, and was branded a liar by Mrs. Reed. This point in the book marks the beginning of Jane's primary conflict in the novel. She feels unloved and unaccepted by the world, as her own family betrays her.
...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-...
In Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre, the author juxtaposes the representations of femininity of Bertha Mason and the title character to champion Bronte’s ideal conceptualization of independent women.
Jane was brought up enduring a life of struggle and hardship that she was able to gain wisdom from and see beauty in. Bronte places Jane in situations where she is able to prove her resilience such as placing Jane at the Moore house because she wanted her to see the nature of the world and to show the reader that life comes with surprises. After rising from this fall, she arrives at Moor House where her skills she learned at Marsh End are tested. Jane learns throughout her adventure that she has to take matters into her own hands. Jane desires to be favored in this world. She’s never found the “feeling of isolation” pleasing, so when she falls into Marsh End she is obviously miserable being alone with people who did not care about her. Jane not only cherishes approval but also likes to have a high status in society. She does “not like to belong to poor people,” and to be dropped into their class. Jane knew what she would be striving for, to succeed in life, and she knew that it came with new faces, under new circumstances. Jane was ready to handle any environment in her quest for establishing her individuality. Bronte novel can be interpreted in a number of ways, however the feminist approach is the most valid because its conclusions are drawn after analyzing a Marxist criticism, psychological criticism and many other criticisms that continue to be relevant in the lives of many
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.