Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

Set in the early nineteenth century, Charlotte Bronte’s coming-of-age novel, Jane Eyre remarks upon the ill acceptance of social behaviours between various social classes in the Victorian era; through the narration of Jane Eyre as a protagonist, and portray as a parallel to the authors’ life. When Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1832, Britain began its transformation into a world power and the fascinating aspect of that time period is the rigid class systems between the rich and poor, which also attributed to the social and economic injustice between the two groups. Throughout the novel, particularly those of the experiences of Jane Eyre, it is possible to observe how Bronte expresses her “personal” modernism in Jane Eyre. Rising from this modernism, the variable that enabled the Jane Eyre to outcompete her evolutionary rivals is passion. Indeed, passion is the hallmark of modernism, aiding the prevalence of Jane Eyre amongst the mindless followers of the upper-class, albeit whilst hiding an inherent dilemma. This dilemma is the cognitive shift in the social logic of the class system, underpinned by the misperception of specific social behaviours stemming from this class system. This is an examination of this shift in how society is thinking, brought about by standards set by the upper class, incorporating an analysis of why Victorian readers cannot be forgiven for holding the belief that social class defines social behaviour, and discussing the way in which Jane Eyre has disclosed the altered human attitudes, values, and beliefs about the discourse of social class and behaviour.

Social class, defined by the Australia Macquarie Dictionary as, “…a group which is part of the hierarchical structure of a society, usually cla...

... middle of paper ...

...plications and is far from an ideal future for both social class and the social behaviours.

It is impossible to place limitations on the classification of the social class system, that is, this system will in no way ever reach a point of singularity where all knowledge and modernism becomes finite. However, society must place ethical constraints on the influence of social class on human health, if not because of a lack of alternatives. To overcome the aforementioned risk of reliance on social class to define individualism, Victorian society should not limit different lifestyle choices, but instead mediate the role of social class system as a primary contributor to the social behaviours. The Victorian society recognise this cognitive shift but refuse to act as seen through Bronte’s novel, that informs the individualists around that time, that they were not alone.