Masculinity In Jane Austen And Brontë's Jane Eyre

All the females who maintain typically feminine qualities are held in much less regard than the women, like Jane Eyre, who contain masculine traits and live their lives on their own terms. Masculine traits especially in the character Jane Eyre are what cause the novel Jane Eyre to be a forward thinking book in the terms of female empowerment. “Jane’s somber appearance, reflective of the lesson in androgyny given by Brocklehurst, boasts none of the pampered adornment of Jane’s coquettish rival, Blanche Ingram, or Jane’s highly feminine pupil, Adele” which adds to the masculinity of her character and definitely separating her from the rest of females in society (Godfrey 858). Jane Eyre is portrayed as a rather androgynous, if not masculine,

Anne Elliot is very effeminate and upholds the ideal women of the time but with extra character, that separates her from her sister, Elizabeth, who is more masculine in nature and is often described similarly to the father. She uses the effeminate nature of Anne to bring the masculine Wentworth to his senses and accept femininity for what it’s worth. Jane Eyre is very different due to the fact that she only gains what she wants through her more masculine traits. She only gets her happy ending by becoming more masculine and finally being able to overpower her debilitated lover Mr. Rochester. Both women, in the end, have parallel endings in which they marry the man that they are in love with but the endings are very dissimilar in every other aspect. Rather than have Rochester accept Jane’s femininity, Jane becomes masculine. While in Persuasion, Anne is the one who remains feminine while Wentworth is the one who must accept the femininity of his

Austen, through her character, Anne Elliot, in her novel Persuasion, upholds what an ideal female should be like and the men should accept a female and all her feminine traits. Brontë, on the other hand, in her novel Jane Eyre creates a female character, Jane Eyre, that overcomes gender roles and lives her life in androgyny rather than in femininity. Both authors achieved the same ends, but both had extremely unique ways of creating a world where females, rather than just males, are able to be understood. Austen and Brontë stood against social standards of their day and created in two extremely separate characters, the same basic message that women are real human beings and have characters other than what their husbands or other men in their lives assign to