Radical Ideas in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

1935 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Jane eyre and the role of women

Radical Ideas in Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte knew what she was doing when she assumed the pseudonym of Currer Bell. In Jane Eyre she wanted to pose radical ideas regarding the role of women in the 19th century, but being a sensible woman, she knew that society would never accept having a woman pose these new views. It would be altogether too logical and self-praising. Though the author was never credited for the published novel it must have been equally fulfilling for her to know that people had read the opinions voiced by a woman. Bronte's novel was successful as her refreshing story captivated the attention, if only negative, of many audiences. Jane Eyre is the epitome of feminism as her main objective in life is to attain social equality. This woman is passionate, restless, and unusually bold as she dares to say things that women would never say.

Throughout the novel Jane displays outstanding courage and boldness which were uncommon traits in women of her time. We first see Jane's efforts to defend herself crushed by Mrs. Reed who says, "There is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner" (pg. 3). One would think that the life at Gateshead would have subdued Jane's fiery temper, but it only rooted it deeper within her spirit. Had Jane been treated kindly she might have grown up a sweet-tempered girl, always giving in to the demands of society and holding back from developing her hungry mind. Jane also stands up to the bully, John Reed: "Wicked and cruel boy!...You are like a murderer, you are like a slave driver&emdash;You are like the Roman emperors!" (pg. 8). Jane is a brave character as she dares to step out of the acceptable realm of society when ...

... middle of paper ...

...e glass ceiling. Jane's story, was not the real world that Charlotte Bronte lived in, but it brought women one step closer to social equality.

Sources Consulted

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Penguin, 1985.

Gordon, Lyndall. Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life. New York: Norton, 1994.

Michie, Helena. The Flesh Made Word: Female Figures and Women's Bodies. New York: Oxford UP, 1987.

Poovey, Mary. "Speaking of the Body: Mid-Victorian Constructions of Female Desire." Jacobus, Keller, and Shuttleworth 24-46.

Rich, Adrienne. "Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman." Gates 142-55.

Roy, Parama. "Unaccommodated Woman and the Poetics of Property in Jane Eyre." Studies in English Literature 29 (1989): 713-27.

Sullivan, Sheila. Studying the Brontes. Longman: York, 1986.

Show More
Related

  • Jane Eyre Through Bronte's Eyes

    3631 Words  | 8 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s A New-England Tale and Hope Leslie

    3303 Words  | 7 Pages

    Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” Nineteenth Century Literature March 1966: 102-106. Jstor. On-line. 10 Nov. 2002.

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bornte

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre

    1754 Words  | 4 Pages

    Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre chronicles the growth of her titular character from girlhood to maturity, focusing on her journey from dependence on negative authority figures to both monetary and psychological independence, from confusion to a clear understanding of self, and from inequality to equality with those to whom she was formerly subject. Originally dependent on her Aunt Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester, she gains independence through her inheritance and teaching positions. Over the course of the novel, she awakens towards self-understanding, resulting in contentment and eventual happiness. She also achieves equality with the important masculine figures in her life, such as St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester, gaining self-fulfillment as an independent, fully developed equal.

    Read More

  • Revision of Master Narratives within Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea

    2168 Words  | 5 Pages

    Bronte is known as one of the first revolutionary and challenging authoress’ with her text Jane Eyre. The society of her time was male dominated, women were marginally cast aside and treated as trophies for their male counterparts. Their main role in life was to be a mother and a wife, “ Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life……the more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure she will have for it.” A quote from a letter Robert Southey wrote to Bronte. A clear sign of the mentality and opposition Bronte was up against. A woman’s “proper duties” of course being to tend and wait on her “master’s” every whim and need. Women during Bronte’s time had no clear voice, none that was of any merit, they were a silent category of society, silenced by their male oppressors. Bronte’s book was in fact written before the first women’s rights movement had happened, yet it puts forward an image of an independent strong character, of a passionate and almost rebellious nature. A character “refusing subservience, disagreeing with her superiors, standing up for her right’s, and venturing creative thoughts.” I put forward that Bronte throughout her text not only revises the themes of male power and oppression, but reconstructs them also. The text is a female bildungsroman of it’s time, sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly tackling the patriarchal view of women.

    Read More

  • Paris is Burning

    1221 Words  | 3 Pages

    Butler, Judith. "Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex'". New York. Routledge. 1993

    Read More

  • Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1882 Words  | 4 Pages

    Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, November 1985.

    Read More

  • A Young Jane Eyre Characterized

    834 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jane’s Eyre faces many problems in her short life: her father and mother died when she was young, they left her to a family who views and treats Jane as a burden, and she is a girl desiring individualism in a patriarchic society that eulogizes conformity. But in Mrs. Reed’s last action involving Jane, Mrs. Reed, unintentionally gives Jane the gift of an education—which has given Jane the confidence in her ability to perorate and adapt to many situations. Thus, Jane is now prepared to achieve whatever she wants to achieve—whether it conforms to Victorian conventions or not.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Percy Shelley And The Sublime/Beautiful

    1126 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Kevin Roozen's Naming What We Know

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    Charlotte worked as a teacher and Jane did as well. Those and other similarities found in the novel, point to how writing acts as a mirror used by the audience. Jane Eyre captured Charlotte’s life. The author did not just symbolize her character in Jane Eyre, but she also used this novel to express her needs. Kevin Roozen mentioned this concept " Through the writing, we do, we claim, challenge, perhaps even contest and resist our alignment with the beliefs, interests, and values of the communities with which we engage”.51 She portrayed an issue that was aggressive in that era. In the novel, Charlotte demonstrated the feminism (a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social rights for women that are equal to those of men. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment.). During Victorian age in which Charlotte lived, men never treated women anything but a machine. Women should stay at home and take care of her husband and

    Read More

  • A Feminist Perspective of The Lady of Shalott

    2170 Words  | 5 Pages

    Gorham, Deborah. A. A. The Victorian Girl and the Feminine Ideal. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. Martineau, Harriet.

    Read More

  • The Themes of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    1103 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the beginning of Jane Eyre, Jane struggles against Bessie, the nurse at Gateshead Hall, and says, I resisted all the way: a new thing for me…"(Chapter 2).  This sentence foreshadows what will be an important theme of the rest of the book, that of female independence or rebelliousness. Jane is here resisting her unfair punishment, but throughout the novel she expresses her opinions on the state of women.  Tied to this theme is another of class and the resistance of the terms of one's class.  Spiritual and supernatural themes can also be traced throughout the novel.

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre Character Analysis

    589 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte is a novel about an orphan girl growing up in a tough condition and how she becomes a mature woman with full of courage. Her life at Gateshead is really difficult, where she feels isolated and lives in fear in her childhood. Her parents are dead when she was little, her dead uncle begged his evil wife, Mrs. Reed, to take care of Jane until she becomes an adult. But Mrs. Reed does not keep her promise, no one treats Jane like their family members even treats her less than a servant. By the end of this essay it will be proven that Jane’s life at Gateshead has shaped her development as a young woman and bildungsroman.

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre

    1059 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the beginning of the book, Jane was living with her aunt Mrs. Reed and her children. Although Jane is treated cruelly and is abused constantly, she still displays passion and spirit by fighting back at John and finally standing up to Mrs Reed. Even Bessie ‘knew it was always in her’. Mrs. Reed accuses Jane of lying and being a troublesome person when Mr. Brocklehurst of Lowood School visited Gateshead. Jane is hurt, as she knows she was not deceitful so she defends herself as she defended herself to John Reed when he abused her, as she said “Wicked and cruel boy! You are like a murderer – you are like a slave driver – you are like the Roman emperors!” to John Reed instead of staying silent and taking in the abuse, which would damage her self-confidence and self-worth. With the anger she had gotten from being treated cruelly, she was able to gain ...

    Read More

  • Role of Women in Jane Eyre

    1506 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Radical Ideas in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

Open Document