Social Class And Feminism In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

In October 16, 1847, the novel Jane Eyre was published under the pen name “Currer Bell.” It was not until the following year that Charlotte Bronte revealed her true identity as the author. The novel was written in first person from the perspective of the protagonist Jane Eyre; an orphan on her journey through life and her search for love and belongingness. Jane Eyre took place in the Victorian Era in the mid-nineteenth century and featured many autobiographical elements from Bronte’s life. Within the novel there are very strong themes including love, religion, social class, and feminism. Feminism was arguably the most important theme of the book and played an immense part of Jane’s life, whether consciously or subconsciously. During that era, gender inequality was very prevalent; and in terms of society, men were undoubtedly superior to women. Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest,” was introduced to society and men immediately declared their place at the top of the evolutionary ladder while women were left at the bottom. Conclusively, the opinion that women were inferior was predominant but not exclusive. Bronte illustrates this very well in the book via Jane and other supporting characters. Jane consistently commits herself to dignity, independence, freedom of choice, and unwillingness to submit to any man’s emotional power. Some of her more important goals included maintaining integrity, sustaining dignity, and not giving in to societal norms and expectations of women. The expectations of women during that time period were very low and degrading, and it was presumed that unless they were teachers, women were to stay uneducated and tend to their husbands and households. Furthermore, social class played a large role in ev...

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... mentally and refusing to give up her will to push back at those who push on her ideas that she doesn’t agree with.

Years went by until Jane accepted a governess position for Mr. Rochester at Thornfield manor. Secretly, she fell in love with him. Mr. Rochester was a much older mad and he also had plans to marry Blanche Ingram. In terms of values and self-worth, Jane and Blanche were two entirely different people. Ingram saw in money and jewelry whereas Jane disliked the amount of jewelry Rochester gave her because she didn’t define herself by social status a beauty. "The more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation" (Bronte 236). This quote, while short and simple, is an excellent example of how genuine Jane felt and how strongly she believed in what she did. At the sight of wealth, she didn’t alter her intentions at all.