The Poverty Prejudice

In the Victorian Age, people unfairly discriminated against others due to their lack of social status. This theme is emphasized in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. The protagonist, a poor orphan named Jane, is a victim of this prejudice. With the settings of Gateshead, Lowood, and Thornfield, Brontë illustrates how someone in Jane’s position could be treated badly or differently simply because of poverty and a lack of rank.

When Jane is a young child, she stays with her aunt and cousins at Gateshead where they regard her both negatively and differently because of her lower level. Mrs. Reed, Jane’s aunt, separates Jane from her cousins because, as her aunt tells her, “She really must exclude [Jane] from privileges intended only for contented, happy little children” (1).The only true reasoning for this separation is due to a difference between Jane and her cousins. This distinction is simply the difference in status. This also shows the belief that the rich have a much more pleasant disposition than the poor. Also, Jane’s cousin John mistreats and abuses Jane. She reflects that, “He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in a day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh on my bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions…and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me” (4). Jane says herself that she did nothing to provoke either John’s physical or verbal misconduct other than having a lower reputation than him. Mrs. Reed lets this wrongdoing continue just because Jane is poor and not h...

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... of the Ingrams like governesses, and they don’t shy away from showing this disdain and their awful treatment towards those in the position.

All of England during the Victorian Age was narrow-minded towards those without rank and wealth. Jane Eyre demonstrates this mindset throughout Jane’s surroundings of Gateshead, Lowood, and Thornfield. Destitution and a low status was a legitimate reason for inequity at this time in history. All of the high-ranking, wealthy individuals thought that it was fair for those below them to be treated as such, because as long as they had what they wanted, they had no concern for others. However, this hierarchy is unjust because it is not a child’s mistake that he or she is poorer than his or her relatives. It is not an orphan’s fault that he or she is parentless, and a governess cannot control the fact that she must work for a living.