Jane Eyre Research Paper

Women, for decades, have strove for complete equality with men. This fight is not a new fight, it is a fight that started long ago and is still going today. Many times when we think of the life of women in the past we draw to the Victorian age, an age with great female writers, like the Bronte sisters. Charlotte Bronte, author of many great works, served as a critic and wrote many satire of society and the treatment of women in the Victorian era. The story of Jane Eyre is a bidungsroman, or a coming of age story. Jane strives to find her place in a society that is slowly changing its view of women. In Bronte’s work, Jane Eyre, Jane is a manifestation of the quintessential Victorian women; the ways she diverts forge a new path for women in their

The male penname was not specific to Bronte, or her three sisters who also wrote under Bell names. During this time if a woman was to be taken seriously as a writer she was forced to use a male penname, if not their works were pre-judged. Bronte’s work Jane Eyre was a success. After some time, when the book had been fairly judged by men and women, Bronte’s publisher urged her to come forward are Bronte, not

According to Gilbert and Gubar, literary critics, came up with three ways women can escape from the Victorian life—madness, starvation, and flight. Gilbert and Gubar used Bronte’s Jane Eyre to draw the types of escapes for women. None of these lifestyles are ideal. All three of these escapes are used throughout the book. Flight in Jane Eyre is seen through the character Celine Varens. Celine was a dancer and lover of Rochester, as well as Adele’s mother. Rochester’s relationship with Celine ended after Rochester discovered he was not Celine’s only lover. Celine, in the three views of Victorian women, is the flight. Celine was manipulative, flake, as well as the “pretty face”, she was merely temporary. The woman in the attic, who is later, found to be Bertha Mason, represents the madness in the Victorian society. Bertha is the wife of Rochester and suffers from madness like her mother. Bertha is kept locked in a room, she is isolated and caged. She is originally identified as Grace Pool when she escapes from the third floor room. Jane explains,

“the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but it was high noon and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation, but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid” (Bronte