Insecurity In Jane Eyre By Charlotte Bronte

Elaine Qin
Ms. Hernandez
English 1H, Pd. 3
3/27/23

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Have you ever wondered where your or anyone else’s insecurity came from? Why are certain features praised by others while other ones slandered on? Just like everyone else, in Charlotte Brontë’s Victorian novel, Jane Eyre, Jane has her own insecurity about her image. She has been caring much about her appearance ever since she was young. Beauty standards from the Victorian Era were extremely toxic, which made attractive women superficial and others self-conscious.
Adèle expects gifts from Mr. Rochester constantly and has a strange obsession with them. The first thing Adèle will do when she sees Mr. Rochester is “[demand] a ‘cadeau’, clamorously,” (Brontë 111). It’s become a habit between

Her mother was a beautiful singer from Paris, but she was not a good person and had affairs with multiple people. This could explain why Adele is very shallow and spoiled. In the Victorian society, privileged women expected gifts from others, while average women were humble. Even though Jane notices this huge flaw in Adele, she decides to stay neutral about this situation. She decided not to help Adele change that mindset, but instead just keep on teaching Adele with indifference. Furthermore, Jane was never accepted by neither Mrs. Reed nor her children, as a child, she was constantly blamed and punished for problems that were caused by Mrs. Reed’s son, John Reed. They never believed a word Jane said. While Georgiana was always favored by her mother and the servants because of her beauty, even though she “had a spoiled temper…[and] was universally indulged,” (Brontë 16). People based their opinions about others only on the looks on the outside, instead of their personalities or tempers. John always causes trouble for his mom but doesn’t get punished. Jane dares not to make one tiny mistake; she is afraid of the punishments. Presently, before Jane realized that Mr. Rochester was not planning on marrying Miss Ingram, she has hatred and jealously towards her

Rochester proposed to Jane, he told Jane about the jewels he asked his banker about. Jane thought “jewels for [her] [sound] unnatural and strange,” (Brontë 232). She isn’t used to having expensive items, at the same time, she doesn’t think she deserves the jewels because she is plain. This indicates she believes only pretty women should wear them while common ones don’t deserve them. In addition to that, she doesn’t want to change from the luxurious gifts that Mr. Rochester is offering her. She wants to stay true to herself and not become shallow like Miss Ingram or other women who believe they are better than others. Likewise, she described herself as “a plain, Quakerish governess” meaning she does not think much of herself, indicating she has very low self-esteem. But she follows her moral values by not accepting the gifts, she wants to be respected and not seem like Mr. Rochester’s mistress, Celine Varens. The night before the wedding, she opened the luxurious veil Mr. Rochester had bought her since she refused the jewels. Jane had doubts about herself because she felt she could not “bring her husband…fortune, beauty, nor connections”, she believed others would think Mr. Rochester plain from her (Brontë 252). Believing herself a horrible wife for not having any of those qualities. The idea that in order to be a good wife is to fulfill these conditions and enhance their husband’s image is impossible to