Social Class In Jane Eyre

Bronte realistically criticizes the Victorian Era social classes by making economic status a volatile, yet major factor in character development. The book creates three distinct social classes. The upper middle class is the most prominent class in the book; Edward Rochester, Blanche Ingram, and Mr. Brocklehurst classify as being in this class. Below them is the working class, which is represented by Jane as a governess and the townspeople of Whitcross. At the very bottom is the lower class, illustrated by Jane, who is desperate for basic needs after leaving Rochester. Bronte has Jane change her social class several times throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Jane is a poor orphan child whose “ both [parents] died before I [she] can remember” (Bronte 48), qualifying to be in the lower class. When Jane is “assuming the post of governess” (Bronte 91) in Mrs. Fairfax’s House at Thornfield, through research of the time period in class, governesses classify as being part of the working class. When Jane enters the village at Whitcross, she is an “ordinary beggar” (Bronte 349), signifying that she has become lower class with no income or property. When Jane becomes a mistress at Miss Oliver’s school in Morton, she enters the working class again. When Jane inherits the twenty-thousand pounds from her uncle, since it’s determined in class to be equivalent to more than a million dollars, she becomes the upper middle class for the first time. As Jane struggles to find a