Jane Eyre’s life is not one that most anyone would want. She is poorly treated and repeatedly plagued and oppressed. Since in the story she is described as plain and poor, if she were exquisitely gorgeous or had thousands of dollars, the meaning of the story would change. She would not feel stressed or worried, she would not have to deal with tormenters and her life would generally be much better. She would also be happier and would encounter occurrences much differently.
Kelsey Gifford Meaghan Bodemer Women in Literature March 26, 2018 Class Relationships In her novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte uses her main character Jane to explore the lower, middle and upper economic classes of Victorian England, while remaining the same character throughout the entire novel. As an individual with no class status identified as an orphan, Jane’s character is adaptable, guiding her from her beginning stay at Gateshead estate to her ending destination at Thornfield Hall with Mr. Rochester. Through her engagements, Jane is given the opportunity to meet other characters and consider them by their personalities and values rather than on their economic status. In keeping the reader at a state of arousal and tension, Charlotte
While higher classes could hire out minders, this luxury was not usually afforded to women in lower classes. In fact, women from lower classes could often obtain work minding and caring for the children of higher class women. There were a number of other common jobs that women could do to make money, oftentimes juggling several different jobs. Alice Clark describes the “archetypal Elizabethan housewife” as “brewing, baking and marketing”. Small scale domestic beer brewing, usually done by women, could be sold at market and brought money in to the household.
Jane Eyre’s social class throughout her life was very ambiguous, never really fitting into one category, often in between levels of the social spectrum. Blanche Ingram, however, had been brought up in the upper class, through-and-through. In chapter 11, Jane moves on from being a poor teacher at Lowood Orphanage and becomes a governess. Much later on, in chapter 27-28 Jane runs away from Thornfield Hall after she find out about the devil incarnate, Bertha Mason, and is now recognized as a homeless beggar. Soon after, Jane is rescued by three women and a man, who is
Even though Mrs. Reed promised her deceased husband that she would care for Jane as if she was one of her own children, Mrs. Reed encourages everyone in the house to never hesitate to tell Jane that she is a failure in everything she does. At the young age that Jane is, she should not yet be self conscious of her appearance and concerned about her level of beauty, yet she becomes “humbled by the consciousness of physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed” (Bronte 7). The Reed family fits into the stereotype of inner beauty not matching outer beauty; they are extremely rich and beautiful, yet they lack basic levels of compassion.
Therefore, Rochester’s position over Jane compares to the roles of John Reed and Mr. Brocklehurst. In addition, Gilbert and Gubar compare Jane to Jesus in order to describe her as a Christ figure. Jane is an outcast whom society unfairly sees as an inferior. Society casts her away similar to the persecution of Jesus. Even when conversing with Rochester, who claims to see Jane as an equal, he understands Jane’s jail-like existence as a female servant.
Jane in Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, is looked as plain in the eyes of those around her. She comes from no fortune, class stature, nor beauty. Jane’s view of others is internalized on how she originally is seen and constraints of those that weigh her down. They even say that no one “really cannot care for such a little toad as” her, which illustrates how her character is pushed around by those around her (p. 63). Aunt Reed doesn 't treat Jane as one of her own and instead acts like Jane is a slave.
This paper will examine how women lived in the 19th century compared to today’s women, in particular focusing on the English novel Jane Eyre. For many years, women have been considered inferior to men and, as a consequence, they have been subservient to men and to their own families. In the 19th century, for instance, they had to be obedient, sympathetic, powerless, they could not go out when they wanted or dressed as they liked, but they were supposed to stay at home and dedicated themselves to the domestic cleaning and to the education of children. In the history of the United Kingdom, an important period that contributed to the subsequent independence of women was the Victorian Age. During this era, we can identify three types of women: - Upper class women; they were educated and they had the opportunity to enjoy a luxurious life.
In today’s social and cultural convention, expressing one’s true self or individuality is greatly encouraged. Most societies support individuality for all people. However, sometime before our modern era, the Victorian period’s social and cultural norms say otherwise. Only men were aloud to do public works and have a vast range of privileges; women were left with no choice but to stick to domesticity if they are married or they can work as governesses or school teachers if they are not. Since the Victorian era consisted of radical transformations in England under Queen Victoria’s reign, in addition to these gender roles, social class segregation became extremely apparent and conservative laws became more prominent to resist the drastic changes
Although there are a lot of differences between these novels, the characters Jane Fairfax and Jane Eyre have a lot in common. First of all, both are orphans trying to manage their lives on their own. As orphans, they are more independent than others, as Adrienne Rich puts it: “mothers are dependent and powerless themselves and can only teach their daughters how to survive by the same means: marriage to a financially secure male.” (Thaden 63) Motherless children, on the other hand, had to find a way on their own to survive in this world. Their Childhood In early childhood both were sent away in order to get an established education. In Jane Eyre’s case, it is Mrs Reed who arranges boarding school and Jane Fairfax, on the other hand, was sent