Gothic Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is set in northern England during the early 19th century. The Industrial Revolution began in England during the 1700s, and by the time of Jane Eyre, it was in full swing. Although Charlotte Brontë did not elaborate on these events in this novel, she does, however, illuminate three areas of importance: education; women’s employment, and marriage. Especially in the Victorian era women underwent many hardships behind the shadows of men and Brontë uses Jane Eyre to bring these oppressions into focus.

In Victorian England, women were expected to care for their family and can’t get jobs what men have. In Jane Eyre, Jane wants to leave Lowood and start a new life by being a governess and teaching children. In the novel, Jane places her job to be a governess for a private

The Victorian Era women was vastly different than the female we think of nowadays. Women during that time were expected to fulfill more of a domestic and motherly role, one that stayed at home and took care of the house. They were confined within the private sphere of the world while the men toiled away in the public sphere. The ideal Victorian women was described as:

During the Victorian era, gender roles became separated and entered into different spheres that only interacted at specific moments. Women were considered physically weaker yet morally superior to men, which meant that they were best suited to the domestic sphere. Not only

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë depicts the rigid social structure and clear division between the upper and lower classes of Victorian society, in which wealth and status determined one’s beliefs, career, and treatment from those surrounding them. Those of the upper class did not typically converse or involve themselves with those viewed as beneath them; however, Jane Eyre fights the separation between the classes to which she has fallen victim at both Gateshead and Lowood school. Her refusal to conform to the hierarchy eventually leads to the meddling between the Victorian-era elite and peasant class, as seen through Jane Eyre’s romantic relationship with Edward Rochester, an upperclassman and

Lindsay Safriet Mr. Blackburn English IV 20 Nov 2015 Victorian Era Sexism: Annotated Bibliography "Historical Analysis: Women as the "the Sex" During the Victorian Era. "Historical Analysis: Women as the "the Sex" During the Victorian Era. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

Jane Eyre is a very intresting novel as soon as you open it the first few chapters are shocking as it shows you two big themes one of which is class and the other is gender. In 1947 people would judge you depending on your class and people in society would judge you and treat you by where you are in the hierarchy tree. Another big theme was gender women were treated as third class citizens no freedom at all. Jane Eyre was a novel about an orphan who is adopted into this wealthy family. However she feels completely out the circle and not part of there family. The family certainly did not make her feel part of them either they first saw her as poor because she came from a poor background even though now she is adopted in there family they still saw her like that and secondly she was a girl so that made things worse and those two combinations were not good. At one point in the novel Mr reed said to her "You have no business to take our books; you are a dependant, mamma says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentleman's children like us . . " he is telling her

When searching for female role models in literature across the ages, one may look towards Jane Eyre, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Joy Luck Club. Set in 19th century England, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, is the memoir of an orphan named Jane Eyre. From her first memories, Jane is different from the people around her and is treated as such. She faces prejudices for her social an economic status, as well as for being an educated woman. To see the world, Jane finds work as a governess for Adele, the charismatic ward of Mr. Rochester, at Thornfield manor. Brontë uses characters around Jane to compare the ideals for women in her society with the hope of what women could be. In the end, Jane and Mr. Rochester are married, but only after

The first event that breaks Jane out into expressing that she deserves more, is when she denies Mr. Rochester’s marriage proposal, stating “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself” (Bronte 302). This indicates Jane taking her feelings into consideration before the feelings of others, who would have made her compromise her convictions. Then, Jane further asserts her independence by refusing to marry St. John, but conceding to go to India, “if I may go free” (Bronte 412). His loveless marriage proposal would have trapped her into being subservient, which is not at all what she wants. What truly ties things together for Jane is the realization that she has inherited twenty thousand pounds from her uncle (Bronte 364). This detail plus the fact that St. John pushed her away with his cold marriage proposal, brought Jane to the conclusion that being with Mr. Rochester would satisfy her emotional needs, and she would finally be his economic equal. In the end, Jane and Rochester are married, and seem to be in love, which is what Jane wanted; to be surrounded by love and be treated as the equal she knows she

Jane Eyre so far is about an orphan whose struggle with finding a real home and has a personality that really stands out during her time. Since Jane was old enough to have common sense, her personality was not fit for the generation she was in. The book opens with her living with her aunt and three cousins; her aunt wasn’t too fond of her because Jane is a poor orphan who is only her niece through marriage. It was like her against everyone else in the mansion. In chapter four - just like in chapter one, Jane got into another altercation with John Reed whom is her cousin.

Bronte’s Jane Eyre gave a voice to women in the Victorian era. Bronte embedded her feminist ideas into her novel, Jane Eyre. Her belief in marrying for love was a head of her time. Bronte used Jane to explore the depth at which women could act in society. Her ideas on women being more educated brought on thoughts of equality of a different level.

Independence, the capacity to manage ones own affairs, make one’s own judgments, and provide for one’s self. Jane Eyre herself is a very independent woman. Throughout her life she has depended on very few people for very little. Charlotte Brontë wants the reader to learn that independence can open many doors of possibilities.

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre emerges with a unique voice in the Victorian period for the work posits itself as a sentimental novel; however, it deliberately becomes unable to fulfill the genre, and then, it creates an altogether divergent novel that demonstrates its superiority by adding depth of structure in narration and character portrayal. Joan D. Peters’ essay, Finding a Voice: Towards a Woman’s Discourse of Dialogue in the Narration of Jane Eyre positions Gerard Genette’s theory of convergence, which is that the movement of the fiction towards a confluence of protagonist and narrator, is limited as the argument does not fully flesh out the parodies that Charlotte Bronte incorporates into her work. I will argue that in the novel

However, it should also be noted that the novel, through the character of the protagonist Jane Eyre, also points to the cracks in that social system, where class differences were getting fused. For instance the novel throws up certain questions pertaining to the position and role of the governess: Should she be considered upper class, based on her superior education, or lower class, because of her servant-status within the family? What happens when relationships develop between people of different classes, such as Rochester and

Prior to the Victorianism period, the roles of men and women had no specific definition. Victorianism brought a sharp definition of gender roles with father specializing in specific tasks different from mothers. Formerly, the women and men could easily work alongside each other. During the onset of Victorianism, many men got into formal employment that entailed traveling long distances to work in different professions. Men left behind their wives at home to take care