How Does Emily Brontë Demonstrate The Balance Of Women's Power?

If we look back on the 19th century, we see masterpieces like Jane Eyre that dared to shatter the standard of the quintessential Victorian woman, obedient and tucked away at home. In an article by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Charlotte Brontë, the author of Jane Eyre, was described as dissatisfied by a culture that

The cult of true womanhood or cult of domesticity was a way of life and thinking about women and womanhood that hit its peak around 1820 to 1860. This ideology was perpetuated by both men and women of the time period. It was a harsh separation of men and women’s roles and their spheres of influence, women’s domain was the home, and men’s was the outside world. Women in the cult of domesticity were focused primarily on four ideals, purity, piety, domesticity, and submissiveness. The first ideal, purity came from the idea that women were passionless creatures.

Brontë shapes her female character in such a way that she deals with her “hunger, rebellion and anger” (Gilbert and Guber, 1979: 360), without entering into a visible conflict with society. Thus, Jane does not openly challenge the Victorian patriarchal system, because she knows how to encompass the imposed standards without letting them run her

This idea of domesticity carried on and limited the women's experiences in life, for example men had a public life where they ventured off daily to compete and perform tens jobs away from the home while the woman I don't just want to go to nurture the children, tend to the home and make sure everything was taken care of. In fact in that time of the 19th century writers, preachers and reformers were advocates that the woman's place was to "be in the home." With all this being said, a large amount of women of color and working-class women also performed wage earning labor so they did have jobs outside of the home. However many of these women were unmarried who worked outside of their home for for wages, in module for the The statistic was fewer than 20% of all women worked outside of the home and those who did only 2% of them were married. When both World War I into happened many men left, to fight for the country which left lots of vacant jobs that need to be filled which is where women stepped up to the plate and became breadwinners and still manage to tend to the household all the men were off at war. After then wars is kind of

Throughout the eighteenth century, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre exposes the life of a middle class woman. However, Brontë only writes about the perspective of white women through her characters as she tries to defy societal roles. Her novel, Jane Eyre, criticizes the role of the patriarchy, however Brontë is reinforcing the mindset of racism and sexism by only writing about white characters. During the Victorian age, there was a different type of oppression other than the typical white patriarchy that has been written about in modern literature at this time. Victorian literature fails to recognize minority

At the start of the captivating novel titled, “Jane Eyre”, our main character Jane defies many of the stereotypes of Victorian women in the time. Charlotte Bronte, the author, sends a strong message of the types of behavior that isn’t very common for women to show. Throughout the exhilarating book, the readers travel through the life of a young orphan who blossomed into a strong woman.     During the Victorian period, women weren’t seen as much excepted the person who takes care of the home and children. Gregg Newby states ,in an article called “Expectations of Women in Victorian Society”, “In the eyes of society, women were ill-equipped to meet the demands of the outside world.

In order to understand how women’s roles have changed over time, one must first look back to the nineteenth century, when brewing tension and a rigid social climate pushed some women to act differently than others. This is evident in Jane Eyre, in which Jane rises above the constraints placed on her gender. While living at Gateshead under her aunt’s supervision, Jane distances herself from being ladylike, responding to her aunt’s harsh words with sharp statements rather than submitting to her authority as her guardian. Jane also sought to further her education, studying hard to master every subject at the Lowood boarding school and conversing with her fellow student and close friend Helen,

Historically, governments, the medical establishment, and religion have challenged and impeded women from attaining a sense of power or a position of authority in society. From witch hunts to the system of coverture to the current sexualisation of women in media, certain conventional gender roles and stereotypes have been imposed upon women. Women have been depicted as “natural desires”, “the lower sex”, “bossy”, “innocent”, “passive”, “sexual objects”, but never or not too often as “strong”, “powerful”, or “the equal sex”. In the 19th and 20th centuries, women were oppressed and deprived of the fundamental principles that a man was reserved to. From marriage and sexuality to education and employment, women were undermined and intended to play a subordinate role to men. This oppressive gender ideology was present in some of the most significant books that were published during the time period such as Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Because of stereotypical Victorian ideals of motherhood, marriage, and femininity, female characters are expected to sacrifice certain aspects of their life—whether it’s ambitions, passion, or the liberty of choice—to take on the roles of a typical housewife and mother. However the characters’ reluctance to conform to these ideals and to male dominance emphasizes their strong internal values and independence, a trait that was rare in women in the

Charlotte Brontё, the author of ‘Jane Eyre’ has used the art of her writing to compose a novel considered to be a feminist novel, along with raising points about the sexism of women in Victorian society. Within the thirty-eight chapters of this novel discussing the protagonist Jane Eyre’s, coming of age story, Brontё not only discusses the hardship of Jane’s life, but the battles she and other female characters, such as Miss Temple face in this book by being belittled for their gender. Brontё physically knew the gender discrimination within Victorian society as she had to disguise her literature under the male name of ‘Currer Bell’ to be able the chance for her to publish her novels. This was because female authors were seen as inferior unlike

In every time period, every society, there are societal expectations and societal norms. Woman are typically secondary to men, staying in the house and nurturing children. Lower class citizens are looked down upon and ridiculed. In the 19th century, when Jane Eyre took place, Britain was governed by a rigid social class system with strict gender roles. During this time, the roots of the class system were about to fall apart.

The classic works of Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, and Charlotte Bronte are powerful examples of the restrictions that women of the 19th century endured. These women collectively penned several of the most famous novels ever written, subversively authoring their works either anonymously or under male names, thus allowing their novels to become much more widely read than they would have been. Emma, by Jane Austen, Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, and Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, are all examples of works that call into question traditional roles of gender and social class and prove themselves to reveal similar themes in structure and style. These novels align themselves similarly from the very first lines by strongly establishing the tone

Men are sexist creatures who deserve every cruel act they have inflicted on women for centuries. So say the radical feminists of the twenty-first century who follow misandry, which is the hatred of men. In fact, nineteenth-century author, Charlotte Bronte, stood for the opposite as she believed in equality for all. She was against the public view that only men were allowed to be in the political and public spheres of society while women did not even own themselves. In spite of the efforts produced by feminists from the nineteenth century, misandry has created a border between these feminist's beliefs and values to the radical feminists of the twenty-first century. Furthermore, Charlotte Bronte's values of social class and gender equality in Jane Eyre are perhaps in response to Abigail Adams’ “Remember the Ladies,” in which, Adam’s demonstrates the issues of societal values. These issues continue to echo in Sarah McVeigh’s interview with Jessa Crispin in “Why I’m not a feminist,” where Crispin implies twenty-first-century feminists create a backlash in society as they result in misandry.

‘It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff.’ This decision in the novel shows just how important social class was to people in the Victorian era and the difficulties they had to achieve their dreams of being higher and successful in terms of social class. In contrast to ‘Wuthering Heights’ we see the complete opposite in ‘Sons and Lovers’ because we see how Gertrude chooses love over status.

Imagine being criticized for not being married and not having children; imagine being furthered criticized for not having money, but then being condemned for having a job. This is how society for nineteenth-century Victorian women functioned. The women lived in a so-called “man’s world” where everything they did depended on men and the men’s money. Women were expected to find the “perfect husband”—or actually, the men found them. If a woman did not meet the specific criteria a man required, she would not be suitable for marriage. These women were trapped: if they did not come from a wealthy family, a wealthy man would not marry them. For a woman to earn her own money, she needed a job, but according to society the only job appropriate for women was that of a wife and mother. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, however, illustrates a female character, Jane, who breaks the rules of society and embraces her differences. Jane becomes a role model for women who needed the confidence to stand up for themselves. Written to prove that women can find fulfillment through work unlike the typical Victorian women who felt that their only duty was to marry and have children, Jane discovers and proves that independence and romance are

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Height’s expresses criticisms of social conventions, particularly those surrounding issues of gender: notice that the author distributes “feminine” and “masculine”characteristics without regard to sex. Brontë had difficulties living in society while remaining true to the things she considered important: the ideal of women as delicate beings who avoid physical or mental activity and pursue fashions and flirtations was repugnant to her. Class issues are also important: one is bound to respect Ellen, who is educated but of low class, more than most women in the Victorian Era.