Theme Of Androgynity In A Room Of One's Own

Throughout Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, the character Mr. [Edward} Rochester changes from a cold-hearted man,  used to getting whatever he desires and values material things, to a blind, humble man that couldn't care less about material things. When Jane Eyre, the main character, first meets Mr. Rochester, his horse has slipped on the ice, and he has sprained his ankle; she stops to help, and upon arriving to Thornfield (the place where she lives and works as a governess), she discovers that he is the master and her employer. He is a cold-hearted man. He constantly refers to Adele (a girl he took in) as a brat, and when talking to the housekeeper about Jane, he says, “I have her [Jane] to thank for this sprain,” (Brontë 122) (despite Jane not

Jane Eyre is a personal journey for independence and belonging in an extremely unpleasant society. Jane Eyre is very distinctive from other romantic pieces of the era, in the fact that it portrays a woman searching for equality and dignity through independence from those who treat her as a second hand citizen. Finding independence is Jane’s only way to combat the situation she is stuck in time and time again throughout her life. Throughout Jane Eyre, Jane, attempts to find independence and a sense of belonging, while also attempting to form open and equal relationships.

Jane is an intelligent, honest, plain-featured young girl forced to contend with oppression, inequality, and hardship. Although she meets with a series of individuals who threaten her autonomy, Jane repeatedly succeeds at asserting herself and maintains her principles of justice, human dignity, and morality. She also values intellectual and emotional fulfilment. Her strong belief in gender and social equality challenges the Victorian prejudices against women and the poor.

We first encounter this relationship between Jane and Rochester during their first dramatic meeting. She encounters him when he falls off his horse and she is required to give him assistance. Jane’s first impression of his face is that ‘He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow’. This may portray the dimness in his face awaiting to be enlightened by a woman which, in this case Jane. Further on in this chapter, unaware of who he is, on her return home, Jane is amazed to discover that the gentleman she assisted in the road was her employer, Mr. Edward Rochester. Jane’s future relationship with Rochester is most clearly set out in their first meeting. Although without any money, reserved and socially dependent, Jane is not

In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Jane begins as a ten year old girl who shows insecurity at home. She felt the need to meet her aunt’s expectations to be seen as part of the family. After Jane lives at Lowood for eight years, she grows to become a young independent woman. She is capable of making decisions for herself and expressing her own opinion. In the last events of the book, Jane demonstrates her self-worth. She is able to resist hardships in her life and start thinking for herself. In the novel, Jane transitions from someone with insecurity to having independence and self-worth.

In Charlotte Bronte’s’ “Jane Eyre”, Rochester uses disguise and duplicity to achieve his desire of marrying Jane. By doing so; he defies state law and divine will. Consequently, Rochester suffers physically, emotionally, and financially.

Ultimately, the relationship of Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester consists of each on being the guiding light, or literal sight, for the other. Rochester becomes the happiness in Jane’s life and depends on her to lead him by the hand through his darkness, or actual blindness. Their love together is the bright light in their relationship that will face constant scorn and derision for its age gap, partial disability, and station

Despite John Reed’s cruel, brutish behaviour towards Jane; ‘you are a dependant… you ought to beg’, Jane’s innately fierce nature is not crushed, it merely lies in wait, cloaked by her ‘habitual obedience’, until it is gradually revealed as she fights back against Mrs Reed’s tyranny. When being forced into the Red Room, as punishment for a crime she did not commit, Jane tells the reader that ‘I resisted all the way: a new thing for me’, it is arguably the first break in the traditional mould for a female heroine, as he does not, and increasingly will not, fit the female roles conventionally assigned to a woman in her position in society. When Mrs Reed cruelly asserts to John Reed that Jane is “not worthy of notice… neither you or your sister should associate with her”, Jane’s reaction is not orthodoxly submissive, but instinctively and immediately reactive. To defend herself she vehemently states “I cried out suddenly and without at all deliberating on my words ‘they are not fit to associate with me!’”. Jane’s confidence and quick wit, moves her further away from conventionality and submission, and fuels her independent, morally virtuous personality. Later, when Mrs Reed denounces Jane’s character to her future headmaster ‘the cold marble pillar’, Mr Brocklehurst, Jane again, passionately discards the expectations placed upon her, and informs the reader, “speak I must: I had been

Jane Eyre’s life was full of oppression, neglect and sorrow. The novel was formed around a few main ideas. One of those would be the search of love and acceptance. Jane wanted to find a family so desperately and she wanted to belong to people. More than this though, Jane wanted to be treated equally. She was denied equality because of her social status, her income,her lack of “beauty” and most of all because of her gender. The book Jane Eyre shows the struggle that women face while attempting to overcome oppression and inequality in the Victorian era.

Jane's Relationship with Rochester in Bronte's Jane Eyre Works Cited Not Included Jane Eyre is one of the most famous and well-read romantic novels in English literature. The novel has been translated into scores of different languages and adapted many times for dramatised productions. The relationship between Jane and Rochester is the central theme of the novel. Charlotte Brontë makes use of a simple yet familiar story line: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl are reunited after some hardship and then live happily ever after.

Jane values power and independence as the most essential things to her, as she will not sacrifice herself into a dependent position in exchange for love. In the Victorian Age, women were taught to act submissively. Whether

Furthermore, Jane says “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself” (Chapter 27, Bronte.) This statement greatly represents the growth that Jane has undergone. She no longer dreads the solitude that once haunted her because she respects herself enough to realize that she did not deserve to experience such great dismay. Through independence and self-recognition, Jane has discovered the importance of loving oneself. Without the reliance on the thoughts of others, the once extremely troubled girl found bliss through a lack of outside control. In regards to her relationship with Mr. Rochester, Jane understands that she must leave him behind to maintain her own well-being. She does not allow the wealth or proclaimed love from Rochester to skew her decisions and she does not linger to dominate the life of her lover. Instead, she moves forward to continue her endless pursuit of happiness and independence.

Bronte’s feminist ideas radiated throughout her novel Jane Eyre. There were many strong and clear examples of these ideas in Bronte’s protagonist, Jane, her personality, actions, thoughts and beliefs. From the beginning of the book, Jane’s strong personality and her lack of following social expectations were quiet clear. “Women of the Victorian era were not part of a man’s world, as they were considered below them.”(VanTassel-Baska, 4) The class divisions between a man and a woman were very distinctive. Jane however ignored this. When Jane first met Rochester, the whole scene presented a feminist portrait of Jane. A women walking alone in that era should never address a man, but Jane went out of her way to help Rochester stating that “if you are hurt, I can help” (Bronte, 98), Jane even let him place a hand on her shoulder. Jane believed that “women were supposed to be very calm generally, but women felt just as men felt” (Bronte, 116), which showed her perseverance and persistence in being independent and proving that men should be equal to that of women. This was of

Also, even though Rochester and Jane were of different classes, Charlotte Bronte presents him as an intelligent person. Both Edward and Jane enjoy conversations with each other. However, Jane does not express her feelings as clearly as Rochester does. So he dresses up as a gypsy and tries to find out what she thinks of the marriage, which everyone assumes that he will with Blanche. Although, both Jane Eyre and Rochester have are fond of each other, Edward was deceitful to Jane. For example, when Jane found out about Mr Rochester’s first wife, he first says that they can run away as ‘brother and sister’. However Jane refuses. Rochester tries another tactic and asks her to be his mistress. But Jane was too virtuous to accept the offer and had no other alternative but to leave Thornfield.

Parallel to many of the great feministic novels throughout literary history, Jane Eyre is a story about the quest for authentic love. However, Jane Eyre is unique and separate from other romantic pieces, in that it is also about a woman searching for a sense of self-worth through achieving a degree of independence. Orphaned and dismissed at an early age, Jane was born into a modest lifestyle that was characterized by a form of oppressive servitude of which she had no autonomy. She was busy spending much of her adolescent years locked in chains, both imaginary and real, as well as catering to the needs of her peers. Jane was never being able to enjoy the pleasures and joys that an ordinary and independent child values. Jane struggles