Preview

Gender Roles In Jane Eyre

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1588 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Gender Roles In Jane Eyre
In nineteenth century England, sexual orientation parts emphatically impacted individuals' conduct and personalities, and ladies persevered through deigning state of mind around a lady's spot, insights, and voice. Jane Eyre had a difficult task to wind up autonomy and perceived for her individual qualities. She goes head to head with a progression of men who don't regard women as their equivalents. Mr. Brocklehurst, Rochester, and St. John all endeavor to charge or expert ladies. Brontë utilizes marriage as a part of the novel to depict the battle for force between the genders. Despite the fact that Bertha Mason is crazy, she is a provocative image of how hitched ladies can be subdued and controlled. Jane battles off marriage recommendations …show more content…

The accompanying entry, is a standout amongst the most fascinating in the novel. It happens not long after Jane's landing in Thornfield, however before Rochester has returned. In spite of the fact that Jane has accomplished her wish of leaving Lowood and discovering another life, she ends up eager and stands on the top of Thornfield, as she watched out of her window at Lowood pondering what else the world may hold. Jane verbalizes what was for her time a profoundly women's activist logic: “Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute …show more content…

Essentially, as this early portrayal of Jane is used for more noteworthy study as the novel advances, the initial couple of parts of the book overall are formative in nature; while the reader is never really made conscious of the real formation of the developed figure, as the reader is acquainted with Jane after her earliest stages, and after she now live with the Reeds as a kid, Bronte utilizes the space to investigate the early advancement and indication of an advanced part of her gender. Jane's vicinity at Gateshead conduces to a regular movement towards the second phase of Bronte's study, which depends on the young person's vicinity at school, a transitional space that takes into consideration the making of a little society inside a hardly household circle. According to her Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature, Aubrey L. Mishou states, “Jane's defiance violates standards for children, but perhaps girls especially; while the sex of those involved in the primary conflicts of Jane Eyre is not to be questioned, the gender identification assigned to them by Charlotte Bronte is ripe for analysis. From the first introduction of Jane, the reader is shown that she is essentially other in comparison to her cousins, who arguably represent the English social status quo. This otherness is largely defined in contrast with the low cerebral capacity expected of Victorian femininity.” For most of the Victorian women, this implies a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the Victorian era, men were more socially accepted because of their gender. They had more social power because society gave more trust, responsibility, and rank to men. The choices women made were based on the men they lived around. Males were the dependents of the woman’s future, whether it was as family, or workers. Yet this was the perspective of everyone, it was not always fair, nor true.…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte wants the readers to be able to have insight about what it was like growing up as a female during this era. In my analysis of the book, I found that the novel did a great job portraying what it is was like for women to grow up in the era that the book takes place in. Women is this period of time were treated with disrespect, and were forced to be a typically housemaid and were not allowed to have real jobs. When Jane Eyre was growing up, she was often shunned by her aunt and cousins and was taken into rooms to be locked in with no one else. In my opinion, this shows how poorly women, young girls in particular, were treated. In addition to women being treated incompetently, they also had far less personal…

    • 715 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Gender is a social status, a legal designation, and a personal identity and unlike sex, it is not determined biologically but rather it is determined by social constructs. In the novel Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, binary gender is explored. This novel questions the processes and practices that construct gender identities and gender social statuses. The characters in Jane Eyre clash with rigid feminine and masculine roles that are typically stereotyped but does not ultimately question the status quo. During the Victorian era, your gender determined what you were and were not able to do as well as how you went about achieving what you wanted to do. Jane, being the rebellious character that she is, criticizes the social roles of women…

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre tells the story of Jane’s growth and development as she searches for a meaningful existence in society. Author Faith McKay said, “No matter what your family happens to be like…it affects who you are. It matters.” Jane is an orphan, forced to battle a cruel guardian, a patriarchal society, and a rigid social order. (Anderson, “Identity and Independence in Jane Eyre”) Jane has concrete beliefs in what women deserve, as well as obtainable goals for how she imagines her place in society as a woman (Lewkowicz, “The Experience of Womanhood in Jane Eyre”) and with self-growth, Jane Eyre was able to define herself as well as equip herself with wisdom and…

    • 116 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Victorian mores are the unspoken rules known and observed by society. In the eighteen-hundreds several mores were very important including justice, Christianity, high standards of honesty and morality, and women’s roles. All good people are part of a family, a Christian family and women are to serve men as they stand unequal to them. Marriage is simply a tool to gain more money and connections, and only people of the same social class are worthy of each other. Whichever social class someone is born into they remain in unless of course they are rich or beautiful, the poor and plain are simply there to be the butlers, maids and governesses of those who are high up. Several of these mores are demonstrated and contradicted in Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 masterpiece Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is the life story of a young heroin that faces incredible odds and terrible situations and still manages to follow her heart and morals through an exciting life that leads her to a blissful ending. Charlotte Bronte uses her narrative to display several of the Victorian mores and demonstrate why they’re important, and alternately disprove the significance of others.…

    • 1660 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Before the dramatic encounter,Bronte confronts the divide between the sexes in 19th century through Jane's maturing attitudes towards her role as a young woman within society; she challenges the idea that “Woman are supposed to be very calm generally;” Instead, Jane believes that women should be taken seriously “if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex”. These thoughts of Jane’s, combined with her obvious restlessness, indicate an immanent change in her position within Thornfield, thus building tension before her encounter with Mr Rochester.…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Every topic in life can be portrayed as a controversial issue. There always have been two sides to every discussion and there always will be two sides. In the novel Jane Eyre, feminism is portrayed as the main controversial issue. In the early 19th century, women lived in a world that measures the likelihood of their success by the degree of their “marriageability”, which would have included their family connections, economic status and beauty. Women were also subject to the generally accepted standards and roles that society had placed upon them, which did not necessarily provide them with liberty, dignity or independence. This novel explores how Jane defies these cultural standards by her unwillingness to be defined by “marriageability”, unwillingness to submit herself to a man’s emotional power and her desire for independence while keeping her dignity.…

    • 859 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The novel Jane Eyre is a story about a stoic woman who fights her entire life through many trials and tribulations until she finds true love and achieves an almost nirvana-like state of being. The manner, in which Charlotte Bronte writes, her tone and diction especially, lends its self to the many purposes of the novel. The diction of Bronte usually had characteristics of gothic culture and showed the usually negative and angry inner thoughts of Jane. The tone of the novel was there sympathetic towards Jane and displayed her as an intelligent and kind person who has been given a terrible lot in life. This allows the audience to feel connected with Jane because most people have gone through times in their life where they have felt similar emotions to that of Jane. This common thread between Jane and the audience allowed Bronte to better explain the internal struggles of Jane Eyre.…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Self Respect In Jane Eyre

    • 1114 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre illustrates the significance of self-respect, confidence, and integrity in overcoming several predicaments. Bronte portrays this through Jane, who possesses both a sense of self-worth and dignity, which are continually tested and depicted throughout the novel. These attributes are illustrated when she refuses St. John’s hand in marriage, leaves Rochester after discovering his secret that he is married, and when she bravely stands up to Mrs. Reed.…

    • 1114 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    At the beginning of the novel, Jane is being rise by her Aunt, Mrs. Reed. As a child she is constantly ostracized and reminded of the fact that she is an orphan. John Reed torments her, calling her a "bad animal" (p.4) and a "rat" (p.6) and reminds her that "[she has] no money" (p.6) and "ought to beg, and not live [at Gateshead] with gentlemen 's children" (p.6). It is this that drives her need to prove herself, and establish her independence and equality. With reference to her relationship with Rochester, one of the reasons that she does not marry him initially could be because she fears that in marrying him, she will be settling down, will lose her autonomy, and be giving up her ability to further establish herself as a free and independent woman. At this point, it is ironic to note that in leaving Thornfield to remain independent, Jane must once again rely on "cold charity" (p.456) and beg for food and lodging.…

    • 1251 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In each place that Jane resides throughout her life, Bronte created an environment in which Jane felt misplaced in the social hierarchy. At Gateshead, Mrs. Reed and her children continually bully Jane into believing that she is not worthy of notice. Facing a similar situation at Lowood, Jane is made out to be an outsider as Mr.Brocklehurst attempts to turn Jane’s pupils against her. Lastly, at Thornfield, Jane faces a different sense of isolation in which she has more class than the servants, but less class than the Ingram party. Bronte’s use of this motif sheds light on the life of women living in the nineteenth century and their struggle to find a place in…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Dr. Askin Haluk Yildirim of Izmir Katip Celebi University in Turkey, the union of man and woman during this time was “seen to be a matter of survival for Victorian women” (Yildirim 47). Many articles investigating gender roles of this era often compare marriage to slavery. A woman was “legally the slave to her husband” and the union was one “based on power and force” (Yildirim 47; Sykes). Women were to marry older, wealthier men, to work in the home, educating and raising their children, and to be completely dependent on their husbands. It is for this reason that Victorian women sought out wealthy men. Marriage was of major importance and authors of the Victorian Era often included a marriage plot in their works. Charlotte Bronte and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are two writers who defy the expectations of Victorian women through their marriage plots. In Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Jane is almost certain that Rochester will marry Blanche. Blanche’s “rank and connections suited him [Rochester]” and the union of these two individuals would have been acceptable and predictable (Bronte 353). However, Bronte’s marriage plot does not follow the traditional Victorian path. Bronte’s characters Rochester and Jane develop a relationship one would not expect during this time period. Victorian marriage practices can be revealed in other ways…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    One of the main things noticed when reading the novel, Jane Eyre, is how Jane puts men and woman on the same level; she sees them as equals. “Women are supposed to be calm generally: but women feel just as men feel…” (Bronte 111). Throughout the novel, Jane always strives for equality and was even willing to give up marriage to keep it so. As Jane builds a relationship with Mr. Rochester, she begins to fall for him and vice versa. But even when Mr. Rochester asks for her to become his dearly beloved, Jane refuses until she is certain that \he intends to marry her because his “equal is here, and [his] likeness”…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Jane Eyre: Sexism

    • 1879 Words
    • 8 Pages

    In the cases of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice and Emily Bronte's Jane Eyre, the ideals of romantic love are very much the same. In both 19th century novels, women's wants and needs are rather simplified. However, this could also be said for the roles and ideals of the male characters. While it was obvious that this era was responsible for a large amount of anti-female sexism in society and the economy, can it also be said that male-female partnerships were simplified from the male perspective?…

    • 1879 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Jane Eyre Research Paper

    • 2461 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Today, Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece Jane Eyre continues to sell even 150 years after its release and has been mimicked ever since. What makes Jane Eyre so captivating to a modern audience is the plainness of the eponymous main character, a trait that is not found in many classic novels. It seems as though readers always turn to Jane Eyre when they feel the way she does throughout the majority of the novel; depressed and useless. Charlotte Brontë’s excellent use of character development amazingly turns a rather bleak story into an optimistic one of triumph and love. Charlotte Brontë uses her abilities as a writer to manipulate Jane’s voice throughout the novel by creating parallels between herself and Jane as a narrator by simulating the development of her character through her own description of events in Jane’s life, and as Jane recalls specific events from her childhood leading up to her marriage to Mr. Rochester she includes with beautiful detail the emotions she felt at every important moment, encapsulating the development of her character from her lonesome days at Gateshead to her wicked but motivating years at Lowood Institution and ending with the memories of her life in Thornfield…

    • 2461 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics