When exploring the evolution of gender roles overtime, it’s clear that the most effective gender role revolutions have occurred at the hands of single revolutionary figures that saw injustice and vowed to fight it. There have been several key figures that have played a crucial role in overthrowing the gender norms of each time period. I’ll be focusing my attention on gender roles in 3 significantly different time periods: the Age of Enlightenment, the Romantic Era, and the Modern Era. These time periods represent clear and unique ideological stakes, and the transitions between them have highlighted some radical figures in history that are responsible for the gender roles we have in society today.
The first significant change in thought processes was during the 18th century, when the Age of Enlightenment came about. It was known for being the “Age of Reason”. It was a time of progress. For the first time in hundreds of years, it promoted scientific thought, skepticism, and questioning authoritarian figures. It was a period of revolution in human thought, and began to break the bond between religion and science. Scientific discoveries were embraced, while the corruptions and hypocrisies of the church were finally questioned. There were basic beliefs inspired by texts such as Kant’s What is Enlightenment, where the idea of independent thinking and questioning authority were raised. The authority of the Church, divine right of the monarch to rule, and the aristocratic privilege were all questioned. However, going even further was a woman who spoke out against the oppressed and restrictive status of women in society. Mary Wollstonecraft was a revolutionary figure, by all counts.
To understand why Wollstonecraft’s opinions and act...
... middle of paper ...
...f the 19th and 20th century. While there were no major changes made in gender roles, Wollstonecraft and other female role models who attempted to bring attention and change to the inequality between men and women were the stepping-stones for future feminists.
Moving ahead a few decades takes us to the Romantic Era, which was the first half of the 19th century. There was a huge surge in portraying gender roles in literature and art. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre portrays a great depiction of gender roles during this time period. Jane Eyre is a Victorian Era novel. The Romantic Era and the Victorian Era overlap a number of years, so Jane Eyre does encompass ideas of both eras. However, what’s important about the novel is the progressive depiction of women and how it deviates from the norm. A central theme of the novel is the patriarchal society that Jane lives in.
The Enlightenment is known as the revolution that brought to question the traditional political and social structures. This included the question of the woman’s traditional roles in society. As the public sphere relied more and more ?? and the advances in scientific and educated thinking, women sought to join in with the ranks of their male counterparts. Women held gatherings known as salons where they organized intellectual conversations with their distinguished male guests. Seeking to further their status, enlightened women published pamphlets and other works advocating for educational rights and political recognition. Even with this evolution of woman in society, many still clung to the belief that the role of the woman was solely domestic. The females that spoke up were usually deemed unnatural. However these women used the time period of reason and science that allowed them the opportunity to break away from their domestic roles and alter the view of women in society.
The idea and characteristics of gender, relate to the specific differences men and women deliver to society and the unique qualities and roles each demonstrate. The term ‘Femininity’ refers to the range of aspects and womanly characteristics the female represents. The foundation of femininity creates and brings forth many historical and contemporary issues. According to Mary Wollstonecraft in ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’, women’s femininity is considered a flaw of nature. Throughout the paper, history indicates how women are viewed and looked upon in a male dominated world which hinders a woman’s potential, her character, her mind, her dreams, her femininity. The paper particularly stresses the idea of power, the power of man. The historical argument leans towards man’s desire to treat women as inferior to them.
When taking into account feministic views in the book, Jane Eyre, it is important to connect with the time period to accurately understand the point of view the author is trying to express. The Victorian Era focuses on telling a story through a dramatic monologue. Their focus is to reveal aspects of human psychology and through Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte does so by showing Jane grow up and connect her with the importance of the changing views of children into adults in the Victorian Era. In relation to A Room of One's Own and The Subjection of Women, there are feministic views present throughout both poems but in Jane Eyre the feministic theme is challenged by Jane because she wants to overcome the obstacles in her life, which Bronte does an excellent job of expressing because she too went through a lot of the same experiences and can express her true feelings through this novel.
Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre may be superficially read as simply a sweet romance in which Jane ends up with the man of her dreams after overcoming many obstacles and challenges. But doing so misses the much deeper—richer—messages of Bronte's lasting masterpiece. A more thoughtful reading reveals this novel, especially its heroine Jane, challenging centuries-old gender roles which assume male supremacy, characterizing men as the dominant, more privileged gender, while women are oppressed into inferior and submissive roles. Of course this Victorian novel portrays the expected gender roles of both men and women in 19th century England, but Jane rises out of the patriarchy challenging the social roles assigned her with a personality marked by sass and self-assurance . Ms. Bronte, through Jane, ultimately demonstrates that women can live their lives on equal terms with—or independent of—men.
Jane Eyre is about a girl named Jane who struggles to find who she really is and with it what she really wants. “As a model for women readers in the Victorian period and throughout the twentieth century to follow, Jane Eyre encouraged them to make their own choices in living their lives, to develop respect for themselves, and to become individuals” (Markley). One of the reasons why this book gained merit was because of its striking presence within its time period. During the “Victorian Age” woman did not have much say in society, so this novel broke boundaries to societal norms that restricted woman from things they have today. “Brontë is able to enact this tension through her characters and thus show dramatically the journey of a woman striving for balance within her nature.
Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, was published in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, in London. This year is exactly ten years into Queen Victoria’s sixty-four year reign of the British Empire. The Victorian Era was renowned for its patriarchal Society and definition by class. These two things provide vital background to the novel, as Jane suffers from both. Jane Eyre relates in some ways to Brontë’s own life, as its original title suggest, “Jane Eyre: An Autobiography”. Charlotte Brontë would have suffered from too, as a relatively poor woman. She would have been treated lowly within the community. In fact, the book itself was published under a pseudonym of Currer Bell, the initials taken from Brontë’s own name, due to the fact that a book published by a woman was seen as inferior, as they were deemed intellectually substandard to men. Emily Brontë, Charlotte’s sister, was also forced to publish her most famous novel, Wuthering Heights, under the nom de plume of Ellis Bell, again taking the initials of her name to form her own alias. The novel is a political touchstone to illustrate the period in which it was written, and also acts as a critique of the Victorian patriarchal society.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre chronicles the growth of her titular character from girlhood to maturity, focusing on her journey from dependence on negative authority figures to both monetary and psychological independence, from confusion to a clear understanding of self, and from inequality to equality with those to whom she was formerly subject. Originally dependent on her Aunt Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester, she gains independence through her inheritance and teaching positions. Over the course of the novel, she awakens towards self-understanding, resulting in contentment and eventual happiness. She also achieves equality with the important masculine figures in her life, such as St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester, gaining self-fulfillment as an independent, fully developed equal.
Where is a woman’s place in society? The novel Jane Eyr, by Charlotte Brontë is a phenomenal coming-of-age, romance novel that can relate to women across time. With the attempt to answer this question of a woman’s place, the meets the definition of a classic. Italo Calvino describes classics as books that “exert a peculiar influence … when they refuse to be eradicated from the mind and … [camouflage] themselves as the collective or individual unconscious.” Jane Eyre is unforgettable and applicable to modern society with its ideas of gender that transcend time.
Bronte wrote Jane Eyre to emphasize her beliefs behind the purpose of women, and how society lacked to understand them as who they were created to be. The issue of lack of opportunity for women to engage in intellectual preparation and continuation is prevalent within the character of Jane. Expectation of women’s role was a social norm, with a lack of diversity or individuality. Bronte challenges this issue through the character of Jane, whom experiences a tug-of-war sensation between being herself, who she wants to be and should be, and what society wants her to be, and pushes her to be. Bronte was trying to explain that women have the same capability as men to be productive individuals of society, but they are held back from establishing their potential. The most unique understanding of Bronte’s challenge to society is the understanding that the characteristics and personality of Jane as a female is shamed and criticized, however these features are identical to those of a successful and representable man in
Bronte is known as one of the first revolutionary and challenging authoress’ with her text Jane Eyre. The society of her time was male dominated, women were marginally cast aside and treated as trophies for their male counterparts. Their main role in life was to be a mother and a wife, “ Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life……the more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure she will have for it.” A quote from a letter Robert Southey wrote to Bronte. A clear sign of the mentality and opposition Bronte was up against. A woman’s “proper duties” of course being to tend and wait on her “master’s” every whim and need. Women during Bronte’s time had no clear voice, none that was of any merit, they were a silent category of society, silenced by their male oppressors. Bronte’s book was in fact written before the first women’s rights movement had happened, yet it puts forward an image of an independent strong character, of a passionate and almost rebellious nature. A character “refusing subservience, disagreeing with her superiors, standing up for her right’s, and venturing creative thoughts.” I put forward that Bronte throughout her text not only revises the themes of male power and oppression, but reconstructs them also. The text is a female bildungsroman of it’s time, sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly tackling the patriarchal view of women.
The women during this time period were looked upon as property and one who needed a man’s guidance because they were believed to be weak and dependant. Bronte and Jane changed the aspect of women's independence through the satire in Ms. Eyre’s life journey. Orphan Jane was treated terribly by her jealous and wretched aunt and three cousins growing up. Having suffering the torment made her strong and able to rely on herself and no one else, shaping her into an independant woman. Jane Eyre being categorized as a satire will focus the reader more on the message that Bronte is portraying through the story and journey Jane is going through to mature into an independent strong
Similar to many of the great feministic novels of its time, Jane Eyre purely emerges as a story focused on the quest for love. The novel’s protagonist, Jane, searches not only for the romantic side of love, but ultimately for a sense of self-worth and independence. Set in the overlapping times of the Victorian and Gothic periods, the novel touches upon both women’s supposed rights, and their inner struggle for liberty. Orphaned at an early age, Jane was born into a modest lifestyle, without any major parent roles to guide her through life’s obstacles. Instead, she spent much of her adolescent years locked in imaginary chains, serving those around her but never enjoying the many decadences life has to offer. It is not until Jane becomes a governess that many minute privileges become available to her and offer Jane a glance at what life could have been. It is on her quest for redemption and discovery that she truly is liberated. Throughout Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel Jane Eyre, the story’s protagonist Jane, struggles to achieve the balance of both autonomy and love, without sacrificing herself in the process.
The Enlightenment questioned the role of women. For centuries men have dominated what the role of women should be. Many male writers believed that that women were lower intellectually value to men. But there were some philosophies, which showed some positive feed back for women. They argued that women were capable of all that men are. It was the woman thinkers who added new perspectives to the women question by suggesting better improvements for woman. Those thinkers believed that woman should be better educated. They should be able to learn what men are learning. A English writer Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was the fonder of modern European feminism. She began the women movement arguing the rights of women. She declared, that women should have equal rights with education and in economic and political life.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre represents the role of women in the Victorian era by giving the reader an insight into the lives of women from all social classes. Jane Eyre therefore represents figures of the Victorian time yet the character of Jane Eyre, herself, can be seen as very unconventional for the Victorian society.
Jane Eyre is a Feminist Novel.In the novel Jane Eyre, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the tone of Jane Eyre is in fact a feminist novel. This book points out the times of unfairness in the Victorian society between men and women, where the man always comes first and is the master of his wife and always the provider. There are many examples that show feminist acts that usually do not occur in the Victorian era, such as wiith strength and integrity, Jane is able to break free from the role that the rest of the society has put her in, which is uncommon in that time