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Analysis of charlotte bronte's jane eyre
Analysis of charlotte bronte's jane eyre
Women's roles during the Victorian era
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One of the most beneficial ways to learn about people in a certain era is to read literature from that period of time. Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre takes place in the Victorian Era, a time when society expected women to uphold distinct virtues and responsibilities. Jane Eyre, the protagonist of the novel, constantly resists these stereotypical roles. Because of this, she faces both positive and negative consequences. Through Jane's actions, Bronte attempts to convey a message: in order to be happy, one may need to rebel. Victorians considered all women vulnerable and submissive. According to an online article, "Women were considered physically weaker . . . to men, which meant that they were best suited for the domestic sphere" (Hughes).
Throughout history women have struggled to become equal with men. Even though women are not exactly equal with men today because of things like unequal pay, they are closer to being equal than in other periods of history. Particularly, women now are much closer to being equal with men than in the Victorian Era of Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. In the Victorian Era, women were largely expected to obey men, while in modern times, women are expected to be independent. Furthermore, now that women have more rights than in the Victorian Era, they rely less on men and therefore spend their lives very differently from the Victorian Era. If Jane Eyre took place today, many of the characters would have made different choices based on the way gender roles have changed and affect society. Women Jane Eyre are forced by society to act certain ways while relying on men to support them much unlike modern women.
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.
“Jane Eyre”: Thornfield Hall Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is an autobiographic novel that tells the story of a young orphan Jane Eyre’s life and her search for friendship and somewhere she can call home. Throughout her life, she resides in countless different “homes”, but Jane Eyre could not consider these places her home. A home is where Jane can feel comfort, love and equality. The only home Jane can feel comfort in is Thornfield Hall.
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
Jane Eyre is a classic novel in the history of literature. It has been adapted into several different languages, made abridged, and has been portrayed in multiple movie adaptations. These movie versions of the novel have ranged from silent films to modern-day cinema, all working to bring to life this classic tale of love and tragedy. Though movie adaptations cannot always present a book’s plot in its entirety, there is much to be said on the lack of fidelity in which Jane Eyre has been displayed on the screen. This essay will compare and contrast the original text and the 2011 adaptation of the novel to discern if the film was able to capture the likeness of the book.
Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre is a Gothic psychological romance set in the early 1800s in England. This coming of age story pictures Jane, a young girl who lives with her cousins of whom she believes to be her only family. She is abused by them—the son, John Reed in particular—and never shown any form of love while in their household. Not until she moves away, obtains an education, and later meets her employer Edward Rochester, does she obtain any understanding of love, outside of the platonic kind shown by friends such as Helen Burns, and the simplistic comprehension of romance that reading provides. However, the love she discovers is unraveled when a secret is told that compromises the safety, trust, and legality of the relationship.
In 1966 author Jean Rhys published her novel Wide Sargasso Sea, a paraquel to the events depicted in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, which was published 1847, some one-hundred nineteen years prior. Rhys gave an in-depth description of the life of Edward Rochester’s first wife, Antoinette “Bertha” Cosway, a white Creole woman. Little is known about the character in Jane Eyre other than the fact that she is stark, raving mad, comes from a family plagued by lunacy, and has been confined to life in the third floor of Thornfield Hall. In Jane Eyre, Bertha’s most noticeable contribution to the story is the part she plays in thwarting Rochester’s marriage to Jane, and her apparent suicide after setting the estate on fire. Other than this, her character
Majority of all romance novels follow a guideline of some sort that classify them as falling under the romance genre. These guidelines include a developing romantic relationship between two individuals, a problem that creates conflict and tension between them and a resolution in which the problem is solved ending with the couple being reunited. Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre features many of these characteristics. The romance though wouldn't have been the same if the main character Jane wasn’t who she was. From certain characters to plot moments, Jane wouldn’t have been the person she was at the end of the story, a woman in love with a man.
In the novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte takes us on a journey through the life of Jane Eyre. Jane’s character in the novel stays very consistent in terms of her personality. In the beginning of the story when she lived at Gateshead, her personality was very shy and independent. In her years at Gateshead, Jane had to live with her nasty cousins and aunt. This is why she became independent and shy. She was often shunned by her cousins forcing her to believe that she was no one, “ I was a discord in Gateshead Hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage,”(Bronte 10). As she starts to get older, her personality stays the same. When Mr. Rochester asks Jane to marry her, she is kind of taken back. She feels that if she accepts his offer, she would become restricted in her freedom because she would have to listen to Mr. Rochester. “Still I
Jane Eyre, the quintessential Victorian novel, was written at a time when England’s reaches left no continent untouched. This novel embodies this period of England’s power, as it is marked by Victorian themes of imperialism, gender, race and class. While Jane Eyre reinforces these Victorian ideals, Wide Sargasso Sea uses the history of the powerless Bertha and the images of emancipated Jamaica to reinterpret the impact of British colonialism. Though Bronte has thoughtful moments of critique for the Victorian lifestyle herself, her portrayal of colonialism enhances the racial and socio-economic relationships that plague Victorian England and its colonies.
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.
Jane Eyre is a novel, written in the Victorian era by the author Charlotte Bronte. Bronte uses different setting in order to show what the characters are feeling. The setting is often a reflection of human emotion. The setting also foreshadows certain events that are going to occur.
Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, is set in a Victorian England, where social class is a huge factor in life. Brontë is very critical of Victorian England’s strict hierarchy. the main character, Jane, is a governess. Her social position is very complicated in which she has to be sophisticated, educated, intelligent, and soft spoken but she is then talked down to as she is of a lower class. The job of a governess is to teach children, whether it be art, writing or reading english literature. Victorian society is very corrupt and in the novel Brontë truly captures and illustrates the challenges that Jane has to face as a governess. The novel also emphasizes the social gap between individuals and how big it really is. In Victorian society, the rich get the most out of life and life for the poor gets harder. No individual should judge or belittle another due to the very minor factor of social status, but it seems to be very important in Jane’s society. The message that Brontë expresses in the novel is that social class is a meaningless catalyst in the progression of relationships, creating giant gaps between individuals.
Not only is "Jane Eyre" a novel about one woman's journey through life, but Brontë also conveys to the reader the social injustices of the period, such as poverty, lack of universal education and sexual inequality. Jane's plight and her "dependant" status is particularly emphasized at the beginning of the novel.
The 19th century was a period of oppression for women. The patriarchal system that dominated the Victorian period in England's history, was one during which Charlotte Brontë wrote and set the novel, Jane Eyre. Brontë denounces the persecution that women suffered at the hands of a society that placed faith in a belief that men were emotionally, socially and intellectually superior to Victorian women.