Governess Relationships in Bronte's Jane Eyre
The Victorian governess suffered socially because of her position. The relationship between her and others that were in her class was strained because of her financial situation. She often suffered from "status incongruity." The relationship between a governess and a gentleman was difficult because she was not his financial equal (Peterson 13). While the relationship was strained in her novel Jane Eyre, Bronte leads us to believe that it is not altogether impossible.
When speaking of the governess and relationships we must first deal with "status incongruity" in the novel. There are several instances in Jane Eyre where the social strain is clearly displayed. The scene that takes place just before the charades give us a clear depiction of "status incongruity":
Will you play? he [Rochester] asked. I shook my head. He did not insist, which I rather feared he would have done: he allowed me to return quietly to my usual seat. He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose that I should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly negatived the notion. "NO" I heard her say: "she looks too stupid for any game of the sort." (185; ch. 18)
"Status incongruity" is well displayed here. Rochester (not willing to exclude her) invites Jane to play charades, but offers no protests when she rejects his offer. Jane does not want to participate because she feels uncomfortable. Avoiding the game of charades was Jane’s way of escaping a situation which might have made both parties uncomfortable. She does not want to be placed in a si...
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...ndependency (437; ch. 38). It is only when Jane has money of her own and is re-established in the social class to which she belonged that her marriage is able to take place without objections, or further complications.
Bronte takes the impossible relationship, and makes it a reality. She does this, however, without losing the realism of the relationship. Jane Eyre is not a story of Cinderella and Prince Charming, Jane does not get rescued. In fact Jane works her way up the social ladder, accomplishing marriage without the social strain it would have had if she were still a governess.
Works Cited
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Beth Newman. Boston: Bedford, 1996.
Hughes, Kathryn. The Victorian Governess. London: Hambledon, 1993.
Peterson, Jeanne. "The Victorian Governess." Suffer and Be Still. Ed. Martha Vicinus. London: Indiana UP, 1972.
He walks into the corporation building, and is greeted by a few of his colleagues, also heading to their cubicle. The man groans at his workload then glances around, seeing his supervisor frowning at him. “Oh boy, this isn’t good.” He thinks to himself as the supervisor walks into his boss’ office for the third time this week. His boss walks out a couple minutes later, and heads straight to the man’s cubicle. “Kevin, this is the third time in just this week that you haven’t been following the company’s procedures. Why won’t you just accept your job and do it like everyone else? I once had your job, and look at me! I’m now one of the head honchos of this place. So please stop disobeying, and you might get somewhere, and not fired.” Social class is a problem today, and it was just as big a problem as in the time of Jane Eyre. In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, the protagonist deals with the issues of social class during her childhood, her first employment, her time at Moor house and Morton, and when she is reunited with Rochester.
... than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep.” They also tell her that “to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress's son! Your young master.” The servants respect the Victorian patriarchal society, despite the fact that they are so badly treated through it. Brontë is trying to tell us that this system has been in form for so long, that people are thinking of it as natural, and insists that it should not be so. In Brontë’s opinion, everyone should have equality.
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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.
Through the course of the novel, Jane Eyre is dependent on first her Aunt Reed, then Mr. Brocklehurst, and, subsequently, Mr. Rochester. As John Reed, her cousin, taunts her, she is “a dependent… [has] no money’” (Bronte 4), highlighting the complete control her Aunt Reed has of her life at this point. Her Aunt Reed chooses to send her to the frightful Lowood School and leads her Uncle John Eyre to believe her “’dead of typhus fever at Lowood.”’ (Bronte 217) While at Lowood, she is dependent on the dreadful Mr. Brocklehurst, a “personification of the Victorian superego,” (Gilbert and Gubar 343) who is the “absolute ruler of this little world.” (Rich 466) He uses “religion, charity, and morality to keep the poor in their place,” (Rich 466) rendering the students psychologically dependent on him. Finally, as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Jane Eyre is dependent on Mr. Rochester as his employee, required to acquiesce to his whims and to ask his...
At the start of Jane Eyre, Jane is living with her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her family after being orphaned. Jane is bitterly unhappy there because she is constantly tormented by her cousins, John, Eliza, and Georgiana. After reading the entire book you realize that Jane was perfectly capable of dealing with that issue on her own, but what made it unbearable was that Mrs. Reed always sided with her children, and never admitted to herself that her offspring could ever do such things as they did to Jane. Therefore, Jane was always punished for what the other three children did, and was branded a liar by Mrs. Reed. This point in the book marks the beginning of Jane's primary conflict in the novel. She feels unloved and unaccepted by the world, as her own family betrays her.
Jane Eyre was an orphan left to depend on unsympathetic relatives who mistreated her. As Millicent bell explains in her article “A Tale of the Governess,” “With the Reeds she suffers not only the dependency of childhood and female hood, but the excruciating humiliation of the poor relation.” The cruel treatment she received from her family members caused her to have no sense of belonging.
The term governess was often used in the 19th century to specify governesses in private homes, which Jane Eyre was, and school teachers. Jane would have been considered a perfect governess because she was blessed with grace of an angel and class of a queen. Even so these women were treated poorly because women of that time were thought to be best kept at home. Bronte in my opinion undermines the realities of domestic service in the 19th century. She portrays being a governess as something that isn’t really bad. In some cases governesses were treated well, but in most cases they were looked upon as inferior. Bronte, as a young woman, was a governess and she truly disliked being one. Maybe she wanted her story with Jane to be a happier experience but it doesn’t really coincide with how the majority of governesses were dealt with. Most governesses would not have had such a great student as Adele, been able to gain a husband, or become well off at the end of their life story. Also how many governesses would have been able to have a relationship with there own master? Many people would have had a problem with that and in real life Mr. Rochester would have risked his social status which was detrimental to many of that time. Also interaction between any ma...
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Women, in all classes, were still living in a world which was misogynistic and male-dominated. Their purpose in life was to produce male heirs and maintain the home by hiring and overseeing servants. It was also taboo for one to marry significantly below one’s social class. This is one reason that Jane is not a conventional heroine for the society of her time. Although, as a governess, she is not considered to be as low as a housemaid, she is still part of the hired help in the house. This is why it is unconventional for her and Mr Rochester to be in a relationship. Yet this is not as peculiar as how Jane Eyre ends their relationship due to her sense of betrayal. It would have been considered extremely foolish for a working-woman’s sense of betrayal to end and turn down a man of great wealth.
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