Since the beginning of time women have played a vital role in society. In ancient Greece and Rome, women were expected to be seen and not heard. The typical household woman was expected to manage the family’s money carefully and also ensure that food was kept properly (MacKendrick 137). In the centuries following this primal time period, women have progressed to become civil war nurses, astronauts, and even presidential candidates. Writers have been able to portray women in a variety of influential ways. Charlotte Bronte brought to life the educated and strong minded Jane Eyre, Ernest Hemingway cultivated illustrious Lady Brett Ashley, and Kate Chopin illuminated the life of powerful Edna Pontellier. Through the use of these characters, the …show more content…
In Victorian England, the education revolution changed the make up of society. Jane Eyre was in the midst of the upheaval of the older, more traditional views of education, and the transition to more modern educational practices, which included educating women and the lower class. Society was slowly starting to accept educated women eventually realized the best wives and mothers were the educated ones (Dupanloup 65). As a naive child, Jane “scarcely knew what school was.” From what Bessie had told her, school was “a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore backboards and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise.” For Jane, school offered her an escape “from Gateshead [and] an entrance into a new life (32).” For many women of the time, education was opening expansive doors that they did not always have access to. Beyond basic education, many higher institutes of learning, such as Oxford and Cambridge, began offering courses for women (Barzun 626). In many cases, going to school offered women not only an escape from a destitute life, but an opportunity to establish a superior way of life. Jane was a beneficiary of “charity schools” ; schools created to teach the less fortunate the very basics …show more content…
Brett was the typical “modern women” of the early nineteen twenties. Women of the time found short hair to be increasingly stylish, including Brett (Soland 51). While a more youthful and somewhat boyish physique became the norm for much of Europe, Brett took it to the extreme (Soland 21). On top of cutting her hair short, Brett excessively referred to everyone as “chaps” further demonstrating her more masculine qualities. One of Brett’s endeavors included going out and getting drunk on a daily basis. Brett was described as “the only lady. . . who was as charming when she was drunk as when she was sober (66).” While Brett was seen as an aficionado when it came to going out and drinking, many women of the time were partaking in the same activity. “Going out” meant women had to leave a more domestic setting and were putting themselves out in the public realm. Wondering away from home allowed women to turn away from more traditional values and explore their social life with a more autonomous approach. In exploring their new found freedom, women were allowed to improve on relationships with their peers (Soland 75). No longer were women restricted to just socializing with their families; they could improve upon relations outside 0of the home. Another boundary women broke by going out was they advanced on a male dominated area. Consequently, women and men could interact candidly and more frequently
Following the Moral Compass in Jane Eyre Jane Eyre is the perfect novel about maturing: a child who is treated cruelly, holds herself together and learns to steer her life forward with a driving conscience that keeps her life within personally felt moral bounds. I found Jane as a child to be quite adult-like: she battles it out conversationally with Mrs. Reed on an adult level right from the beginning of the book. The hardships of her childhood made her extreme need for moral correctness believable. For instance, knowing her righteous stubbornness as a child, we can believe that she would later leave Rochester altogether rather than living a life of love and luxury simply by overlooking a legal technicality concerning her previous marriage to a mad woman. Her childhood and her adult life are harmonious, which gives the reader the sense of a complete and believable character. Actually, well into this book I  I was reminded of a friend's comment a few years back to "avoid the Brontes like the plague.
Society continually places specific and often restrictive standards on the female gender. While modern women have overcome many unfair prejudices, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century women were forced to deal with a less than understanding culture. Different people had various ways of voicing their opinions concerning gender inequalities, including expressing themselves through literature. By writing a fictional story, authors like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James were given the opportunity to let readers understand and develop their own ideas on such a serious topic.
Throughout the Victorian era, women were expected to meet the standards set by communities and submit to the power of men. A woman’s duty was to be a partner to man, to comply with their authority and be physically submissive, even if mentally, they were unrestricted. Women who defied society’s normalities and refused to have restraints put upon them were often seen as recalcitrant and difficult by the public. In Charlotte Brontë's, Jane Eyre, Jane defies the expected role of a Victorian era woman, and shows that females do not have to comply to societal norms. This is shown through Jane's rebellion, denial of love, and rejection of St. John.
Gender is not a biological fact but a social construct. However, so many assumptions have been made in the attempt to define the terms gender and sex that society often defines gender as being solely male and female. The female sex has traditionally been oppressed due to inferences on physical and mental constraints that male-dominated society has imposed. As with culture, gender socialization begins with birth and the family structure, though many believe that specific events also have a great influence on the boundaries of gender. It has been suggested, for example, that schooling and education systems have a large responsibility in the formation of gender divisions. Gender differences have confronted society since the first peoples, and though progress has been made to level the playing field, men still receive more opportunities in education, the workforce, politics and other wide-scale arenas than do women. In the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Jane is an example of a woman oppressed, yet she finds ways to break free of that which confines her. The family structure and our school systems are two of the first places children learn about themselves. If they do not grant equal opportunity for men and women, it will be impossible to create a just and gender-equal society.
cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be. The more
Education for women in the 1800s was far different from what we know today. During her life, a girl was taught more necessary skills around the home than the information out of school books. A woman’s formal education was limited because her job opportunities were limited—and vice versa. Society could not conceive of a woman entering a profession such as medicine or the law and therefore did not offer her the chance to do so. It was much more important to be considered 'accomplished' than thoroughly educated. Elizabeth Bennet indicated to her sisters that she would continue to learn through reading, describing education for herself as being unstructured but accessible. If a woman desired to further he education past what her classes would teach her, she would have to do so independently, and that is what most women did.
In 1847, Charlotte Bronte, although a woman, published her semi autobiographical Jane Eyre. She wrote her novels in Thornton, Yorkshire, England. This novel later became a classic literature novel. ( Bronte) She wrote in the 1800’s and her novel reflects the time period, which she wrote in with the various techniques and themes. In the novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte uses literary devices such as, imagery and themes like religion and feminism to demonstrate the time period in which she wrote.
Over the centuries, women’s duties or roles in the home and in the work force have arguably changed for the better. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen teaches the reader about reputation and loves in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries by showing how Elizabeth shows up in a muddy dress, declines a marriage proposal and how women have changed over time. Anything a woman does is reflected on her future and how other people look at her. When Elizabeth shows up to the Bingley’s in a muddy dress they categorize her as being low class and unfashionable. Charles Bingley, a rich attractive man, and his sister had a reputation to protect by not letting their brother marry a ‘low class girl’. Reputation even today and back in the nineteenth century is still very important aspect in culture. In the twenty-first century, women have attempted to make their lives easier by wanting to be more equal with the men in their society. Women are wanting to be the apart of the ‘bread winnings’ efforts within a family. Since evolving from the culture of the nineteenth century, women have lost a lot of family and home making traditions but women have gained equality with more rights such as voting, working, and overall equal rights. In the twenty-first century world, most women are seen for losing their morals for and manners for others. As for example in the novel when Mr. Darcy is talking badly about Elizabeth she over hears what he and his friend, Mr. Bingley, are saying about her but she does not stand up for herself.
“Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.
In the Victorian Period receiving an education was an act of unconformity. Women were to be pure, domestic, and submissive and these traits could not be achieved through education. The education of women was thought to disrupt the social balance of time, but in the Victorian Period women were educated because they were mothers of men. They wanted women to teach their children so they had to be educated. Women were stripped of their rights and dignity, but they were finally free to break through the co...
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, and died in 1870; Dickens was the most influential and popular English novelist, of the Victorian age. He is even considered the most popular novelist in 21st century. During Dickens lifetime, he became well known internationally for his extraordinary characters, his mastery of prose in telling their lives, and his portrayal of the social classes.
Women of the Victorian era were repressed, and had little if any social stature. They had a very few rights and fewer options open to them for self-support. For most women the only way to live decently was to get married, and in many cases it was not up to the women to choose whom she married. It was almost unheard of for a woman to marry out of her social class (Cain 20). If a woman did not marry, the only ways she could make a living other than becoming a servant was either to become a prostitute or a governess. For the most part, a woman was not given the opportunity to go to school and earn a degree unless she was born into a high social class. The average Victorian woman was treated not as a person, but as an object or piece of property. She had very few rights either in society, or marriage (Cain, 25). Bronte, born into a middle class family, refused to be repressed by society. She recognized the injustices of her society, and in rebellion against society’s ideologies involving women, wrote Jane Eyre.
The article Preface to "What Policies Would Promote Social Justice for Women?" written in 2010 states same idea related to the work Jane Eyre about gender equality. Despite the theoretical relevance of sexual inequality and Jane Eyre the feminist literature signifying the importance of gender issues that needs to change relations on social position. Also, these analyses the impact of changing issues now a days. It is quite surprising that the same issue is continuing over the centuries. The author of the article Preface to "What Policies Would Promote Social Justice for Women?" mentions gender inequality in business, politics, education, and other areas has been closely studied. “Gender discrimination is not limited to the business world. There
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.
Throughout literature’s history, female authors have been hardly recognized for their groundbreaking and eye-opening accounts of what it means to be a woman of society. In most cases of early literature, women are portrayed as weak and unintelligent characters who rely solely on their male counterparts. Also during this time period, it would be shocking to have women character in some stories, especially since their purpose is only secondary to that of the male protagonist. But, in the late 17th to early 18th century, a crop of courageous women began publishing their works, beginning the literary feminist movement. Together, Aphra Behn, Charlotte Smith, Fanny Burney, and Mary Wollstonecraft challenge the status quo of what it means to be a