Masculinity In Jane Eyre

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Adapting the Elusive Masculinity. A word that has set communities aflame and drenched generations into utter disrepair. A term that changes in every culture and era. A term that one can’t simply define. Some attempt to define it in opposition of the term femininity. Others prefer to define it to fit to their tailored needs and societal expectations of the time. In literature, the era in which the text is written depends greatly on how people go about integrating this term in their work. The Bronte sisters come from a long lineage of female writers that follow directly the Romantic period. Their heros and how they interacted with the heroines in the novels were largely based on Lord Byron’s ideal Byronic Hero. The two sisters Charlotte …show more content…

Jane is not talking just to entertain her master, but she is giving her opinion, her judgement, and he admits his faults to her. Jane considers Rochester to be a ‘human’, and not a superior being to whom she must submit. He is ‘faillible’, which is not a common masculine characteristic for the period, where men were supposed to be perfect and reliable. Charlotte Brontë makes Rochester and Jane equal human beings, which is quite revolutionary because of her subordinate position and mostly because she is a woman. Later in the book we see Bronte take Rochester’s adaptive masculinity take a sharp turn, for she chooses to deprive Rochester of a part of his glorious masculinity. At the time despite his small changes in behavior towards Jane, Rochester was still considered too willful for Jane to happily accept him. Bronte had to knock down his masculinity a couple of pegs because he wasn’t going to adaptive as fast or as deeply as was needed for Jane. So after the fire that destroyed most of his castle, Bronte bodily injures him and leaves him blind and without a hand. The novel ends with Jane returning to the blinded, disfigured, and penniless Rochester. Only then can Jane and he be together, once he is very far from any Victorian or Byronic ideal. She returns to him, her heart full of pity, …show more content…

This term that everyone seems to can’t live life without defining it yet can’t seem to grasp its definition has been driving many scholars mad. Masculinity has driven them so mad, that hey have given up on defining it singularly, and instead resolved to reproduce different versions of it, that for their culture and society. We see this in the Byronic hero and we see this is in the adaptive masculinity. Both Jane and Helen were not ready to conform, and despite their Byronic efforts to conform them, they proceed to conform their male counterparts to fit to their needs. This powerful definitions of masculinity not only frees it of it’s rigidness and mayhap strict foundations, it also always many authors to build the fire the Bronte sisters started years ago. In adapting the elusive the Bronte sisters have become the lead runners in the everlasting race for the definition of

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