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oppression of women in Jane Eyre
the character of Jane Eyre
analysis of Jane Eyre
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Readers are exposed to the different reactions of Jane, Helen, and Miss Temple to injustice. In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, there is a great deal of injustice done to these three characters. Jane suffers with injustice throughout her lifetime, from Mrs. Reed’s abuse to Mr. Brocklehurst’s false accusations. She finds it hard to ignore it and always wants to take revenge. Although Helen also suffers from injustice in Lowood, she does not take action because she believes that justice will be found in G-d’s ultimate judgment. Miss Temple, a teacher at Lowood, is a great role model to the girls at Lowood. If injustice is done to her students, she will stand in their defense and only look at the good. Jane, Helen, and Miss Temple all respond to injustices in different ways at different times.
Jane, the main character in this novel, is forced to contend with oppression, inequality, and hardship throughout her youth. Mrs. Reed’s son, John, abuses Jane for no good reason and Jane gets punished for defending herself for she cannot stand the injustice being done to her. Mrs. Reed then sends her off to Lowood and before Jane leaves, she tells her aunt that she will spread her bad reputation to anyone who asks her how her aunt treated her. This defense made by Jane proves that she cannot endure the injustice without fighting back and taking revenge. At 10 years old, Jane travels to Lowood to go to school. There, she meets Helen Burns, who becomes her best friend. When Mr. Brocklehurst announces to the whole school that Jane is a deceitful person and a liar, Jane cannot stand the unfairness being done to her. Helen calms her down by giving her advice that goes like this: “Jane says to Helen, ‘And if I were in your...
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...a meed liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to cure me of my faults, and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight” (Brontë 47). It is due to Miss Temple’s intervention that Jane is saved from the false accusations of Mrs. Reed and Mr. Brocklehurst.
Jane, Helen, and Miss Temple all take action to their circumstances in different ways. I believe that Helen’s way is the most correct. When Helen is being reprimanded or rebuked for her wrongdoings, she accepts it and feels that this is what she deserves. As a Christian follower, she believes in putting the love of G-d before everything else. I feel that that is very great of her.
Bibliography:
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Penguin, 1985.
Jane in her younger years was practically shunned by everyone and was shown very little love and compassion, from this throughout her life she searches for these qualities through those around her. Due to Jane’s mother’s disinheritance she was disowned by Mrs. Reed and her children, and was treated like a servant consistently reminded that she lacked position and wealth.
At the beginning of the novel while Jane is living under her aunt, Mrs. Reed, she is treated disrespectfully and cruelly. She accuses Jane of being deceitful and a troublesome girl in front of Mr. Brocklehurst, the master of Lowood School. Jane is so hurt by this accusation that she cannot stop herself from defending her well being, and she stands up to her aunt. She knows she is being treated disrespectful and has much more self-worth than ...
In the novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte uses Jane Eyre as her base to find out how a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with her responsibilities. . Mistreated abused and deprived of a normal childhood, Jane Eyre creates an enemy early in her childhood with her Aunt Mrs. Reed. Just as Mrs. Reeds life is coming to an end, she writes to Jane asking her for forgiveness, and one last visit from her.
In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Jane is an orphan who is often mistreated by the family and other people who surround her. Faced with constant abuse from her aunt and her cousins, Jane at a young age questions the treatment she receives: "All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sister’s proud indifference, all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always brow-beaten, always accused, forever condemned?" (27; ch. 2). Despite her early suffering, as the novel progresses Jane is cared for and surrounded by various women who act as a sort of "substitute mother" in the way they guide, comfort, and inspire her. By looking into Charlotte Bronte’s own childhood and family background, as well as discovering aspects of Victorian motherhood in the mid-nineteenth century, one may be enlightened as to why so many substitute mothers are present to Jane throughout the novel. The substitute mothers, although a starting point for Jane’s emotional redemption, do not prove to fulfill what a mother in the Mid-Victorian era would be.
Jane had a testing childhood at the hands of her aunt Mrs Reed and her cousins. She lived with the Reed family until ten years of age and during these ten years she was bullied and unloved. Jane was then sent away to Lowood School she appeared excited to leave Gateshead, yet once at Lowood she experienced more ridicule and a hard school life. Nevertheless she did find friendship in Helen Burns, although this friendship was short lived as Helen died during a breakout of typhus, through their short friendship Helen had shown Jane that life at Lowood could be bearable; she was also the first friend Jane ever really had.
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.
Women in the Victorian era were held to an inferior status. Many had to hide their feelings, conceal their creativity and they were sought to conform to societal rules. Jane Eyre never quite followed this, growing up in a contemptuous household Eyre acted out, calling her provider, Mrs. Reed, "deceitful" and describing her upbringing as "miserable cruelty" (Bronte 37, 36). Jane's upbringing instills her strong belief in justice toward those who treat others unfairly. When Jane becomes a student at Lowood Institute, the orphan school, Jane endures cruelty from the headmaster, Mr. Brocklehurst. Due to her rough childhood, Jane's passion is uncontrollable. Rather than being passionate for love, she is passionate for justice. While at Lowood, she eventually learns the meaning of forgiveness and strength. Her good friend, Helen Burns, teaches her to accept others opinions of her, to be humble and recognize one's own faults. Helen councils Jane, saying "Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs" (58). Helen's advice to Jane teaches her self-possession, to endure hardships that come her way ...
Jane Eyre has been acclaimed as one of the best gothic novels in the Victorian Era. With Bronte’s ability to make the pages come alive with mystery, tension, excitement, and a variety of other emotions. Readers are left with rich insight into the life of a strong female lead, Jane, who is obedient, impatient, and passionate as a child, but because of the emotional and physical abuse she endures, becomes brave, patient, and forgiving as an adult. She is a complex character overall but it is only because of the emotional and physical abuse she went through as a child that allowed her to become a dynamic character.
The novel, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, has a plot that is filled with an extraordinary amount of problems. Or so it seems as you are reading it. However, it comes to your attention after you have finished it, that there is a common thread running throughout the book. There are many little difficulties that the main character, the indomitable Jane Eyre, must deal with, but once you reach the end of the book you begin to realize that all of Jane's problems are based around one thing. Jane searches throughout the book for love and acceptance, and is forced to endure many hardships before finding them. First, she must cope with the betrayal of the people who are supposed to be her family - her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her children, Eliza, Georgiana, and John. Then there is the issue of Jane's time at Lowood School, and how Jane goes out on her own after her best friend leaves. She takes a position at Thornfield Hall as a tutor, and makes some new friendships and even a romance. Yet her newfound happiness is taken away from her and she once again must start over. Then finally, after enduring so much, during the course of the book, Jane finally finds a true family and love, in rather unexpected places.
As a child, Jane Eyre suffered from much torment from her Aunt Reed and her callous cousins. She never received the love she deserved and longed for. She felt the need to escape from the misery and torture that she got at Gateshead from her so called family. In a way, Mrs. Reed helped Jane in her process of growing and maturing. Jane was determined to find something better for her in life because she did not want to feel that rejection from the Reeds. With that rejection, Jane was motivated to become someone better than they were. Jane Eyre was sent to Lowood, an orphanage school, and met Miss Temple and Helen Burns.
Miss Temple can be described as the nondiscriminatory woman superintendent of Lowood. During their very first meeting Jane claims how she is "impressed by her voice, look and air" (180). Helen, another student that Jane befriends at Lowood, describes Miss Temple as being "above the rest, because she knows far more than they do" and "overall good and very clever"(221). Having Helen describe Miss Temple this way speaks volumes because she herself is very fair-minded and admirable towards Jane. Miss Temple's strongest quality is her ability to be a role model from the girls, this quality is depicted by Jane as "considerable organ of veneration, for I yet retain the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her steps" (216).
The development of Charlotte Bronte's character, Jane Eyre, becomes vital to her novel Jane Eyre, and the other characters in which she is involved. She is an intelligent, plain featured, honest young girl whose reaction to her situations brings more depth to her personality. She is forced to deal with oppression, discrimination, and at times poverty, which disrupt her strong will, dignity, and desire for freedom. At the beginning, Jane possesses a passion for pride and the idea of freedom and these characteristics, along with her integrity, are tested continuously throughout the novel by the many personalities with whom she encounters. Living in a male dominant world Jane is expected to remain obedient and docile and her passion sometimes keeps her from being able to do this. She is a rarity among obeying female characters and we see this throughout the book.
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.
At the beginning of the book, Jane was living with her aunt Mrs. Reed and her children. Although Jane is treated cruelly and is abused constantly, she still displays passion and spirit by fighting back at John and finally standing up to Mrs Reed. Even Bessie ‘knew it was always in her’. Mrs. Reed accuses Jane of lying and being a troublesome person when Mr. Brocklehurst of Lowood School visited Gateshead. Jane is hurt, as she knows she was not deceitful so she defends herself as she defended herself to John Reed when he abused her, as she said “Wicked and cruel boy! You are like a murderer – you are like a slave driver – you are like the Roman emperors!” to John Reed instead of staying silent and taking in the abuse, which would damage her self-confidence and self-worth. With the anger she had gotten from being treated cruelly, she was able to gain ...
When Jane is shunned by Mr. Brocklehurst in front of the entire Lowood population, Helen is the one person that does not immediately judge Jane. In fact, she makes her feel more comfortable in a place that is filled with punishment and hypocrisy. Though Lowood does not truly feel like home, Helen is able to provide Jane with not only all the compassion she needs as well as support and respect. This is one of the first loves Jane experiences on her journey and it allows her to become more open to the love she finds in her future endeavors.