Jane
Eyre is no doubt one of the greatest novels of the 19th century
and of the Cannon of English literature. It has graced the curricula of
schools and the bookshelves of avid literature consumers for decades. But what
is it about Jane Eyre that makes it
so timeless and so applicable? This novel not only challenges the views of the place
a woman in the 19th century could hold, but also puts forth an ideal
of equality and love in marriage. In Jane Eyre, we find a destitute orphan who
through fate, rises up in the world and stays true to her heart and to her
mind.
One way in which Bronte challenges
the gender stereotype is by creating a heroine who is a self-made woman. Her initial rise in the world is the result of
her education, to which she devotes all energies and faculties, seeing that her
mind will be her way in the world. Jane knows that she lives in a society which
brands a woman’s value in her apparent beauty and outward appearances, and that
her way in life must be through her mind. But Jane never dwells on self-pity
nor focuses on her outward appearances as what makes up her worth. Instead, Jane
works diligently at her education, and eventually gains the role of teacher at
Lowood—the charity school she went to at the age of 10. After a few years, Jane
being somewhat dissatisfied with her position in the world, decides in her
independent and practical manner that she would like to find a private
governess position with some family. Her education has helped her rise in the
world up to this point and will continue to help her later on when she finds herself
destitute because of her good character steadfastness to her own identity.
After she leaves Mr. Rochester, she wanders to a faraway town and discovers
some friends and is granted the position of leader of a school for girls.
Again, Jane can fall upon her education to keep her, though she could be
considered a desperate and helpless woman, she is anything but that. Jane shows
time and again that her education and determined attitude proves her independent.
Another way that Bronte challenges
stereotypes for her age and for ours’, is that Jane Eyre chooses romance on her
own terms. She falls in love, yes, but she does not allow her lover to dictate
her person. One gets the feeling even after the confession of love that Jane is
uncomfortable with the notion of being someone’s idol and statue to be
worshiped and adorned. What Jane seems to desire, is to be true to herself above
all else. And that is what causes her to leave Rochester. After this staunch
holding to her character creates circumstances which lead her to another
marriage proposal. Jane, again, does not betray herself. While St. John’s very
presence seems to force Jane into a submissive state that quite causes her to
act out of character from the very beginning—in the eyes of her readers her
heart turns to ice at the thought of marriage to him—he tries all the powers of
masculinity and religion to make her submit to his will. She does not break.
For Jane can never betray her heart. If she cannot have Rochester, she would
rather be a spinster than languish in a loveless marriage where she knows she
is not considered her husband’s equal. Thus we are brought to the climax of the
book, Jane flees the cold and controlling grasp of St. John to run back into
the loving arms of Rochester, who is now humbled and ever more appreciative of
the love Jane holds for him. She quite literally becomes his hand and eyes. No other
words can describe the blissful marriage they enjoy than the words of Jane
herself:
I have now been married ten years.
I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I
hold myself supremely blest—blest beyond what language can express; because I
am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her
mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh.
I know no weariness of my Edward’s society: he knows none of mine, any more
than the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosums;
consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as
free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to
talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my
confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely
suited in character—perfect concord is the result.
And thus Jane has been united to Rochester not on the
condition of being her “Master” or of dependent on benefactor, but of a free
and independent woman who is brought by her heart and not by any other
motivation to Rochester’s side. Their relationship is based on true love and
affection and not on shallow considerations such as typified beauty and
monetary motivations. Their love grows through the joining of their minds as
well as their bodies. Jane and Rochester
are equals in their love, and it is of the purest kind because of their
equality.
As a teacher, and a woman, this is
the type of heroine I wish to share with my students and with my female
friends. A woman who is not looked at for her sex appeal or how she can please
men, but for her mind and everything that makes up her character. The identity
of the modern woman is constantly put in jeopardy by the assumption that all
the value she can bring is how she looks, and this stereotype is being ever-continued
through TV, pop music, advertising and so many other sources of media. Our society, rather than embracing feminism
and equality of women is degrading us more than ever. It’s time we start
actively boycotting those industries that objectify women and embrace those
that empower them. We may have come far in the past one-hundred years of women’s
rights, but we have infinitely farther to go.
