Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, is a feminist novel about a young orphan who endures abuse before becoming a governess. She falls in love with her employer, Mr. Rochester, but discovers he is married. After inheriting money, she refuses to marry her cousin and eventually finds Mr. Rochester, who is now free to marry her. The novel is a treatise on the equality of women and is considered more important than Bronte’s sister’s work, Wuthering Heights.
Jane Eyre is one of the seminal feminist novels of the early 19th century, written by Charlotte Bronte. The title character, Jane Eyre, is a young orphan at the beginning of the novel, who lives with her cruel aunt and her brothers. After Eyre is repeatedly abused at the hands of her aunt and her cousin, Jane is sent to Lowood School, modeled on a charity school attended by Charlotte Bronte and her sisters.
The first year at Lowood is filled with humiliation for Eyre as she is often starved, humiliated by teachers and treated cruelly by older students. She forms a first friendship with Helen Burns who will die of tuberculosis. At least Helen’s death makes the school a more habitable place, and Jane learns the skills needed to become a governess and support herself.
Jane Eyre resists convention early on and claims the need for her ability to speak and think freely. As the new housekeeper, she has a back and forth with her new employer, Mr. Rochester, which leads to both falling in love with her. Jane is also an avid painter, and many believe the described painting of her to be a masterful premonition on Bronte’s part.
Through dialogue with Rochester, Eyre makes it clear that her marriage to him will not make her subject to him. Indeed, much of their post-engagement dialogue references brothels, menageries, and the like, foreshadowing impending action, as well as giving Bronte a way to discuss the status of the Victorian woman in marriage.
Unfortunately, Mr. Rochester is actually married to an insane woman, as discovered on the morning of Eyre’s intended wedding. Eyre flees the house rather than somehow become involved in a licentious affair with Rochester, much in keeping with the classic gothic novels of the time.
Eyre makes his way towards a family who coincidentally turn out to be his kin on his father’s side. There she finds great companionship in her two cousins and great frustration in her male cousin, St. John. St. John wants her to marry him and continue missionary work in India with him.
Eyre refuses the marriage despite enormous pressure from St. John because she still loves Mr. Rochester and feels it is wrong to marry without love. Again, she keeps her moral compass. A random inheritance falls to her Jane, which she gladly shares with her cousins.
Eventually Eyre decides to find out what happened to Mr. Rochester, and finds him. He is blind after his crazy wife tries to burn down her house and she kills herself. Rochester is now free to marry and Jane won’t take no for an answer.
In Jane Eyre we have the portrait of an independent and determined woman. Unlike many classic heroines, Jane is certainly “simple”. Yet it is her mind, and her spirit, which attracts Mr. Rochester and ultimately leads her to a happy marriage at the end of the novel.
Bronte’s novel was quite popular during her lifetime, but most preferred Wuthering Heights, her sister Emily’s work. Over time, however, Jane Eyre’s importance has eclipsed Wuthering Heights. While both novels are suitably gothic, Jane Eyre is in part a treatise on the intellectual and emotional equality of women as opposed to men. Most feminist critics tend to feel that Jane Eyre is a more important novel in the canon of women’s literature.
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