bunpeiris Literature

Jane Eyre and Charlotte Bronte : women ahead of their times 

Written by BunPeiris

In what ways might the knowledge of the social and political context in which Jane Eyre was written and first published contribute to an understanding of the novel?

“I resisted all the way; a new thing for me…,”
[10 year old Jane, while being dragged by her cruel aunt towards all night locked up exile with the deathbed of her uncle in the red room]

Jane and Bronte resisted all the way; a new thing to Victorian society then. They resisted against the civil injustice upon the woman in Victorian era.

The knowledge of social, political and historical context of the Victorian era (1837-1901), that is, the time setting, contributes to the comprehension and appreciation of Charlotte Bronte’s (1816-1855) masterpiece, Jane Eyre (1847) to such an extent and depth, the modern critical readers are bound to interpret it as groundbreaking literary work of a supremely spirited lady writer’s daring broadside literary assault on the Victorian civil injustice upon the feminine gender of the human species.

Such was the sinful male dominance of the woman, such was the injustice heaped upon them, they were defined “motherless children in patriarchal society.” (Dunn 470) by a modern feminist, namely, Phyllis Chester (born in 1940), Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies, in her book titled “Women and Madness”.

The novel was a groundbreaking work of literature since, prior to Bronte, no woman novelist has ever striven to bring the injustice upon women to the limelight as Bronte has done. It was daring since no woman novelist has ever dared to bring in feminine sexuality to the daylight. It was a broadside assault on the male bastion, since Bronte was vibrant and straightforward in expression of her opposition to male dominance.

On the surface level, Jane Eyre, a Bildungsroman novel with a blend of Gothic horror (yet, a moral version) and Victorian morality, or to be precise, immorality (in view of the empire’s oppressive colonialism overseas and suppressive chauvinism at home) and a romance written in fully stretched flashback mode is a biography of an orphaned genteel female striving for a life in love and integrity.
Perhaps one could argue, towards the end, when “flee[ing] temptation”  (Dunn 272), the “poor, obscure, plain and little (Dunn 216) figure of a woman could only be saved with a Dickensian coincidence. Worse still, still greater coincidence is that not only she found relatives, whom she has yearned for all her life, but also inherited wealth to be on parity with a prospective life partner. That is a fairy tale: the novel gets detached from the bitter pill of reality of the suppressed populace hence cast doubts on plausibility. If there could be a fault line, that would be it.

On a deeper layer, it cannot be disregarded at all, that the novel encapsulates an psychological conflict between Jane’s innate desire and Christian morality. While Jane retains her independence and integrity, the author launches herself, by means of the protagonist, on a broadside intellectual assault on the social injustice heaped upon the feminine gender. Bronte enlightens the reader of three areas of social concern that haunted the Victorian England: women’s education, employment and marriage.

Education
Although, the novel Jane Eyre is studied at the university level in view of its literary value, historical value, feminist value-or to take it in a broader perspective, human condition and last yet not least superior literary language, she was not steeped in university education. Nor were her illustrious sisters. Women in great Victorian Empire, with a woman, Queen Victoria at the helm, deprived women of university education. It was only in 1874, 37 years after the publication of Jane Eyre, that women received academic degrees: four women from Cambridge University. Woman, being considered inferior to her brother, was deprived of education. Ironically, it was by depriving the woman of education, the male dominant social system then, rendered woman appear inferior. Such was the status accorded to their intellect, as being of inferior version of men, that woman poets and novelists were compelled to hide behind male pen names lest their works of literature would hardly be published, and if published would be devalued. Such was the absurdity of the Victorian era. Bronte sisters were Bells, Charlotte, Currer Bell, author of Silas Marner (1861), Emily Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880), George Eliot.
Once the comprehension and appreciation of the novel is carried out in this perspective, the characterization of the protagonist reveals herself in all her self-sustaining individuality and life-threatening integrity or the quality of being honest  to the extent having steadfast moral principles. Jane though plain, in terms of intellect and integrity, alone could well have been the prime jewel of the crown of an emperor. It is in these circumstances, the knowledge of the social and historical context in which Jane Eyre was written and first published contributes to an understanding of the novel.

Employment
Being deprived of university education, being deprived of inheritance of the family wealth [as five Bennet sisters in Jane Austen’s (1775 –1817) Pride and Prejudice (1813)], daughters of middle classes and professional classes, in the event of a life sans marriage, could, at best only become a governess at a wealthy family home. By the time Governesses’ Benevolent Institution was founded in 1841 for the retired governesses, more than 25,000 women in England worked as governesses. Charlotte Bronte was a once a teacher at a boarding or charity school and then a governess in the same grain her heroine, Jane Eyre is. But a school employment was no better than virtually slave labour. Her ill-fortune continued: when subsequently, she was offered a post of a teacher at a large Manchester boarding school later for a handsome sum of 100 sterling pounds, her father’s ill health prevented her of taking up it. Genteel work outside of domestic sphere for the middle class women was almost non-existent. The profession of dressmaking, though considered ‘genteel’ offered meager compensation. Nursing was taken up only working class women with ill-reputation. It was only in 1860s Florence Nightingales’s reforms brought decency into the profession. Unless supported by a male relative, as Mrs. Sparsit the widow by Mr Bounderby in Charles Dickens’(1812-1870) Victorian era novel titled, “Hard Times”(1854), woman was destined to face a dire fate. Bronte did not have to resort to satirical novels in the grain of Hard Times studded with caricatures of characters as Dickens did, so that social reality could be laid bare. But Bronte would not fall so low into a satirical pit. She wrote with passion. She wrote with womanly virtue. She wrote with a sense of justice. She, “out of the impulse and feeling of her mind” (Patrick Branwell Brontë), brought in realistic characters in conflict or harmony with one another in plausible settings of her limited world. Once the comprehension and appreciation of the novel is carried out in this perspective, the characterization of the protagonist reveals herself in all her self-sustaining individuality and integrity. It is in this manner the knowledge of the social, political and historical context in which Jane Eyre was written and first published contributes to an understanding of the novel.

Marriage
In spite of having no relatives, no means of livelihood, Jane refuses to be a partner in the sin of bigamy with Rochester. She overcomes her desire to retain her sense of morality: “Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?” Still steadfast and upright was Jane’s reply: “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now” (Dunn 270). In Rochester, Jane finds intellectual and emotional compatibility. Yet she refuses to violate a Christian norm: she would not be a sinner in bigamy.

Still more, she rejects to lead a loveless, passionless marriage with St. John. She overcomes her temptation for an economically safe life to retain her view of marriage in love. “As his curate, his comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour: accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his ineradicable ambition. . . I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity.” (Dunn 347) Jane realizes their incompatibility in terms of spirituality and passion. She fears that if they married, he would “scrupulously observe … all the forms of love’ yet the their relationship would be devoid of passion.

Viewing in the perspective of marginalization, deprived of rightful inheritance of their share in wealth of their parents, that would set adrift unmarried middle class women in rudderless despair, at worst, in the world at large,  and at best, among the landowning gentry such as Rochester. Bronte’s revolutionary ideas of independence from men and equality with men, in a century to come, would contribute towards modern Feminism, the belief in the social, economic, and political equality of the sexes. It is in this sense, the knowledge of the social, economical and historical context in which the novel Jane Eyre was written and first published contributes to an understanding of the novel.
Jane Eyre is a woman ahead of her time. So was Charlotte Bronte.

 Works Cited

Dunn, Richard J. “Jane Eyre.” Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Richard J. Dunn. Third Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 1971.

Patrick Branwell Brontë. [‘A Letter to William Wordsworth’] (1837), in The Shakespeare Head Brontë. Ed. Harold Orel. 2018. Springer Nature Switzerland AG. 4 February 2019. <https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-25199-5_7>.