Jane Eyre essay

Michael Rossi
April 03, 2011
Advanced Placement British Literature/ Ms. Walter
Jane Eyre Essay

An End Victorian Society

Throughout history, man has always actively changed and shaped his customs and traditions. From building pyramids to hosting gladiator fights, humanity has changed substantially in her customs and traditions throughout the ages. Little has changed very little from the times of the ancient Egyptians in three thousand BC, to the time of the Victorian age in Britain, where the novel Jane Eyre was written, people always had a class system. In ancient Egypt the vast majority of people were peasants and farmers who followed the orders of the upper class pharos and warriors. During the late 1800s Britain valued class and wealth. These were two values that Bronte simply could not adopt. The novel Jane Eyre, is a piece of literary satire that truly demonstrates how misplaced the social standards were during the Victorian age in Great Britain. Bronte uses the fact that Jane was able to find success without starting off wealthy or being of a respectable class, the people who were ideal members of Victorian society were portrayed as fools, and Jane strived off of having no respect for the status quo.
Establishing Jane as the main character for the novel was very purposeful as means of eliciting a satirical literature against Victorian society. Jane was disadvantaged in terms of fitting the Victorian mold. She was financially distraught, without a penny to her name. Her parents had died , leaving her an orphan in the care of her aunt. In modern times (the twenty first century), the world pities an orphan as they often lack the familial love that most people cherish very dearly. In Victorian times, being an orphan was far worse. One’s class was typically directly tied to their lineage. To be without parents was to be a second class citizen. Jane was seldom allowed to forget her place in society as she was treated maliciously by her cousins and aunt. Her violent cousin John struck her and rather than be punished Mrs. Reed, sent Jane into solitary confinement: “Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there” (Bronte 11). Also Jane, was not caught up in greed and other self destructive vices. Jane decided to spilt the money she received from her late uncle evenly with her cousins. Here Jane could have easily jumped to the upper class, but had no taste for it.
Jane’s progressive, rebellious attitude was considered completely outlandish during the Victorian Era. In modern society, Jane’s attitude is rather uniform in today’s society. She simply views everyone as an equal, having no respect for figures of power. Jane feels the need to speak her mind against Mrs. Reed who constantly subjects Jane to unnecessary mistreatment by locking her in the red room: “Oh aunt, have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it” (Bronte 17). Jane had no fear of berating her caretaker and superior and turn a blind eye to Mrs. Reed’s social status. At Lowood, Mrs. Reeds told Mr. Brocklehurst that Jane was a liar. Jane dropped her slate and Mr. Brocklehurst assumed she did it on purpose. Jane internally overcame Mr. Brocklehurst’s cruel punishment: “How the feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit” (Bronte 64). Jane did not let mistreatment defeat her, but instead empower her. Jane simply sought justice and was ready to be treated like the other more Victorian girls in the novel. The fact that Jane is able to find happiness in treating people this way, shows that Jane’s modern attitude is a recipe for success. During the Victorian Era, the clergy were widely respected and held a lot of stock in society. Jane was not swayed, by John’s incessant requests to marry him: “A part of me you must become,’ he answered steadily; ‘otherwise the whole bargain is void’ (Bronte 380). Jane was simply not in love, and she grew to miss the love she had with Rochester, which ended up giving her happiness in the end.
Jane was constantly bombarded with stupidity of those around her who embodied Victorian values. Blanche was the prime example of this blissful ignorance. Blanche did not possess a single positive personality trait about her. Blanche was cruel and judgmental in her treatment of Jane, constantly judging Jane on her repulsive looks or intelligence: “ ‘No,’ I heard her say: ‘she looks to stupid for any game of the sort’ (Bronte 174). Blanche was in competition with Jane to win Rochester. Jane pursued Rochester in search of finding love, which she eventually found with him. Blanche is pursuing Rochester for very selfish and mercenary reasons as she exhibits her disgusts when she learns of Rochester loss of his fortune from the gypsy: “she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence” (Bronte 184). Rather than feel sad or try to seek Rochester to console him, Blanche simply wallowed in self pity. Just as Blanche represented a Victorian woman, John was the embodiment of a Victorian man, who was as backwards as humanly possible. As a priest, the one thing John ought to have been in touch with was love. Instead John simply wished to wed Jane in the absence of love even though she told him she was not interested. Bronte reinforces John’s utter ridiculousness, by having his sister’s support Jane’s decision not to marry him as she would merely become a tool for his ambitions. “Think of the task you undertook one of incessant fatigue kills even the strong, and you are weak. St. John-you know him-would urge you to impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours” (Bronte 387). The clergy is supposed to be at the top of Victorian society. By establishing John as not empathetic, Bronte is warning the reader of all Victorian men.
Bronte uses the facts that Jane was able to find success without starting off wealthy or being of a respectable class, the people who were ideal members of Victorian society were portrayed as fools, and Jane strived off of having no respect for the status quo. In modern British society, the power of kings and queens pale in comparison to their Victorian counter parts. Today British political power rests far more with the parliament and the people then with royalty. The king and queen are relied upon almost exclusively as representing the people, while in the past the royalty would rule the people. Freedom and the ability be in charge of their own destinies are values that people have come to value to the depths of their souls. In president day Egypt, the people struggle to topple their oppressive government and create a true democracy. These are people whose ancestors were slaves for their pharaoh, whose power was even more absolute than any British king or queen. Bronte’s novel about disregarding the class system was more than just revolutionary, it was clairvoyant. Through the eyes of Jain, the modern reader learned to appreciate a world without a social class as those who value such a system in the novel, are backwards people whose values are disgraces to modern society.










Works Cited
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2002. Web.