Your body belongs not to you; your earnings are not your own; you cannot vote; you cannot sue. This description is reminiscent of nineteenth century slaves, yet it additionally and most accurately limns the nineteenth century Victorian woman (Bodichon). In fact, these ideas, seemingly absurd in today’s society, were few of many laws in the Victorian era that intimately shaped the lives of women in almost every respect. However, this is not to say that all females perfectly submitted to being in thrall to their male counterparts; as it happens, Charlotte Brontë, a most prominent English author of the 1800s, penned divers novels that promote relatively clashing concepts of identity and independence. Through multiple female characters in her revolutionary novel Jane Eyre, Brontë validates select Victorian ideals of piety and dutifulness while subtly yet assuredly challenging expectations of employment and dependence, in order to empower and importune women to identify and criticize society’s improper demand of their inequality to men.
Spirituality and conscientiousness were Victorian strongholds, and the women of this society were, ideally, active supporters of the Christian congregation and caring homemakers who thrived in a domestic sphere. As defined in the 1840s issue of The General Baptist Repository and Missionary Observer, the perfect woman carries out her responsibilities with “piety, patience, frugality, and industry” (Abrams). Brontë limitedly affirms these societal norms through the majority of her characters, the most pronounced and radical of them being Eliza Reed. Living to work, Eliza is always ostensibly busy with stitching, regulating her finances, or gardening, and her worshiped churchly obligations never fail to encompass all daily activities (Brontë 229). Severely committed to her life of sanctity and servitude, she eventually elects to “take up [her] abode in a religious … nunnery,” “devote [her]self for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas,” “embrace the tenets of Rome,” and “take the veil” (Brontë 236). In this respect of faith, the Reed sister exemplifies the aspect of the ideal Victorian woman which requires moral superiority (Abrams).
Comparable to Eliza Reed, Miss Temple embodies dutifulness in her occupational roles as superintendent of Lowood Institute. Not only is she respectable, but, moreover, her “virtue [is] manifested in the service of [her pupils]” (Abrams); ensuring that all her students are justly assessed is the superintendent’s prime objective. In one defining instance, and upon Mr. Brocklehurst’s blatant yet false accusation of Jane’s delinquent behavior, Miss Temple exhorts Jane to “defend [her]self … as well as [she] can,” remaining impartial until corroboration may be secured (Brontë 75). Furthermore, Charlotte Brontë’s acceptance of obligatory female responsibilities spans past the pages of Jane Eyre and the antecedent exhibitions. In her correspondence with a one Robert Southey, the author recounts her personal experience and ideology surrounding dutifulness, further reinforcing her agreement with the ideal:
Following my father's advice … I have endeavoured not only attentively to observe all the duties a woman ought to fulfil, but to feel deeply interested in them. I don't always succeed, for sometimes when I'm teaching or sewing I would rather be reading or writing; but I try to deny myself; and my father's approbation amply rewarded me for the privation. (Gaskell)
It is admitted that dedication to a task and self-discipline may be difficult at times, however, Charlotte additionally writes highly of the fruits of her labor, upholding and placing dutifulness on a pedestal. Overall, in keeping with the conventions of the era, Brontë portrays piety and dutifulness as favorable principles through several women in her novel, identifying the practicable Victorian expectations.
Jane Eyre indistinctly contradicts the concept that women must rely on men in order to lead successful lives. Nineteenth century Victorian females held “no important office” and “occup[ied] inferior situations,” yet the majority of Charlotte Brontë’s female characters maintain signal employments that were atypical with respect to this definition (Bodichon). Celine Varens is an “opera-dancer” (Brontë 145); Grace Poole holds the position of “attendant” to the mentally incapacitated Bertha Mason (299); Jane Eyre works as “a governess for [Mr. Rochester’s ward]” (105). The areas of expertise of Celine and Grace conflict with the actual class of employment that the standard Victorian women possessed. Moreover, during the setting of Jane Eyre, “the professions of law and medicine, whether or not closed by law, [were] closed in fact” to women (Bodichon); therefore, Grace Poole’s lucrative career as keeper of Mr. Rochester’s wife defies the very law and fact of the era. With regards to the position of governess, it was, according to Victorian literature specialist Sally Shuttleworth, “virtually the only occupation that was considered respectable for a middle-class woman who had no family to support her.” Jane fits this criterion, and was, furthermore, praised by her employer, Mr. Rochester, for “‘tak[ing] great pains’” with his ward, Adele, who, “‘in a short time … [had] made much improvement’” (Brontë 126). Ergo, through the roles assigned to Jane and her counterparts, Brontë challenges the demeaning and restricting vocational expectations, demonstrating that it is possible for womenfolk to excel in unconventional tasks.
For a woman living in the time of Jane Eyre, employment fell under the sphere of reliance. Because average women only had inferior job opportunities, they were forced to depend on their fathers, brothers, or spouses for sustenance, and, as such, males were trained from young ages to demand subordination from the women in their lives (Bodichon). In her youth, Jane’s cousin, John Reed, oftentimes punished her for the lack of respect she contained for him (Brontë 16). This abuse serves as a foundation for Jane’s determination for independence later in life, and also as a method for Brontë to justify her challenges in Jane Eyre against Victorian presumptions of feminine dependency. As an adult, Eyre refuses to remain dependent upon the male species –– so much so that in the occasion of her pre-wedding wardrobe renewal, “the more [Mr. Rochester] bought [Jane], the more [her] cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation” (260). Any ordinary girl would be grateful for additional, rich raiment, yet Charlotte Brontë purposefully portrayed her heroine in this manner in order to give rise to significant questions concerning the equality of males and females. Jane’s subsequent response to being pampered is a call for all women to identify society’s inappropriate demand of their menial state: “‘I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations … I’ll furnish my own wardrobe out of [my earnings]’” (262). And furnish her wardrobe out of her earnings she did, particularly once she inherited great wealth from her uncle, after which she proclaimed herself “‘an independent woman now’” (413). In a critical review of Jane Eyre, magazine article author Elizabeth Rigby recognizes Brontë’s literary challenge of female vulnerability in Jane’s independent spirit, because “as far as Jane Eyre’s own statement is concerned, no one would think that she owed anything either to God above or to man below.”
Some may argue that Charlotte Brontë’s true purpose in writing Jane Eyre was not to plant a seed of doubt in Victorian society, but rather to accentuate the strength of its women for applying their era’s strict conventions. Despite the fact that the governess occupation was respectable, “the experience was often wretched” as “the governess was neither one of the servants, nor one of the family, and was often treated with contempt by both sides” (Shuttleworth). Charlotte Brontë herself wrote that, in her duties with this position, she never “[had] a moment’s time for one dream of the imagination,” signifying that the job was excessively taxing and demanded considerable mental power (Gaskell). In addition, a Victorian homemaker’s life requires severe commitment, and Brontë succeeds in capturing it through characters including Bessie and Mrs. Fairfax, who slave away on the daily in order to please and satisfy their proprietors and society. In summation, as per the aforementioned Sally Shuttleworth, Brontë’s novel presents “the strong, self-controlled figure of Jane” as praiseworthy.
Whether perceiving it as celebratory or condemning, the readers of Jane Eyre can all agree on one simple truth: Charlotte Brontë succeeds in evoking nonconformist concepts about the role of women in a restraining, traditionalistic age. Her evident challenge of Victorian ideals breaks all orthodox, limiting, and inequitable barriers surrounding the female sex in her society, indubitably ridiculing the prohibition of identity, individuality, and independence of daughters, mothers, and wives alike. In a time when women were expected to be submissive, when women were not allowed to own significant property, when women were prevented from pursuing personal pleasures, and when women were forbidden to act upon their natural rights, Brontë’s literature opened the eyes of the shielded and inspired the hearts of the suppressed with a relatable, admirable heroine. To conclude, the roles of the Victorian woman that Jane and her female peers withstood bring to mind a saying: “children are to be seen, not heard.” The similarities between an ideal Victorian woman and a mindless, dependent child of today's society are clear; this comparison emphasizes how little women were valued, crediting the novel, Jane Eyre, of Charlotte Brontë for promoting resistance within the female community against ignominious demands of inequality.