Rochester is rumored to be in love (Bronte 179). Instead, Rochester says chooses Jane for her character. However, there is always the social barrier between them, which makes Jane uncomfortable: "I ask only this: don't send for the jewels, and don't crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold lace round that plain pocket handkerchief you have there" (Bronte 265). And Jane soon discovers that Rochester is already married. She refuses to be his mistress, which would have lowered her social status even more, and deprived her of the one thing she does own -- her respectability. "Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical -- is false" (Bronte 309). Even in this exchange, Jane calls Mr. Rochester 'Sir,' acknowledging the social gap that still separates them. Their true wedding, after the death of his wife, is far more subdued: "A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present" (Bronte 457). This wedding, Bronte implies, befits Jane's true character and does not flaunt Rochester's social status. Only after an unexpected (and somewhat clumsy plot twist) that reveals Jane to be an heiress can Jane marry Rochester as an equal. Character is important, but it is not enough: a woman must also have money. If she does not have both, she is liable to be locked...
Jane, mindful of the social discrimination she felt, splits her fortune with her relatives who helped her when she was destitute, so she is comfortable rather than dazzlingly wealthy. Jane spoke of justice in her subjugation at the Reeds as poor orphan; she uses her unexpected legacy to create social justice: "Twenty thousand pounds shared equally would be five thousand each, justice -- enough and to spare: justice would be done, -- mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me: now it was not a mere bequest of coin, -- it was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment" (Bronte 392). The book does not advocate total social equality: yet Jane alone is always able to appreciate intelligence in unexpected places, even in the presence of the lower-class girls: "wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but I soon found I was mistaken. There was a difference amongst them as amongst the educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference rapidly developed itself" (Bronte 372). Jane wins her husband and a just social position through her character -- she achieves financial and social equality, where before she only had moral equality.
Jane Eyre Movie A new version of Jane Eyre has just been directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga who directed Sin Nombre and the screenwriter Moira Buffini who is best known for Tamara Drewe (Jane Eyre, N.d.). The story is set in the nineteenth century and is based on a novel by English writer Charlotte Bronte. It was originally published on October 16th, 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. Of London, England,
The girls at Lowood are made to persist on a diet of precious little, sometimes spoiled food. The dormitories were too cold and the halls damp. Many essentials were denied the girls under the premise sited by Brocklehurst in an especially despicable scene where he lambastes Temple for apprising the girls with a lunch of bread and cheese after breakfast arrived spoiled and inedible. Brocklehurst informs her that in
1847, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is structured like a puzzle. The title page reads Jane Eyre: An Autobiography but the work is credited to Currer Bell, an apparently male pseudonym. The author's involvement with the text is therefore signposted from the moment we open the book -- what does it mean for a work to be described as an "autobiography" but ascribed to a different writer? Obviously an autobiography
Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre, the desire of the protagonist to be loved is overpowered by her desire to be independent and autonomous. The difficulty, of course, is that Jane Eyre is first published in 1847: this was a world in which the humble governess who gives the novel its title was without rights and opportunities. In their groundbreaking feminist study of English literature The Madwoman in the Attic,
Ironically, although Jane begins her titular novel as a child, dependant upon the good and not so good will and promise of the Reeds to her father, Raney is utterly emotionally dependant upon her mother for her opinions, as well as financially and socially dependant, even as she is ready to be married to Charles. Marriage, at the beginning of the tale for Raney, thus is merely a continuation
Representation of women in Jane Eyre, Great Expectations and the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales In Victorian culture, Women were Idolized, Protected and Oppressed During the Victorian era from the year, 1837-1901 there was a definite gender role in England. During the period, women and men had very different roles in the society. Women and men perceptions were ideologically different. Men were superior to women during
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