Jane Eyre: Woman In Victorian Society

In many ways, Jane Eyre is the perfect expression of Victorian morals and values. Jane is, first of all, female. Furthermore, she is an orphan who turns into a governess, later becomes a teacher for some time, and finally, marries a man above her class.

Mr. Brocklehurst, the principal of Lowood School, very well describes the qualities a Victorian era woman was supposed to live by:"... my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient and self-denying..." .

Even though Jane was an educated young woman, and still lived as somewhat part of the upper class for a while, she has no money. She is like a "second-class citizen". Being middle-class was sometimes even more challenging for a female than being poor would prove to be. If Jane were poor, that would be no choice but to go into service. As it was, Jane had very few options to consider, which included becoming a school teacher, a governess, or companion to a wealthy lady.

Being a governess was a cruel fate, and Mr. Brocklehurst's listed traits would be, not only useful, but necessary. As a governess, Jane was somewhat respected and reliable, but also very solitary and nonobjective: she was neither a family member nor servant and would remain in between being a servant and a lady. There was always the possibility of marriage, but that was highly unlikely, since unmarried woman were expected to be very private. There was very little opening to social relations being formed between a single woman and a man that wasn't her relative.

Although Jane sets herself apart from the beginning, she isn't exactly rebellious. She doesn't stand for what she thinks is wrong, but she more or less learned to control her impulses from the time she spent at school. She may not ever feel the satisfaction and contentment she needs from the life she has, but she never rebels or tries to deny her reality. She understands her position and tries very hard to be the best she can be into her sphere.

Jane is a very human character, in that she is multifaceted and sometimes even contradictory. Whilst she doesn't seem happy about her fate as a governess and is always giving the reader little insights of how she thinks that a woman’s life can be unfair, she doesn’t pull away from the social system. She knows she can't. Even Jane, who is so passionate and full of compassion, understands the need to belong. She struggles to find a balance between what she thinks is ultimately wrong and what is simply the way of the world.

When she takes the job as a schoolteacher for example, she is very clearly feeling degraded. Jane, who is so ethic and has a huge sense of social and individual equality, feels betrayed by her own sense that she could do better with what she possesses: ""I felt-yes, idiot that I am-I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of all I heard and saw round me."

If Jane had been a man, she could have prepared for many other career options, and would be able to be more selective. As it was, there was nothing but to take the offer. Even if she felt like her capabilities wouldn’t ever be explored to their maximum in this position, she felt a sense of moral obligation towards those "below" her. On one hand, there is her quest for justice and equality, but on the other, she must consider her future and her own social stand.

Ultimately, this is the core of the novel: Jane's longing for equality when she knows it to be impossible. When she first declares her love to Rochester, she is denying everything she was supposed to be – agreeable, calm, contained, quiet…:

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! --- I have as much soul as you --- and full as much hearts! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal --- as we are!” (p. 214)

Jane doesn't hold back with him, she meets him as his equal. She is free to express her mind and love to him. That is one of the reasons why Jane is considered by many, to be a rebel against the domestic feminine ideal in the 19th century England. She challenged those ideals, but at the same time, she acknowledged that the only time they would ever be truly equals is when they are both dead, facing God.

She denies those principles vehemently. In a way, it is fair to say Jane was a feminist. She doesn’t conform with the idea that woman are less than men simply because they are woman:

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more