Gender Role Limitations in Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre Essay -- Jane

Gender Role Limitations in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre The nineteenth century Victorian era woman needed wealth or position to avoid a life of drudgery.   Women were viewed as trophies or possessions men owned.   They were not permitted to develop nor expected to, and even venturing out on their own was considered inappropriate.   During the era in which Jane Eyre was published the home and family were seen as the basic unit of stability in society.   At the middle of this foundation stood a wife and mother representing the sum total of all morality - a Madonna-like image.   This image was reinforced by social institutions such as mainstream religious and political beliefs.   Women were steered away from independence, confidence, and self-fulfillment and steered toward an existence of submission, dependence, and ignorance.   They were expected to be beautiful and silent.   This is why the titular heroine of Bronte's novel caused such controversy when Jane Eyre was published.   Jane is plain and very intelligent.   She is in addition intelligent, self-confident, strong-willed and she exhibits a moral conscience.   Jane is atypical of women of her era in that she trusts in her own decision-making abilities and, furthermore, unlike most women of the era has the freedom to make them. To get ahead as a woman in Jane's era, one had to have wealth, position, family or friends.   Jane, an orphan, has none of these.   Her family and friends only serve as reminders of what she does not have.   They view her o... ...ronte 133).   In this manner we see why Jane Eyre caused such controversy upon publication.   It is basically Bronte's criticism of Victorian society with respect to its oppression and perspective of women.   Bronte understood to adopt such limitations was certain death, at best an unendurable hell for a woman of intelligence and passion.   As such, her heroine must endure hell to discover the route to personal fulfillment and freedom.   As she does so, she sets a new definition of what women are capable.   This is why the novel and its heroine were so shocking to Victorian audiences who considered women pretty objects to admire more than human beings in their own right. WORKS   CITED Bronte, Charlotte.   Jane Eyre.   New York: Bantam Books, 1981.