Jane Eyre

I agree that Jane Eyre, a Victorian woman of the early 19th century England, because of her unconventional attitude and fresh portrayal as an independent woman, may be considered a counterpart of the contemporary woman. It is important to understand the position of women in early 1847, for this helps us to understand the plight of the Victorian women who were bound by restrictions, constraints and demands of conventionality that were imposed on them – the convention being that men shouldered responsibilities while women were confined to “making puddings, knitting stockings, playing the piano and making embroidery bags”, thus denying the presence of their will intelligence and activity in society - beyond household chores.

Jane Eyre is a counterpart of the contemporary woman as she was almost revolutionary in resisting the society-imposed conventions on 19th century women. By daring to be strong in her personal beliefs regarding her life, her conscience, her feelings and her needs, by daring to be courageous enough to defy the social acceptance of weakness and dependence as being a part of every women’s nature, she indeed is a counterpart of the contemporary woman who continues to assert herself as being equal with man – independent and strong.

In order to confirm that she is much like the women of today, let us examine carefully, her thoughts, feelings and actions in the episodes of her life as a grown woman.

Jane is bored with her life at Lowood. Tired of the routine of eight years, she desired liberty. “For liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer.” We can hear her echo the sentiments of the contemporary woman as she longs for a power of vision which might overpass that limit. Looking out into the fields of Thornfield Hall, she longs to reach the busy world, towns, and regions full of life that she had heard of but never seen. Like the contemporary woman she longs to explore. She is curious. While others tremble, she longs to gratify her “much excited curiosity” of the Gypsy woman at Thornfield Hall. She revolts against convention and almost directly addresses men by declaring that women feel “just as men feel” and “suffer from too rigid a constraint”. She is emotional and passionately against the conventions of her time, thinking in “narrow minded” of men to say that women ought to confine themselves. The contemporary woman’s counterpart she is, as she thinks it “thoughtless” to condemn or laugh at women if they “seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex”. She further resists custom. “Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? ... I am talking to you now through the medium of custom...”

Jane Eyre is intelligent. “I had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered … never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion”. She is frank. Even Rochester is amazed and mentally shakes hands with her frank and sincere manner. “One does not often see such a manner” he says.” … not three in three thousand raw school-girl governesses would have answered me as you have just done/” She is fearless of men – another indication of the likeness to the contemporary woman who fearlessly challenges men to not deny her equality. When she first meets Rochester, she says “I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness.” Her conversations with Rochester and St. John Rivers, show her forthright nature as she addresses them boldly, frankly. “Your language is enigmatical sir but though I am bewildered, I am certainly not afraid.” “Don’t call me handsome sir, though I love you most dearly, far too dearly to flatter you. Don’t flatter me.” John Rivers is almost starched at her sudden and strange abruptness. He looks astonished as he remarks “you are original and not timid:. Jane places herself between the door and St. John ho is rather embarrassed. She says “you certainly shall not go till you have told me all”, and yet like o unlike the contemporary woman, she does restrain herself. “… I never dared complain, because I that to murmur would be to vex him”.

She is confident in the woman that she is and sees no competition between Blanche Ingram and herself as she decides “she could never charm him”. Blanche Ingram is beautiful, graceful and attractive but Jane who thinks that even little Adele thinks too much of her “toilette” despises the thought of being other than she is. “Don’t crown me with roses; you might as well put a border of gold lace round that plain pocket handkerchief”. Even her wedding veil is the “plain square of blond after all”. Like the contemporary woman, she does not see herself as an ornament to be admired by men merely for her looks as she speaks about getting ready… “this I quickly was; my best dress was spoon put on; my hair was soon smoothed; my sole ornament, the pearl brooch, soon assumed, we descended.”

Elizabeth Rigby in December 1948, reviewed “Jane Eyre” and was particularly harsh on Jane’s character. A quote from her review – “She (Jane) has inherited in fullest measure the worst sin of our fallen nature – the sin of pride.” Do we see pride – a characteristic of the contemporary woman in Jane? We do. “If Miss Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervor, kindness, sense … I should have admired her – acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days”. But we do not see jealousy in Jane. “But I was not jealous … she was too inferior to excite that feeling”.

As a counterpart of the contemporary woman, Jane Eyre is sensitive to anything that would degrade her. She is glad to get Rochester out of her silk warehouse and then out of the jeweller’s shop, as the more he buys her, the more her cheeks burn with “a sense if degradation”. At Whitecross (before she encounters the Rivers family) she says “the moral degradation blent with physical suffering.” At Morton she says “I felt desolate to a degree. I felt – yes, idiot that I am, I felt degraded”.

Jane Eyre as discussed earlier sees herself as being equal with men – another feature in her character that makes her a counterpart of the contemporary woman. “… I sat at the feet of a man erring as I. I was with an equal – one with whom I might argue – one whom if I saw good, I might resist.” This was truly revolutionary in the Victorian era as women were by no means expected to seek equality with men. “It is my spirit that addresses your spirit” she tells Rochester, “just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet. Equal as we are”.

And yet Jane displays a character more beautiful perhaps than that of a contemporary woman who may lose her submissive nature completely in her quest to gain equality with men. She is calm. “You don’t turn sick at the sight of blood?” “I think I shall not; I have never been tried yet.” With all her pride and dignity she tells herself “I must keep to my post … I must dip my hands again and again in the basin of blood and water … I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment” as she tends to Mason. She is obedient. “I did not wait to be ordered back to mine but retrieved unnoticed as I had left” (while the others had to be coaxed to return to their dormirotires) She is not cunning. “but mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester’s fortune/ I came to hear my own,” for she is not an opportunist. She loves Rochester but like the contemporary women, won’t compromise. “Then you will not yield?” “No”.

I agree that Jane Eyre is a counterpart of the contemporary woman (Yet maybe the contemporary woman has much to learn from her) The contemporary women may or may not lack the qualities of loyalty “shake me off, then sir – push me away, for I’ll not leave you of my own accord” and duty “summoning Mary, I had the room in a more cheerful order)”. Jane despite her independent spirit (unlike maybe some contemporary women), sees no degradation in serving her husband as a helpmate. “No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am. To be together is for us to be at once free as in solitude as gay as in company.”

“You admire Jane – love her – for the strong will, honest mind, loving heart and peculiar but fascinating person” – G.H. Lewes (1847)

Jane Eyre therefore is a counterpart of the contemporary woman, an excellent example of a faithful, loving woman who challenges and yet is everything to the man she loves.

“Unless you object, I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper… your companion – to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you … you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live”.

“Unjust, unjust is the burden of every reflection upon the things and powers that be” – an unsigned review in the “Christian Remembrancer” (April 1848)

“We venture to assert that neither conventionally nor absolutely is Jane vulgar and we go as far as to say that with her organization, mental and physical, it was scarcely possible that she should be so” – James Lorrimer (August 1849)

The critics view Jane as a woman who reflects an injustice and reacts accordingly and yet is incapable of being crude and “vulgar”.

Every page of “Jane Eyre” enables us to get more and more familiar with the workings of the vigorous, moral, healthy spirit of a 19th Century Victorian woman. Determined and courageous, Jane Eyre is indeed a woman who mirrors the contemporary woman with her fresh outlook towards life.

“But what I shall never cease to praise is the vigorous, healthy, moral spirit that informs every page of Jane Eyre” - Eugene Forcade (Oct 1848)

The fervour, the bitterness, the boredom, the honesty, the confidence, the loyalty and resoluteness of Jane Eyre – are they not feelings, emotions and a part of the character of the woman today?

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