At Lowood, the pupils were taught in small groups, this reflected teaching styles of Victorian times. At school, children were taught to learn things off by heart rather than thinking for themselves.
“…taken her seat before a pair of globes…, summoned the first class round her…Repetitions in history, grammar &c., went on for an hour; more writing and arithmetic succeeded…”
After six years at Lowood, Jane became a teacher. This was typical of women of Jane’s class in Victorian society. “The only real options they had were to become a teacher, a governess, a seamstress, a wife or a prostitute” (taken form a secondary resource). Then after two happy years teaching, Jane ‘advertised’ herself in the local paper to become a governess. This was not common because it showed initiative and independence, which women were not supposed to show. It may also have left her open for unwelcome attention. She would take a position without knowing whom her employer would actually be other than by name. She knew that her employer was Mr Rochester and she knew to speak to Mrs Fairfax when she arrived, but that is all she knew.
Jane leaves Lowood and seeks a job as a governess in a private household. She settles in well into Thornfield Hall, and whilst out walking alone she comes across her employer – Mr Rochester – he has fallen off his horse. She is unaware at the time that he is her employer and he makes no effort to set her straight. They become attracted to one another
“…all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I liked to see…”
Women kept themselves to themselves, if they came across a man whilst out walking alone they would have quickly and shyly apologised and left, as a woman was not supposed to be left alone with a man, let alone touch him. However, as we see throughout the novel, Jane is not a typical Victorian woman and she helps to pick him up after his fall.
“He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and, leaning on me with some stress, limped to his horse.”
Her position at Thornfield was elevated, but this was not common for Victorian women of Jane’s status. It was unusual for the employer to show attraction to the governess and as Jane describes she is a “Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor and plain.”
Her experience as a governess was not typical; this could be due to the attraction for Mr Rochester. She was never meek or subservient and always answered in a truthful and opinionated manner. Many other young women would not have answered their employers in this way.
If helping Mr Rochester after his fall wasn’t enough, Jane saved him once again after the fire in his room. This wasn’t typical of a woman in Victorian England because she was putting herself in a dangerous situation and also because she was alone in a man’s bedroom at nighttime.
“He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one hand, then in both his own…But he still retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an expedient.”
She felt uncomfortable, but she knew it was wrong for her to be in her nightclothes in her master’s bedroom and him touching her hands, she had to think of an excuse to allow her to leave.
From the initial attraction, their relationship grew and developed. It was not common for a woman of Jane’s class and position to fall for a man of Rochester’s class. It was typical for a man like Rochester to fall for a lady. He pretends to be in love with Blanche Ingram and this would be more typical because Blanche is, as Jane describes “…an accomplished lady of rank.”
Jane discovers that Mr Rochester does not intend to marry Miss Ingram; instead he wishes to marry Jane. She feels delighted as she has found love with Mr Rochester, but she also feels uneasy about the forthcoming marriage. She feels uneasy because of the class differences; she is worried about the opinions of other people. She doesn’t want his money and she thinks that other people will assume that this is all she is after. Mr Rochester offers Jane jewels, but she refuses them due to her previous concerns
“…I will clasp the bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like fingers with rings.” Jane doesn’t want a fuss to made and turns down his offer by saying
“No, no sir! …Don’t address me as I if were a beauty: I am your plain Quakerish governess.”
Jane is a religious woman and she tells Rochester bluntly that she will not be his mistress when she finds out that Rochester has a mad wife living in his house. She finds out about Bertha Mason (his wife) in the middle of their marriage ceremony. He suggests that they run away together and then no one will know about his other wife, it is her religious and moral value, which would be typical of Victorian women, which stop her from doing this. She is already conscious of the class-crossing boundaries and does not want further speculation by becoming his mistress. She wants to do the right thing in the eyes of God. This reflects the morals of women in Victorian society, but men of Rochester’s class often had mistresses. However, their behaviour would be made very discreet and people tended to turn a blind eye to it.
After Jane’s discovery of Rochester’s marital status, she runs away, she turns up near death – conveniently at a house, where she later finds out that she is related to the people that live there. She takes over the running of the school and even though she is independent of Rochester, her social status would be lower than when she was a governess because the school, which she worked at, was poor within the village where it was.
Whilst staying at her cousins’ home, she is made aware that she has inherited money from an unknown uncle. In real life it is fairly unlikely that a woman would have inherited this money, as it was usually men who received it and she didn’t know the uncle whom she inherited it from. It was also rare to share the inherited money, but Jane decided to split the twenty thousand pounds between herself and her cousins.
“…divided equally between the nephew and three nieces of our uncle…It would please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment and oppress me to have twenty thousand…”
Jane shares out the money, but even though she now has her own money, in the eyes of society she would still be classed as a commoner because she has not always had this money.
St.John, one of her cousins, is going to be a missionary and he comments that with Jane’s knowledge she would make a good missionary’s wife. They do not love each other and it is more of a business plan than a marriage proposal.
St.John was a priest with classical good looks “He is a handsome man: tall, fair with blue eyes…” and he is the sort of man, which Victorian women aspired to marry. When she returns to Rochester she tells him how good-looking St.John is, and teases Rochester in the same way he did with Blanche Ingram. She gets her own back on him and shows the streak of independence that Jane Eyre is famous for. Women in Victorian times aspired to becoming a wife; it would not be typical to turn a man like St.John down. Nevertheless, Jane as a religious woman tells St.John that she will be his wife only if it is God’s wish. After saying this to St.John she hears Rochester’s voice and she believes that it is God’s wish for her to return to Rochester.
When she returns to find Mr Rochester, she is made aware that Bertha Mason burnt down Thornfield Hall and consequently she had died. Mr Rochester had had a lucky escape as he was just wounded, but unfortunately he was also blinded. She goes to see him at Ferndean, and surprises him with her visit. She is a caring woman who decides to look after him, even though he is completely dependent on her. The novel ends with two of them happily married and ready for a content life ahead of them. Jane is a forceful character and due to Rochester’s condition, he is dependent on her, which means that she can feel comfortable with their relationship, which is now solely based on their intellectual similarities and love.
In this essay I set out to trace Jane Eyre’s change in character, as we can see she is still very honest and answers sometimes bluntly, but she has learnt to control just how bluntly she answers in order to be a more typical ‘Victorian’ woman. She was always a spirited, and often outspoken child, and as an adult she is a controlled, opinionated woman who answers as she sees fit, she is especially honest when she is with Rochester.
Jane Eyre has been called a feminist novel and this is because of the character Jane and her uncommon attitude in the Victorian era. I would tend to agree with this, because many of the events within the novel are not typical and they could be the writer’s way of putting across her ideas. Women had few rights or prospects at this time, and by representing ideas and feelings through a character it helps to focus and underline the thoughts and feelings of the writer without feeling embarrassed, instead it allows the writer to get their opinions into society through another means other than themselves.
However, I do not believe that the whole novel is feminist because a Victorian woman’s aspiration was to marry and in the end this is what Jane ends up doing. The period when Jane is at school is when she learns to control herself and become more “Victorian”, but again in contrast to this, it has been suggested that Miss Temple and Jane were more than just friends up until the point when Miss Temple got married. It seems to me that sections of the novel do point to being ‘feminist’, trying to get men and women on equal terms, whereas some sections are more typical in the way that they represent Jane and a more usual ‘Victorian’ manner.