Jane Eyre and Gender Issues

Jane Eyre is a novel that represents critique of Victorian age assumptions about social classes and gender issues. In the nineteenth-century there was a belief that women and men belong in "separate spheres," each with its own responsibilities. The women were expected to devote her self to the repetitive tasks of domestic labor and to minister to the needs of others while the men work and brought money.

Charlotte Bronte tries in her novel to state an exemplar has the opposite of the Victorian women aspects. The Victorian women were very dependable on men, not equal to them and they were allowed to learn only the things that made the woman get a good husband. Although some of the Victorian women work but only as a governess the society look in disrespectful toward them.

Jane Eyre symbolizes charlotte Bronte rejection of the position of the women and middle-class women in the society. "I am not an angel," I asserted; " and I will not be one till I die: I will be my self." when Jane fight with her cousin John Reed that is an evidence for her rebellious character against the male domination over female. John Reed represents the wealth upper-class child who has everything he pleased while Jane doesn't have anything no family, money or even a position in the society, which made her try to have her independent and learn to work after that and earn her own money. Her cousin john reed was also being a tyrant to Jane " I really saw in him a tyrant a murderer" Jane said.(chapter 1 page 24)

Mr.Bocklehurst represents one of the male figures that Jane should overcome to reach her goal of independence .He is a personification of the hypocritical figure. He proclaims that their bodies should be starved

so that their souls can be saved. He even wants the girls' hair to be

cut off. Then Brocklehurst suddenly notices her and warns the

teachers against her deceitful nature.

As Jane reach maturity she encounters other male figures Edward Rochester and St.John Rivers. Jane feels