OPPapers.com

Early Feminism In Jane Eyre

Introduction
Charlotte Bronte has long been considered as an outstanding woman literary figure in the Victorian time. Despite of the largely autobiographical content of her novels, Charlotte Bronte breaks the conventional, and ignorant in the nineteenth century. Her novel, Jane Eyre, has been translated into many languages and is always high in reading popularity. The highly acclaimed Jane Eyre best demonstrates the breakthrough: its heroine is a plain woman who possesses the characteristics of intelligence, self—confidence, a will of her own.
Charlotte Bronte, as well as her sister, lived and died in the first part of 19th century. At that time, there had long been the rapid industry growth in England. Connected with the improvement in industry and transportation there came the rise of a kind of new ruling class, the owners of the mills and miners of the industrial age, who began to compete with the old landed gentry. In order to improve themselves, they tried to provide a good education for their children. This opened a new opportunity for the impoverished gentlewomen to take the career as governesses. In this economic and social situation, girls of good background began to go out to work. It was with this situation in mind that the Bronte sisters made their plans for earning their living, which would be necessary if they were unmarried when their father died. The position of the governess was as uncomfortable one, for, though they were of higher class than servants, they could not reach the level of family. Consequently, they often suffered from loneliness and humiliation.
Charlotte Bronte, the third and oldest of the “Bronte sisters”, was born in Haworth, Yorkshire in 1816. Her father, Mr. Bronte was a poor clergyman in a little village. Because there were so many children in her family and all were born in so short time, and because her mother become very ill with cancer, she and her sisters were let much on their own. Isolated in the moors, they cherished...