Jane Eyre Gender
Analysis of Jane Eyre
"Yes; Mrs. Rochester," said he; "Young Mrs. Rochester-Fair-fax Rochester's girl-bride." -Rochester to Jane, Jane Eyre
Since its publication in 1847, readers of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre have debated the subversive implications of this text. The plot conventions of Jane's rise to fortune and the marriage union that concludes the novel suggest conservative affirmations of class and gender identities that seemingly contradict the novel's more disruptive aspects. Despite the personal or professional motivations that led Bronte to conform the conclusion to sentimental norms, the novel continues to prove unsettling …show more content…
As she describes, "The dress 854 state" of Engels's factory family suggest an equally perilous and dangerous position for the middle class, who, seeking to help the working class with basic economic concerns, also tried to resolve their own basic gender concerns. In reaction to this unsettling ambiguity regarding gender identities, middle-class Victorians began to push masculine and feminine constructions to extremes, reinforcing the divisions between male and female spheres of power and influence.
Jane's performance of femininity initially flops. While Mrs. Fairfax encourages the gender parade of her charge, announcing to Rochester when he fails to notice Jane, "'Here is Miss Eyre, sir,"' his answer appears to renounce any desire to provide the appropriate masculine gaze to the feminized object: "'What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her"' (pp. 146-7).14 Jane is pleased that her theatrically contrived portrayal of gender and class is temporarily interrupted. She reflects on Rochester's …show more content…
These working-class reproductions of middle-class female sexuality conveniently were and were not conventional of existing gender identities, and the uncertainty of the governess's class and gender positions piqued middle-class interests. Richard Redgrave's 1844 painting The Poor Teacher plays upon the governess's marginalized position within the middle-class home, and Rebecca Solomon's 1854 The Governess extends the sexual connotations of the theme by depicting the governess as stealing a look that is both longing and covetous toward her male employer while he, at least for the moment, manages to focus his gaze on his wife.15 Poovey maintains, 'That representations of the governess in the 1840s brought to her contemporaries' minds not just the middle-class ideal she was meant to reproduce, but the sexualized and often working-class women against whom she was expected to defend, reveals the mid-Victorian fear that the governess could not protect middle-class values because she could not be trusted to regulate her own sexuality."'6 The tension
"Yes; Mrs. Rochester," said he; "Young Mrs. Rochester-Fair-fax Rochester's girl-bride." -Rochester to Jane, Jane Eyre
Since its publication in 1847, readers of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre have debated the subversive implications of this text. The plot conventions of Jane's rise to fortune and the marriage union that concludes the novel suggest conservative affirmations of class and gender identities that seemingly contradict the novel's more disruptive aspects. Despite the personal or professional motivations that led Bronte to conform the conclusion to sentimental norms, the novel continues to prove unsettling …show more content…
As she describes, "The dress 854 state" of Engels's factory family suggest an equally perilous and dangerous position for the middle class, who, seeking to help the working class with basic economic concerns, also tried to resolve their own basic gender concerns. In reaction to this unsettling ambiguity regarding gender identities, middle-class Victorians began to push masculine and feminine constructions to extremes, reinforcing the divisions between male and female spheres of power and influence.
Jane's performance of femininity initially flops. While Mrs. Fairfax encourages the gender parade of her charge, announcing to Rochester when he fails to notice Jane, "'Here is Miss Eyre, sir,"' his answer appears to renounce any desire to provide the appropriate masculine gaze to the feminized object: "'What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her"' (pp. 146-7).14 Jane is pleased that her theatrically contrived portrayal of gender and class is temporarily interrupted. She reflects on Rochester's …show more content…
These working-class reproductions of middle-class female sexuality conveniently were and were not conventional of existing gender identities, and the uncertainty of the governess's class and gender positions piqued middle-class interests. Richard Redgrave's 1844 painting The Poor Teacher plays upon the governess's marginalized position within the middle-class home, and Rebecca Solomon's 1854 The Governess extends the sexual connotations of the theme by depicting the governess as stealing a look that is both longing and covetous toward her male employer while he, at least for the moment, manages to focus his gaze on his wife.15 Poovey maintains, 'That representations of the governess in the 1840s brought to her contemporaries' minds not just the middle-class ideal she was meant to reproduce, but the sexualized and often working-class women against whom she was expected to defend, reveals the mid-Victorian fear that the governess could not protect middle-class values because she could not be trusted to regulate her own sexuality."'6 The tension