Jane Eyre,By Charlotte Bronte(1816-1855),Charlotte Bront (1816-1855),All 3 Bronte Sisters used a masculine pen name because women writers were not taken seriously at that time in Victorian England.,Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell:Charlotte Bront Emily Bront Anne Bront,Five geographical sections, five major periods of time in the heroines life. Gateshead Hall Lowood School Thornfield (Mr. Rochester) Moor House (St. John Rivers) Ferndean Manor,Jane Eyre,The Structure and plot,Haunted house Dreaming and nightmares Physical imprisonment Psychological entrapment and helplessness Gothic heroines explore their unknown inner selves as they wander through the mysterious house Supernatural interventions at crucial moments in the plot A romantic reconciliation,Gothic influence,Character: Rochester,A middle-aged nobleman with a bruised heart and a bitter memory of the past Quick-tempered Sharp-eyed and cynical,Aristocratic, moody, solitary, mysterious, intelligent, cynical, emotionally wounded. Charming, irresistable to women Destructive relationships,The Byronic Hero (Villain-Hero),She was especially found of Byron, knew most of his works by the time she was 13! Byrons brooding heroes were prototypes for characters in her childhood writings, as well as figures like Mr. Rochester, and all her lonely and neglected young heroines with a fierce longing for life and love,Character: Jane,strong sense of self-dignity, equality and independence wide embracing sympathy high intelligence intense feeling rebellious, courageous,She stands in every way contrary to those vain, empty-headed, money-worshipping beautiful upper-class ladies.,Why did Jane choose to leave Rochester after she knew he had a living mad wife?,To stay as his mistress,undignified, immoral dependent lustful,dignified, virtuous, Independent free,To leave him,Love vs. autonomy,Jane believes that “marrying” Rochester while he remains legally tied to Bertha would mean rendering herself a mistress and sacrificing her own integrity for the sake of emotional gratification. The events of Janes stay at Moor House are necessary proofs of Janes autonomy. Only after proving her self-sufficiency to herself can she marry Rochester and not be asymmetrically dependent upon him as her “master.” The marriage can be one between equals.,Jane searches, not just for romantic love, but also for a sense of being valued, of belonging.,quote,“I am my husbands life as fully as he is mine. . . . To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. . . . We are precisely suited in characterperfect concord is the result” (Chapter 38).,Special Features The heroine is small, plain, poor and unconventional, but with strong rebellious spirit. The heroine is the first female character to claim the right to feel strongly about her emotions and have active attitude towards love,A ground breaking novel!,quote,Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex. -Chapter 12,Manifesto of women and of the lower class,“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at Gods feet, equal, as we are!”,Men-centered society; denouncing the social discrimination against women and strict Victorian social hierarchy,