In Jane Eyre, while Mr. Rochester is, in some ways, made to fit the feminine gender role
of the 19th century, it is important to note that it is not a complete switch–that is, while Jane could, in theory, have complete power over him she is still content to serve him in some degree. Therefore, the center crux of Brontë’s argument was for equity rather than full reversal, and perhaps–as will be discussed below–a more religious expectation for both.
Initially, the power dynamic between Jane and Rochester is woefully unbalanced, with her being a penniless governess for him. However, this imbalance is not what Jane’s worries center around. It is her own sense of perceived worth, as she sums up with her “‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain’” (chapter 16).1 The lack of connections, money, and beauty however do serve to highlight the way in which the gender roles of her society weigh on Jane: without money, beauty, or connections she has little way to be noticed by a wealthy, well-connected man like Mr. Rochester (who, unlike her, is not expected in the same way to be handsome, if the courtship of the “dazzling” and “accomplished lady of rank” (chapter 16), Blanche, is any indication). With marriage being the expected way for a woman to provide for herself–since governessing and teaching earned little and few other jobs were available to them unless they could achieve great success as an artist–Jane’s lack of these traits and her anxiety over them then becomes a reflection of her worries over her worth as a woman, and her ability to survive in a world that weighs her worth solely in marriageability. This is also seen in Jane battling the “savage” nature she is described with several times in the book, notably when, in chapter 4, she shrieks in rage at her aunt all the grievances she has, in a way that is “passionate [and] you must not allow” (chapter 4), ergo unbecoming to a ‘lady’ of the era. This, despite the numerous injustices she faces at home, at the school, and even with Mr. Rochester prior to his accident. Jane’s rage is understandable, but she is not permitted to express it the way Rochester and St. John are, both of whom threaten and coerce Jane in their own ways when she refuses their proposals. Rochester by violence: “Never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!... I could bend her with my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her?” (chapter 27), and St. John by manipulating their Christian faith to suit his narrative: “God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love. A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine: I claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.” (chapter 34). This, also despite Jane having plenty of good reason not to marry either of them–Rochester having his first wife locked in his attic and St. John having a personality that poorly meshed with hers, in addition to being her cousin whom she viewed like a brother. In short, because marriageability is all her society cares about in regards to her, Jane’s own feelings and emotions are seen as something to be stamped out and controlled in favor of satisfying her suitors’. It is this suffocation of her mind, feelings, and spirit that renders both men ‘unmarriable’ for her at this point in the novel, and presents her with the crux of her problems: if she cannot marry she has no value in that society (and must be forced to beg), but if she does marry either of the men who had proposed to her, she would have rendered her own life short and miserable (thus sacrificing herself to feed the cycle of her society’s expectations). The only solution is to then humble a man to a “woman’s” role, as Mr. Rochester’s injuries from his ex-wife burning down their house render him in the same position Jane was: dependent, poor, and plain; circumstances he had never understood before for never needing to think of them as a man of his era and class. By doing so the two are equalized, their relationship balanced, as Jane is now the one with money and agency. He may still have twenty years on her, but she is no longer his mistress after the (also) “savage” Bertha’s death, and he can no longer threaten her as he relies on her near completely both for sight and for happiness. There is even a chance he would never think to do so again given his newfound faith, “when you rose upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you [were real]... Now, I thank God! I know it to be otherwise. Yes, I thank God!” (chapter 37). As religious devotion was seen as ‘inherent’ to women back then, this too is part of his gaining of feminine traits. Thus, made equal in circumstance, emotion, mind, and piety, only now is Mr. Rochester an acceptable man for Jane. Only with Jane having gained wealth, independence, and the ability to control her emotions with reason (masculine traits at the time) has she become an acceptable woman to wed at all.
These ideas are, for Brontë’s time, progressive, as both leads of the book essentially trade certain aspects of their expected gender roles. However, it is not wholly removed from them: Jane still finds “pleasure in my services, most full, most exquisite” (chapter 38) via caring for her husband–which, given she is helping him through his disabilities, is not, by any standards, something to raise a brow at–rather, it is that she believes her life to be most fulfilling serving a man, when earlier she had expressed wishes to travel freely as men did rather than staying at home. It is the way she cuts her losses due to her status as a woman that no longer feels quite so much like a happy ending. To be stuck at home without one’s husband, to have little choice at all but to rely on one, are both things that the modern reader would chafe at and view as, rightfully, injustices. While it is safe to assume that plenty of women felt that way back then, it is not seen as crucial to Jane’s happiness in the novel, and so cannot be extrapolated as something within it that still holds up today. Especially given the modern reader’s experiences under quarantine, to be stuck in a house one’s whole life and not just a few years is a maddening experience one could very easily imagine. Additionally concepts of gender itself have undergone a massive shift in light of the various civil rights movements for the LGBTQ community, and for women in general. Marriage and having children are no longer essential, women–while still suffering from wage gaps–can enter a vastly wider array of jobs in the workforce, and it is wholly possible and more (though not completely) normalized for women to stay childless, marriageless, or to marry other women. One can only imagine that Jane Eyre would delight under such circumstances, but her nature is such–as shown in her temptation to marry Rochester and St. John despite knowing their incompatibility, and her desire to ‘submit’–that it is perhaps impossible to wholly remove her from her era’s context, and she, like plenty of women still, might yet have remained unsatisfied with her life had she not married Rochester. Fundamentally, Jane Eyre’s concept of what makes a woman is no longer the same as the modern reader’s: the definitions of which no longer boil down neatly to certain traits and roles in society but rather vaguely map over what we’ve carried from previous generations and shift constantly as new ones alter the status quo. As such it would have been impossible, and may still be impossible, to map Jane neatly into the shoes of a modern woman. It is wholly possible she might exist, but billions of combinations of personality, experience, and jobs make up the lives of women world-wide–she is no longer ubiquitous, not even in England, but now a record of both progress made and a warning against letting that progress reverse.
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