"Never let the hand you hold, hold you down." Jane Eyre is a strong woman that takes control of her life, well described in the previous anonymous quote. She does not allow anyone to control her and lead her off of her path. She was indeed a strong independent woman with a strong moral compass, but her gender still affected the way she was treated and how she lived. Because Jane Eyre was a female, as opposed to a male, her experiences were made unique which aided in molding her into the person she became.
In the very beginning Jane is living at the Reed’s house with her aunt and three cousins. Jane is treated very unfairly because she is an orphaned girl. If she would have been a male, she may have been seen as more useful and the Reed’s might have made her childhood a little more livable. On a few occasions Aunt Reed even locks Jane in the “Red Room,” a room in all red furnishing except a few white things. As a female, the room traumatizes Jane more (than if she was a female) and sticks with her her entire life. Jane is also sent to Lowend by the Reeds. Lowend is an institution for orphaned girls that is not the ideal place for a little girl to grow up in. The girls are underfed, under-clothed, and overall mistreated. Under these circumstances, Jane still meets Helen, a seemingly perfect human being. Jane learns a lot from Helen and would not have met her had she been a male. “Education is the tool that opens the bars of Jane’s imprisoning milieu.”
Jane’s first real job is teaching at Lowend after she graduates. She makes next to nothing there and is really only staying because of Miss Temple, a teacher who really inspires her to do her very best in school despite the circumstances. Once Miss Temple leaves the school Jane moves to. She finds work as the governess making more than she was at Lowend but still not a very adequate amount. If Jane had been a male, she would have had many more opportunities of work. This also means she would not have ended up as the governess at Thornfield which pretty much ends the story right there all together.
Mainly she would not have met Rochester, which is overall the basis for the story. If Jane had been a John J she also would have been able to much more aptly get work for herself when she is near starving after she leaves Rochester when she finds out his dirty little secret. If she had indeed gotten work she would have never met her relatives, the Rivers. Which also would have dramatically twisted the story.
As a woman, there is a constant pressure on Jane to get herself a man and get hitched.
"Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme – courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe – marriage."
"And do you like that monotonous theme?” “Positively, I don’t care about it: it is nothing to me.” (2.4.49-52) This quote from the book shows how much people are talking about the idea of courtship and marriage and how much Jane see’s right through and simply does not care for the it. She doesn’t understand why people make it into such a brouhaha. If Jane had been a male, the pressure to marry and be dependent on a man would not have been there making her life so awkward. People would have let alone the face she was so “plane” looking as well.
Because Jane Eyre was a female, as opposed to a male, her experiences were made unique which aided in molding her into the person she became. Throughout the novel, Jane is criticized and underestimated all do to societies illogical idea that men are better than women. Children are treated differently simply because of what society thinks they are capable of because of their sex. Different opportunities are made depending on your gender. In closing, if Jane had simply been a John instead of a Jane, this novel would have turned out completely different.
Shmoop: Homework Help, Teacher Resources, Test Prep. Web. 21 Sept. 2011. http://shmoop.com
Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. "Jane Eyre and feminist literature." Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=GEFL172&SingleRecord=True (accessed September 7, 2011).
Brontë, Charlotte, Fritz Eichenberg, and Bruce Rogers. Jane Eyre. New York: Random House, 1943. Print.
