"Men of England! look at your poor girls"

They scheme, they plot, they dress to ensnare husbands. The gentlemen turn them into ridicule; they don't want them; they hold them very cheap. They say--I have heard them say it with sneering laughs many a time-- the matrimonial market is overstocked. Fathers say so likewise, and are angry with their daughters when they observe their manoeuvres--they order them to stay at home. What do they expect them to do at home? If you ask they would answer, sew and cook. They expect them to do this, and this only, contentedly, regularly, uncomplainingly, all their lives long, as if they had no germs of faculties for anything else

-Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

It's easy to forget how lucky we are to have oportunities and freedoms equal to those of men. Thank God for women like Charlotte Brontë who refused to believe themselves inferior.

J.E. # 9: Conquering Heroine

Thank God for Bertha Mason!

Had Betha not been locked in the attic Jane would have married Rochester a poor, obscure orphan and would forever be the dependant little woman he and the world wished her to be. The discovery of his sins force Jane to leave Thornfield and all its hidden horrors. In leaving she finds family, fortune, and the confidence which comes from recieving the pure love she knew herself deserving of.

Had Bertha not set fire to her husband's home killing herself and greatly disfiguring her spouse, we would not have the absolutely irresistable ending we are left with in which Jane returns to her fallen knight to rescue him from the pain his sins have brought on him. He becomes dependent on our little Jane as she would have been on him if Brontë had not the forethought to hide a lunatic in the attic.

J.E. #8: Elf or Imp

Throughout the novel, Jane is described as something otherworldly allowing her to escape the binds her world places on women.

Perhaps in that world she was something mystical, something incomprehensible, something that to Rochester could only be described in a world not his own--a world where women were different. Rochester certainly had not encountered a woman like Jane before in his experiences with countless mistresses. He had not met with someone who had learned to value and respect herself for something special which came from within, something that surpassed vanity and radiated quietly with an otherworldly glow.

Jane is an elf because she is not like the women of her time. Even as a child she sees herself as "a strang little figure... like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories represented" because even she cannot understand what she is, though she knows she does not belong in this world--a world where women can be regarded as property.

Jane's ability to be a creature of another world, or of another life, in a world where she is so clearly contrasting to the ideals around her aid Brontë in her illustration that Jane is an important individual defined not merely by marriage. In this way she defies the general guidelines of the marriage plot.

J.E. #7: Inherent Worth

it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!

(Jane to Mr. Rochester-Ch. 23)

Jane's actions reflect her belief in her own value--an inherent value that is not supported by most of her aquantiances or by the society surrounding her which could find value only in women of wealth, status, and beauty.

Beginning with her rebellion against John Reed, we see that Jane cannot believe herself inferior to her afluent relatives. The reader is struck by this child's strength as her convictions are opposed by everyone around her who tell her that as a poor and weak orphan she has no right to be loved or respected.

After Bertha Mason is revealed, Jane exhibits incredible courage and moral strength in leaving Rochester--perhaps her only hope for stability. Regardless of being without friend or finance, Jane leaves Thornfield and willingly enters into poverty rather than to "stay and become nothing" to the man she loves when she inherently knows she is worthy of more. What evidence has she that she is worthy of love and respect from a man like Rochester with wealth, power, and status? Regardless of her shortcomings, Jane asserts that she has "as much soul ... and full as much heart"--it is by these standards she judges herself and finds herself worthy of respect.

This knowledge of her own self worth dispite the consistent emotional abuse she undergoes throughout the life Brontë illustruates reflects the value the author intends women of intellect to see in themselves despite the constant mental and physical abuse they will doubtless encounter in her world. Brontë endeavors to show that women of morality not only have worth but will be rewarded for realizing and defending this value.

J.E. #6: Creating Freedom

As an adult, Jane also makes her own escape from a world in which women are nothing but accessories to men to a world where they are powerful and valuable.

She creates this world in her drawings. Her images feature women being empowered. One woman rising into the sky is "crowned by a star" while another with only the "glassiness of despair" in her eyes bares a crescent with the "likeness of a kingly crown." Further, Jane draws supernatural images of women with "wild" eyes and of drowned corpses in green water--images not fit to come from ladies' minds.

These works of art suggest a reflection of Brontë's own desire for artistic freedom. The beautiful, powerful words which flow from her mind are not allowed to enter the world unedited. To be read by the world, they must be diluted and cut away at to fit into the mold of acceptable women's literature. Just as Jane's drawings are her escape to a more fair world, Jane is Brontë's escape as through her hand she is able to paint the pictures of truth--the pictures she could not otherwise reveal.

J.E. #5: Our Sacred Refuge and Source of Passion

As a child, Jane searches for an escape in books such as Gulliver's Travels. She draws parallels between John and a pharaoh or slave driver--parallels which women should not be able to draw as they are expected to simply accept their inferiority (Cervetti). These books and the knowledge they bring--wheather factual or imaginary--serve as Jane's refuge in a world which appears void of justice and love.

Throughout the novel, literature serves as a sort of sanctuary not only for Jane but also for the women she is close to. According to Cervetti, "reading in this novel brings women together collectively in relations of entrustment" as can be seen in her relationships with Helen Burns, Miss Temple, and her cousins. Even her relationship with Bessie is rooted in traditions of oral storytelling. These intellectual societies among women are no doubt reflections of what Brontë shared with her literary sisters.

In contrast, the novel opens with a scene in which John Reed, rather than finding the value within his books, uses them as weapons as he hurls them at his young cousin. It is through novels and stories that women are able to find an escape from men like John Reed who cannot see the value in the texts in front of them. These novels and the intellect they inspire serve to light a fire within the women in this work making them more than the submissive dolls they are expected to be.

J.E. #4: Stern Features and a Heavy Brow

Brontë rebels against the marriage plot's standards for its hero in the Byronic Rochester.

Rather than Frances Burney's Lord Orville whose "person is all elegance" or Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy with "his fine, tall person, handsome features, [and] noble mien," Brontë creates a man marked by a "dark face with stern features and a heavy brow."In composing this unattractive immoral hero, Brontë creates a man more real than the two mentioned above.

It is this reality of character which helps her bring the concepts of the marriage plot out for trial. If a man could be perfect and never make mistakes, a woman should not be opposed to becoming his dependent. If, on the other hand, a man is not perfect, if he makes mistakes and acts selfishly, what right has he to lead a woman blindly through life?

The hero Rochester is first presented on a "tall steed" with a "lion-like" dog bounding before him; his gallant entrance is foiled, however, as the horse stumbles leaving him in the care of a poor governess. Jane states that had Rochester been "a handsome, heroic looking young gentleman" she would not have had the courage to insist upon helping him against his will. This scene "sets up a relationship of dependence with which the novel ends"--a dependence which would be viewed as unacceptable by the heroes of traditional marriage plot novels (Cervetti).

Through the imperfect, unattractive Rochester, Brontë not only rebels against expectations of the marriage plot but further relates to her readers that men are not what they are in literature (a point similar to the one she makes in The Professor about women) and therefore should not be elected supreme leaders over their wives.