Brontë willingly makes her heroine a woman who does not fit into the society surrounding her. In this way, she makes a statement against the values society places on women. Jane acknowledges that she is "poor, obscure, plain, and little." Though society sees Jane's plain face and small, weak body as unfortunate disabilities, these features act to liberate her from the binds of male desire. Beauty leads to objectification, so Jane's unattractive appearance allows her to remain a person rather than a beautiful picture (Talairach-Vielmas).
Brontë further praises Jane's humble shell by depicting the perfect beauty of women like Bertha Mason and Blanch Ingram as the house for evil spirits--spirits which gradually begin to corrupt the outer self until they create monsters so horrific they are not fit for the world to see but instead must be locked away, hidden from civilization.
Fashionable women were expected to dress in restrictive devices such as "the crinoline with a circumference sometimes exceeding five yards [which] literally transformed women into caged birds" and further was a fire hazard (Cervetti). Being fashionable and beautiful were simply camouflaged methods of subjugation. In refusing the numerous fine silks which Rochester attempts to force on her, therefore, Jane is rejecting the inferior status of her sex.
Jane's lack of exterior beauty allows the reader to fall, along with Rochester, in love with her stunning mind and radiant spirit.
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