Context: Victorian Women & the Gothic
Charlotte Brontë and the Victorian World
Charlotte Brontë published Jane Eyre in 1847 under the male pen name Currer Bell. She chose a pseudonym because Victorian society did not take women writers seriously — critics routinely dismissed fiction by women as sentimental or inferior. The fact that Brontë felt compelled to hide her gender tells us something fundamental about the world she was writing in and the world she was writing against.
Brontë drew heavily on her own experiences. She and her sisters attended the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, where poor conditions contributed to the deaths of her two older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth. This trauma directly shaped the Lowood scenes. Like Jane, Brontë worked as a governess — an isolating position that placed educated women in an awkward social limbo between family and servant.
Brontë’s three key biographical links to the novel: (1) she published under a male pseudonym because women writers were not respected, (2) her sisters died after attending a harsh charity school (inspiring Lowood), and (3) she worked as a governess, experiencing the social isolation Jane feels at Thornfield.
The Position of Women in Victorian Society
In the 1840s, women had almost no legal rights. Under the doctrine of coverture, a married woman ceased to exist as a separate legal person — her property, earnings, and even her children belonged to her husband. Women could not vote, attend university, or enter most professions. Their expected role was domestic: wife, mother, and moral guardian of the home.
The only respectable occupation for an educated but poor woman was the governess. Governesses were educated enough to teach, but paid so poorly that they had no real independence. They were too genteel to eat with the servants yet not considered equals by the family. Jane’s position at Thornfield captures this tension exactly — she teaches Adèle but is frequently reminded of her inferior social status by characters like Blanche Ingram.
Victorian culture idealised women as passive, pure, and self-sacrificing. The phrase Angel in the House (from Coventry Patmore’s 1854 poem) captured this expectation: a perfect wife was devout, gentle, and entirely devoted to her husband and children. Jane challenges this ideal throughout the novel. She refuses to be silent when mistreated at Gateshead, she insists on equality with Rochester (“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me”), and she walks away from him rather than compromise her moral principles. For Victorian readers, Jane’s assertiveness was shocking and radical.
Class and Social Mobility
Victorian Britain had a rigid class system. Your birth determined your place in society, and crossing class boundaries was extremely difficult. Jane is an orphan with no money and no connections — she is dependent on the charity of others throughout her childhood. At Gateshead, the Reed family constantly remind her that she is beneath them. John Reed tells her she has “no business to take our books” because she is a “dependant.”
Brontë uses Jane’s journey to challenge the idea that class determines worth. Jane rises through education, moral strength, and independence — not through wealth or marriage. When she inherits money from her uncle and chooses to share it equally with her cousins, she demonstrates that she values fairness over financial advantage. Her final marriage to Rochester happens on her own terms, as an equal, not as a social inferior.
Jane’s journey from penniless orphan to independent woman challenges Victorian class expectations. She rises not through wealth or advantageous marriage but through education, moral integrity, and self-respect. Her inheritance and equal marriage to Rochester show Brontë’s belief that personal worth matters more than social rank.
The Gothic Tradition
Jane Eyre is deeply rooted in the Gothic tradition. Gothic novels feature gloomy settings, secrets, madness, and the supernatural. Brontë uses Gothic conventions throughout: the red-room at Gateshead (where Jane believes she sees her uncle’s ghost), the mysterious third floor at Thornfield with its locked doors and strange laughter, and the figure of Bertha Mason — the “madwoman in the attic” — who embodies Gothic terror.
The red-room where Jane is locked as punishment is rich in Gothic symbolism. It is the room where Mr Reed died, and Jane believes she sees a ghostly light — possibly his spirit. The colour red symbolises danger, anger, and passion. The room functions as a space of confinement and terror, foreshadowing Bertha’s imprisonment on the third floor of Thornfield. Both women are locked away by patriarchal authority: Jane by Mrs Reed, Bertha by Rochester. The red-room establishes Brontë’s pattern of using enclosed spaces to represent female oppression.
Religion in the Novel
Religion was central to Victorian life, and Brontë presents several different — and often hypocritical — versions of Christianity through her characters. Mr Brocklehurst uses religion to justify cruelty and control at Lowood. Helen Burns practises patient, accepting faith but dies young. St John Rivers represents cold, duty-driven religion that demands self-sacrifice without love. Jane ultimately finds a personal, moral faith that balances passion with principle — she follows her conscience rather than blindly obeying religious authority.
Brontë’s father was a clergyman, and she was deeply familiar with the different faces of Victorian Christianity. Through Jane, she criticises those who use religion as a tool of power while celebrating a more personal, compassionate form of faith.