Context: Victorian Women & the Gothic
Charlotte Brontë and the Governess
Charlotte Brontë published Jane Eyre in 1847 under the male pseudonym Currer Bell, because Victorian society did not take female writers seriously. Brontë herself worked as a governess — a position that was socially ambiguous and often humiliating. Governesses were educated enough to teach wealthy children but not wealthy enough to be treated as equals. They occupied a painful middle ground: too refined for the servants’ hall, too poor for the drawing room.
This experience shapes every page of Jane Eyre. Jane’s fierce assertion — “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!” — is a direct challenge to a society that measured women’s value by wealth, beauty, and connections. Brontë created a heroine who refuses to accept the limitations her society imposes.
Brontë published as Currer Bell because female writers were not taken seriously. Her governess experience — educated but powerless — directly shapes Jane’s position at Thornfield and her fierce assertion of personal worth against class and gender barriers.
Victorian Women: Law and Society
In 1847, women had almost no legal rights. Under coverture, a married woman’s property, earnings, and children belonged to her husband. Women could not vote, attend university, or enter most professions. Their options were marriage, governessing, or destitution.
Brontë challenges this system throughout. Jane refuses to become Rochester’s mistress (sacrificing moral autonomy for comfort), refuses St John Rivers’s loveless proposal (sacrificing identity for duty), and only marries Rochester when she can do so as his equal. Jane’s inheritance of £20,000 — which she shares equally with her three Rivers cousins, £5,000 each — gives her the financial independence to choose freely. She returns to Rochester out of love, not economic necessity.
Jane Eyre draws on the Gothic tradition. Thornfield Hall is a classic Gothic setting: grand, isolated, with locked rooms, mysterious laughter from the attic, a fire in Rochester’s bed, and a secret that threatens everyone. Bertha Mason — Rochester’s first wife, hidden in the attic — is the Gothic ‘madwoman’: a figure of horror who also represents the consequences of patriarchal power.
Religion and Morality
Brontë presents three models of Christianity. Mr Brocklehurst at Lowood preaches charity while starving pupils — hypocrisy. St John Rivers is genuine but rigid and cold, demanding the sacrifice of all human warmth. Jane’s morality is independent: she keeps “the law given by God; sanctioned by man” but also follows her heart. Brontë argues for balance: principle with passion, duty with love.
Brocklehurst = hypocritical religion (preaches charity, practises cruelty). St John = rigid religion (genuine but demands sacrifice of love). Jane = balanced morality (principle with passion). Brontë rejects both extremes.
Brontë’s Radical Voice
The novel shocked Victorian readers. Jane’s direct address — “Reader, I married him” — was revolutionary in its assertion of female agency. Jane does not get married; she marries. The active voice is deliberate. First-person narration creates unprecedented intimacy with a female consciousness, demanding that readers take a poor, plain, orphaned woman’s inner life as seriously as any hero’s.
The subtitle ‘An Autobiography’ and Jane’s direct address create confessional intimacy. ‘Reader, I married him’ treats the reader as a trusted friend while asserting Jane’s authority as narrator: she controls her own story, which is itself a radical act for a Victorian woman.