Jane Eyre
Author: Charlotte Brontë
Originally Published: 1847
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
written by: Tina Nguyen | date: 10th April, 2025
This is a story about a girl’s unfortunate life whose name is Jane Eyre. The plot explored and led the readers through Jane’s different stages in life and indirectly illustrated how she had her character’s development through each scenario — from being an orphan since she was a little kid, having to live with her mean and selfish aunt and annoying cousins, then being sent to a boarding school at Lowood and first experienced losing her best friend, to landing her role as a governess at Thornfield Hall and facing the mysterious noises and secrets that her Master hid in the garret. Alongside her miseries, her life, religious perceptions and how she saw herself were being challenged when she fell deeply in love with her Master — Mr. Rochester of Thornfield Hall. Brontë’s famous novel was not only a love story, but it was about a strong, independent, and smart girl who knew her worth and put her self-respect above all else.
“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a constraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings,...”
Jane realised the inequality between women and men during the 1800s at an early age. Brontë’s straightforward writing style through the quote above showed that Jane had a strong will to be independent from having to stick her whole life with a man through marriage for a young lady at her age (you must understand that girls usually got married really soon between their 16 to 20 in the 1800s). Every word that portrayed Jane’s thoughts on women’s rights was also Brontë’s opinions and acknowledgement of being a woman in a patriarchal world. Despite the hardships Jane had experienced as a young woman, she knew that it was more important how God saw her and how she saw herself. Spending her tough childhood with her mean aunt, she subconsciously developed her determination to stand on her own feet without relying on anyone, even her relatives or the ones she considered to be her kin.
“Most true it is that ‘beauty is in the eye of the gazer.’... He made me love him without looking at me.”
She then realised she had fallen deeply, hopelessly in love with her Master, who was almost double her age. But her Master challenged her emotions by bringing the jealousy out of her. Because, according to him, jealousy represents love. Jane and Mr. Rochester had uneasy confessions when Jane was about to leave Thornfield Hall for Scotland. Brontë successfully highlighted Jane’s utter love for Mr. Rochester using the most beautiful written quotes from Jane’s perspective. She had always had a soft spot for him in her heart and yearned for him, but when her love was challenged, despite all the insecurities she felt inside her when comparing herself with Miss Ingram (the lady whom Rochester “used” to test her patience and jealousy), she was willing to leave Scotland for both her and her Master’s good and to keep her dignity and self-respect.
“Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in that hour left my lips: for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.”
Jane was devastated when she found out that she was going to be a mistress, not a wife, to a man whom she was more than willing to devote her life to. No matter how much Mr. Rochester loved her, no matter how much he begged her to stay, or to be his, to forgive him, Jane could not accept that she had been lied to. To me, she might be able to accept that Mr. Rochester had a wife, but she could not let the truth slip — Rochester treated his mad wife badly, he locked her up in the garret of the Hall, and the worst: he hated that lunatic woman. Jane experienced a massive shock when she knew the truth and what Rochester thought about his wife: she wondered if he would have hated her like that if she were a mad woman. Even though her devotion, her love, her emotions were all over the place when she decided to leave him, she kept herself in check and was not affected or controlled by her feelings — she knew what she had to do. She could not comprehend that the man she loved so much lied to her and wanted to have her as his mistress without letting her know.
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.”
The values of Brontë’s most popular novel continue to the day. Jane Eyre is a famous example of feminism — a strong lady who would never be wrecked, no matter what had happened to her, that she would always choose self-respect and put it first. She knew her worth, she knew what she was capable of and she had this enormous belief in both God and herself. Because to me, the belief in myself is so vital for me to overcome any obstacles that life throws at me. Jane Eyre is my hero, my role model, she will forever live inside me, in my soul, reminding me that my life is not spiralling around just love, I must have passions and dreams and connect with others besides my loving relationship. Not only that, Jane also taught me to say “no” if I don’t truly love someone.
Jane Eyre, to me, is one of the steeliest, bravest and most determined female protagonists in the classic literature world. Charlotte Brontë’s writing is straightforward and somewhat rigid, as Jane Eyre is her most famous book that keeps the values of how women are seen in the past and also in today’s society, and how women should see and treat themselves. Jane’s values are kept within her throughout the whole book — from not settling for less, or relying on a marriage as a way for women to live (especially in the 1800s), she had her independence, and she had freedom. And nothing or no one could stop her from being her true self and experiencing life to shape her own perceptions and lessons.